Hope Against Hope: The Hope Brothers Series (18 page)

The bonfire always seemed to turn into a pissing match between the Hope and Haggard boys, each of us taking turns to throw in the next thing they had found to burn. The fire never seemed to be big enough, tall enough, or strong enough.

Lee was there, so was Finn, right by my side, and yet every one else seemed to be floating out of reach, circulating around me like a May Day parade. Soft colorful ribbons slithered around me, like sensuous calls of a siren’s song, beckoning me to follow them in the darkness, pulling me into the flames of my memory.

I resisted. Calmed my pounding heart and turned away from the heat, my eyes drifting over the group of enchanted fire worshippers, caught up in the magic of the flames that flickered in their eyes, the reflection of the truth, the reflection of regret, the reflection of everything I wished to forget.

I stopped, drawn to the one pair of eyes that were still soft, still present, the only other pair that dared to look away from the flames. Our souls smiled at each other, recognizing the mystery, the old ancient song of chemistry, of risk, of pain, of pleasure.

Georgia’s green eyes taunted me with promise, telling me tales of secrets that we hadn’t lived yet, promising me adventures of which neither of us had dreamed but had already experienced in some crazy, washed-up, parallel universe.

She reached out to me, her soft caress on my face, and I closed my eyes. I opened them again, and blinked in confusion when I saw Marisa’s face instead of Georgia’s.

My silent terror jarred me awake. I jumped, startling Georgia awake in my arms. She stirred gently, and I took a deep breath.

I was here. In my house, with Georgia. Not Marisa. Marisa was gone.

That was a long time ago, I reminded myself, a mantra that almost sounded like permission to forgive, to forget.

Georgia’s hair smelled like heaven, like home, really, a mixture of horses, dirt and flowers. It was all I could do not to give in to the demands of my body and sink myself into her once again, but she seemed to have fallen right back asleep, if she had even woken up at all.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling of my cabin, my head spinning, the feel of her hair like silk on my chest, and the promise of tomorrow on my mind.

I had so much to think about, and yet the fact that I had just made love to Georgia was the one thought that was holding court in my mixed up brain. Part of me couldn’t believe it had happened, part of me couldn’t believe how it happened, and the other part of me couldn’t believe that we had just fallen asleep like an old married couple afterwards. And the most incredible thing of all was how easily we had fallen together, how right it felt, how it felt like coming home.

Granted, it had been a long ass day for both of us.

But still, there was a lot of making up I was going to have to do in the making love department. Georgia hadn’t seen the best of me yet, that was for sure.

If her brothers didn’t kill me first
, I thought.

As if reading my mind, Georgia stirred in my arms again, opening her eyes and raising her head to look at me. Every part of me swelled with emotion and hunger as she met my eyes.

With complete conviction, she whispered, “I never want to go home again.”

She kissed me gently on my lips, her warm mouth shooting sparks of electricity right to my swelling cock, and then laid her head back on my chest and went back to sleep.

“You don’t have to, darlin’,” I whispered, taking a deep breath, and tightening my arms around her.

☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

I buried my nose in Cherokee’s neck, inhaling his deep therapeutic aroma. I had my arms around his thick neck, and he stood calm and patient, allowing me to sob into his soft fur. He was used to it by now. Since my parent’s accident, Cherokee had endured many pity parties with me.

I shouldn’t have been crying. I should have been ecstatic, blissful, because I had finally slept with Beau, and to be fair, a part of me was. It had been amazingly beautiful, and every cell in my body was still singing from his soft, magical touch.

But I had imagined what it would be like to have sex with Beau many times, and my fantasies never once included me running to his house in the middle of the night with tears streaming down my face and throwing myself into his arms.

I’d never imagined my parents would be dead before my twenty-first birthday was over, either.

Perhaps getting older was just surviving through the continuously reoccurring disappointment of life never turning out how you imagine it will.

He was gone when I woke up. I had been sleeping, hard, and I felt him kiss my cheek, but I barely stirred. Later, I found a note telling me he had an early practice, and a white daisy sitting on his pillow.

I had smiled to myself at the gesture. Beau’s bad boy reputation was being threatened by the intense sweetness I was receiving from him. Each of the times I had spent alone with him, he was a sweet, slow-drawling, devastatingly handsome, attentive cowboy.

The only thing ‘bad’ about him was his past, but how long did one have to pay for such mistakes? He was a man now. When the accident happened, he had been a very young man. It was a young man’s mistake. The Beau that I knew now was an entirely different person, because of that mistake.

He was a good man. Of this, I was certain.

I yearned for a few minutes alone with my mother. She would know just what to say, and she would be open-minded enough to not judge Beau on his past, as the rest of my family was doing.

