the counter, too, and said, “You can’t blame us for being concerned. Two years ago, you were dying. Two months ago, you still weren’t yourself. Now you’re getting married in a week and a half to a woman you proposed to after you’d known her a matter of days.”
“Don’t form an opinion until you’ve met Madeline.”
“I’m sure she’s a saint. I heard she was wearing your sheet the first time she met your mother.” Kyle wouldn’t have minded being a fly on that wall, but Riley didn’t share the details of the encounter. Merrick men didn’t kiss and tell.
“You have to admit it looks suspicious,” Kyle said. “She’s a nurse. You have money.”
“Madeline doesn’t care about money.”
Everybody cared about money. But Kyle said, “She showed up uninvited at one of your construction sites, and she failed to mention that the heart beating in your chest came from her deceased fiancé.”
“Water under the bridge,” Riley insisted before taking another sip of coffee.
Following suit, Kyle said, “You fell for her. Hard. I get that. So live with her for a while. Make sure the penny doesn’t lose its shine.”
“I’m marrying her, Kyle, the sooner, the better.”
The dog stood up and looked from one to the other.
“What’s your hurry?” Kyle asked. “It’s not as if you have to marry her.” He stopped. The drone of the television covered an uncomfortable lag in conversation. “Is that what this is about? She’s pregnant?”
Riley shot him a warning look.
And Kyle muttered the only word that came to mind.
“We’re not telling anyone yet,” Riley said. “So keep it to yourself. I don’t know what I did to deserve Madeline, to deserve any of this, but whatever it was, I’m not wasting another minute of my life without her.”
Kyle fought the urge to rake his fingers through his hair. “You slept with her, and now she claims she’s going to have your baby. Don’t hit me for what I’m thinking.”
He could tell Riley wanted to hit him. It wouldn’t be a sucker punch, either. Riley didn’t fight dirty, but he fought to win, something else the Merrick men had in common.
“Have you ever known a virgin, Kyle?” he asked.
It took a few seconds for Riley’s meaning to soak in. “You mean Madeline? For real? You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
Kyle put his coffee down. “I’ll be damned. A virgin. I didn’t know there were any alive past the age of eighteen. Make that seventeen. Fine. The kid’s yours. That’s good. I guess. I’m just saying—”
“You’re saying it’s all happening fast and you, Braden and our mothers are worried about that. I trust you’ll put their minds at ease. In your own good time, of course.”
They shared their first smile. Riley knew him well.
“Anything else you’d like me to tell our mothers?” Kyle asked, suddenly not at all sorry he’d lost that toss to Braden.
“Tell them I can feel my heart beating.”
This time Kyle didn’t say anything. He simply stared in amazement at his younger brother.
He would never forget the panic and paralyzing fear that had ripped through the entire family twenty months ago when they’d learned that Riley had contracted a rare virus that was attacking his heart. In a matter of days, he’d gone from strong and athletic to wan and weak. He was only thirty years old. And he was dying.
Kyle, Braden and Riley’s friend Kipp had stayed with him around the clock. They’d begged him, badgered him and bullied him to hold on. Two years younger than Kyle, Riley had been at death’s door, literally, by the time he’d finally received a heart transplant. His recovery had been nothing short of a miracle, but, despite his robust health afterwards, there had been something different about him. It was as if his sense of adventure, his passion and even his laughter had been buried with his old heart. Strangely, he hadn’t been able to feel the new one beating.
“How long has the feeling been back?” Kyle asked.
“Since Madeline.” Riley placed a hand over his chest. “I used to climb mountains just for the view from the top. That view is nothing compared to what I see when I look into her eyes. I can see the future, and that’s never happened to me before.”
Kyle held up one hand. He didn’t know how much more he could take on an empty stomach.
Riley laughed. And for a moment it took Kyle back to summer vacations and boyhood pranks they’d pulled together. He hadn’t heard Riley laugh quite like this in a long time. It did Kyle’s heart good.
“I’ll tell The Sources you’re happy and as healthy as the proverbial horse and I’ll tell them you can feel your beating heart. I’m glad, man. It’s good to see you. Real good. Now, I have a plane to catch to L.A.”
He was already out the door when Riley said, “You look good, too, Kyle. More rested than I expected.”
The brothers shared a long look, Kyle in the watery rays of late morning sunshine and Riley in the shadow of the doorway. If they were keeping score, this point would go to Riley, for, with his simple statement, he’d let Kyle know that Riley wasn’t the only one their mothers were worried about. Kyle hadn’t been himself lately, either. He was going through something. Running from something.
The Sources worked both ways.
“If I look rested,” Kyle said, “it’s because I slept like a baby last night.”
“During that storm?”
Kyle couldn’t explain it, but once he’d closed his eyes, he hadn’t heard a thing for nine solid hours. The inn had been empty and the power was back on by the time he’d wandered downstairs this morning. Now, standing in a patch of sunshine beneath his brother’s watchful gaze, he found himself thinking about the woman with the large, hazel eyes and sultry, cultured voice that made hello sound like an intimate secret.
“Can your plane ride wait until after lunch?” Riley asked.
“That depends. Are you cooking?”
Again, the brothers shared a grin.
Riley, who often burned toast, said, “I thought I’d call Madeline at work and see if she can join us at the restaurant downtown. I’d like you to meet her.”
“Let me know what time,” Kyle said as he climbed into his Jeep.
Meanwhile, he had a woman to see about a room.
Robins splashed in the puddles in the inn’s driveway as Summer pulled into her usual parking place. She lifted her cloth bags from her trunk and started toward the backdoor, the groceries in her arms growing heavier with every step she took. The sound of Kyle Merrick’s deep voice coming through the kitchen window sent the headache she’d awakened with straight to the roots of her teeth.
She’d spent the first half of the night tossing and turning, her body yearning to finish what meeting Kyle Merrick had started. Between short bursts of fitful sleep, she’d lain awake staring at the dark ceiling, anticipating the hate mail she would receive from the people she’d duped should her secret ever be revealed.
Her father, for one. Her former fiancé, for another.
Sometimes she imagined her mother and sister sitting on a cloud, smiling down at her and singing a song about sweet revenge. To this day, she knew she’d done the right thing. That didn’t mean she wanted to relive what was to have been her wedding day.
She heard Kyle’s voice again. This time it was followed by a flirtatious, though aging, twitter Summer would recognize anywhere. Harriet