Tempting Brooke (Big Sky 2.5)

“Well, I’m fantastic now. Don’t tell me you’re going to walk past my place and not come in for a pastrami sandwich.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” I reply, even though I’m not hungry, and I need to find a hotel and a place to get to work, clearing my schedule for the week.

“Good.” She leans her broom outside the door and leads me inside. It’s past lunch time, so it’s quiet in her deli right now, and she points to the stool I used to occupy every afternoon after school. “Your seat’s open.”

“I see that.” I straddle the stool and lean my elbows on the counter, watching Mrs. Blakely bustle around, making me my favorite sandwich. “How are you, ma’am?”

“Never better,” she says with a grin. “Happy to see you, and that’s the truth of it. I should twist your ear off for being gone so long without coming to visit me.”

“It’s been a long time,” I agree as she puts the finishing touches on my sandwich and passes it over to me. I take a big bite, and I’m immediately seventeen again, talking with Mrs. Blakely, eating my afternoon sandwich that she never charged me for, and it doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it would.

“Good?”

“Oh my God,” I groan and take another bite. “I didn’t think I was hungry.”

Her face lights up in happiness as she puts everything away and wipes down her workspace.

“Now, what have you been up to, Brody?”

“Living in San Francisco, working mostly.”

“Wife? Kids?”

I shake my head no. I almost got married once, but we both came to our senses about six months before the wedding and realized that we weren’t meant to be together forever.

“Neither. How are all of your children?”

She smiles again and gives me the rundown on where all four of her kids are, who’s married, and who’s not.

“My Stephanie isn’t married,” she says. “And she lives in L.A.”

“No, thanks.” I hold my hands up and laugh around my last bite of sandwich. “I’m not on the market.”

“Let me know if you change your mind,” she says with a wink. “What are you in town for?”

“Glen passed away,” I reply.

“Yes, I was at your father’s funeral,” she says. What she doesn’t say is you weren’t.

“I inherited some property and personal things, and I just came to town to take care of that.”

Her eyes are shrewd, and I expect questions. She asked a lot of questions when I was a kid and spent too many hours perched on this stool.

But she doesn’t ask. She just nods and then takes my empty plate away.

“Well, I’m glad I got to see you while you were here,” she says. “And I sure was sorry about your dad. He was such a good man.”

Bull. Fucking. Shit. No one knew what kind of man my father really was because neither I or my mom ever told them.

Glen Chabot played the part well for the rest of the community. Devoted husband and father. Shrewd businessman. Member of the city council.

Cunningham Falls fucking loved him. I bet there was a parade in his honor after the bastard died.

But no one ever knew who he really was. No one but me and my mom, who passed away from breast cancer several years ago. I offered to come back for her, but she refused. She was determined that I remember her as being healthy, but she was wrong. I’ll always remember her as beaten, and not from the cancer.

Rather than say all of that to Mrs. Blakely, I just offer her a smile and say, “Thank you.”

The bell above the door dings as a customer walks in, and my smile dies on my lips when I see who it is.

Grayson King was the only other friend that I had in town, and I didn’t say goodbye to him, either.

But rather than cuss me out, he smiles widely and holds his hand out to shake mine, pulling me in for a hug.

“Brody, shit, I didn’t know you were in town.”

“I was supposed to be in and out, but it looks like I’ll be here for a week or so.”

He sits on the stool next to mine and says hello to Mrs. Blakely, then orders a turkey sandwich. “Give me your number, and Noah and I’ll take you out for a beer.”

Noah is his older brother, and we used to play together as kids. I’ve wondered about both of them over the years.

“I’ll take you up on that,” I reply and pull my phone out. I’ve missed a text from Brooke.

Meet me at the shop at 10:00, please.

I quickly reply before taking Gray’s number and shooting him a text.

I’ve been in town for three hours, and I’m already deeply entrenched in the past, something I was trying to avoid.

But it doesn’t feel nearly as horrible as I thought it would.