Page 10 of Edge of Desire

I did the same to mine and winced when I hit the lumpy bruise. Then I waved a hand and grinned. “Oh, that. I ran into the bathroom doorframe this morning,” I answered, my tone cheerful. The damn thing did hurt though.

We proceeded to complete all the usual first-day paperwork stuff. Ugh, I hated this stuff. HR forms, benefits stuff, 401k, and other usual necessities. Then he took me on a tour which lasted the better part of two hours. This place was amazing. It had everything including a ton of kitchen sinks.

“We’re only really seeing the shell, Avery. We don’t have time to see the heart of it all today, such asR and D, where all the brainiacs come together and make it happen.”

“I love it, John.”

“Great. Well, I’m glad to have you on board. I can’t wait for you to meet the rest of the finance team.”

We made our way back to his office for some more first-day initiation things. Before I knew it, we were on the way to the cafe for lunch.

“Everything is healthy and organic here. It’s all good for you.”

“I guess that means I’m gonna have to give up my barbecue and Krispy Kremes, huh?”

That got a peculiar look from him. And then he said, “So, Avery, would you like to see the company exercise facility?”

WTF? Was he telling me I was fat, because he really didn’t have to bother?

I smiled my sweet southern charming smile and added some extra sugar to it when I said, “Well, sure, John. I would just love that!”

He grinned as big as a man could grin, so on our way back from the cafe, he gave me the grand tour of the exercise facility. It was really something, I’ve gotta say. Melissa would’ve loved it. “Oh man, my best friend would just love this place. She’s a sumo wrestler in training and could really do some awesome workouts here.”

I didn’t think a man’s eyebrows could leap into his hairline, but I was wrong. John’s did. It was a good thing we weren’t eating, or he would’ve choked too.

“Sumo wrestler? Your neighbor? A woman?”

“Oh yeah. I did it for a while too. But it’s hard. You have to spend a ton of time eating Ben and Jerry’s, bacon, and fried Snickers bars and the like. And then there are the workouts. I mean it’s a full-time job.”

Poor John. He was really in for it with me.

“By the way, John, did I tell you what happened to me when I went through security in the airport yesterday?” I’m not sure how the man survived the rest of the afternoon. He could, however, find no fault with my work.

Four

Preston

The last time I’d been in Seattle was before Justin and Caroline had gotten hitched. They had still been neighbors, living next door to each other in that great apartment building. I’d helped her move in and furnish the place.Since then, they’d upgraded. I mean really upgraded. They lived in a grand home on the highly coveted West Highland Drive, a terribly exclusive area of Seattle. It was a short commute for Justin to the Seattle Medical College, where he was an attending orthopedic surgeon and an extremely talented one from what I understood. He would be teaching other orthopedists doing their fellowships in his specialty—reconstructing shattered bones. It was a good thing too, because he and my sister had been in a bad car crash and her leg had been all but demolished. I’d been told that if it weren’t for Justin, she wouldn’t have that leg today.

Justin had done his residency and fellowship out here and then went back to Charleston to practice medicine, but when Terri had died (or so everyone still thought) in the car bombing, he couldn’t fully engage in life again, so he returned here. The surgeons were ecstatic to have him because they considered him to have miracle hands. It worked out to be the greatest excuse for the two of them to be together and now here they were, living the dream.

Caroline gave me the grand tour and chuckled the whole time. In her previous life, she’d sold real estate with my dad in the family business. I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “So, sis, did you always get this giddy when you showed your clients a house?”

She just kept on chuckling and said, “No way. Then again, I never showed anything like this. Can you believe this place?”

I couldn’t and told her so. Then I picked her up and swung her around and around. That was exactly how Justin found us when he walked into the kitchen.

“Man, it’s a damn good thing you’re her brother.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. It had taken him some time to forgive me for taking her away from him. Caroline explained that I didn’t have a choice. It was life or death for them both. I didn’t want their deaths on my hands. My father’s had been brutal, and no way could I handle another.

Then we did that awkward man-hug thing.

“It’s really great to see you, Justin. I’ve never seen her so happy and it’s all because of you. Anything that can put a smile on her face like that makes me happy.” And that was the damn truth. I loved my sister. I’d lost her for too long and wanted her to know how much she meant to me.

“Aw, Preston.” She was in my arms hugging me.

“Well then, aren’t we a bunch of sappy-assed faces?” I asked.

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