HUGE X2 (12 page)

Chapter 2

Samantha

When
I was eight my father married again.
 
My mom
had died not long after I was born of an asthma attack.
 
She had the condition severely and on the day
it happened, she was standing at a bus stop on a busy road, surrounded by
pollution and other irritants, and she’d left her inhaler in another purse.
 
By the time the ambulance reached her she was
already gone.
 

Thinking about her makes my chest feel tight, partly
because I spent so much time as a child imagining what it would be like to die
that way, gasping for a breath that was impossible to force into your damaged
lungs.

My stepmom was a lovely woman who took me under her
wing immediately.
 
She had a son who was
two years older than me and we hit it off straight away.
 

I was a sporty kid, so Brandon and I spent hours in
our yard with bats and balls, challenging each other to races across the field
behind our home.
 
Brandon was always
faster but he never gloated when he beat me.
 
Instead, he’d look down at his watch and compliment me on my timing, or
nod his head and tell me my technique was improving.
 

At night we’d camp out in our tent and eat
marshmallows and his mom’s chewy home-made cookies, never running out of things
to talk about.
 
He loved nature and would
tell me all about the obscure animals he’d been reading about.
 
To this day I think I know more about native
Australian mammals than anyone else I’ve ever met, barring Brandon.
 
A couple of years ago I travelled to Sydney
and spent a whole day at the zoo there, marveling at the wombats, koalas and
bilbies, wishing he was with me to see them.

He’d wanted to be a zoo keeper when he grew up so he
could work with animals.
 
He wanted to
research their native environments and find better ways to house them that were
closer to the places they came from.
 
Brandon had a love of people and animals, a soft-heartedness that his
mother nurtured with a stream of pets.
 
He looked after each one as though it was the most precious thing in his
life, but it was Wombat, his brown mongrel puppy, that he loved the best.
 
Wombat would sleep between us in the tent,
guarding his precious owner as he slipped into his dreams.

Even as a nine-year-old I thought Brandon was
beautiful.
 
Not in a perfect-looks way
but because he had so much light inside him which seemed to flow through his
face.
 
His eyes were a soft blue-green
with gold flecks around the center, the color of the lake we used so swim in on
hot days when our parents would take us for rambling picnics.
 
He had long, light-brown eyelashes that were
fairer at the roots and darker at the tips.
 
They made him look angelic when he was sleeping.
 
In the summer freckles would appear on his
cheeks as though the warm weather sprinkled him with glitter.
 

I loved him deeply; my best friend, my brother and so
much a part of my home that I couldn’t recall what it had been like before he
arrived with his mom.

We had two blissful years together, full of innocent
fun, before tragedy struck our family and blew it all apart.

I have the memory of the ten-year-old Brandon sleeping
curled around Wombat in my mind when I walk through the door to the interview
room.
  
The man sitting at the table is
big and broad, sitting with his body slumped down in chair, legs spread wide
and arms folded across his chest.
 
Time
seems to stand still as his eyes scan over me, starting at my feet and rising
slowly, seductively, as though he wants to turn me into something he is in
control of rather than the other way around.
 
When he finally looks me in the eye I see the flash of recognition.
 
It’s like a spark of electricity between
us.
 
This rugged, shorn-haired, thuggish
man is my Brandon Ford and I can’t take it in.
 
I rest my hand on the back of the chair that I’m supposed to be sitting
on, suddenly feeling like I might teeter in my heels.
 
His eyes close, just for a second, but it’s
enough for me to see that he knows and is trying to pull himself together.

“Brandon?” I say, my voice filled with emotion, and
when he opens his eyes it’s as though he’s dropped the shutters over the
feelings I had seen a glimpse of.

He turns to the officer and says, “I want another
attorney.”

“No,” I blurt out.
 
“Why?”

Brandon shakes his head and leans forward, resting his
strong forearms on the table, telling me with his body language to back down
and do as he wishes.
 
My stepbrother
wasn’t anything like this man, with his brutish mannerisms and aggressive
posturing, but we have too much history for me to walk out of here without
finding out more.
 
I want to talk to him
so badly.

“Because this isn’t any place for you, Sammie.”
 

