Irresistible (Cloverleigh Farms #1)(6)

I often wished things were different between Chloe and me—between all my siblings and me, actually. The Sawyer sisters, people called us.

There was Sylvia, the oldest, who lived with her husband and two children in a big, beautiful home near Santa Barbara. I’d never visited, but Sylvia posted lots of pictures on her social media accounts with hashtags like #blessed and #mylife and #grateful. All my sisters were pretty, but I’d always thought Sylvia was the most striking. Her husband Brett, an investment banker, was attractive and successful, their children were adorable and smart, and they seemed to have the perfect life. Which was why it was always a little strange to me that Sylvia never seemed to be smiling in any photographs she was in.

April was thirty-five and had her own condo in downtown Traverse City, not too far from Cloverleigh. She’d moved to New York City after college and worked there for seven years. After that, she’d come home and taken over event planning here, single-handedly turning Cloverleigh Farms into the destination for luxury weddings in a rustic setting. Her eye for design and her ability to anticipate trends and adapt to them was incredible. She was a romantic like me—and she lived for weddings—so it was sort of odd to me that she wasn’t married, but whenever our mother hinted around, April always just shrugged and said she hadn’t met the right person yet.

Our middle sister, Meg, was thirty-three and lived in Washington, D.C. She’d always been wildly passionate and outspoken about her causes, from preventing animal cruelty to women’s rights to fighting poverty. After graduating from law school, she’d taken a job working for the ACLU but now worked on staff for a U.S. Senator. She was so busy she didn’t get home much. I thought she still lived with her boyfriend, a high-powered government something-or-other, but I wasn’t sure.

Chloe, who lived in Traverse City, handled all the marketing and PR for Cloverleigh and helped manage the wine tasting rooms. She was ambitious and smart and creative, always coming up with new ideas, and she worked her ass off. It never seemed to me that my mom and dad recognized all the work she put in on a daily basis. I sometimes wondered if it was because Chloe had been a really difficult teenager—defiant and headstrong, an unapologetic rule breaker who loved pushing boundaries and sometimes forgot to think before speaking. The total opposite of me. Even as an adult, she often butted heads with our parents, and never seemed to back down. I often wished I was more like her.

I often wished I were more like any of them. I envied Sylvia’s happy marriage and family, April’s confidence and creative instincts, Meg’s fiery passion, Chloe’s outspokenness … they all seemed fearless to me. Sometimes I felt I was a Sawyer sister in name only. After all, I was the only one who’d never left the nest, not even for college.

It’s not that I hadn’t wanted to go away to school like my sisters had, but my parents, especially my mother, had encouraged me to attend classes locally so I could live at home. “That way, you’ll be close to doctors you’re familiar with,” she told me. “And you’ll be more comfortable and less stressed. I know you feel like you’d be fine, but why take the risk?”

How many times had I heard that question in my life—a thousand? A million? My mother put it to me constantly, regarding any number of things she wasn’t comfortable with me doing. And I could have answered any number of ways.

Because I’m an adult and want to make my own decisions? Because I’m tired of being treated like I’m made of glass? Because I don’t want to end up with zero mistakes and a thousand regrets?

But I never said those things.

Deep down, I knew that my parents only sheltered me because they loved me so much, and I couldn’t really complain about anything. I loved the farm and the inn and the nearby small town of Hadley Harbor—I couldn’t really imagine myself living anywhere else. I had my own suite with plenty of privacy, and there was nothing I needed that I lacked. My job at reception wasn’t hard, my hours gave me plenty of time to bake, and I liked meeting new people, greeting the guests, showing off everything we offered. I knew this place like the back of my hand.

Of course, it might have been nice to have a few more friends my age, but we lived in a rural area without much economic or social opportunity for young people, especially during the winter. And because I’d missed so much school and gotten behind due to surgeries and hospital stays—not to mention my parents’ fears about infection—my mother had decided to homeschool me after second grade, so I didn’t have any childhood besties to call up, either.

But I had my parents and my sisters and the people I worked with. I’d even had a few flings during the summer tourist season, when the inn and the town were packed with people, and I definitely wasn’t the innocent lamb my parents thought I was. If I sometimes felt a little lonely, I supposed it was a small price to pay for having such a comfortable life.

Still.

I slipped my hand into the pocket of my black work pants and pulled out the business card I’d tucked in there earlier.

Declan MacAllister.

It would be nice to have someone to share it with.





Mack





My alarm went off at six-fifteen as usual, and I jumped into the shower. By six-thirty I was dressed for work and heading upstairs to wake the girls.

It had taken me a while, but I finally had the school morning routine down pat, and today went off with downright military precision.