I hated that my brothers had decided to stop talking to me. Or, had I stopped talking to them? Either way, the rift between us wasn’t getting any smaller.

Cherokee shifted beneath me, and I stood up and wiped my tears on my jeans.

There’s nothing I can do
, I thought. I had already done the chores, going straight to the barn after leaving Beau’s, passing the charred remains of the tool barn that my father had built.

That’s what had gotten me crying in the first place, and I had being sobbing through feeding the herd and letting them out in the pasture, and then cleaning the stalls, and giving them all new bedding. It was a lot to do every single day, but they were worth it. Even if I had been crying through it all for the last few hours.

I was saddling Cherokee up for a much-needed ride when Jesse came in. My little brother had been laying low so much, it was a rare sight to see him. I took a good look at him as he walked up to me, and made a note to talk to Crit. He looked a little too thin to me.

“Hi,” I said to him.

“Hey, sis,” he replied, “going for a ride?”

“Yeah, I need some time alone,” I replied, my voice sounding angrier than I meant it to. I wasn’t really mad at Jesse. He had been the least vocal of all of my brothers, and I didn’t mean to take it out on him.

“Have you been eating?” I asked. “You never did show up for dinner the other day.”

He shrugged and looked away.

“Yeah, I guess I wasn’t hungry,” he mumbled.

“Well, that wasn’t the point, Jesse. I wanted us to all be together,” I said, feeling like that had all been a waste of time now. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking down and kicking the dirt with his boot. I could barely see his face at all with the rim of his straw hat blocking my view.

“You okay, Jesse?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he mumbled, turning away from me and heading towards the tack room.

“Okay, see you later, I guess,” I said to his back. Something was off with him, but I guess it was expected. None of us were going to ever be the same again. Jesse was never one to talk about his feelings, anyway.

I wanted to tell him I loved him, and I opened my mouth to call out to him, but I stopped myself. He needed his space.

I guess we all did.

***

Cherokee broke through the tree line surrounding LaCroix’s place, and I marveled once again at the beauty of the place. Even if it was rundown and could have used a paint job, it’s age was charming. The fact that it was completely secluded, even unreachable by car, made it a truly magical place.

A lush natural landscape surrounded it, with every flower imaginable blooming at different times of the year. Olly’s wife grew prized roses, and they were in full bloom now, surrounding the house, their unruly and unattended stems still managing to produce perfectly fragrant blooms that were bursting with rich reds and pinks and yellows.

I hoped off Cherokee, letting him graze, as I slowly walked around the house, the sun shining on my skin as I stopped to inhale the heady fragrance of the roses. It was one of my favorite things to do, and as I drank in the sweet scent of the perfect pink flower, a memory of my mother flashed in my head. Her head bent over a pink rose outside of our house, the peel of her laughter as she squealed with delight over the simplest joys in life, the sound of her soft voice as she told me that pink roses always smelled the best.

She was right
, I thought. She was right about everything. Since she had been gone, I had been trying desperately to grasp onto every little thing she had ever told me, every bit of advice, big or small. I wanted to remember everything she had ever taught me, and yet, it seemed as if the more I remembered, I realized there was so much I had already forgotten.

I wouldn’t be able to just pick up the phone and call her and ask. She had taught me everything she would ever teach me. If only I had known all those years ago that I would be desperately searching for the memories of what once seemed like insignificant things.

My heart was heavy as I wound around the back of LaCroix’s house. All this time, I hadn’t dared to go in, but as looked at the back of his house, I noticed the back door was slightly ajar. I looked around his property, and everything was calm and quiet. Cherokee grazed calmly at the side of the house.

I stepped up onto the back porch, and opened the door.

“Hello?” I called out.

No answer.

I walked through the small mud room, and then into the kitchen. Other than a little dust, you’d never know LaCroix was gone. I passed through the kitchen and into the large formal dining room. A large round antique table took up most of the room, with a large maple china cabinet towering over it in the corner. The glass doors on the cabinet showed off the only surfaces that weren’t dusty in the house - the perfectly displayed china set inside. It was all white, with a gold ribbon around the edges.

My mother would have loved those
, I thought, staring at them through the glass.

My eye caught a slight movement in the reflection behind me and I turned around quickly.

“Hello?” I called again, my heart speeding up.

I walked into the living room and looked around. There was a crumpled blanket, and a pillow laying on the couch. On the coffee table were six empty beer bottles and an empty bag of chips.

“Shit,” I whispered. My hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I ran for the backdoor, my heart feeling like it was going to beat out of my chest.

I made it through the kitchen and into the mudroom, and just as my hand turned the doorknob, I heard a huge crash behind me.