His use of the nickname he gave me throws me off guard
for a second, taking me back to those sweet times when he would whisper through
the crack in my door to see if I was awake.
 
The nights when he’d sneak into my bed so we could read comics feel an
eon away.

“I’m a defense attorney,” I say, trying to keep my
voice calm and unaffected.
 
I hold eye
contact with him and he doesn’t look away, but I do when I see him clenching
and unclenching his bloodied fist.
 
“You
need to get that seen to,” I say and look over to the officer.
 
“My client requires medical treatment for the
injuries to his hands.
 
Please can you
arrange for a nurse to attend to them?”

The officer raises his eyebrows and so do I.
 
If he thinks I’m a pushover he’s got another
think coming.

I pull the chair out from under the table and lower
myself to sit in it, putting my purse on the table and finding my notepad and
pen.
 

“I said I don’t want you,” Brandon hisses, leaning
even further across the table.

The officer is hanging around behind me, as if he
doesn’t know what to do.
 
I need to get
Brandon to back down, otherwise I’m out of here.

“Brandon, your friend has paid me a retainer to act on
your behalf.
 
Can I ask that you let me
do my job for now, and once we have dealt with the current matter, then you
talk to your friend and decide whether or not you want to seek alternative
representation?”

Brandon stares at me with his blue-green lake eyes,
framed by long soft-brown lashes that are just the same in a way that is
unnerving.
 
I wonder what he sees when he
looks at me after all these years.
 
I
know it must be disconcerting for him too.
 

“Please,” I say, wanting so desperately to spend time
with him and learn who he is now and what his life has been like.
 
He’s changed so much but he’s still beautiful
to me, so much so that I feel my heart skip a little as I take in the size of
him, the sheer masculinity.

 
“No,” he says
in such a firm voice I know I’m not going to get anywhere.
 
I feel wounded; I can’t understand why he
doesn’t want me to represent him.
 
Does
he think I won’t do a good job?
 
Does he
think I’m incompetent?
 
My face feels hot,
as my battered pride boils to the surface.
 
Brandon must see my reaction because he leans back and crosses his arms
again, his eyes softening.
 
“I don’t want
you involved in this, Sammie.
 
Trust me.”

Maybe it’s crazy but I do trust him, even after all
these years and despite the fact I can see the evidence of violence marring his
hands.
 
I look towards the officer who is
lurking behind me in front of the closed door, and then back at Brandon.
 
“I’ll send someone else from my firm,” I say,
and he shakes his head.
 

“Take this number down.”
 
He nods towards my pad and pen and I do as he
says, jotting the number and the name ‘Adam’ as instructed.
 
When I’ve finished, I look up and catch an
expression on Brandon’s face that sends a tingle all the way up my spine.
 
It’s the same look he used to give me when we
would lie next to each other in our tent and whisper secrets, filled with
intensity and warmth.
 
For seconds we
just study each other, Sammie and Bran-bran, best friends again.
 
And then, like a fog has passed between us,
it’s gone.
 
“You should go,” he says,
looking towards the door and the officer.
 

I pull a card out of the front pocket of my purse and
slide it across the table to him.
 
“Call
me when you get out,” I say but he doesn’t reach to take the card.

“You take care, Sammie,” he says, and that’s it.
 

Conversation over.
 

Reunion terminated.
 

I stand and pack my things, my throat burning with a
rush of emotion that feels too much for the situation.
 
With so many years between us I shouldn’t
want to cry at what feels like rejection, but I do.
 
I’m back in the body of my younger self,
watching my favorite person in the world leave me behind.

“Bye, Brandon,” I say, the words catching in my tight
throat, and I know I should turn to leave but I just can’t stand the idea that
this might be it.
 
I might never see him
again.
 
I rack my memory trying to find
something to say that might remind him of how things used to be between us, and
that might make me feel less of a stranger to him.
 
“I went to Australia,” I say.
 
“I held a real wombat.”

The police officer clears his throat behind me but I
don’t care if he thinks I’m a freak because Brandon is looking at me like he
remembers.

“I’ll speak to you soon then?” I say with a half-smile
that is all I can manage, and then I turn quickly before I lose all composure,
and am led back out of the station by the officer.

In the waiting area I sit down to rest my trembling
legs.
 
