Page 10 of The Moment They Can't Forget

Chapter5

After avoiding her family as best she could for two days, Zoe knew she had to come out of hiding today, or they’d drag her out. She’d told them she was getting her résumé sorted and applying for jobs, so they had to leave her alone. Other than meals, she’d holed up in her room stewing about sleeping with JD and what her next step would be. So far she’d come up with no answers, but at least her head felt clearer.

“You are not someone who hides,” she said to her reflection in the mirror. After a deep inhale, she took a last look around her room. Her haven. A place that her mother told her brothers they could not enter without Zoe’s permission many years ago.

Had she used that to torment them? Of course, and she loved every minute, but not one of them had gone against their mother’s word and followed her in here after she’d annoyed them. They’d stood at the door and glared at her, however.

Zoe decided some fresh air was a good idea, so she pulled on her exercise clothes.

“Sleeping with JD Hopper was no big deal,” Zoe muttered, closing her bedroom door. People slept around all the time. She could handle this.

Touching a mark on the wall that she’d made running through the house with her toy wand while riding her broom, Zoe saw memories everywhere she looked.

Her father had built it, and it was supposed to be the place he and her mom raised their family. His death when she was two had changed everything. The loss of her husband had forced Robyn Duke to look after her five kids alone until her brother had come home to help.

Zoe knew the community would have stepped in too, but she didn’t remember much, only what her brothers told her.

Heading downstairs, she reached the bottom floor and walked into the huge sunny kitchen. As long as she could remember, there had always been someone sitting in it. Today was no exception. Her eldest brother, Sawyer, the one brother she didn’t want to see, sat with a mug of coffee and an empty plate before him.

“Hey, baby.” Her mom came to hug her, then placed a kiss on her forehead. “You doing okay? How did the job hunting go?”

“Hey, Mom, and yeah, I think I’m getting there. Hey, you,” Zoe added, looking at her brother. “Where’s your woman?”

Sawyer was the bear of the family with a temperament to match. However, since he’d fallen in love with Birdie, he’d morphed into an almost human, or so Dan, the brother above her in the Duke lineup, said.

His beard was now neatly trimmed, and his clothes less creased, but those were only the things you could see. Inside, he was lighter. The demons that had brought him home to Lyntacky were vanquished, and he was happy. Sawyer was tattooed like JD, and he, her other brothers, and uncle were the best men she knew. Even if sometimes she wanted to bang their heads together.

“Birdie’s getting ready for her run, Zoe. Do you want to go with her, seeing as you’re dressed like that?” He glared at her shorts.

“Okay, and what’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

“They’re tight short shorts, and that is exposing a lot.” He pointed to her top, which was a tank that covered most of her upper body except her arms.

“You want me to run in jeans and a sweatshirt?”

Sawyer looked like he was thinking about that.

“I’m just glad you didn’t see what I wore in Chicago.”

“About that, Chicago, I mean,” Sawyer said.

“Sit, Zoe. You can have coffee while you wait for Birdie and your brother interrogates you,” her mother said, waving to the table.

Robyn Duke was taller than her daughter, with hair that was graying now and a face that still turned heads. She’d aged in the years Zoe had been gone, but it suited her. She wore a skirt that came to midcalf in a soft green and a white shirt with puffed sleeves. On her feet were white sandals. Her mother had always thrown anything on and looked amazing.

“Why is he interrogating me?” Zoe sat across from her brother so she could glare at him.

“Because we still don’t know why you came home,” he said. “You’ve had long enough to come clean and haven’t. So talk.”

“It was time to come home.” They’d all asked her this question on different occasions; she’d not told any of them the truth yet.

“And why were you hiding in your room the last few days?” he added, frowning at her. “I knocked and tried to come in yesterday, but you mumbled to go away.”

“I wasn’t hiding. I was working, and I told Mom I wanted to be left alone.”

“I’m your brother.” He gave her a hard look that was meant to intimidate her. Zoe was immune.

“No, really? When did that happen?” she said to annoy him.

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