“I wasn’t asleep.”
“You left drool on the glass, Kait.”
Kaitlyn doubted that was true, but Grayson was swinging her duffle bag onto his own shoulder and saying, “Come on, we’re over here.” So she didn’t bother to continue arguing the point.
Grayson led them across the parking lot to the far end where no other cars were parked except a dilapidated Honda Civic that perhaps had once been tan. Certainly, it had once boasted two side view mirrors that stayed on by themselves, without the help of what must have been an entire roll of duct tape.
“This is yours,” Grayson said, jimmying open the trunk and tossing her bag in. “Mine is green. I got kind of a two for one deal.”
“Is this a joke?” Kaitlyn asked politely. She’d expected a beater car, something Grayson would have to change the oil in every month to keep it running and they’d keep a gallon of water in the backseat for the inevitable times when the engine would overheat. But for god sakes, she’d thought it would have windows. This one had a black trash bag in the back passenger side in lieu of glass.
Grayson eased the trunk closed gently and looked relieved when it stayed latched. “It’s more of a gift. You’re welcome.”
“It’s vehicular manslaughter in the making,” Kaitlyn corrected. “You can’t be serious.”
“You’re quite the car expert for someone who hasn’t had one in four years,” Grayson said, getting in the passenger seat.
Kait followed him. “I’m not driving this thing, Grayson. I’ll take the bus.”
“Oh right,” he tried to pull the door closed, but she wouldn’t budge. “I forgot about New Canton’s extensive public transportation system.”
“I’ll walk.”
“I hope you’ve taken up marathons. You’re six miles from the restaurant.”
Kaitlyn hissed in frustration, and then she saw something that made her heart leap in triumph. “Grayson, I couldn’t drive this thing if I wanted to. It’s a stick shift.”
He finally succeeded in pushing her out of the way and closing the door. He cranked the window down just enough to say, “I know. That’s why I’m going to teach you to drive in this parking lot first.”
Landon never drove himself if he could help it, but flying was another story. The sky was the only place he could really relax. Once that place had been a massive kitchen that was a mix of old country and top-of-the-line appliances, but that had been taken from him. It had been three stifling years before he’d discovered the sky.
He rose high, high above the city, feeling his stomach tighten with excitement as the roof of the building dropped away and the helicopter slid sideways through the sky before righting itself. Flying never got old. It was a two-hour flight to the helipad in New Canton, and for that 120 minutes, not a soul could reach him. Not his assistant, not Carter, not his mother, not even the ever-present specter of his father.
So it irritated him when his brain conjured the man anyway. When it wondered idly: What would he think of the LeClarks returning to New Canton? Randolph wouldn’t have let it happen, it was that simple. He was like an octopus with slimy tentacles in every aspect of New Canton’s industry. He’d have blocked the lease, cut off the loan, and made it so the LeClarks had to sleep on the streets if they wanted to lay their heads down in the city limits. Grayson had known it, too. That was why he’d waited until the old man had died. Landon had heard it in Grayson’s voice when his old friend called to tell him he was coming back. Grayson wasn’t asking permission, that was never his style, but he was seeing what he was up against. How closely had the son followed in his father’s footsteps? Had he inherited the grudge along with the business, or did some small scrap of goodwill still exist between them?
Landon had made it clear that it was the latter, though it wasn’t altruism that made the decision. If there was an afterlife—and Landon hoped to God there was a Hell—his father would have a heart attack all over again to see the LeClarks re-ensconced in New Canton.
Unexpectedly, his mind veered to Grayson’s sister, Kaitlyn. The LeClarks had left the day after her thirteenth birthday, and he remembered her as being a scrap of a kid. More untamed red hair than flesh and blood, with witchy blue eyes that were too wide for her fine-boned face. She’d had a love-hate battle with that hair, he remembered. She spent half of her time hiding in it, like a wild creature in a forest, and half the time ruthlessly scraping it back under a hairnet.
“If a single strand gets in a customer’s plate,” Grayson had warned, “I’ll shave it off in your sleep.”
Funny how that had turned out to be the least of their problems.
Landon had found her website online, so he knew the hair was still red, though she’d tamed it into smooth waves, and she’d grown into those witchy blue eyes. She’d grown up nicely, he’d thought without much interest, and then skimmed the content. She graduated from the Culinary Institute and worked at La Fontaine for two years—expected. But then she’d left La Fontaine and the kitchen altogether in favor of helping chefs write cookbooks—that was unexpected. The Kaitlyn he remembered couldn’t have been pried away with a stainless steel spatula.
Landon banked left, following the coast. Far below him, crashing waves formed white crescents in the light blue water. They fanned out, subsided against the shore, and then gathered themselves up again for the next onslaught.
“I feel sorry for the ocean,” Landon’s mother said once after her third gin and tonic. “It fights so hard for that extra bit of land. It doesn’t know that its place has already been decided by the universe.”
“Don’t be stupid, Martha,” Randolph said.
It was stupid, Landon agreed. It was just a bunch of fucking water. So why,
