Surprise shifted through me. Not once in the three years I’d been back in Swift Rivers had Carter looked me up. He hadn’t even acknowledged me. Not at Frank’s, not at Jack’s, the town’s favorite Italian restaurant, and not at the Emporium when we’d crossed paths shopping.
He chuckled. “I know. We haven’t really gotten a chance to catch up, but I needed to talk to you about your dad’s place.”
Wariness eased in. “What about it?”
“I wanted to make sure he considered my offer before the bank got its hands on it.”
The alcohol in my stomach turned nastily. “What do you mean, the bank?”
His brows lifted. “You didn’t know? They’re going to foreclose. He hasn’t been making the payments.”
I was spun right back to that horrible moment eleven years ago after Mom’s death, when I’d been faced with losing the home I’d grown up in. Dad hadn’t been paying any of the bills, hadn’t even known what bills to pay because Mom had always handled their accounts. If it hadn’t been for Beckett’s dad stepping in to help me sort through it all, we would have lost everything.
But that had long since changed. Before I went away to college, I’d set everything up online so Dad didn’t have to do much more than check thateverything was going through. He’d been handling it just fine…
Or at least I’d thought he had been.
“I’m sorry you didn’t know,” Carter said, voice softening. “The bank won’t give him what it’s worth. You know they won’t. But I have ideas for that entire section of town, and I can offer him top dollar.”
“Maisey! Wait up!” From outside the bar, Beckett’s voice rang out.
Emotions swelled in my chest—happiness as I watched Beckett jog across the street toward me mingled with worry about the bomb Carter had just dropped.
Carter glanced in Beckett’s direction, and his lips formed a grim, straight line before he looked back at me. “I gotta go. But call me so I can explain what I have in mind.”
He slipped me a business card and was already halfway across the parking lot before Beckett slid in beside me. He darted a frown in Carter’s direction before turning a stunning smile on me. A smile that made me ache from my head all the way down to my toes.
Why did he have to be so handsome that it physically hurt?
“Heading to my place, I see,” he teased, nudging my arm.
I scoffed, “As if.”
He sobered. “Seriously, I’m glad you’re not driving. I don’t have any beds in the guest rooms yet, but you can have mine, and I’ll take the couch.”
After the city had changed its livestock ordinances, making it illegal for Kurt to keep his goat herd on their land, Beckett’s dad had moved out to Fallon’s ranch with them, and Beckett had taken over his childhood home. Since then, he’d slowly been remodeling it. So far, he’d gutted the kitchen, knocked down a few walls, and added a brand-new main suite that jutted out into the backyard. The work he’d done on the 1920s Craftsman had made Dad’s matching one on the lot next door seem more pitiful than ever.
My stomach knotted. If Carter was telling the truth, Dad had done far more than ignore the maintenance on the house.
I swallowed over the lump that had formed in my throat and said, “Thanks, but I’ll just stay at Dad’s. He got back from a month-long job earlier this week, and I wanted to check in on him anyway.”
Shoulder to shoulder, Beckett and I headed down the street into my old neighborhood, leaving the noise of Main Street behind. Crickets chirped, an owl hooted, and the rush of the river filled the air.
“What did dickhead want?” Beckett asked.
For a moment, I was tempted to tell him exactly what Carter had said, but then, I bit my cheek. If Dad had gotten himself into another financial mess, Beckett would want to help, just like Fallon would. But I wasn’trelying on my friends again. I was incredibly grateful for all they’d done for me growing up, and I refused to take more from them. I wouldn’t be my dad. I wouldn’t be an adult who had to rely on others, or a teenage daughter, to hold my shit together.
“Nothing important,” I answered with a shrug.
“You aren’t thinking of dating that imbecile?” I knew better than to think the growl in his voice meant he was jealous. Beckett would never want to date me. He’d never want a long-term relationship with anyone. His mother, his dad’s fiancée, and Delilah had all ensured it.
“And give Delilah even more reason to hate the Campbells? No.” It went deeper than that. After what had happened in high school, I’d never give Carter another shot at my heart. Delilah could have him. Although, everyone in town knew she’d drop him in a hot minute if it meant Beckett decided to ante up.
As we reached the end of the cul-de-sac, the sights and sounds of our childhood greeted us. The houses closer to downtown sat on small suburban lots, but the last three, belonging to Beckett, Dad, and the Helmers, were large plots from when the town had first been founded. Each stretched over five acres, long and narrow, with the houses close together at the front, and the lots growing wider the farther back they went until they crossed the river and climbed into the hills.
As kids, Beckett and I had spent our mornings helping with farm chores before tearing off to roam the land like it was our kingdom. We’d played along the riverbank, cooled off in its rushing water every summer, and chased each other through the hills in endless games of hide-and-seek. After Beckett and his dad had built a treehouse in the live oak that stretched over the river, it had become our secret haven. We’d spent hours reading there, and once I’d finally been freed of my nightly facemask, we’d lain shoulder to shoulder, watching the stars bloom across the sky.
Some of my very best and very worst memories had happened on this street.