Page 2 of One Touch

I shrugged his arm from my shoulders and pinned him with a glare. “Don’t call me that.”

He laughed and pulled me into a hug. “Aww, poor Katie.”

Poor Katie my ass.

He wasn’t the one with the ridiculous childhood nickname that had followed him into adulthood.

“Come on,” he continued. “Let’s get you home before there are any more witnesses.”

When we pulled up to Aunt Tootie’s farmhouse, I couldn’t help but sigh.

Home.

I was twenty-five and back in my hometown, living with my elderly aunt.

Awesome.

Though I had a college degree, I still hadn’t found my calling—whatever it was that lit my soul on fire. It sucked, but I felt totallystuck.

I had always loved my hometown of Outtatowner, Michigan—a coastal tourist town in Western Michigan. Its Instagram-worthy beaches, massive sand dunes, and cozy small town meant growing up as a townie was a dream. Our family blueberry farm had thrived with wholesale business combined with tourists flocking to our town to experience a beach vacation with a side of small-town U-pick berry farms.

And then Dad had gotten sick.

My oldest brother, Duke, had taken over the family farm and buried himself in work. By then Wyatt was a famous quarterback in the NFL, traveling the country. Once Lee signed up for the Army, it had felt like I was the only Sullivan left.

Stranded in a sea of people.

I had clung to my relationship with my ex, Declan, and, like an idiot, believed him when he said we’d be together forever. I even believed him when he’d convinced me a scholarship opportunity at a college five states away would be a good thing.

I’d lived in, and loved, Tipp, Montana, but Outtatowner would always be home. A place for forgetting all the ways his deception and lies had screwed me over.

Looking up at the timeworn house, I saw a painful reflection of myself. A tattered heart clinging to some semblance of normalcy. I had no idea the house had gotten this bad until my brothers had called and said they needed me. I couldn’t say no, so there I was, on the battered porch of my old family home.

Ready or not.

Lee walked up the porch steps and paused. “When the hell did that happen?”

I moved around a Duke-size hole in the front porch, which had since been covered by a sheet of plywood haphazardly screwed down. “Yesterday.”

Lee frowned at it. “That’s a big hole.”

I shrugged. “Duke’s got a big foot.”

The thought of our grumpy oldest brother falling through the porch and being thoroughly pissed about it was enough to send Lee into a fresh round of laughter. The string of curses that had flown from Duke’s normally very serious mouthwaspretty funny.

We walked into the house, and the interior wasn’t much better. Though Tootie tried to repair or hide what she could, it was a disaster.

“Kate, this is ...” Lee’s hands fell to his sides.

I nodded and forced a smile. “I know. I can fix it.”

It was what I had learned to do. What I discovered Ilovedto do. Fix things. People, problems, hundred-year-old farmhouses that were crumbling around me. I could do it. I planted my hands on my hips.

God, I hope I can do this.

“I don’t know. It seems like a lot. Maybe you should stay at Highfield House with Wyatt and Penny.”

Stay with my older brother and his seven-year-old daughter while he’s pretending to not be crying over his girlfriend in California? Hard pass.

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