I can’t believe it’s him.
 

My Brandon.
 

My boy.
 

My stepbrother.

 
I swipe at my
face, needing to get it together.
 
First
I call my office and inform my assistant of what has happened.
 
Then I call Adam.

The phone is answered on the first ring but no one
speaks.
 

“Hello, this is Samantha Corrigan.”

“Did you see your client?” the deep, dangerous
sounding voice asks.

“Yes,” I reply, “But he doesn’t want me to represent
him.”

“Why?” he asks crossly, as though he isn’t used to
anyone questioning his wishes.

“He asked for me to call you and let you know you will
need to send someone else,” I say.
 
“I
have the retainer.
 
Can you send someone
to come and collect it?”

“Connor will be there in twenty minutes,” Adam says
and hangs up.

I look at my phone feeling a little stunned and a
whole lot relieved.
 
I’m glad that I
won’t have to deal with Adam again.
 
He
gives me the shivers over the phone so I can’t imagine what he would be like in
person.

True to his word, Connor arrives within twenty minutes
and takes the money.
 
I stand and leave
the station but once I’m outside I can’t bring myself to go and never come
back.
 

Brandon isn’t going to call me, I know this.
 

If I go back to my office now I might never see him
again.
 
He didn’t keep in touch the first
time and that rejection stings just as much now as it did then.
 

If I want to see Brandon, I’m gonna have to force the
issue.

Chapter 3

Brandon

The
attorney Adam sent was Sammie.
 
I’m still
reeling from seeing her walk into this shit hole, done up in her suit with that
long blonde hair resting over her shoulder like a spill of gold.
 
Fuck.
 
She looked so different but just the same with her beautiful warm brown
eyes that were the only ones, apart from my mom’s, that ever looked at me with
love.
 
I mentally calculate how many
years it’s been since I had to leave with my dad.
 
Has it really been that long since Mom died?

I flex my hands that are now bandaged thanks to Sammie
and her demands.
 
I didn’t want the nurse
to fuss over me but I also didn’t want to be an asshole and tell her not to do
her job.
 
I couldn’t get over Sammie and
the way she spoke, filled with authority and professionalism.
 
She’s grown up good.
 
I always knew she would.
 

The room is quiet and it gives me too much time to
dwell on what-ifs.
 
What if Mom hadn’t
died?
 
What if Sammie’s dad Nolan could
have kept me?
 
What if my dad hadn’t
turned out to be such a scumbag?
 

What if?

On the outside I’ve crafted an image to help me fit in
with my world, tattoos and muscles, street clothes and a scowl.
 
I’ve modelled myself on the man I despise
most in the world, the man who took me from a happy home only to neglect me as
a kid and use me as an adult.
 
I’m stuck
in a world I don’t want to be in but there’s nothing for me outside of my
current life.
 

Except Sammie.

I can’t think that way though.
 
Sending her away is the best thing I can do
for both of us.
 
She needs to be dragged
into my shit like she needs a hole in the head and I don’t want to spend my
time thinking about how things might have been different if fate had just passed
me over for once.
 

I shake my head, stunned at the woman she’s
become.
 
She was pretty before but she’s
become a beautiful woman.
 
Her lips were
always sweet but when she smiled at me before she left I couldn’t stop looking
at them.
 
And when she turned to walk out
of the room I noticed just how shapely she’s become.
 

Fuck.
 
I don’t
want to notice that shit.
 
I want to
remember us the way we were before life came along and shaped us for better or
worse.
 

I sit waiting for a while, knowing Adam will be
getting me more representation quickly.
 
He doesn’t want me marinating in a cell, he wants me out there making
him money. I don’t think he’ll be worrying about me spilling secrets but it
will have definitely crossed his mind.
 
He’s a snake like that.
 
I guess
it’s only natural for people to think the worst of others if they know they are
capable of acting that way themselves.

Time passes slowly when you’re faced with nothing but
your own company.
 
I think through song
lyrics in my head, but they all end up being something maudlin like Johnny Cash
‘Hurt’ and Waylon Jennings ‘The Road’.
 
The funny thing is that I wasn’t feeling blue until Sammie walked into
the room.
 
