Erin Kern - Along Came Trouble

Only he wasn’t sure his charm would be enough.

ONE MINUTE BRODY WAS HOLDING a babbling Mason, enjoying the toddler’s giggles, and the next minute he had turkey chunks on his forehead. The boy had distracted him with a slobbery grin, and Brody had fallen for it. Now he had toddler food sliding down his temple.

“Sorry.” Lacy tossed him a napkin. “That actually means he likes you.”

Brody gratefully accepted the napkin and swiped it across his forehead. “What does he do when he doesn’t like you?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” A few strands of Lacy’s hair had slipped out of her already sloppy ponytail. Her face was makeup free, and she had a stained burp pad slung over her shoulder. “Don’t say anything” was how she’d greeted him thirty minutes ago. Personally, Brody thought she looked great, considering she’d just given birth to two babies less than two weeks ago. The baby, either Kevin or Jackson, Brody wasn’t sure, was swaddled in a blue and yellow striped receiving blanket. Lacy had finished nursing him, changed his diaper, then wrapped him back up. She’d been gently rocking him back and forth for the past several minutes until he’d finally fallen asleep.

Mason had been throwing a fit, as he often did. Lacy had looked around in a panic because she’d been on the couch with one baby and Chase had been bathing the other twin.

“He’s probably hungry,” she’d said to Brody.

Brody had kind of figured that out for himself when Mason stood in front of the pantry desperately trying to rip the child lock off the doors. “I got it,” he said, and grabbed the first package of one of those toddler meals his eyes came in contact with. That was how he ended up with orange vegetable on his face.

“I offer to feed you, and this is the thanks I get?”

One of Mason’s little chubby fingers pointed at Brody’s forehead. Then he jabbered something incomprehensible as though congratulating himself on a job well done. Brody grinned at his nephew, took him out of the high chair, and set him down on the kitchen floor.

“I don’t know how you do this all day long,” he muttered, while cleaning up the mess the nineteen-month-old had made. Mason was cute, but damn, he was a handful. The boy ran clumsily, tripping once, into the living room. A red and blue Nerf football lay next to a pile of toys. Mason picked the ball up and overhanded it, presumably trying to make it all the way across the room. He didn’t even come close.

“I don’t know how she does it either,” Chase announced as he came back into the room. He had the other twin cradled in one arm like one would hold a football. The baby’s eyes were open and staring unfocused around him. “I made her promise me no more kids for a while.”

Lacy adjusted the sleeping baby in her arms and tossed her husband a narrow-eyed look. “You act like I made these babies all by myself.”

“Just saying,” Chase said with a grin. “He’s hungry. Switch with me.”

“I swear these kids are going to suck me dry,” Brody’s sister-in-law complained while she and Chase passed the babies off to each other. “You’re dead meat if you wake him up. Will you take Mason outside to play? I think he’s bored.”

Chase obliged his wife by placing one of the twins—Brody still had no clue which one was which—in a nearby bassinette, then gathering Mason in his arms.

“Why don’t we go work on our spiral, dude?” he suggested to the tow-headed boy, who clapped his hands in delight. When the two of them disappeared in the backyard, Brody took a seat on the couch next to Lacy. She had one of those nursing aprons on that allowed her to breastfeed without flashing the world.

“I love my kids,” she said. “But I am so exhausted.”

“It’ll go by fast. Remind me again which baby you’re holding?”

She shot him an amused look. “This one is Jackson. And the only reason I know that is because Kevin has a tiny freckle on his left ear. I’ve been thinking about giving them name tags. Do you think that would make me a horrible parent?”

He tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “You couldn’t be a bad parent if you tried, Lace.”

She patted his knee. “You’re sweet.” Lacy leaned forward on the couch and adjusted Jackson beneath the cloth. “Have you been by to see Courtney? Chase says she’s not doing well.”

Everyone had been stunned when Courtney had pulled out of her coma a few days ago. Except for Lacy, they’d all rushed to her side to pepper her with questions. Did she remember who hit her? What had she been doing out so late? And, the one thing everyone wanted to know the most, who was the guy she was engaged to?

Unfortunately, Courtney didn’t remember anything, at least in regard to the events leading up to her accident.

