Travis (Pelion Lake 1)

A sharp pounding on my door jerked me from my despondent reverie and useless attempt at balling up memories and shoving them beneath shoes. They just kept rolling in, vision after vision of my time in Maine. And I was so afraid they always would. “Haven! Open up, it’s me.”

I pulled open the door and he came rushing in. “Easton, what are you—”

He gripped my upper arms, shaking me lightly, his face lit in a grin. “You won’t believe what happened.”

I looked him over. His smile was bright, and yet the rest of him looked . . . rough. His hair was sticking up in every direction, dark circles were smudged beneath his eyes, and it looked like he’d slept in his clothes. “You look awful.” The greeting was beginning to get repetitive. But so was my brother showing up in the morning looking like death warmed over.

“I know!” he answered, letting go of my arms. “The guys at the firehouse invited me to a get-together. Even after what happened, they rallied around me.” Something that looked like surprised gratitude altered his features momentarily, and it made my throat feel suddenly clogged. The kid who’d regularly been shunned, the man who’d very recently been publicly shunned, had been embraced. “I’ve been up all night, drinking and smoking and gambling,” he finished proudly.

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Gambling?”

Oh God. I hadn’t thought things could get worse, but leave it to Easton to prove me wrong. “Please tell me you didn’t gamble with our money. It’s all we have.” I’d known he’d been devastated after the town meeting . . . embarrassed . . . ashamed, but was he really so self-destructive that he’d leave us high and dry in the middle of Maine without jobs (we’d both quit) and a place to stay (I’d let Betty know we were checking out of The Yellow Trellis Inn today)?

But he shook his head. “No, no. I mean, yes, three thousand of it—”

“Three thousand!” I sputtered. We only had thirty-two hundred that we’d been saving over the past two years so if we settled somewhere and didn’t immediately find jobs, or my car broke down, we’d have a safety net. My mouth dropped open. We had both promised not to touch it. I wouldn’t even be able to pay Betty for our stay. “Oh my God, oh my God—”

“No, listen! I won! I won! I doubled that money.” He spun away, raking his hand through his already disheveled waves. When he turned back, the grin had widened.

I was frozen to the spot, watching him, my heart in my throat, my stomach churning as I shot daggers with my eyes. I was going to kill him.

“Did you hear me? I said I doubled our money!”

“You could have lost every cent of it,” I said between gritted teeth. “Don’t you ever think, Easton?”

“I know. I thought I was going to puke, Haven. But I didn’t lose. I won. And get this. At the end there, the pile got so big, Haven. Holy shit! It was, like, three a.m., right? We’d all been up drinking for hours. And Eric Philippe, you know the captain of the firehouse? He’s all out of cash, right? So he throws this deed to some land in the pot. ‘I have no real use for it,’ he says. ‘The wife and I have the perfect little place at the other end of town. Why should I pay taxes on a place I don’t even need?’ So in the pot it went. Every cent we have, plus the deed to that land in Calliope.” He raked his hands through his hair again, his eyes widening as if re-living the memory. “I was shaking so hard, I swear to God. But I won. I fucking won!”

I shook my head, trying to catch up, my heart slamming in my chest, anger and the desire to murder him for risking our security warring with any gladness I might have had that he’d doubled our money.

What if he’d lost?

But he hadn’t lost. He’d . . . won.

That meant we’d be able to get far, far away from here now, which brought both heartache and relief.

“Land?” I finally asked, his words organizing in my head as I gave it another shake. “In Calliope? What in the world are we going to do with that?” Sell it? Give it back? The man who’d gambled it had been drunk. His wife was likely burying his body as we spoke.

Easton let out a big breath, his smile softening. “Stay,” he said. “Wait until you see the property, Haven. I went there this morning. The air smells like fruit. It’s beautiful, right on the lake, with this old red barn. I told you about the position available at the firehouse and that it’s just a test to apply . . . the guys tell me they’re sure I can ace it. They’ve even offered to help me study.” He paused, breathless, as I stood, listening with my mouth hanging open again. “You said there’s only one nursery in Pelion, that all the residents of Calliope have to drive there to shop.”