Page 63 of Fool Me

He whistles. “Please tell me you hit him at least once for that. If it had been Briar, I’d have lost it on the guy, brother or not.”

I shake my head. “I walked out, broke my finger punching my steering wheel, and took off before I could do something that would fuck up my future.”

“She started dating her husband right after. Whatever they were, it seemed like it was over the second you left town.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because just like she moved on, so did everyone else. But have you moved on?”

“It’s been a decade and you’re just going to call me out so boldly.”

“You might not have been here, but we never stopped being friends. And that’s what we do for our friends.”

Have I moved on?

“I moved on from Fiona a long time ago.”

He shakes his head, leaning against the barn, and looks disappointed in me for the first time tonight. “Maybe things have changed. You were always the smart one, but you never treated me like I wasn’t just as bright as you.”

I think about Harlowe and the game we are playing with Canyon. Can I really say I’m over it when I’m fake dating his ex in part to stick to my brother? Sure, I have other reasons, but are those reasons enough? Would I have agreed to this if I was over what happened with Canyon?

For her, I would have—I know that without question. And after yesterday, all my reasons have faded. This town might gossip and they might talk about my past, but I’m not going anywhere. Regardless of what they think of me, or how I run the practice, I’m here to stay, because this is home.

Harlowe still needs me, but now I know I’m doing this for her.

“I wasn’t when I moved back, but I am now.”

“That have anything to do with your brother’s former flame?”

“Of course you know about that too. What are we, the worst kept secret in Timberline Peak?”

“My wife and I don’t have secrets.” Uncertainty flashes in his eyes, but his cocky smile chases it away. “Considering I heard two of Briar’s customers gossiping about you two earlier today when I met her for lunch, I think you’re good.”

Lifting my beer to hide my grin, I ask, “What were they saying?”

“Actually, they were complaining that their husbands never give them forehead kisses outside the gym.” He levels me with a glare. “Are you trying to make the rest of us look bad? You wereprobably wearing one of those cut-off shirts you like to workout in that show off all your muscles, too.”

“Perhaps.” I tilt my beer can toward him. “But you’ve got nothing to worry about, do you?”

“I’m going to have to step up my foot rub game, thanks to you.”

“Tell Briar she can thank me with a few of her grandma’s cookies next time she makes them.”

“I think the fuck not. She makes those for me.”

I laugh. The man has always taken his cookies seriously, but we were all half convinced that he started dating Briar to get his hands on the recipe. “Can you blame me? Is she still refusing to enter them in the Founder’s Day Bake-off?”

“You know it,” he says, standing a little taller, pride for his wife clear.

Gravel crunches around the other side of the barn and Denver sets aside the rake he’d been using on the pits. Together, we walk around the barn to find Jude getting out of James’s SUV. The door raises and Jude waits as the lift extends from the driver's side and lowers James.

Once he’s out and the lift is back in place inside his SUV, they join us.

“Harlowe thought maybe Drake would be here. Should we wait for him?” I ask.

“Nah, he’ll show up on his own time, if at all. He mostly keeps to himself when he’s home, and it’s a fifty-fifty gamble if he’s going to show up to any social function.”

“What’s that about?”

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