“I’ll give Miss Leona her space. And I’ll be on my best behavior for your wedding. I promise.”
“I don’t believe you, but at least Mom and Dad will be here to check you if you start tripping again.”
Zach stood and started back inside, leaving Jesse alone with his thoughts and a few sad truths. The man he was gave his brothers the space they needed to live their lives, fall in love, all that shit. And even though Miss Leona was angry with him, they both knew he was the only one stepping up to take care of this place and their family. Maybe heading to Washington was the right thing to do. They didn’t have to agree with his methods or understand why he was so pissed off, but maybe it was time for Zach and Lilah and maybe even Miss Leona to see how things worked around here without him.
Jesse went back inside and started to prepare for his meeting with A New Way Forward.
Chapter 2
Lily-Grace LeRoux was sick of men. She’d had it up to her damn eyebrows with the misogynistic posturing and outright shittiness.
Jesse Pleasant had picked the wrong day and he’d definitely picked the wrong one. Lily-Grace had left her job, left her man, and now she had nothing but time on her hands. So if some pig-headed, hot-tempered rancher wanted to pick on her seventy-five-year-old father? Well, Lily-Grace had nothing but time to mix it up. She hadn’t been in a fistfight in years, but she was willing to come out of retirement. Fighting dirty never got old.
All of this was just so damn typical. She hadn’t seen Jesse Pleasant since the final days of eighth grade. He’d rushed to her rescue when some high school boys had been making fun of her vitiligo. He must have been six-three at that point and only fourteen years old. Scary enough to get some seniors to leave her alone with just a look and few choice words. He’d walked her to her father’s old office on Main Street, and that was the last time she’d seen him.
A few months later she was on a plane to boarding school in New Hampshire. She thought about him every once in a while, but he hadn’t crossed her mind in any serious way in years. What a way to reintroduce yourself, by sending an elderly man to the hospital. Jesse Pleasant could have really made a difference, put all that money and extra height to good use. Played charity basketball for a living or something. He could have been someone who looked out for the little guy, but no. The dickhead rancher truly lived up to his full dickhead potential, and now here she was, helping her father get settled for bed.
She held the armhole of his crisp white undershirt and helped him slide his arm with its fancy new wrist brace through it. He shimmied his head through the proper hole and pulled it the rest of the way down with his other hand.
“Thank you. I got the rest from here.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. It’s just a fracture. I’ll survive.”
Lily-Grace stepped back and eyed her father’s phone. If she moved fast enough she could dart past him and snag it off its charger. Would it be weird if she texted Miss Lovell pretending to be her dad just so she could find Jesse’s location? Yes. Did she care at the moment? She sure didn’t. But she knew it would make her father upset, going behind his back. Maybe he’d approve of the ass whooping Jesse had coming his way if she was upfront about it.
She leaned against the doorway instead, and waited for her father to step into his slippers.
“Daddy, just give me his address. I just want to go over there and talk to him. I just want to talk. I promise I won’t cut him.”
Her father laughed. “Absolutely not. I’m not angry with Jesse and you shouldn’t be either.”
“He broke your wrist!”
“He didn’t break my wrist. Lilybug, listen. He’s just very protective over his grandmother, which I think you can understand. Look at you. Already got your knuckles all lined up and ready for a night out on the town.”
“Boxing has been helping a lot with my pent-up emotions.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Maybe I’ll find a gym here in town. If you want me to stick around. You finally got the place to yourself. I don’t want to cramp your style with your new girlfriend.”
Her father gingerly slipped on his house sweater before he crossed the room and kissed her on the cheek. “I don’t think anything can cramp my style.”
“Whooa-ho! Not even those seven-hundred-year-old slippers?”
“These were a gift from my daughter.”
“I’m aware. And I was twelve and I can afford to get you new ones.”
“Me and my slippers are hanging on just fine.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze before he slid past her and started down the hall.
“You’re not going to bed?” she asked.
“It’s only ten o’clock.”
Lily-Grace rolled her eyes. He’d be dead asleep on the couch in fifteen minutes. “Well, I’ll be in my room. I mean the guest room,” she teased. It was good to be home. Home was where she needed to be right now. Where she wanted to be, but it was still a shock to find that all of her NSYNC and Tyson Beckford posters had been replaced with artful black-and-whites of their desert valley. At least her glow-in-the-dark stars were still stuck to the ceiling, and in a feat of scientific achievement that could not be good for humans, some of them were still glowing.
“Your stuff is all packed up. I didn’t throw anything away.”
“I know. I’m just giving you a hard time. I’m not going to sleep, I’ll just be in bed. Let me know if you need anything. And don’t try to lift anything with that wrist. The doctor said be easy with it.”
“I had some late-night roof repairs I wanted to get to, but I guess it could wait.”
“Try it,” she said, pointing a finger at him.
He kissed her on the forehead again and made for the direction of his comfy chair. Lily-Grace let out a deep breath as she watched him walk down the hall. They’d been home from the hospital for a few hours, but she felt like she was still coming down from the adrenaline rush that had hit her when Miss Lovell called her from her father’s phone.
She made her way back upstairs, stopping in the doorway of her old room. She looked around at the freshly made bed and her suitcase that was still tucked in the corner, half unpacked.
She’d come back to Charming for some peace and calm, to get the hell away from her job that had imploded in her face and her ex, who turned out to be less than supportive. She thought she’d finally built a life for herself in the Bay Area. A home and career, and now she felt betrayed by her own decisions, even though absolutely none of it was her fault.
Seriously, what was it with some men? Bad tempers, controlling behavior, straight-up harassers. She knew all men weren’t like that. Her father was practically a saint. Loving and kind. To hear her aunt tell it, her mother had been so happy with him, their love was the stuff of legends. And even though they’d only spoken a few times, Miss Lovell had made it clear that her father was wonderful to her. Lily-Grace had made a few male friends over the years, but geez, was it fair to make them work triple time to compensate for the jackasses of the world, hell-bent on making her miserable? And now Jesse Pleasant was another name she could add to her list. She wasn’t sure a boxing class down at the Charming rec center would do the trick this time.