One
The Gilbert sister was the key.
Somehow when Kit Palmer referred to his teenage crush, the woman whose life had been ruined by his older brother and a family grudge, it was easier to pretend she was a stranger. Like there was distance between them despite their tragic connections.
If he was brutally honest with himself, he knew that there was no putting distance between Aurora Gilbert and himself. When she, her brother and her cousin moved to Gilbert Manor and he saw her for the first time, he’d fallen.
Hard.
It hadn’t mattered to his eight-year-old self that he and his family lived in the old factory houses on the outskirts of Gilbert Corners or that his father was the shift manager at the old factory. As a child he hadn’t seen that they were in any way different, and at that summer party where all the kids from Gilbert Manufacturing families played together, he’d found himself alone with Rory for the first time.
She’d been brave and fearless, and when the older kids, including his brother, had walked across the river that surrounded Gilbert Manor and flowed through the town, Kit had hesitated. He didn’t know how to swim and didn’t want to be left behind but... Rory had held out her hand to him. Taken his palm in hers and said, “We can do this together.”
And they had. And in that moment, his life had changed.
Which was why he was referring to her as Dash’s sister and not his childhood heroine. She was the key to reckoning with his past. As long as she was a Gilbert, nothing else could matter.
Kit’s family hadn’t stayed in the factory houses for long. His father and his brother were ambitious and started moving up in Gilbert Manufacturing, until old Lance Gilbert promised Kit’s brother, Declan Orr, the position of CEO of Gilbert Manufacturing. Finally, they had arrived and would be a force to be reckoned with in Gilbert Corners.
But the car crash had changed all of that. The factory had closed down, and in his grief his father had bought up shares in Gilbert Manufacturing, mortgaging their house and selling assets to take over the company and the position that had been promised to Declan. Something that Dash Gilbert had gotten wind of and had used to lure his father deeper into debt until all that was left of their assets was the deed to that crappy, run-down factory-provided duplex.
Now as he sat in front of the house that held too many mixed memories, watching as his new neighbor Rory Gilbert moved in, he couldn’t help but think that he might finally have everything he needed to destroy Dash Gilbert, cure the bad karma that the Gilberts had passed on to his family and at long last get over the woman who was at the heart of his plan.
There was a rap on his car window and he turned, surprised to see Rory Gilbert standing there. Her hair had darkened over the years from that white blond she’d had as a child to a dark honey-blond. She had a heart-shaped face and pretty blue eyes. Her mouth was full, her nose delicate and she quirked her head to the side as she waited for him to open the window. He turned off the car and got out.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, that’s what I hired you for,” she said.
Hired him. “I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m not a mover.”
“Oh, I know that,” she murmured. Her voice was as he remembered, light and lilting, sweetly melodic. “But you are here for the thing that I hired you for, right?”
He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but before he could tell her so, her brother, Dash, walked out of the house with a sour look on his face.
Rory looped her arm through his. “Just pretend we’re old friends and don’t mention what you are really doing here. I hate lies but I can’t take another minute of having my older brother and cousin telling me I am too fragile to do anything.”
Her touch on his arm was electric and sent through him a pulse of awareness that he tamped down. He had no idea what Rory was up to, but if it meant irritating Dash then Kit was all in.
“Sure. My name is Kit, by the way.”
“Kit. Great. Just follow
my lead,” she said.
He intended to do just that. He had been trying for years to come up with a plan to find something to use as leverage against Dash Gilbert, and he had known in his gut that the sister was the perfect ammunition, but nothing had come of it. Rory had been in a coma, and after his engagement had been broken almost eight years earlier, Dash had become a recluse.
“Dash, you heading off?”
“Not yet. Who’s this?”
“This is one of my old friends, Kit,” she told him. “Kit, this overbearing dude is my brother, Dash.”
Kit hadn’t met Dash Gilbert before. He’d been eighteen on the night of the ball that had culminated in the car crash that had taken his brother’s life. He held his hand out to the man that Kit had wanted to destroy for the last ten years. However, when their eyes met, instead of the pure evil he’d expected to find, he saw an easy smile and a semi-exasperated look.
“I’m not overbearing,” Dash said. “Well, not too much. This one thinks that six months from waking up from a coma she can climb Everest.”
“Not Everest yet,” Rory replied.
“Then what?”
“Well, I’d settle for being on my own and trying all the things I missed in the last ten years.”
Dash stiffened. “I agreed to you living here but the other stuff—”
“Too late,” Rory said. “That’s why Kit’s here.”
“Why am I here?”
“To help me experience all the things I missed in the last ten years,” Rory explained.
“The hell he is,” Dash said.
Rory wasn’t going to argue with her brother in front of Kit. He wasn’t at all what she was expecting but she’d hired him from a website that had offered discreet help for anyone experiencing extreme anxiety or problems leaving their home. Everything from the everyday stress of ordering a coffee to sex. Rory wasn’t sure what she’d need, so had checked all the boxes. Frankly, after ten years in a coma, there was so much she didn’t know. Like, did Lizzie and Gordo stay together? But also stuff like social media. The solutions, according to what she’d read, were designed to push her out of her comfort zone.
