Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Like she wasn’t aware of what she was doing? She was. She just had no choice. Brian was family. He was her brother. Besides, she owed him.
However, she didn’t have to explain herself to Dare, even if he did have “big bad cop” written all over him. His dark-brown hair with flecks of gold and those gorgeous brown eyes were enough to melt her on the spot. But that didn’t mean she had to answer to anyone but herself. That’s how it had been for longer than she cared to remember. But now, as an adult, she wouldn’t trade her independence for anyone ever again.
She rose to her feet, annoyed Brian hadn’t been brought up yet. She couldn’t imagine what the holdup was. The attorney she kept on retainer had shown up and done his job, and Brian’s arraignment had been blessedly brief. So where was he?
Finally, she heard a gruff male voice call her name. She turned, hoping to see her brother. Instead, she saw Dare on his way out the door with a pretty female police officer by his side. Liza knew the woman’s name was Cara Hartley. She was a year younger than Liza’s twenty-nine, while Dare was three years younger, making him twenty-six. From the way Cara and Dare were laughing together, they were close.
An unwanted ribbon of jealousy unwound in Liza’s stomach, and she ruthlessly forced it aside. Whether Cara and Dare were friends or something more, it didn’t matter. Liza had her hands full with her delinquent brother. The last thing she needed in her life was an attraction to one of Serendipity’s finest.
Her brother’s arrival reinforced that truth, and she rose to meet him. He must have sobered since she’d seen him in court because he appeared more withdrawn and down instead of chipper and happy to see her. Since she’d paid his bail and signed all the appropriate papers, they headed out the door together. Liza’s stomach growled, reminding her she’d been at the courthouse and the police station for the better part of the day.
She waited until they were settled in the car before turning to her brother. “Hungry?” she asked.
He nodded. “But I need a shower more. I can’t go anywhere looking like this.”
Now he was worried?
His white-collared shirt was wrinkled and dirty, and he looked like he’d been on a twenty-four-hour bender. Which wasn’t true. Liza had seen him at work earlier this morning, at McKnight Architecture, the firm her grandfather had founded and where Brian also worked. Brian was an accountant, and as one of the bookkeepers, his job had few direct responsibilities. He had a supervisor to oversee his performance, something her father had made sure of during his tenure.
“You can take me home, and while I shower, you can go pick up something for dinner,” Brian said.
It wasn’t a suggestion, Liza noted.
She gripped her fingertips tighter around the steering wheel. “How about I drop you off home, and I head out to get dinner myself, like a human being? You can fend for yourself. I bailed you out, Brian. Isn’t that enough?”
He reached over and squeezed her arm. “You know I appreciate you, Liza Lou.” The nickname was a throwback to their childhood when he’d first seen How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Liza used to wear her hair up in a high ponytail, reminding him of Cindy Lou Who. She’d liked the nickname then. Now, all it served to do was remind her of the brother she’d lost. She wasn’t even sure when he’d taken that wrong turn. It just seemed that from the time he’d reached adolescence, trouble found Brian. Or maybe it was Brian who found trouble.
She clenched her jaw tight before speaking. “If you appreciate me, how about you take a good look in the mirror.” She reached over and flipped down the visor, revealing a covered mirror that she also opened for him. “Who are you, and what have you done to my brother?” she asked softly.
He shook his head and closed up the visor. “You know the cops in this town are hard-asses,” he muttered. “They have it in for me.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Why weren’t you at the office this afternoon?” she asked, ignoring his stupid comment.
“I had a business lunch.”
“At Joe’s Bar?” she asked sarcastically.
“Nothing wrong with buying a client a drink.”
“What client would that be?” And since when did his job as a bookkeeper require him to schmooze with any client?
Brian let out an annoyed sound. “I don’t have to answer to you,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and looking out the window.
She ignored him once more. Nothing positive could come from engaging him in an argument. Besides, they were almost home.
In the distance, she saw the house on the hill, the main landmark in the town of Serendipity, looming in the distance, proud and majestic against a cloudless sky. There was a time Liza had visited the house often, back when she’d been friends with Faith Harrington, who’d grown up there. Faith’s parents had lived there until last year, when her father had gone to jail for securities and investment fraud, and Ethan Barron had purchased the house on the SEC auction block.