Llewellyn was their father minus thirty years: same stern expression, same Roman nose—well, to be fair, they all had that nose—same thin lips. Only slightly less of a prick. But equally committed to staying in this tiny little village where everyone was terrified of him and running this pub that only the occasional tourist—and erstwhile brother—wandered into.
“Hiya, Wells,” Rhys said, to which Wells only grunted in response.
Typical.
“Business still booming, I see.” Rhys sauntered over to the bar, grabbing a handful of peanuts from a glass bowl there.
Wells shot him a dark look over the polished mahogany, and Rhys grinned, tossing a peanut into his mouth.
“Come on,” he cajoled. “Admit that you’re delighted to see me.”
“Surprised to see you,” Wells said. “Thought you’d abandoned us for good this time.”
“And forgo such warm fraternal bonding? Never.”
Wells gave him a reluctant smile at that. “Father said you were in New Zealand.”
Nodding, Rhys took another handful of peanuts. “Until a couple of days ago. Stag do. Bunch of English guys wanting the full Lord of the Rings experience.”
Rhys’s travel company, Penhallow Tours, had grown from a small, one-man business run out of Rhys’s London flat to a ten-person operation, running multiple trips all over the world. His customers routinely called his trips the best of their lives, and his reviews were full of people gushing over how they never had a single day of bad weather, not one delayed flight, not a solitary case of food poisoning.
Amazing how much the smallest bits of magic could do.
“Well, I’m glad you’re back,” Wells said, resuming his cleaning. “Because now you can go talk to Father, and get him out of this mood.”
He nodded at the windows, and Rhys turned, seeing the truly abysmal weather in a new light.
Fuck me.
He’d been right, then. No ordinary storm, but one of his father’s making, which, yes, meant Rhys had undoubtedly irritated him. His brothers had never provoked a storm from his father.
Rhys had caused . . . twenty? Two dozen? Too many to count, really.
Turning back to Wells, Rhys went to reach for the peanuts again only to have his hand swatted at with a damp towel.
“Oi!” he cried, but Wells was already pointing at the door.
“Go up there and talk to him before he floods the main road and I never see a customer again.”
“Am I not a customer?”
“You’re a pain in my arse is what you are,” Wells replied, then sighed, hands on his hips. “Seriously, Rhys, just go talk to him, get it over with. He’s missed you.”
Rhys snorted even as he got up from the barstool. “I appreciate that, Wells, but you’re full of shite, mate.”
An hour later, Rhys was wondering why he hadn’t at least stayed at the pub long enough to have a pint. Possibly three.
He’d decided to walk up to the house rather than antagonize his father with the car—a real show of growth and maturity on his part, he thought—but the closer he got, the worse the weather became, and even the protection spell he’d thrown up over himself was struggling.
For a moment, he considered dropping it, letting his father see him pathetic and bedraggled, but no, that kind of thing would only work on a father who had a heart, and Rhys was fairly certain Simon Penhallow had been born without one of those.
Or maybe he’d removed it himself at some point, some sort of experiment to see just how much of a bastard one man could be.