And she needed that.
As much as she’d been saying she wanted Dash and her cousin Conrad—who was like another older brother—to stop treating her like she was made of spun glass, a part of her had no idea how to do it.
Ten years in a coma had been hard to recover from. Physically, she was still stretching her limits and trying to regain her strength. If she overdid it and was on her feet for too long she had to use a cane. But those physical limitations were somehow easier than the mental ones. Rory had found it too easy to stay holed away in her suite of rooms
at Gilbert Manor, with the staff eager to cater to her every need. She had started to really live in what she couldn’t help but think of as her cushy tower. And, in many ways, she knew that she’d let herself fall into a second coma of sorts.
But no more. She’d used some of her inheritance to buy this half of the duplex and was determined to fix it up and make it into something that was hers. And as part of her grand plan, she’d hired Kit. But he was a bit more handsome than she’d been expecting. Okay, more than a bit. He had dark black hair that he wore short and spiky on top, and he had a light dusting of stubble that made him look stern until he smiled. A sigh escaped her as she continued to drink him in. He had a full, firm-looking mouth, which indicated that kissing him wasn’t going to be a problem.
In fact, she couldn’t help wondering what his mouth would feel like on hers, which stirred feelings that a twenty-eight-year-old woman should be able to handle. But while that might be her actual age, mentally she still felt like she was eighteen. Rory hadn’t been sexually active before the accident, so she had a lot to catch up on.
So she’d hired Kit.
He was going to teach her everything she needed to know about modern dating and help her get over her fears of being touched. He was going to just help her do those things she was afraid of doing. Like going into Lulu’s crowded coffee shop and ordering a coffee. Or going into the city to eat at Conrad’s exclusive kitchen.
She’d tried to do it on her own, and knowing she’d see her cousin had gotten her out the door. But then she’d frozen. Part of it was the walking stick she still had to use. It was hard not to feel like everyone was staring at her. Which in Gilbert Corners was a very real fear since she was a Gilbert and everyone was aware she’d been in a coma for ten years.
She knew that fear had dominated her for too long, so when Dash made it clear he did not approve of her plans with Kit, Rory felt her hackles go up.
Pulling her arm from Kit’s, she squared her shoulders and faced off with her brother. “Dash, I know, in your eyes, I’m still that little sister who was sleeping for too long. So I get that you want to protect me, but you are slowly smothering me. I need someone who will help me embrace all of the things that I’m a little bit scared to try but that I know I have to do.”
“And you think this guy is the one?” Dash asked stiffly.
“I do,” Rory assured him. “He’s not a stranger. As I said, we’re friends.”
She glanced back at Kit. His mouth was a firm line and when their eyes met for a moment, she wasn’t sure what she read in his gaze. But then he gave her a nod and a wink.
He turned to her brother. “I give you my word that I will not let any harm come to her, "
he promised.
“That’s not necessary,” Rory said. If she’d learned anything from Elle and Indy, her soon-to-be sister/cousin-in-law, it was that women didn’t need a man to back them up. Rory was doing this for herself. That said, it was nice to have Kit along for those panicked moments she knew would come. Case in point...she’d already had an anxiety attack as she’d entered the house that she planned to make over.
As a coping mechanism, she’d stood there, doing box breathing and then singing that one song that always cheered her up. “Island in the Sun” by Weezer. She’d just sung it over and over until she’d heard the moving truck outside. Then she shoved her anxiety into a box, like her therapist had said to, flashed a smile and met the movers.
She hoped that doing stuff with Kit, living in this house on her own, finding her voice and strength again would slowly start to feel normal. That maybe she’d be able to face her fears and not worry about crying or shaking or having to sing “Island in the Sun” over and over again.
“Fine. But I’ll be keeping tabs on both of you,” Dash warned. “And, Kit, I’ll need your full name.”
“No, you won’t!” Rory protested. “He has nothing to do with you.”
Dash gave Kit a tight smile as he took Rory’s arm in a firm but gentle grip. “Will you excuse us for a moment?”
He didn’t wait for Kit to answer but just led Rory out of Kit’s earshot. “You’re a Gilbert and a very wealthy woman,” he whispered. “It’s irresponsible for you to spend time with someone we don’t know. Just let me have him checked out.”
“No. Dash, I mean it. You know I wanted to move across the country so I’d be forced to stand on my own. However, I stayed here in Gilbert Corners because I love you and I want us to be the family I remember. But you have to let me do this my way.”
It would be easy to give in to Dash’s demands and stay locked up inside Gilbert Manor for the rest of her life. She’d have a nice, safe life, one where everyone took care of her, but Rory was beginning to realize she wanted more.
When she’d first awoken from her coma, she’d felt eighteen, scared and unsure. But over the last few months, she’d started to realize she wanted to be a twenty-eight-year-old woman. Not that frightened, protected girl.
“I hate this,” Dash bit out.
She hugged her older brother, knowing that as much as he might not want to let her do this on her own, he was going to.
