Ten Million Fireflies (Band of Sisters) Read online

  When he showed up on his paddleboard on her shore, he’d played out a thousand different possibilities. Brooke intrigued him and he enjoyed their banter. It had been a long, long time since a woman captured his interest as she had. There were slim pickings in this neck of the woods, and he wasn’t one to go out and socialize.

  Other than the dates his sister set him up with when visiting, he led a pretty mundane, solitary life. Somewhat by choice. Subconscious choice.

  “You said the sun was still up?”

  “Yeah.” She cocked her head at him but didn’t retreat. This was good.

  “I didn’t take a sip of alcohol until well after midnight. I’d been a writing fiend since I got back from our hike. You were an enormous help. I’ve got a pretty decent series laid out because of you. I celebrated hitting send to my agent with a drink. The last I remember, the moon and the crickets were out.” Drew looked her straight in the eyes and said with confidence, “I wasn’t lurking in your windows or hiding in the woods. It wasn’t me.”

  Which meant there was someone else out there invading her privacy.

  Charlie’s eyes narrowed with scrutiny. “Do you believe him?”

  “You drank until the wee hours of the morning and then lurked about?”

  “Was there someone—”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I went home around eight-thirty. When I came back this morning, someone trashed the screens and door on one of the cabins.”

  “What?” Charlie and Drew gasped at the same time.

  Charlie spun her around. “Brooke, why you didn’t tell me this?”

  “I didn’t want you to worry. You were so excited to work on the kitchen.”

  “Show me,” Drew ordered, holding the door open for the women.

  They stepped out, and he followed behind as Brooke led them down the path to the last cabin—the one closest to the wood’s edge.

  Penobscot. Where one life ended, and a handful of others were forever changed. In all the years he’d kept a close eye on the property, he always avoided that cabin. Too many memories, too many nightmares.

  There’d been several parties he’d broken up over the years, but most were in the mess hall or in one of the other cabins. They always left Penobscot untouched. Its curse not wanting to be tampered with.

  “Was this where you saw the person last night?”

  “Yeah.” Brooke pointed to the north window. “I was putting in the last screen and he just appeared out of nowhere. There’s not a lot of sunlight back here and the sun was setting. I know it wasn’t a trick of the eyes. I could... smell him.”

  “Smell?”

  “Alcohol. He’d been drinking.”

  “Shit.” Drew stormed up to her, inches from her face. “You were that close to him? He could have had a weapon. He could have been dangerous.”

  “Aw. It’s like you actually care,” she said with sass.

  Charlie wrapped her hand around Brooke’s bicep and shook her head. “You didn’t tell me any of this. Why? Brooke, we need to call the authorities.”

  “And tell them what? Some drunk guy was walking through the woods and gave me a fright?”

  “It’s a lot more than that.” Drew pointed to the door barely hanging by a hinge. “Chances are likely whoever you saw last night is the one responsible for the damage. You need to report it. At least get insurance to cover the damages.”

  “The screens aren’t expensive and most of the doors need to be replaced anyway.”

  “I don’t like it.” Charlie stepped between them and hugged Brooke. “I don’t like you living out here all by yourself this summer.”

  “Seriously, Charlotte. You’re acting like a girl.”

  Drew couldn’t help that his gaze dropped from the back of their heads down to Charlie—Charlotte’s butt. As far as he could tell, from her narrow hips and her curvaceous backside, she was all girl. All woman.

  “You don’t have to be badass twenty-four seven. Hey.” Charlie spun around and startled Drew. “Since you live next door, would you mind keeping an eye on Brooke this summer? There’s an extra bunk in her cabin. You guys could have a camp out or something.” The devilish gleam in her eye told Drew she was kidding, playing him again, as well as Brooke.

  “I do not need a babysitter, thank you very much. We’re in Maine. The safest place in the world.”

  “Actually, second safest. Vermont is the safest. Lowest crime rate in the nation.” When both women scrunched their faces, he elaborated, “Research. My books take place in safe places. Where you don’t expect to witness horrific crimes.”

  When he said that out loud, it sort of counteracted his point.

  “Great.”

  “I write fiction. Those things don’t happen around here,” he added.

  “Wasn’t it like five minutes ago you were questioning if you’d done some heinous crime during your drinking binge?”

  Sort of. The thought—the fear—had crossed his mind. “It was my writer imagination getting carried away.”

  “Which is how many crimes are committed.”

  “Fiction. Most writers aren’t criminals.”

  “Most? How reassuring.” Brooke padded off past him toward the cabin.

  He swallowed back his fear and sped up to her. “Writers aren’t criminals. We have active imaginations is all. I’ve been under a lot of pressure and had little sleep. I’d been writing and then drinking—”

  “Yadda, yadda, yadda. I know. I really don’t care unless you had something to do with this. Did you come out in the middle of the night and destroy my property?”

  He hadn’t stepped foot in the Penobscot cabin or even come remotely close to it in seventeen years, this he was sure of. Even now, standing so near, he broke out in a sweat.

  “I can say with complete confidence this wasn’t me. I haven’t left my house since I got back from dropping you off. I swear.”

