“I don’t want to live in your shack, and I definitely don’t need your charity.”
Leslie’s eyebrow cocked up. “Oh, this ain’t charity. You will pay rent on it, and you will pay the electric and water bills.” She twitched her head toward her shop. “And you can have a job with me if you like. My helper started going to college in Kentucky and left me without an assistant. I’ll start you out part-time, and if you suck? You’ll be fired. I’m not doing family loyalty shit for you. I’m giving you an opportunity, and what you do with it is your choice.” She opened the door wider. “Come inside.”
Shocked to her bones, Kimberly avoided the urge to throw up her middle finger and walk away but, instead, after only a few seconds of hesitation, she followed Leslie inside.
Leslie flicked on the light switch near the door, and the tiny house lit up like a lamp. It was clean and tidy from the top loft where the bed and small nightstand were to the kitchen that boasted about three inches of counter space but with stainless steel appliances. The wood floors were shining as though they’d just been mopped, and it smelled like lemon-scented cleaner in here. “Why would I want to live here?” Kimberly asked. “I can live at Mom and Dad’s for free until I figure my life out.”
“How old were you when you left Mom and Dad’s house for college?” Leslie asked, gesturing to the bench under a picture window.
Kimberly sat down and sighed. “Eighteen.”
“And how many roommates did you have in the sorority house your freshmen year in college?”
Kimberly shrugged. “Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“And when did you meet Braden?”
Kimberly clenched her teeth, annoyed at having to answer questions Leslie already knew the answers to. “Eighteen and a half.”
“And when did you move in with Braden?”
“Nineteen. Leslie, you already know all this, why are you making me answer stupid questions?”
“Because I’m pointing out something big. Kimberly…” Leslie lowered her chin and bore her gaze straight into her soul with a look of some deep knowledge that Kimberly didn’t understand. “When did you ever take the chance to get to know yourself?”
Damn.
As much as she wanted to pop off and tell her the exact time and place she’d discovered who she was, the truth was, outside of being a wife and a Wilson daughter, Kimberly didn’t know who she was at all.
“If you move in with Mom and Dad,” Leslie murmured, “I can tell you your exact future.”
“Yeah? Shock me. Because right now, I don’t even have a guess at my future.”
“Mom will mold you into what she wants you to be, and Dad will give you everything your little heart desires. Within a month, Mom will have dates set up for you with rich men who are cookie-cutter partners with the same income as Brayden. They will love you for your beauty and your last name, and you will be a trophy. So, you’ll go right from our parents’ home to a sorority house to Braden’s house to our parents’ house to another man’s house. And when, in all that time, did you have a chance to just be you?”
Why was she crying? Why? Kimberly didn’t cry in front of other Wilsons. You never show weakness—that was the unspoken rule.
“I deserve better,” Kimberly recited, uttering the words Mom had always instilled in her. Never settle. You always deserve better.
“No, you don’t,” Leslie murmured softly. “You deserve what you earn.”
Kimberly’s heart stuttered a beat. That was the way it felt in her chest. It kept stuttering and she couldn’t draw a deep breath. Her mind was blown by Leslie’s words. Why did they sound so right? So honorable? Why did they make so much sense?
She didn’t like this. Didn’t like it. “I don’t like being judged, Leslie.”
Leslie stood and lifted her chin higher, her eyes blazing gold. “Welcome to the club, big sis. I’m the queen of being judged, but do you know what queens do?”
Kimberly frowned and shook head.
“They stand tall anyway. You’re going to learn that if you say yes. It’s going to be fucking awful some nights. It’s going to be lonely. You won’t have easy access to go downstairs and vent your feelings to Mom or Dad or your friends. You will be forced to face your own feelings, your own failures, your own demons. And try as you might, Kimberly? You can’t hide all your rough edges. I see them just fine, and you know what?”
“What?” she asked thickly.
“They’re the prettiest parts about you.” Leslie slapped a set of keys onto the countertop. “You can say no. You’re grown, and this is just an offer. Here is a home for just you that you will have to earn, that you will have to work for. I will train you at the shop and give you a source of income so you can provide for your own life. You will be pissed at me most days, but I’ll be there for you if you ever punch my number into your phone and tell me you need to talk.” Leslie cocked her head and sighed. “Kimberly, you can say no and go live with Mom and Dad in luxury and live out the destiny they plan for you. Or…you can find yourself and make your own destiny.”
And with that, Leslie left. Just…mic-dropped that last line and left the tiny house she’d just offered to Kimberly. It was like a scene from a movie except Leslie should’ve been walking away from an explosion like it was no big deal or something.
Her baby sister was smarter than Kimberly had ever realized. Not book-smart—she meant emotion-smart.
“I’m not living in your shack!” Kimberly called after her, angry that Leslie, the black sheep; Leslie, the sister she understood the least; Leslie, the one who didn’t make any damn sense; had planned out her life.
“Then leave the keys on the counter!” Leslie called from outside.
Her new lioness shifter hearing was a little obnoxious sometimes. Her mate Kieran had Turned her last January, and now she was filled with all this confidence and obnoxious queenly beauty and, God! Everything annoyed her right now. Yeah, Leslie’s weird-ass dreams had come true just as Kimberly’s normal husband and house with a bigass white picket fence had fallen through.
Shoulders heaving with emotions she was too overwhelmed to process, Kimberly looked around the tiny house. Small kitchen, small bathroom, small storage space under the small stairway that led to the small loft. So what if it was all antique white shiplap walls, shining wooden floors, and stainless-steel appliances? She wasn’t degrading herself by living in some microscopic pull-behind barn!
“Look closer,” a deep, rumbling voice said from the doorway.
Kieran’s brother, Burke, was filling up the entire doorframe with his giant stature. She startled hard. He was too damn quiet when he entered a room. “W-what?”
Burke was tall and broad in the shoulders. His blond tousled hair on his head looked like he’d just woken up, but it was perfect. His neck was thick with muscle. He wore jeans and work boots, but also a navy T-shirt. In the snow? Yep, in the snow. His eyes were gleaming the gold of his lion, just like Leslie’s had been.
“I can see the way you’re looking at this place, but Leslie is offering you a gift. A gift you have to earn, and you will be better for the work.”