Brody (26 page)

And it was amazing.

Canyons of a golden brown contrasted the green and yellow blades of short grass under our horse’s hooves. We bobbed with every step, the world a bottle of trapped sunshine in the oasis we’d somehow found ourselves in.

“Something, isn’t it?” They were the first words he said in many steps, many gallops. Brody seemed so at home here and seeing all this, I understood why. His eyes narrowed with the bright reflection of the lowering sun. He pulled down his hat, protecting his eyes and took us into it, those brown hilltops soaring with waves of sunshine.

I allowed myself to breathe it in. I took it all in. How cool would it be to live here? To be a
part
of this every day from the time of waking up to closing your eyes. I’d lived a lot of places, but nothing and nowhere was like this.

We stationed out there for a while, just sitting atop our horses, their warm bodies rising and falling gently underneath. Eventually, Brody summoned Charlie, his own riding horse, and my heart did a bit of a drop. We had ridden for a little bit and I assumed it was time to end the ride. It was time to head back to the house. Brody maneuvered Charlie, and though he did turn, we didn’t head back. He simply redirected us to the side, to a tree in particular. Brody ended up dismounting there, motioning me to do the same after he tied up Charlie to a thick branch.

Frozen, I realized I didn’t know how to do that—get down, and that must have read all over my face.

A smile pushed into the corner of his full lips. Taking off his hat, he placed it between two thick branches, then came over, holding out his hands to me. I took them without thought, bringing my leg around, and Brody did the rest. Before I knew it, I was in his arms, the back of my jeans sliding down velvet and my front sliding down him.

I brought my arms around his neck for security, but they stayed long after my shoes hit the ground. His heart beat so hard when I got there, thumping clear through both his shirt and mine. The muscle inside my chest matched the rapid beat and I followed them both, each responding to the other as if dancing.

My hands slid down his collar, this moment reminding me of one not so long ago. It was the first moment I silently begged him to kiss me at the bar. My lips pleaded for it now and my heart bled for it. It bled because I knew deep down he wouldn’t. There was still too much between us. There was too much that wouldn’t let go of us.

My fingers slid from his shirt when he created the distance I assumed matched what had formed between us over the last couple days. Reaching around me, he grabbed Delilah and I stepped back out of his way. He tied both horses to the tree and I waited patiently, trying not to let what happened play out all over my face.

You did this to yourself. It’s your fault.

His sweet smell brought him back to me and out of the thicket of thoughts in my head. In his hand, he had a blanket and as Charlie had saddlebags, that’s probably where it came from. Brody snapped it out and it fluttered like a calm wave to the ground. His hand splayed out toward the blanket, inviting me to it, and he took his seat only after I chose mine, the right side.

Sliding my hat off, I tucked my foot under my knee, marveling at the new vantage point. “This place,” I said, studying the amber hills. “It’s magic.”

Leaning forward, Brody’s arms wrested atop his large legs. He didn’t say anything, but a sudden smile moving across his face made me call attention to it. I couldn’t help it I guess.

“What?” I asked him, feeling shy all the sudden. “Is that dumb?”

Some of those lengthy blond tendrils moved across his brow with the breeze. He shook his head. “No,” he said, facing me. His boots secured into the blanket when he raised his knees higher. “It’s just funny you said that.”

“Why?”

His smile went full then. “Because that’s probably why he took us here,” he said, gazing toward the land again. “My pop. He brought me and my brothers here once when we were kids. This exact spot.” His finger pushed out toward the area. “I guess it just makes sense with what you said.”

I wanted to ask him more. I wanted to ask him how so, but something told me not to.

I crossed my legs, going silent, and that’s when he spoke. That’s also when the smile left his lips.

“He told us about momma here,” he said. Sitting back, he watched the sky. “An evening similar to this when the sun was setting.”

His mom. That had been one person he’d never mentioned to me before. He talked about his brothers every so often and his dad of course. His grandma was even in his pictures at home, but no mom. No mom. He squinted with the sun. “She liked to make her disappearances, my momma. We wouldn’t see her for weeks at a time.”

