Secrets, Lies, and Family Ties

1. Gabrielle

1

Gabrielle

Scheiße.

For fanden.

Helvete.

Voi vittu.

Fuck.

I could curse proficiently in five different languages—none of them in public, of course—but somehow, somehow, I didn’t have the words to convey just how screwed I was today.

Or rather, how not screwed.

A weird gurgle burst out of my throat, the sputter of hysterical laughter turning into a sob, and I kicked the tyre of Siri’s Audi. Then winced because my stupid satin wedding shoes gave my toes no protection whatsoever. Dammit all to hell! German cars were famed for their reliability, but five minutes ago, a red light had lit up on the dash, so I’d pulled over to check the glove compartment for an owner’s manual—there wasn’t one—and now the engine wouldn’t start again. Was this karma? Probably. Siri hadn’t wanted me to take the car, but I’d squashed myself behind the wheel and driven off anyway, her words ringing in my ears.

“Gaby, do you even remember how to drive?”

“I’ll figure it out,” I’d called over my shoulder.

And now I was stuck.

Stuck at the side of a highway in… Well, I had no idea, but I was fairly sure I was still in Oregon.

I began to regret hurling my phone at Emmett. If it had hit him, I could have taken some small measure of satisfaction from that at least, but the asshole had ducked and the phone had smashed against a vase of flowers, which had teetered sideways onto the floor and shattered, and then Rosa, Emmett’s maid, had materialised in an instant with a dustpan, and I’d tripped over her and nearly knocked my teeth out, and…

Don’t think about it, Gabrielle.

But how could I not? Right now, I should have been feasting on smoked salmon and champagne with my closest friends, dancing my first dance and celebrating the fact that I was Mrs. Emmett Collins. The fireworks should have come later, when my family found out what I’d done. Would the fact that I hadn’t actually gotten married mean they’d be happy now? Of course not. The circus had only just begun. Me eloping instead of trotting down the aisle at the huge celebration my mother insisted upon would have made the gossip pages back in Europe, where the paparazzi fed off my blood like hungry jackals, but me eloping and then ditching my fiancé five minutes before we got hitched? Now, that was a good old-fashioned front-page scandal.

And I wasn’t sure I’d survive another.

The ocean was to my left, out of sight but close enough for me to smell the salt on the warm summer air. To hear the siren’s call. Could I walk there? Not for the first time, I considered swan-diving into a watery grave, just vanishing under the waves and ending it all, but like so many things in my life, it wasn’t to be. Three years ago, it had been my brother who found me on the cliff edge, but today it was a stranger who stopped to help.

“What seems to be the problem, ma’am?” he asked.

Everything. Everything was the problem.

The man was big. Big all over. Broad shoulders, strong arms, muscular legs stuffed into a pair of worn blue jeans. Handsome in a rugged, unpolished sort of way, an oak tree that needed pruning. Hair the colour of dark chocolate, a neatly trimmed beard, and an easy smile. Kind eyes, but still I stepped back on instinct and got my feet tangled in my stupid dress. Would have landed on my well-padded ass if he hadn’t shot out an arm to catch me. The glint of a gold badge clipped to his belt caught my eye, along with something else. Yes, he was definitely big all over.

He followed my gaze and thankfully misinterpreted as I fought not to blush.

“I’m a sheriff’s deputy right here in Baldwin’s Shore.” He set me back on my feet. “Having car trouble?”

Car trouble, man trouble, can’t-put-a-foot-right trouble.

“The engine won’t start.”

He gave me a slow perusal, head to toe, but he was polite enough not to mention my attire. “Got enough gas? I always carry a spare can.”

“I…think so?”

“Let’s take a look.”

A woman climbed out of the passenger side of his truck, a pretty brunette. The deputy’s wife? He was clearly off duty. The back of the pickup was filled with furniture—a bed, something in bubble wrap, and a tiny pink dressing table. A girl scrambled out of the back seat, and the woman turned to wag a finger.

“Kiki, stay inside.”

“But I want to see the princess.”

