Page 54 of Where You Go (Whisper Lake 5)

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Grady grabbeda bunch of flattened boxes he’d gotten from the station out of the bed of his truck. As he carried them up to Chrissy’s house, he still couldn’t believe his brother had moved out of the country and, for all intents and purposes, left his family penniless and homeless.

Over the past two months, since he’d found out about the eviction, he’d held out hope that his brother would step up and make this right. But he hadn’t. Chrissy had five days before her and the kids had to be out.

He knew that Chrissy still wanted Jim to see the kids when he finally did come back to the states, but Grady hoped he didn’t lay eyes on his brother. If he did, he wasn’t sure he could be held responsible for what he would do.

The screen door was unlocked so he walked in and announced his presence. “Hey, your favorite uncle is here!”

The house was quiet so he walked back to the kitchen area. Out the sliding glass doors he saw that Kimber and Cassidy were playing in the backyard on the swing set. Grady knew there wasn’t a swing set out at Chrissy’s aunt’s place, but there was a lot of land. He would build one. One even better than the one they had here.

“Hello!” he shouted out again. “I come bearing boxes.”

“Up here!” he heard Chrissy call from upstairs.

He took the steps two at a time and found his saintly sister in the playroom. She was surrounded by trash bags, and piles of toys, and clothes. Her eyes were red-rimmed and there were dark circles beneath them. Seeing her like this had his blood boiling as he stepped inside the room.

It was official, if he ever saw his brother again, he would definitely do something that would put him on the wrong side of the law.

“Oh boxes!” She smiled as she wiped her cheeks. “Great!”

“There’s more in the truck.”

“Thank you so much! You are a lifesaver.”

He wasn’t. He wished that he could do more. He’d offered. He’d told Chrissy that she could have every dime of his savings, which he was going to use to buy a house, but she’d refused. She was moving the kids into her aunt’s ranch, even though it still needed a lot of work.

“So, how is Liv?” she asked as he set the boxes down.

“Good.”

It had been almost two months since she’d driven away from the B&B after the best weekend of his life. He hadn’t seen her again, but they’d talked nearly every day and texted all the time. She’d been busy with her grandad and finishing the final book in the Rogues series which was coming out next week. She was having a release party and signing that he’d been considering crashing.

“Have you told her yet?” Chrissy grabbed one of the boxes and began assembling it.

“Told her what?”

“That you love her.”

He wasn’t going to deny his feelings for Liv. He’d known that there was something special about her from the second she’d opened the door wearing her oversized shirt and nothing else. He’d known he had feelings for her when he picked her up to go to her own wedding which had been hijacked by her cousin. He’d known when she met his mom that he was falling for her. But since that time, he’d realized that she was it. She was the one. His soulmate. He couldn’t imagine a future without her in it. He wanted to marry her, have children with her, grow old with her.

“She has a lot on her plate.” He’d almost told her how he felt a hundred times, but something always stopped him. She was dealing with enough without him adding on his feelings for her.

“Right.” Chrissy let out a forced laugh. “Well, speaking as a woman who has a lot on her plate, I think she would want a man who is hard-working, honest, loyal, funny, smart, a man who pays off her parking tickets so she gets her car unbooted, to tell her that he’s madly in love with her.”

“She doesn’t know that I paid off her parking tickets.” Grady had taken care of that anonymously. He knew he couldn’t write her book for her, or help with her grandad, so he’d done what he could.

Chrissy dropped the box as her hands flew up in the air. “You’re only making my point here, Grady. You are a good man and anyone would be lucky to be loved by you.”

“She was supposed to get married two months ago, it’s too soon.”

Chrissy’s head tilted to the side and then the corners of her lips curled up. “You’re scared. That’s the reason you haven’t said anything. Not because she has a lot on her plate or the timeline of her last relationship. Because, right now, you can keep up this fake relationship, talk to her all time, pay off her bills, send her dirty texts…”

How did Chrissy know he’d sent dirty texts?

“…you think you can keep pretending, and there’ll be no risk of getting hurt.”

Was he? Was he hiding behind those excuses because he was scared to get hurt?

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