Page 20 of If You Were Mine
This was the place he made his deals, the ones that were above board, because Dad never broke the law. Not when it came to making money. Because those who had shady assets were prone to lose them. They soared far too high in the sky, daring the sun to shine upon them as if they were Icarus.
It only made sense that my father would go about making his millions the legal way. Everything else in his life he tended to go about ass backwards. Not only having a secret family, but a mistress or two along the way.
I swore I could hear the sound of that giggle, and then maybe that hearty laugh of another woman. Countless women who had strolled through this house because they had wanted a piece of a Cage and hadn’t cared that they were the other woman. Or even the other woman’s third-placed trophy.
I hated it here.
Yet I was going to fix it up. Sell it. And never look at the damn place again. Maybe I would get tired of it and burn it down to the ground so nobody could live underneath its roof. Honestly, that probably sounded like a better idea.
Ignoring my obvious thoughts that were going in a direction I did not want to think about, I went back to splitting wood so the house would be somewhat warm for the rest of the winter. It had a decent heating system, but for all I knew the wiring was going to catch the place on fire. Which again, wouldn’t be a bad thing most likely.
After another twenty minutes, my knee finally decided to say enough was enough and nearly buckled.
Annoyed, I tossed the last log on the pile, then used my forearm to wipe the sweat from my brow.
“Wow, I didn’t realize that you were going for the mountain man look. The Henley works, but I think you need to add the flannel like your dear old brother does.”
Shoulders tensed, I carefully set the axe aside and turned to see Weston, my brother-in-law, a man that I had known for years and called a friend, as well as Hudson, my brother who happened to live in Cage Lake full-time.
When the Cages had built the town, they had decided to do it in sections. The main houses of the family were situated around the lake itself that was on the north end of town. Then the main street of town bisected where the residential and commercial areas would be.
Each of the residential areas tended to be off the side streets and blended into the river area on the west that butted up against the mountains, and the resort area passed the forest on the east side. And of course, because the Cages were Cages, they owned the resort as well.
When Dad had overseen everything, we hadn’t had the ability to take care of the town as much as we wanted.
And when Hudson had finally gotten out of the service, and found himself in need of solitude for reasons that he wouldn’t tell us to this day, he had ended up moving to Cage Lake full-time and taking care of all the minor business issues that came when you owned many of the buildings in the city.
Rent had to be dealt with, as did little things like repairs and upkeep. We also owned enough land in the area so people couldn’t build on any more than they already had.
For all my dad’s faults, he did care about preserving this town. It had never become too commercial, and if my generation had anything to say about that, it would continue not to be.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying not to let the bite in my tone sound too annoyed.
But when both men just gave me a look, I knew I hadn’t succeeded.
“You don’t call. You don’t write. You just show up, pretend you’re a mountain man.” Weston drawled. “I thought the surly asshole Cage was the guy next to me. Not you.”
“Fuck you,” Hudson rumbled, before he moved forward and yanked the last piece of wood from my hand.
“You do realize you’re doing all this all wrong, don’t you?” he asked. For a moment I thought he knew exactly how I had fucked up seeing Harper again. But instead he gestured towards the log pile.
“You stacked it wrong.”
“How the hell can I stack wood wrong?”
“Like how you did it. Because if you’re not careful, it’s going to all roll on top of you.”
“It’s fine.”
Hudson mumbled something under his breath I didn’t hear before he moved forward. “I’ll fix it.”
“You don’t need to fix my mistakes,” I grumbled.
Hudson didn’t listen. Instead he picked up the axe and continued my job, rearranging things when I couldn’t even say a damn word about it.
“I see he’s still the grumpiest of us.” Weston shook his head. “Come on, you can get me something to drink.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, my knee aching. “You invite yourself here and then you expect me to entertain you? That sounds brilliant.”