I stiffened, but the little girl wasn’t to be deterred as she ran in my direction.

“Sorry, she’s fascinated by your dress.”

“It’s a princess dress! I love it!”

So had I once. The boutique owner had signed an NDA, and I’d snuck in under cover of darkness with Siri. Phil, my best friend, my sister from another mister, my partner in crime, had watched me try on dress after dress via Zoom, and I’d fallen in love with the jewelled bodice and sweeping chiffon skirt. Phil said the sweetheart neckline did magical things to my boobs, so she’d given me the thumbs-up too. The first time Emmett had seen me wear it was when I threw my engagement ring at him.

The little girl reached out to touch one of the pearls, but the brunette quickly lifted her away.

“Kiki, you shouldn’t bother people.”

“It’s okay.” I tried a smile, pulled it off through practice and sheer willpower. How old was the girl? Six? Seven? When I’d been her age, I’d dreamed of pretty gowns too, although the shine of dressing up wore off quickly when I was forced to do it all the damn time. “What’s your name, little one?”

“Kinsley Hannah Haines. And I’m not little anymore—I’m nearly eight. Are those real diamonds?”

My earrings and necklace? Yes. The beads on the dress? No.

“I’m afraid not.”

If they’d all been real, my bodyguards would have kept me on an even tighter leash. As it was, they were probably scouring the Oregon countryside in between squashing Emmett into a pulp and getting berated by my mother for losing me. Okay, so the first part was wishful thinking, but Phil had emptied a jug of Pimms over him, so I had to be thankful for that, at least.

“Your accent’s weird.”

Funny how children always said what adults wouldn’t dare, wasn’t it?

“I’m not from around here.”

“Where are you from?”

“Denmark.”

Not quite true, but close enough, and in my experience, most Americans couldn’t find Denmark on a map anyway. Or many other European countries, which was why I’d chosen to come here in the first place. It was far easier to fly under the radar in the US. Or it had been until now. After today, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to show my face in LA again.

The car coughed as the deputy tried to start it, and the vindication that I hadn’t been a complete fool, that the car really was broken, was of little consolation. I was thousands of miles from a home I didn’t want to live in, freshly single, with no phone and only the five hundred bucks in emergency money that Siri kept stashed under her car seat. Clean underwear was a pipe dream.

“Are you okay?” the brunette asked, the first one brave enough to broach what was clearly the bigger issue.

Claiming I was fine would have been an all-too-obvious lie, so rather than insult both of us, I simply shook my head.

“Do you have far to drive?”

“I don’t even know where I’m going,” I admitted.

“You need help with directions? I have a maps app on my phone.”

“No, I mean I just got in the car and started driving without a destination in mind.”

“In your…?” She gaped at my dress, and I honestly couldn’t blame her.

“Yes.”

“Oh. So, uh…”

Thankfully, the deputy’s reappearance put an end to that non-conversation.

“It’s not the gas. Did you know your alternator warning light is on?”

So that’s what it was. “I was aware of a light. Is an alternator fundamental to the running of the engine?”

His eyes rolled halfway, then he seemed to catch himself. Hey, it wasn’t my fault my first car had come with a chauffeur.

“It charges the battery and powers the electrics while the car’s running. So if you want headlights, then yeah, it’s key.”

“I see.”

“Is there somebody you could call?”

“My phone broke.”

He fumbled in his pocket. “Here you go—borrow mine.”

I just stared at it. Who on earth would I contact? Not my mother—I already had a headache, and I didn’t want to make it worse. My sister was too young, the baby of the family at fifteen. My brother? He’d help me, he always did, but I’d already burdened him with so many of my troubles. Not only that, he was working in India this week. So he’d be asleep, and when he travelled, he turned his phone off overnight because otherwise people kept bothering him.