She remembered her family and her childhood. What she didn’t remember was where she worked, where she lived, and her fiancé.

When questioned, the doctor told them that Court suffered from posttraumatic amnesia, caused by the damage to her brain. Carol had gasped when she heard the term. The doctor had tried to reassure them by saying that she could spontaneously recover her memory at any time. He’d also cautioned them against filling in the blanks for her. Simply telling her the missing information wouldn’t cure her. She needed to remember it on her own.

The best thing for her at the moment was to be with her. Surrounding her with people she knew was the best way to make her comfortable. To the chagrin of the fiancé, who turned out to be named Grant, Courtney not only didn’t remember him, but something about him made her uncomfortable. Just seeing him sent her into a panic, like some dark memory had imprinted itself on her damaged brain. Martin had asked Grant to leave and not come back. He’d left, but Brody had thought he’d heard the man mutter, “Like hell.” Brody had a feeling they hadn’t seen the last of Grant no-last-name.

All in all, Courtney wasn’t in a good situation. She’d need months of extensive physical therapy just to regain use of her left leg again. That wasn’t including the fact that she couldn’t digest solid foods.

“I guess all things considered, she’s not bad,” he answered. “She ate some Jell-O and we had a nice conversation.”

Lacy’s green eyes widened. “About what?”

“Stuff she already knows.” He’d been hoping against all hope that even the slightest sliver of memory would come back to her. It had been so hard not to tell her about her house or how she’d finally landed the job of her dreams not long ago. But doctor’s orders were doctor’s orders.

Lacy shifted on the couch again and moved Jackson to her other breast. “I just wish there was something I could do to help her.”

“I’d like to find the guy who did this to her and throw his ass in a dark pit somewhere.” White-hot anger coursed through Brody’s veins every time he thought about his sister being left for dead in the middle of the street. What kind of person could do that to another human being?

“You and me both,” Lacy muttered. “So what did you do to piss off Elisa? Chase said you’ve been moping around for several weeks now,” she said when Brody lifted a brow in an attempt to look confused, even though he wasn’t. He knew damn well what she meant.

He sighed because he knew it was pointless to lie to Lacy. She’d always been immune to his bullshit. “I was a stubborn ass and now she’s gone.” Just saying the words made him sick to his stomach.

“What kind of gone are we talking about here? The fixable kind?”

If only he could answer with confidence. In fact, he was pretty confident there was no mending the damage he’d done. “I don’t know about fixing it. As for gone, she’s in South America visiting her brother for a short while, then she’s flying to South Africa for a photo job that came up at the last minute.”

Now, finding that information out had been an adventure, and not a fun one. The already open wound in his heart had bled even more when Elisa had been nowhere to be found. For several days, he’d called her and gone to her house. Only after seeing all the drapes pulled closed for a week straight did he realize she’d left town. What he hadn’t known was where she’d gone or how long she’d be away.

One person had come to mind to answer his questions. Kelly hadn’t wanted to tell him shit—because “Elisa had made me promise not to tell you,” Kelly had told him. The groveling he’d resorted to hadn’t been one of his finer moments. His ex had probably felt sorry for him after he’d all but begged her to help him out.

“Right now she’s in South America visiting her brother, and from there she’s flying to South Africa for a last-minute job she was offered. The offer came from a former teacher who needed her to fill in for a sick team member. Or something like that,” Kelly had said on a weary sigh. “Before she left, she asked me to water her flowers and bring in her mail. She also asked me not to tell you.” She’d crossed her arms over her chest and shot him a disapproving look. “Apparently she had reason to think you’d come asking about her. I can’t imagine why,” she had said, a little glib.

At that point, he’d been ready to bust through his own skin in frustration. Damn women and their cryptic ways. “When will she be back?” he’d asked through clenched teeth.

“She didn’t say,” Kelly had replied.

The narrow-eyed look he’d given her finally convinced her to spill the whole story.

“She’ll be in Brazil until the end of the week, and she flies to South Africa on Saturday. She’ll be home three weeks from tomorrow.” She’d stepped back and started to close the door. “And the only reason why I’m telling you this is because I know you love her and will do the right thing.”