He picked up a blade of grass, tossing it before resting his legs on his knees again. He shrugged. “Here’s where Pop told us she wouldn’t be… she wouldn’t be here anymore. She left for good and wouldn’t be coming back this time.”

His voice didn’t hold any pain like I expected it would from his admission. Perhaps the wounds were no longer fresh. Perhaps he was at peace, but regardless, I didn’t miss the power in his words.

And the fact that he was sharing them with me.

“He said we’d be okay, though,” Brody went on. He faced me then, and when he did, he smiled once more. “And in the end, we ended up being so. That’s why I said what I did about you saying this place being magic.” He eyes scanned the sky. “I guess there is a little bit of it out here. A lot really.”

Those blue eyes found mine, those sparkling ones. I nodded in confirmation of his statement, acknowledging it, but that’s where it ended for me. I had to end it there. I couldn’t believe in magic, because every time I let myself… Every time I tried…

I closed my eyes, falling into myself, my head. I couldn’t break free of it this time. I couldn’t recover from the loss because I was still grieving. I once believed the gift of Brody had been magic, but he, too, I managed to lose.

His finger came to my cheek and that’s when I realized I was crying. He turned me, a hand on my knee, and couldn’t have looked more confused as to why I’d broken down right here before him. I didn’t blame him. That was something I was also trying to discover, trying to fight. I averted my eyes like that would help, but then that finger tipped my chin and I couldn’t hide. He never let me hide.

“Alex?” he asked.

I looked away again, sniffing. “I know what you need from me. I know you want me to be open with you, honest.” I gazed away, the tears moving down my cheeks. “And you deserve that, Brody. You deserve that.”

The words looked like it pained him to hear, his eyes creasing. His hand came up to touch my face. “Alexa…”

I looked down. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t strong enough and his eyes didn’t make it easier, the concern crumpled within them.

He raised my chin by my cheeks, leaning in. “You listen to me. You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I’ve been a jerk, Alex. I’ve been…” His jaw moved, his blond lashes shifting over his eyes. He gazed up. “I’ve been dumb. I don’t want you saying anything you’re not ready to. I’ll wait, Alexa. I’ll wait as long as you want me to.”

But that’s the thing.

He shouldn’t have to.

*

Brody

“I’m the bad thing,” she whispered. Her voice was so quiet, so aching. “I was the bad thing he did.”

I stared at her, not knowing what to make of that statement. Bad thing? How was she ever? She was never.

She opened her mouth again, gasping for breath with no words and I wanted her to stop. Whatever she was trying to tell me… it hurt her. It was causing pain to line her face, her cheeks.

I touched one and a tear rolled down them. A piece of me broke inside when it did. This was my fault. I made her feel like she had to talk to me. I admit I had been frustrated. Alex had been closing herself off since I met her and I guess my breaking point made me freeze her out.
This
wasn’t what I wanted, though, her crying and forcing herself to talk to me. I wanted her to open her heart to me, but not until she was ready.

“Alex, don’t,” I urged. I had made a mistake. I knew that now. Moving my hands to her shoulders, I leaned my forehead against hers. “You don’t have to do this. Don’t feel like you have to.”

“I’m just…” she whispered, shaking. “I’m scared you won’t want to be with me anymore.”

My eyes closed tight. I brought her into my arms and she felt so small. She always felt so small; that first day so vulnerable. I kissed her forehead. “Nothing you could tell me could ever make me not want to be with you.” And I meant it. I meant every goddamn word, but that didn’t stop her. It didn’t stop her from shaking her head.

“You’ll see me differently.” She sniffed, pulling away. “And then I’ll be alone. That’s why my sister won’t talk to me. That’s why I’m alone.”

I grabbed her arms. “Alex—”

“It was
me
, Brody. I’m why Nathan got locked up.
I’m
why he served time.
Me.”

My brain grasped to make sense of any and all things she was saying. It all was a thicket of words, jumbled, but then, I took a step back from my head. I listened. I took them in.

“I’m the bad thing… I was the bad thing he did.”

My jaw locked, my body frozen. Her words bolted me,  shattered me.

But they broke her more.