That left Siri or Phil. Siri was on the family payroll, so technically she reported to my mother, and even if I swore her to secrecy, Mor would strong-arm my whereabouts out of her in one hot second. And Phil… Phil had only flown into the country two days ago. She didn’t have a car, and practicality wasn’t her strong suit. Plus there was a bigger problem—I didn’t know her new number by heart. I’d merely programmed it into my phone, the phone that was now lying in pieces in a borrowed house in Gold Beach. The location had seemed so perfect when Emmett suggested it—his friend’s parents’ vacation home, secluded, pretty, and with a view of the sea. Available whenever we cared to visit. But I’d soon wished I was anyplace else.

Of course, now that my wish had come true, I found the reality wasn’t much better.

“You don’t have anyone to call?” the deputy asked.

“Is there a garage nearby? Maybe I could just buy a new alternator and carry on?”

How much did an alternator cost, anyway? At times like this, I missed my father more than ever. He’d have known the answer. I’d have called him in a heartbeat.

“Want me to arrange a tow?”

Did I have any other choice? I wasn’t ready to face the people I’d left behind, not yet.

“Yes, please.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name? Uh… Uh…” I needed to remain incognito, and having people call me Gabrielle or even Gaby would hardly help with that. “I’m Brie.”

My chest hitched as the word left my mouth. Nobody but my father had ever called me that, and I missed him so, so much.

“Brie.” The deputy tested it out, then smiled. “I’m Deputy Haines—Colt—and this is Brooke. I see you’ve already met Kiki.”

“You both have a beautiful daughter.”

Why did Brooke look so horrified?

“Oh, no, no, no. We’re not together.” They weren’t? I’d just assumed… Colt wore a wedding ring, and Brooke had a diamond on her finger. “Colt and my boyfriend—fiancé—are old friends, and they work together too. He just gave me a ride to the furniture store, seeing as I couldn’t fit a bed into the trunk of my compact. But you’re right about Kiki—she’s super cute.”

I liked Brooke. She was doing her best to make an awkward situation slightly more bearable.

“Thank you for stopping.”

Colt tipped an imaginary hat. “It’s not every day you see… Well…”

So much for things not being awkward.

But Brooke came to the rescue again. “Let’s sit in Colt’s truck while we wait for Ernie to get here.”

“Ernie?”

“He owns the local garage.”

“Do you think he’ll take long?”

She scrunched her lips to one side. “Maybe an hour or two? Ernie runs the place with his wife, but she’s gone to visit her sister. And Carl Tuttle often helps out too, but he broke his arm falling out of the Cave last week, so I guess Ernie’s on his own today.”

“He fell out of a cave? Didn’t he use a safety rope?”

Brooke stared at me, puzzled. “A safety rope?”

“Spelunking can be such a dangerous pastime if one doesn’t take the proper precautions.”

What was so funny? Brooke’s peal of laughter made Kiki giggle too. And Colt was smirking.

“The Cave is a bar. He got drunk and fell down the steps outside the door.”

Perhaps I should have guessed? Rural Oregon was a whole different world from the one I was used to.

“A bar. Of course.”

Brooke looped her arm through mine and led me to the truck. We both looked at the door, then at my dress, layers and layers of chiffon versus an opening designed for jeans and a plaid shirt. How had I ever fit into the driving seat of Siri’s Audi? I had to conclude that it had been through grim determination mixed with sheer desperation to get the hell away from Emmett. And Vania, my now ex-friend. If I cared to think about it, her betrayal hurt even more than his.

“Maybe you could change your clothes?” Brooke suggested. “There’s a stand of trees you could use for cover.”

“I don’t have any other clothes.”

“This really was a spur-of-the-moment trip, huh?”

“Yes, it really was.”

Colt joined us, and his expression said the news wasn’t good. “Ernie’s tied up fixing Bobby Graham’s truck so he can tow his trailer to the cattle auction in Deschutes County tomorrow, but he’ll come after that. Why don’t you take Miss Brie to get coffee and something to eat while I wait here with her vehicle?”

Brooke looked to me, questioning.

Going to a café was the last thing I wanted to do, especially in this outfit, but I had to use a bathroom sometime. And I couldn’t go without drinking for the rest of the day either. Better to get it over with, and at least out here in the middle of nowhere, there wouldn’t be many witnesses to my humiliation.

“Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”