“Not here for the game?” Emmett asked. Blake was a retired quarterback in the NFL. He typically came to watch a game every Sunday evening with his brothers.
“Not today,” Blake said.
“Although we’ll still take a cold beer,” Grant added with a smile.
“Will do.” Emmett pulled out two frosted mugs from the case and poured each of the brothers their favorite brews. “So, if not football, why are you here? Are you going to give me a good talking-to for harassing your sister?”
Blake laughed. “Lord, no. Trust us, we know exactly how she can be. We lived with her for years. Hell, poor Mitchell had to share a uterus with her.”
Emmett’s brows went up in surprise as he passed them their drinks. “She’s a twin?”
“Yep, the illustrious Chamberlain twins. Never have two people so different come out of the same person at one time.”
“I’ve never met Mitchell,” Emmett admitted. “What’s he like?”
“He’s the smart one in the family,” Grant said. “More serious than the rest of us. He was always great in school, the valedictorian of his class. He studied while the rest of us played football and chased girls. And now, years later, Blake’s a cripple, I’ve settled down into monogamy, and he’s about to graduate from Vanderbilt as a doctor. Time better spent, I’d wager.”
“I’m not a cripple,” Blake complained.
Emmett knew about Blake’s old football injury—anyone who watched ESPN or lived in Rosewood did. It’d taken him out of the NFL and brought him home to coach the high school team. It didn’t hold him back, though. He’d managed to make it to the state championships and get rock star Ivy Hudson to agree to marry him, so it wasn’t all bad. He could tell Grant just liked to rag on his brother.
And he was right. The two brothers started bickering, as they usually did, so Emmett took a moment to check on the rest of the patrons. Another bowl of pretzels and a second pitcher of beer took care of things. By the time he settled back behind the bar, the two brothers were once again quietly drinking their beers.
“The point of all that,” Grant continued, “is that he’s very different from Maddie. They’re each perfectionists in their own way, but he’s a lot more fun to be around. He’s serious, but at least he’s got a sense of humor. I guess you’ve got to have one to spend all your formative years with Maddie.”
“Poor bastard,” Emmett noted. At the very least, Emmett got to admire her beauty while she railed at him. A brother just had to tolerate her with no recourse. “No wonder your brother moved to Tennessee.”
Blake shrugged and sipped his beer. “He’ll be back. He’s in his last year of med school. I’m not sure where he’ll do his residency, but I’m certain he’ll come back to Rosewood before too long. Someone has to take over Doc Owen’s clinic. That man has been practicing for forty years. He’s almost seventy, I think.”
“Just as long as there’s someone in town to treat my wounds when the judge throws the book at me tomorrow.”
“You don’t think it’ll be that bad, do you?” Blake asked.
“I don’t know,” Emmett admitted. “I’ve never had to go in front of a judge before. I don’t even know who Judge Griffin is. If he comes in here, he doesn’t do it in his robe.”
“I doubt he’s been here,” Grant said with a chuckle. “He’s more likely to be hanging out with my grandmother’s set at the country club than this crowd.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better, man.” Emmett knew he was in trouble. He wasn’t only going up against the judge, he was doing it over a dispute with the daughter of the most powerful family in town. Chances were, she would get a little hand slap and he would take the brunt of it, with her grandmother and her father sitting in the front row of the courtroom eyeing Judge Griffin. While Emmett had made some influential friends in town, they’d likely all side with poor, sweet Maddie in this case.
“Would you feel better with a lawyer?” Grant asked.
Emmett couldn’t suppress a chuckle at that suggestion. “Who am I going to hire? Your father?”
“No, of course not. What about Logan Anthony?”
Blake’s brow went up at that suggestion. “Do you really think going into the courtroom with Logan will make it better? You know Dad’ll be there. That stupid business rivalry they’ve got going is getting pretty ridiculous. I don’t think Emmett wants to draw that kind of attention.”
Blake was probably right. When Pepper’s older brother, Logan, moved back to Rosewood and opened up his own law firm, it had been a big to-do in town. The Chamberlain firm had never faced any kind of competition before. Most people assumed that Logan would go out of business pretty quickly, but he’d actually been fairly successful from what Emmett had heard. The rivalry between the two firms had gotten pretty heated over the summer, but Logan refused to back down. Emmett got the feeling that Norman wasn’t used to not getting his way. Obviously, Maddie had gotten that trait from her father.
Grant shrugged dismissively. “Who cares what Dad thinks? Logan is going to be a part of my family one day. I have to support him or I’ll hear about it at home.”
Emmett put the information about Logan in his back pocket. He didn’t think he needed a lawyer. At least not yet. But if he did, his only choice was Logan. Either way, he didn’t really want to talk about this anymore. He was anxious enough about tomorrow. “I’ll keep that in mind. Speaking of home, how’s the work coming on Pepper’s house, Grant?”
Last March, an electrical fire had wiped out half the home Pepper and Grant had worked so hard to renovate. They’d been working on it all summer while they both lived in Grant’s loft.
“It’s coming,” Grant said with a touch of weariness on his face at the mention of their project. “What’s slowing us down is that we’re not just rebuilding what burned down, we’re having to update the whole place, really. We changed the footprint of the old house and added a new master suite to the back. It’s framed and sided, the roof is on, but the inside . . . We’re redoing all the plumbing throughout. All the electrical work, too. We’re replacing all the windows with the super-insulated kind. New appliances, new fixtures, new insulation. We had a lot of smoke and water damage to deal with on top of everything else, so it’s just a slow process.”
“It sounds like you’ll have a brand-new house before too long.” Emmett understood the headaches of renovation. When he moved