  Brooke ran her tongue across her teeth and nodded. “Fine. Whatever.”

  “I’m going to go call the authorities. This needs to be investigated,” Charlie said.

  “They’re not going to find whoever’s responsible. I’m sure it was some punk teen getting his rocks off by slashing up the place.”

  “Still. My phone is inside.” Charlie left, jogging down what used to be a visible trail to the mess hall.

  “I guess I should see what damage they did inside.”

  “No. Wait.” Drew held out his arm in front of her, blocking her step.

  “It’s not like a killer is on the loose hiding in the cabin. Tone down that active imagination of yours and either help me pick up or get the hell out of my way.”

  She pushed past his arm and headed back toward the cabin. When she placed her hand on the door handle, his stomach turned in knots and he broke out in a clammy sweat. The door immediately fell off the hinge and fell toward her. She raised her hands in front of her face, avoiding a direct blow to the head, and Drew jumped in front to hold off the brunt of the force.

  “Are you okay?” He gripped the door, a splinter searing into his palm, and tossed it over the rotting railing.

  “I should’ve known by the way it hung that it would fall. Thanks.”

  He picked at the splinter and tugged it out. He could feel another lodged in his palm but with a quick inspection, couldn’t see it.

  “Splinter?”

  “I’ll get it later.”

  “Later it will be lodged so deep in your skin, you won’t be able to get it out and then it’ll get infected. Let me see.” She snatched his hand and flipped it over, holding it closer to her face.

  “I have tweezers at home.”

  “I have a first aid kit in my car.”

  “I can—”

  “So can I.” Brooke didn’t let go of his hand and he followed her willingly away from the cabin and toward her car. “You going to tell me why you looked like you’d seen a ghost a few minutes ago?”

  One hand still held his wrist while the other opened a compartment
in the back of her car. She opened the first aid kit and found the tweezers. She concentrated on his hand, her breath flowing over his palm.

  It did those things...

  Those things he shouldn’t be thinking about while freaked out about the camp opening and someone destroying Brooke’s property.

  “No ghosts.”

  “Liar.” She tugged at his skin, fishing for the splinter, and finally pulled it out. “Oh.” She lifted her head and her gaze locked onto his. “That’s the cabin. The one where the boy... I didn’t know which one...”

  Drew looked away, his eyes searching for a distraction. The water lapping against the shore, the loons floating along the slow ripple of the tide, anything but that.

  “I’m so sorry.” She squeezed his hand and kept it in hers. “It makes sense now. I knew about... Helen told me about the boy who fell from the loft. I was so worked up about the prowler and being vandalized that I didn’t even think...”

  Tugging his hand away from hers and immediately missing the warmth, he stepped back, still avoiding her gaze. “I’ll let you and Charlie talk with the police. If you, uh, need anything, I’m...” He couldn’t. Drew moved one foot in front of the other and got halfway to the trail before Brooke came up behind him.

  “You need to talk about it. It happened a long, long time ago.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  She leaped in front of him, blocking his path. “I disagree. It is my business when that boy’s death is the reason you don’t want me to open this camp. It is my business when someone trashes that same cabin hours after I’ve worked to fix it up.”

  “You can read about it online then.”

  “I did. I want to hear about it from you.”

  Never. No way.

  “I need to go. Deadline.” He pushed past her and started on the trail.

  “I was ten when I found my mother’s dead body on her bedroom floor,” she said from behind him.

  Drew stopped and lowered his head. He didn’t want to hear about it. If she shared her story, she’d expect him to share his. He knew how basic conversation worked. But he didn’t continue down the trail, either. He stopped and listened, his back to her.

  “They called it respiratory failure. I was glad for that. They left her heavy drinking and smoking, as well as her depression, out of the report. I’d been taking care of my mother for as long as I could remember. She loved me. Cherished me. But she didn’t love herself enough to take care of her health.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” God, he sounded stupid. But what else could he say?

  “I was sent to live with my grandmother, her mother, who had no knack or interest in children. I continued caring for myself until I graduated high school and then joined the military.”

  Drew let out a deep sigh and turned. “I’m sorry your life started out that way. You seem to have made something for yourself despite your difficult childhood. You should be proud of yourself.”

  There. He did it. He sounded like a decent human being. Now if she’d just let him go.

  “I experienced more death in the military. Some necessary, others terribly unnecessary.”

  “I can’t even imagine.” And he couldn’t. It took a brave, strong, confident man or woman to enlist and fight for so long. He imagined it was even harder doing so as a woman.

  “People die every day. On playgrounds. At the beach. In pools. Riding their bikes on country roads. Those places don’t close because of it. If there’s a safety issue, that’s one thing. Death is sad. Death is angry. Death is going to happen. If we shut down our lives, if we shut down all the places where someone has passed, we’d have nothing left.” Her voice grew softer as she moved closer to him. “We’d be living in daily depression, in daily fear. You’ve been living that way for too long,” she whispered by his neck.

  He closed his eyes and balled up his fists. He didn’t need a therapy session from Brooke right now. What he needed was to get back to his laptop and write. To escape in a world more messed up than his. To hide behind his villains and protagonists and make their problems much bigger than his.

