Page 24 of Fake It Till You Make It

Tobias nodded in agreement. “Kannan?” he asked, gesturing to the phone Eli held.

“Yep. He can take a look under the hood. Give me an estimate.”

“Huh.” Noah tipped his chair back, balancing on the tworear legs. “I see what you’re doing. Barking at me to stay away while you fix her car and share her biscuit,” he accused.

“That’s not the reason why I want all of us to not fall prey to her pretty dimples.”

“It’s just one. The left cheek.” Noah grinned. “Are you going to hire her outright?”

“You should already. She’s good at everything you need,” Tobias chimed in.

“If I do decide to bring her on full-time, permanent, we can’t afford to mess things up by thinking with the little head.”

“Speak for yourself.” Noah jabbed at his arm in jest.

“I’m not joking,” Eli muttered. “There’s a chance we could lose the house and the land.”

Noah jerked upright. The chair’s legs slammed against the wood floor. An ear-splitting scrape of metal on wood had Eli wincing. Patrons in the vicinity glared in their direction.

“Say that again?” Tobias gulped.

“We need more money flowing into the clinic to stave off a foreclosure. The house. Clinic. Our cabins. The land.”

“Since when?” Noah demanded.

“I’ve been making partial payments since Dad—Dad died.” Eli swallowed the rising bile, a bitter reminder of his struggle to accept the loss. “With me still carrying the mortgage on the house Cara and I built and the decrease in income, I can’t get the loan refinanced.”

There. He’d gotten it all out.

“Why are we just hearing this, Eli?” He didn’t miss the accusation in Noah’s voice.

“How bad is it?” Tobias asked. “Does Mom know?”

“Bad, and yeah, she does,” he sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“Are we too low in the ranking order to be trusted with family business?” Noah snapped.

His brother’s accusation rubbed. Eli deserved it and more. Tobias had inherited Mom’s academic excellence. Noah, a former high school jock, had crushed their father’s records on the football field and aced his fire science curriculum. Eli, well, straddled the middle of the road with books and balls.

“Noah… come on. I’ve been putting off telling you this not because I don’t trust you. It’s a responsibility Dad wanted me to handle.” Eli had been a good son, reliable. He never gave his folks a reason to worry. Then he’d met Cara. Learned something new about himself: he wanted to be the best husband to one woman. Follow in his father’s footsteps, leave a legacy for his wife and children. He’d failed at one. Now his brothers knew he was about to lose the other. Huh, what a fool.

“Whatever you need, Eli.” Tobias nodded. “You got it from me.”

“Yeah.” Noah took another draw from the long neck. “Whatever.”

Eli scrubbed a chilled hand over his face. Steeling his pride, he uttered the monetary figure of his failure. “I need eighteen thousand dollars or the Pendletons are going to take the land.”

“Pendletons.” Noah choked and sputtered. “Well, ain’t that a kerosene can in a five-alarm fire.”

Tobias grimaced, his expression drawn in concern. “You ain’t never lied. That family…” He stopped himself when the waitress deposited a frosted mug of amber brew in front of him.

“Any more buzzkill news, Eli?” Noah’s question penetrated his skin, biting through their kinship, daring him to confess another secret.

“That’s it.”

“We don’t have that kind of money.” A confession Eli knew without Noah offering.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Tobias lamented. “One question for you, though. If Dad had money troubles, why did he give you the down payment for a house?”