Suddenly Last Summer (O'Neil Brothers 3)

“He called you? I didn’t know that.” Jackson closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Your

business in Europe was expanding. You had your own problems. I didn’t think you needed to know.” He breathed. “I should have known there was more than one side to the story. I should have asked more questions. I knew Dad hated running the business. He’d always hated it so I didn’t see anything new there. I didn’t know he was hiding things. I didn’t know he was struggling. Gramps never said anything.”

“He didn’t want to tarnish the memory we had of him.” Jackson gave a short laugh. “The irony was, I was doing the same thing. Once I discovered the mess, I tried to unravel it without revealing the extent of it. I thought it would upset Gramps. Turned out he knew all along.”

“When did you find out the truth?”

“After Dad died and I came home. By then Gramps was so terrified of trusting someone else, so guilty about giving Dad Snow Crystal when he didn’t want it, he was pretty difficult to handle. Wouldn’t let me pick up a pinecone without checking with him first.” Jackson picked up a bottle of water that was piled on his tools. “We got through it.”

Sensing the depth of that understatement, Sean felt a new respect for his brother. “You didn’t tell me any of that.”

“I didn’t want to tarnish Dad’s memory for you, either.”

“He resented this place. He felt as if it was trapping him. I guess he passed a little of that onto me.”

“He shouldn’t have dumped all over you the way he did. You should have said something.”

“Didn’t want to burden you with that.” He gave a humorless laugh. “So everyone was protecting everyone.”

“Seems that way.” Jackson drank. “And I was handling it. I thought the detail was something you didn’t need to know. If I’d known you were getting those calls, I might have thought differently.”

“It was always late at night. Must have been after Mom went to bed.”

“He unloaded onto you.” Jackson gripped the bottle of water in his hand. “You should have told me. And I should have told you about the mess he’d left. It would have stopped you nurturing your anger at Gramps for the past couple of years. Is that why you haven’t been coming home?”

“That and the guilt.”

“Guilt?”

Sean kicked a loose stone. “You gave up everything to come home and run this place. It dropped from Dad’s shoulders onto yours. And I left you to get on with it.”

Jackson frowned. “What else would you do? You may be a damn good doctor but you know nothing about profit margins and getting heads on beds. And there’s the fact that running this place isn’t what you want to do.”

“That’s true, but—”

“Running this place is what I want to do. It’s what I do best. You’re doing what you do best and we’re all proud of you.” Jackson screwed the top back on the bottle. “And that includes Gramps.”

Sean thought about the conversation they’d had earlier. “Maybe.”

“It’s not a maybe.”

“There’s something else. About Dad.” He licked his lips. He’d never said the words out loud before. Just thought them. “Do you think it really was an accident or do you think he—”

“No, I don’t. I’m not saying the thought didn’t enter my head at the time it happened because it did, but it only hung around for a second.” Jackson reached out and closed his hand over Sean’s shoulder. “Dad was a lousy businessman but he loved his family. And he loved this place. He just didn’t know how to run it and he didn’t want to learn. He crashed the car because he hit ice. The accident report was clear on that. Nothing else. He wouldn’t have done that to Mom. To Grams. To all of us.”

“I need to talk to Gramps. We’ve both been putting it off. Talked about everything but what happened. I owe him an apology.”

Jackson dropped his hand and grinned. “You could show up to family night. That should do it.”

THE RESTAURANT WAS pretty, with views over Lake Champlain to the mountains beyond.

“It’s charming.” Élise slid into her chair and glanced around her, taking in flickering candles and silverware. “Not as cozy as the Boathouse and less formal than the Inn. A blend of both.”

“Taking someone who can cook like you out to dinner is a daunting prospect.” But Sean didn’t look daunted as he spoke briefly to their waiter and shrugged off his jacket. She shouldn’t have looked, but she did. At his shoulders, broad and powerful under the tailored shirt, at his jaw, freshly shaved but already showing a suggestion of shadow. Tonight he was pure sophistication, but for a moment she had a vision of him stripped to the waist, working on her deck and then that vision morphed into another one of him, this time with his shoulders slammed against the tree, shirt half ripped where she’d torn it from his body.

Her heart beat just a little faster. It didn’t matter whether he was half-naked on her deck or dressed in a suit, he always had the same effect on her.