  “I’m normally not the prying type and I know none of this is my business, but I’ve been touched by the Shermans’ story. By the tragedy that took place here. I want to rectify it. To bring life back to this beautiful space. To create new memories. But most importantly, I want to shine a light into children’s eyes who’ve experienced loss in some way. Not all kids have the advantages you did growing up.”

  “My life isn’t perfect,” he interjected. Although, compared to most, he lived with relative ease. At least, from the outside looking in it seemed that way.

  “When I lost my mom, I felt all alone. I transferred to a new school and didn’t think anyone understood me. No one else I knew had lost a parent or had been orphaned. If I could have met other children who actually knew what it felt like to be all alone in the world at such a young age, I would have... I don’t know. Maybe my life would have turned out the same, but I wouldn’t have been so sad, so alone. I want better for these kids.”

  Every word she said made perfect sense. Brooke was a kind woman with a big heart to give so much of her time and money to help other children. Children she didn’t know or have any connection with, all so they wouldn’t have to suffer as she had.

  And here he was living a seventeen-year pity party. Only it was more than that. He could have prevented Ryan’s death. And for that, he’d never forgive himself. Drew opened his eyes and met Brooke’s gaze. “You’re a good person. A kind soul. I can see Helen in you already. If anyone can make this camp a success, it’s you.”

  He needed time to process all she’d said and wandered off through the trail, thankful and disappointed when she didn’t chase after him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The weekend with Charlie flew by. Between setting up the preliminaries in the kitchen, meeting with the local police, interviewing three electricians and two plumbers, and packing her few belongings, Brooke was wiped.

  With the longest day of the year coming up, the sun still shone bright when Brooke got out of the shower a little after seven. She padded to the kitchen in her bath towel and took out a microwave dinner from the freezer.

  There were a few meals she could cook, but she’d rather spend her time cleaning and repairing the new camp than preparing food. Her stomach rumbled, and she peeled back the packaging to her frozen lasagna and chucked it into the microwave.

  Her last meal in a real house.

  Ten minutes later, she was dressed in a tank and loose boxer shorts, sitting on her deck and eating her dinner right out of the package—classy and elegant, she was not.

  She scraped the bottom of the plastic dish when headlights flashed past the side of her house, illuminating the water. Brooke picked up her phone and checked the time. Almost eight. A little late for a social visit from the neighbors. Could be the police with a lead.

  The doorbell rang as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. She wasn’t exactly dressed for company, but it wasn’t like her unexpected visitor heeded her any warning. Leaving her trash on the counter, she went to the door and peeked through the side panel of windows.

  From the shadow, it looked to be an SUV. The doorbell rang again, so she unlocked the door and cracked it.

  Drew.

  His hair was wet, from a swim or shower, she didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. His face was clear of the facial scruff he donned the other day. It was really sexy on him; made his eyes pop and gave him roguish sex appeal. The scruff was pretty okay in her book.

  “What brings you by?” Brooke leaned against the doorframe and folded her arms across her chest. She wasn’t wearing a bra and the night breeze whispered across her skin, causing ripples of goosebumps to poke out in some pretty inconvenient places.

  “Sorry I didn’t call. I, uh... don’t have your number.”

  “Is that your way of asking for it?” She lifted an eyebrow and enjoyed watching him squirm. Th
e man embarrassed way too easily.

  “No.”

  “So, you don’t want my number?”

  He made tugging at his hair sexy as sin. Brooke imagined being able to do the same with her hands one day. The silky short locks threading through her fingers, knowing his messy hair look came from her doing.

  Stop! She’d been alone for far too long. It wasn’t like she was craving to be with a man. She could actually go without sex for a long, long time and not miss it. Unfortunately, she knew this from firsthand experience. She didn’t mind it, though. And she certainly wouldn’t mind it with Drew.

  Standing in her doorway dressed for bed wasn’t the right time to be thinking about... or maybe it was exactly the right time? No, he didn’t come here to have sex.

  Unfortunately.

  “I came over to ask you to dinner.”

  “Oh. I already ate. Early to bed, early to rise and all that jazz.”

  “Not tonight. Tomorrow. Or the next day. Whenever you’re free.” The quick jerk in his shoulder and the nervous gestures he made with his hands were adorable.

  “Tomorrow will be my first night at the camp.”

  “You can come over when you’re done... working.”

  “Is this like a date?” Because she totally wouldn’t mind if it was.

  “No,” he said too quickly, and Brooke did her best to hide her disappointment. “It’s a thank you... for helping me brainstorm.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “You’ll come over?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is six okay? Or earlier or later. I don’t know what your schedule is like.”

  “I pretty much work with the sun. When it sets, I set. Dinner at six is perfect. It’ll give me a few hours to unwind before going to bed.”

  Alone. She’d have one last sleep on a soft bed tonight, and the next four months would be a shoddy thin mattress and sleeping bag. Not that she was complaining. It would be an adjustment going from cushion to an uncomfortable bed. Charlie had told her to invest in an air mattress, but the three-inch durable mattress had been a better deal. And it’s what she’d line all the bunk beds in the cabins with anyway.