Accounting for Charm

Accounting for Charm Copyright © 2023 by Brenda LowderAll Rights Reserved.No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including digital storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author.This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, specific locations, and incidents are either imaginary or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.Published by Bold Wanderer PressCover design by Julianne Fangmann at Heart to Cover LLCEditing services by Happily Editing Annswww.brendalowder.com Also by Brenda LowderKeeping the Pieces Kittenfish A-List Kiss Sparks Unlimited Leaning Toward Love: Romantic Short Fiction A Real Man for Christmas Body Jumping Duology Body Jumping Chased by Fate For Chadd, an accountant who found love Chapter OneAlex“Houston? That’s a very big problem.” Alex Chase slammed the front door in his brother Cole’s face. “You know I hate to travel!” he called through the thick wood.No answer.Alex peered out the peephole and found his brother staring back at him. Cole stuck his tongue out, growing large in Alex’s view as he leaned forward. Alex huffed in exasperation. Cole knew him too well—knew he’d be looking. Knew eventually Alex would help even though it meant leaving Atlanta where it was safe and hot to go to Houston which was unknown and hotter.“Come on, let me in.” Cole’s features were distorted through the peephole’s lens, shortened and enlarged in the wrong places.I should take a picture, Alex thought. It would be good for the most handsome and conceited of his three brothers to see himself like this. It was character-building.“Sasha sent you peanut M&M’s.” Cole stepped back and pulled a box of them from his suit jacket pocket. He rattled it in front of the lens.Alex turned away from the door and bit his thumbnail. He did love peanut M&M’s. And besides being his sister-in-law, Sasha was his actual friend. And he’d just agreed on the phone to help her. But that was before she’d told him what the favor was and before he’d known he’d have to travel. But of course he’d agreed to help. And once he gave his word, he followed through. Always. He was a sucker like that. And now Cole was here to take him to the airport, and Alex was going to have to get on a plane. Without any prior warning.There was barely enough time to schedule his panic attack.He blew out a breath and watched his brother. He waited until Cole had leaned against the door before yanking it open.Cole stumbled inside.“Come on in,” Alex deadpanned. Small pleasures.Cole straightened his tie and adjusted his cuffs and generally acted as if he hadn’t just fallen into the front room. Alex bit his tongue to keep from teasing him. It would not do to let Cole believe he’d suddenly gained a sense of humor.“Are you okay?” Alex reached out a too-late hand to steady him, and Cole knocked it away.“Fine.” He cleared his throat. “So! As I was saying before you slammed the door in my face—Houston. That’s where the job is that Sasha told you about, so it’s where you’re flying to and why I’m here to take you to the airport myself.” Cole ran a hand over the sleeve of his suit jacket, and Alex was reminded of Cary Grant in all those old movies they used to watch with Mom when they were little. His brother was charming like that, polished. Though he’d never tell him.Cole sat on the couch and glanced around the room. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”He ignored his brother’s wry tone. Everyone knew Alex hadn’t changed a single thing since their parents had died. Nor would he. He still lived in the house the four brothers had grown up in—and they all equally owned—but Alex was the caretaker, the historian, the brother who’d always kept them all together by preserving where they’d come from.“I take it you have some objection to Houston?” Cole skipped over additional snark about Alex’s lack of interior design skills and got straight to the point. It was the attorney in him.“I object to going anywhere that isn’t Atlanta. That it happens to be Houston is immaterial.”“Well, you don’t have to be so you about it.”Alex’s eyes were owlish behind his glasses. “What do you mean?”“Uptight. Wooden. Unbending.” Cole’s brows drew together in utter disbelief. “You agreed to help.”Alex was well-known for keeping his word. The fact that he was even verbally backpedaling now was out of character. But he had reason. Extreme reason, he thought as he wiped his perspiring palms onto his thighs. “Sasha failed to mention I’d have to get on a plane.”Cole’s forehead unfurrowed, and he leaned back against the couch cushion, amusement dancing in his eyes. “You’re still afraid to fly. Really? It’s been fifteen years.”He tilted his chin. “I’m not afraid to fly. I simply don’t prefer it.”His brother shook his head and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Of course you’re afraid to fly. You think the plane is going to crash. But you don’t like road trips, either, because you think the car is going to crash. Basically you think any conveyance you’re on is going to crash, and you eschew any scenario that would take you away from this home.”A giant rubber band of anxiety squeezed Alex’s chest. Cole wasn’t wrong. He wouldn’t go so far as to admit his brother was right—he never liked admitting that—but he wasn’t entirely wrong.Alex cast his eyes around the room. The faded couch, the crystal knickknacks on the side table he dusted carefully every weekend, the mantel over the fireplace that still displayed the pictures of Alex and his three brothers—the four of them frozen in time at the ages they were when their parents died. According to the mantel, they’d never gotten older. No one had updated the pictures to include Derek’s and Cole’s wives or the years that had made their youngest brother, Ryder, someone very different from the