“Thank you.”
He just sort of grunted and hugged her back, and when he walked away, past Kit, he said something to the other man that Rory couldn’t hear. Then he got into his car and drove away.
And she was left with this stranger whom she was counting on to help her find herself.
Kit smiled at Rory as her
brother walked past him, pausing to warn Kit that if he hurt Rory he’d come after him, and then left.
Now what? He had no idea what exactly the person that Rory had hired was meant to do, and as much as he had wanted to use her to ruin Dash, it felt wrong now. Rory’s smile sort of melted away as soon as her brother was gone and he heard her muttering what sounded like a Weezer song under her breath. And in that moment, he realized that using Rory wasn’t going to be something he could do.
For one thing, despite the bad history between their families, he still liked her. For a second, he wanted to help her rebuild her strength and transform back into that brave, fearless girl she’d once been...
Kit blew out a frustrated breath. It seemed like every time he was ready to wreak vengeance down on the Gilberts for what they’d done, there was some sort of universal intervention showing him that they had already wrecked themselves.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, walking over to her. She had one arm wrapped around her own waist, and the song sounded almost manic at the speed she was singing it at.
He put his arm around her, slowly recognizing that she was having an anxiety attack, having seen his own mother in a similar state more than once. Rory didn’t seem to feel his touch and he pulled her close into the curve of his body. She closed her eyes and he drew her even tighter against him, ignoring his own reaction to her nearness. He started talking in a low, calm tone.
“We are on a tropical island, the sand under our feet is powdery soft and so white it almost seems like no one else has ever habited this place before. The sun on our skin is warm and soothing, not too hot. Your hand is in mine and when you look up, you see the blue waves washing gently on the shore. The breeze wraps around us, and as you exhale in one long breath, the stress gradually seeps away.”
He stopped talking as her breathing started to slow and she stopped singing. He wasn’t sure if she still needed him to talk her through this or not.
But she lifted her head and opened her eyes. Her blue eyes were bright and clear, but in his mind he knew they still had clouds in them. He had thought she was the key to Dash’s undoing but she might be the key for him, the key to closure on the past and the anger and revenge he’d always wanted but had never been able to commit to.
He knew revenge was what his family needed and he’d always been the soft brother. The one who’d been more like their mom. Losing his brother and then watching his father’s slow descent into alcoholism had changed Kit. Or had forced him to stop being the son that had never measured up in his father’s eyes.
He just wasn’t the type of man his father and brother had been. He had legally changed his name after Dash had ruined them and he’d chosen Palmer. He couldn’t use someone else to get what he wanted; he knew that now.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“No, but I’m better. Thank you,” she whispered. “I don’t know if this is what you signed up for, but I have a feeling there are going to be a lot more moments like it.”
“That’s fine,” he assured her. “But I have to tell you, I’m not the person you hired.”
Her eyes widened. “You're
not?”
“No. But I think we can help each other, which is why I showed up here today,” he said. Throwing out revenge meant nothing if he continued to lie to her. He couldn’t let her think she’d hired him. That was deceit at its worst.
“Well...the person I hired was a stranger, which I thought would make it easier than someone who knows me and my entire family history.”
“I can see why you’d want that.” His conscience pricked at him, but he decided not to reveal that they’d known each other in the past, or that his brother had been involved in the car crash that had put her into a coma. If he did, he knew she’d shut him out. Rightly so? He had no idea.
“The movers are almost done here and I am supposed to be trying to leave the house more,” she said, then hesitated, suddenly looking very nervous.
“Why don’t we go to Java and get a coffee and talk?” she asked, the words running together in a rush. “But... Hang on a second. If you aren’t the guy I hired, why are you here?”
“I am moving into the cottage next to yours,” he said. Which was the partial truth. He had planned to move back into his childhood home. The home that had symbolized the last time he’d been happy. He might have had ulterior motives for returning to it, but now that he’d crossed paths with Rory Gilbert again, he knew that his plans were changing and he hoped that he’d be able to figure out what was next.
“You are? Well, then, we’re neighbors. That’s good,” she said, scrunching her forehead in thought. “So...coffee?”
“Yes, we can have coffee if you like. What did you mean by you’re supposed to go out?”
“I... I was in a coma for ten years—so tragic, right?” She tried to laugh it off, but her discomfort was obvious. “Anyway, I’ve been out of it for six months but have found myself unable to actually start living again. I mean at first I needed to recover my strength physically, but as you just saw... I’m not at my best,” she said.
“I saw nothing of the sort. You handled yourself beautifully, standing up to your brother and championing your cause. Then when it was over you just needed some recovery time.”
She let out a long, slow breath and nodded over at him, the smallest smile playing around her full mouth.
“I think I’m going to like having you as a neighbor, Kit,” she said.
“I think I will like being neighbors, too.”
They agreed to meet at two that afternoon for coffee, and as he watched her walk back to the movers, an uneasy feeling settled in his chest. He knew that he was going to have to tell her who he was, but at this point in time, he knew it wouldn’t help her. Of course, it wouldn’t help him either. ...
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