She swallowed hard, and his name fell quietly from her lips: “Bowie.”
“I was here,” Bowie said. He let his words linger in the air before he turned and left. The last thing she heard was him calling for his dog and the front door slamming shut. She jumped, and without her consent, tears started flowing.
THIRTEEN
Bowie pulled into his parents’ driveway and turned his key to shut off his truck. He opened the door and waited for Luke to jump out. Together, they trotted up the walkway. He knocked once before opening the door and saying, “Hello.”
“Kitchen,” his mom said back.
The Holmes house wasn’t much bigger than where he lived. The three-bedroom ranch-style house sat on a corner lot, not far from where Brooklyn and her parents used to live. As he walked through the living room, toward the kitchen, he gave a slight chuckle at the decor. Knowing what he knew about Brooklyn now, she’d have a field day in his parents’ house. He had never really considered it before, but the home’s interior was outdated and in need of a face-lift.
He found his mom at the counter, cutting up vegetables. When he came in, she paused and pushed her cheek forward, expecting a kiss. He obliged, like he always did.
“Here for dinner?”
“Wasn’t my plan, but if you’re offering.” Linda Holmes always had a hot meal for her son.
“What brings you by?”
“Dad around?”
“He’s out back.” She stopped cutting, picked up the dish towel that rested on the counter, and wiped her hands. “What’s going on?”
“There’s something I need to tell the both of you,” he said.
Linda went to the sliding glass door, opened it, and yelled for her husband to come into the house. Her voice carried a hint of worry. Bowie wasn’t trying to alarm her but could easily see why she would be. It wasn’t every day he showed up needing to talk to both his parents.
Gary Holmes walked in, covered in grass clippings. “Where’s the fire?”
“No fire—Bowie needs to speak with us.” Even his father gave him an odd look. The three of them sat down at the table, his parents sitting across from him. His mother looked worried, and the reassuring smile he tried to give her wasn’t doing its job.
He cleared his throat. “First thing I want to say is that Rachel and I have signed our divorce papers. As soon as I file them, we’ll be officially divorced after ninety days.” Carly asking for his services and Brooklyn’s return had completely derailed his stop at the courthouse. After he left his parents, he planned to stop by his office and leave them for Marcia to file in the morning.
Bowie adjusted in his seat and glanced at his parents. “Second thing I need to tell you is that the Driftwood Inn is going to reopen.”
His mother’s mouth dropped open, and a tiny gasp escaped. “Did Carly sell it?”
He shook his head slowly. “She’s reopening it and asked me to do the construction, which brings me to my third and fourth points of our impromptu family meeting. Brooklyn Hewett is back as well. She’s some big-time renovator now.” His eyes cut to his father. In a way, he blamed him for giving her odd jobs when she worked for him. “And she brought along her fourteen-year-old daughter.” He sat back and let those final words sink in. He could see that his mother was going to hit him with a bombardment of questions, some of which he wouldn’t be able to answer.
“Congratulations on the job.” His father reached and shook his hand. The emotional stuff, Gary wasn’t the best at, but his father meant well.
“I’m not sure what to say—I mean . . . a divorce. We knew that was coming, but Carly, the inn, and Brooklyn. She has a daughter?”
“Brystol. Luke’s pretty infatuated with her.”
“How? I mean, I know how, but . . .”
Bowie put his mother out of her misery and told her what he knew or at least what he could piece together. He, himself, still had a ton of questions but felt Brooklyn wasn’t going to sit down and give him a dossier on her life anytime soon.
“And Brystol’s been here before?”
He nodded. “From what I gathered, every year.”
Linda shook her head. “I just don’t understand how we didn’t know.”
Bowie shrugged. “No one knew, except Simone, and you and I both know she would never betray Carly’s confidence.”
His mother seemed to mull this over a bit before sighing. “Maybe I’ll take some muffins over to Carly. I have a lot of groveling to do.” She stood and went right back into the kitchen and started rummaging through the cupboards.
“I don’t think you need to grovel, Mom. But I’m sure the muffins will be a big hit.”
Bowie followed his father outside, where Gary showed his son his large almost-ripened tomatoes. Since retirement, Gary had developed a green thumb and grew most of their vegetables in the garden.