“Yeah, he is. But still, you’re the one who’s trying to make good with him, so you need to buck up and apologize.”
“What do I have to apologize for?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I could think of a few things,” she said, “like part of what you just told me.”
“Damn,” he said. “I was hoping to do it well before the wedding, not with the wedding on the immediate horizon.”
“The rehearsal’s tonight. The wedding’s tomorrow,” she said. “You don’t have a whole lot of time.”
“He refuses to be my best man, so no way I can get him to the rehearsal dinner. Yet, if we have a big fight about this, Caleb may not even show up at my wedding.”
“Do you blame him? You didn’t show up at his wedding.”
“He was marrying my girl.”
“Yeah,” she said. “The girl who was still in love with you and carrying your baby. Do you want to explain that to him? How do you think he feels, except cheated and betrayed on all levels by both of you.”
“Ouch,” he said. “Fine. Okay. Okay, I get it. He has reasons to be pissed off and upset, and we’ve cost him years of his life, et cetera, but I still want him to show up at the wedding.”
“Well, then you need to call him,” she said. “I made it so that he’s here. Now you should probably come over and talk to him.”
“But he’s not even there now.”
“No, but I suspect he’ll be home in a little bit,” she said.
“How about in an hour?”
“You can try. You could also just call and ask Caleb if he’ll be here then,” she said.
“I know. It’s a unique idea. Talk to him directly, right?”
With that, she hung up. She had known the family forever, but Jackson was one who definitely pissed her off the most. Particularly after she realized what he and Sarah had done to Caleb. As far as Laysha was concerned, they could just keep her out of their continuing drama. Jackson had been desperate for Caleb to show up for the wedding, so she had arranged it.
And she had no problem arranging that because she did feel like the two brothers needed to sort this out, but, at the same time, she was pretty damn sure that the brothers’ feelings were not quite so easily assuaged. As for Sarah, well that was a whole different story. She had really screwed Caleb over. Just to hear that they had cheated on him also would hurt. Again, Caleb had a high level of honor about right and wrong, and his brother and Sarah obviously didn’t.
No matter how much you cared about somebody, you ended one relationship before starting another. Otherwise, it was exactly that—having an affair behind his brother’s back. Who the hell needed that shit? She felt sorry for Caleb because it was another blow that he didn’t need or deserve.
She groaned as she thought about it and quickly sent him a text. Heads-up. Your brother’s about to call.
Instead of responding by text, he called her. “What does he want?” he asked.
“To talk to you and make up,” she said honestly.
“Will he apologize though?”
She winced. “Probably,” she said. “Talk to him. Let’s at least get this all out in the open and cleared up.”
“I really don’t want to, neither do I want to go to the damn wedding.”
“I know that,” she said, “but hiding from the family is never a good idea.”
“Are you sure?” he said. “Sounds like a fine idea to me.” And he hung up.
She groaned and sent him a text. When’re you coming home?
I’m ten minutes away.
She smiled at that, walked downstairs, set up the coffee, then made a big pitcher of lemonade and put it in the fridge. When the truck drove up, she and her four dogs all met him at the front door. “Wow, buddy. You’re off the couch. You really love Caleb, don’t ya?”
Graynor wagged his tail in response.
Caleb smiled at her, bent to cuddle each of the dogs, pointing at Graynor coming to see Caleb. He took one look upstairs and asked, “Are you doing the floors?”
“Yep, got one coat on one bedroom so far.”
“Good,” he said. Just then his phone rang. He glared at it and said, “It’s Jackson.”
“Talk to him,” she said, “I’ll be doing the other bedroom floor.” And, with that, she turned and walked upstairs, leaving him alone. She could hear him answer and figured the brothers had to work it out from there, but at least Caleb had answered. You couldn’t heal anything if you didn’t at least open the door.
Upstairs she focused on getting the next bedroom done, loving how that glossy look came upon the hardwood. It was truly gorgeous. Not for everybody but it made her heart happy. By the time she was done and backed out of the room, she turned and almost yelped because Caleb stood behind her, glaring at her.
“Now what?” she asked, glaring right back.
“They were fucking screwing around when I was married to her.”
“Yeah, so I heard,” she said, “and I’m sorry about that.”
“The marriage wasn’t over,” he said. “Sure, we were almost to the point of separating, but we hadn’t yet.”
“Which is what I also explained to Jackson,” she said. “Sarah was still screwing around on you, her husband, with your own brother.”
“Damn right. How the hell do you trust anybody anymore after something like that?” he asked.
“I’m not sure you do,” she said quietly. “It’s a gamble. All of it’s a gamble. So I don’t know what the answer is. But, if you don’t trust somebody else again, then you’ll be alone for the rest of your life. And I know that’s not what you want either,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, of course I don’t.”
“So I understand that you got in the middle of something that was their problem, and they shouldn’t have involved you, and that’s what they should be apologizing for. She was carrying his