Her head down, the tears fell from her eyes and I held her quivering body, bringing her into me. Her fingers tangled in my shirt, the water from her eyes dampening it and all the while I held her, trying,
fighting
, to stay right here. I fought from doing something else, because if what I feared were true… if I understood correctly what she was telling me, there was no reason I should be standing here right now.

There’s no reason
he
shouldn’t be dead right now.

“It happened when I was sixteen,” she whispered. I shook. She went on. “And Elena…” She breathed. She cried. “She didn’t believe me at first.”

I closed my eyes, holding her tighter. I had to. I had to in order to keep myself sane. How could her sister not believe her? How could she…

“But I had proof,” she continued. “I went to the hospital and… and…”

“Stop,” I told her. I
urged
her, but not because I couldn’t take it. I didn’t want her to take it, to relive it like she clearly was in her mind. “You don’t have to. You don’t.”

“But then she said I asked for it.” I could barely hear her now. Tears, so many tears. She sniffed them back. “She said I did with my clothes and the way I dressed. She said I led him on. She said I teased. She said…”

I couldn’t help it after that.

I snapped.

Blinded to the rage, I could only hear Alex in the distance. She pleaded with me. She called
to
me and I answered with words I faintly remembered.

“Home.” I told her when she asked where we were going. I had been untying the horses. “Why?” she asked then and I couldn’t tell her. I didn’t want her to stop me. Regardless, her questions continued, her concern, and even though I chose not to answer them, that didn’t matter.

She figured it out.

She grabbed my arm. “You’re
not
going to him. You’re not going to do anything.”

I came out of it for a moment; my head. I didn’t know how I managed, but I did, and I caged her face with my hands. I had to make her understand.

“He needs to pay,” I told her. “Something needs to be done.”

Her lip quivered. “Something like how? He served his time, Brody. He went to jail.”

He went to jail, yes, but that didn’t mean he paid for the crime he committed. I grabbed the reins of Delilah and Charlie. “We’re going back to Gram’s. Then you’re going to stay there until I come back.”

“And then I’ll lose you, too!” she cried, falling back from me. “I’ll lose you, too, like I lost everyone and everything to him. I lost my sister because of him. She froze me out, kept Aiden away, and now, I’ll lose you, too, to him. I’ve lost everything to him, Brody. I’ve lost myself.”

She said she lost…

Herself.

She walked away and I let her, the reins falling from my fingers. She didn’t go far, to the tree I drew the horses from, but while she did, I stood with my thoughts. She thought she lost herself to him, Nathan, and now that she had, so many things were clear.

I saw that in her eyes, her thoughts of loss. Alex and her worth, she didn’t connect sometimes. She didn’t see what I’d always seen and she let people take advantage of her because of it. I saw it with that guy at the bar. I saw it with Chloe and even well before that. I met her in attempts to sell herself and I found her later on selling herself on stage. She felt she needed the money, yes, but I wondered if another way had even crossed her mind. Like, she defaulted to those routes with no other thoughts of the alternative. It was almost like she didn’t feel she deserved any better and in fact, I knew that’s exactly how she felt. I knew because she couldn’t answer me the day at the café when I asked her why she didn’t feel like she’d deserved help.

It all made sense now.

I went over to her. Her back was turned, her arms folded over her chest, but she still passed a look over her shoulder at me. I got within range and her hands went out to me, pressing firmly on my chest. They went in to cover my heart.

“You’re not going,” she said.

I grabbed her hands, shaking my head. “I’m not.”

A little breath left her mouth. Her eyes closed and something inside me went peaceful. I thought that could only happen after settling the score with Nathan. I suppose, in the end, I didn’t have to have that. I wanted it desperately, adamantly, but I didn’t have to have it. Something I did need? Her. I needed her. I needed
this
… with her.

She was enough.

“You’re enough,” I told her, letting those words fall from my lips and pulling my arms around her, I let my mouth touch her ear. “You’re enough and he hasn’t taken anything from you. You’re here. Every wonderful piece of you is here, Alex. Your strength. Your bravery. You’re here, Alex, and you’re here with me.”