I was feeling antsy for being
locked up, sure.
 
And smug for beating on
that son of a bitch that thought he could shoot off his mouth behind my back
and get away with it.
 
There’s been a bit
too much of that going on lately, with that new crew setting up in the north of
the city, but that shit doesn’t bother me.
 
It’s all in a day’s work, or a night’s scuffle.
 
It’s sweet Sammie that’s left me feeling
down.
 

I know that wasn’t her intention.
 
When she said that thing about the wombat I
wanted to get up and hug her, but there it is.
 
Too many years between us for that kind of thing.

When my attorney finally arrives, I’m out in a flash.
 
Adam’s been working behind the scenes to get
that son of a bitch to say we were messing around, fighting for fun.
 
The cops don’t look happy but there you go.
 
We might be scumbags but that sure helps when
you need to get someone to change their story.

I shake the suited dude’s hand as we exit the secure
part of the PD, and start towards the door, scanning for Connor.
 
I find him in the corner and next to him is
Sammie.
 
I curse under my breath because
she didn’t listen and also because she must have left and come back seeing as
she’s dressed in tight jeans and a loose blousy thing.
 
Her eyes find mine and it’s like a zap of
electricity hits me when I see the longing in them.
 
I can feel how much she wants us to have some
kind of reunion, a trip down memory lane or whatever, maybe because I feel the
same.
 
But the fact that Sammie’s sitting
so close to a lowlife like Connor makes me clench my jaw.
 
I know what he’s capable of and she has no
idea, otherwise she’d be running in the opposite direction.
 

She should be running away from both of us.

Sammie stands and starts towards me, clutching a big
tan purse like it contains the secrets of the universe.

“Brandon, you’re out.
 
What happened in there?”

“Nothing for you to worry about,” I say reaching out
to steer her towards the door.
 
Connor
watches, his all-seeing eyes following us as we step through into the
street.
 
“You need to go, Sammie,” I say.

“I’m not going anywhere, Bran,” she replies, and her
use of my old nickname takes me back to our home and a time when I felt free of
worry and guilt.

“Don’t,” I warn, because I don’t want to feel
weak.
 
I can’t.
 
The only thing keeping everything in place is
the hardness I’ve packed inside me.

“Don’t what?
 
Want to see you and spend time with you after all these years?
 
Don’t care about you?
 
What?” She’s exasperated, folding her arms
across her chest and almost stamping her sandaled foot.
 
The pretty silver chain she has around her
neck glints in the sunlight, the little angel-wing charm so perfectly right for
her.

“Don’t think things can be the same as they were.”

“I’m not stupid Brandon.
 
We’re not kids anymore.
 
I’m well aware of that.”
 
She seems to emphasize our size difference by
making a show of craning her neck to look up at me.
 
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t grab a coffee
and talk.”

“Talk about what?” I ask, thinking that I can’t
remember the last time I sat down and had a talk with anyone about real things,
things that don’t involve the next ‘shipment’ or some problem with a rival
organization that’s trying to encroach on our territory.
 
I’m used to talking about business, sports,
booze and women, and I can’t imagine that any of that would interest Samantha.

“About our lives.
 
About old times,” she says hopefully.

“Old times are best left buried, and our lives
probably don’t belong mixing in any way,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets
and glancing towards the door.
 
Connor
has stayed where he is and I’m grateful that he’s giving me space to put this
to bed.

When I look back at Sammie, her eyes are glassy with
unshed tears and I feel like a total prick.
 
She turns and looks down the road, as though she needs time to compose
herself.

“I missed you,” she says.
 
“So much.
 
But you never called or wrote me.
 
Why didn’t you stay in touch like you promised?”

“It wasn’t because I didn’t care about you,” I say,
and I see her swallow hard, as though she has a matching lump in her throat to
mine.

“I didn’t know how to find you, and by the time I was
grown enough I’d kinda got the hint that you didn’t want to see me
again...”
 

“I did,” I say and I know I’m walking a very fine
line.
 
I need her to understand that I
didn’t forget her but I’m not gonna stand in the streets and spill my guts
about my asshole father and my ragged upbringing.
 
“But what was the point, Sammie?
 
We were living in different worlds.”

“We were still the same people,” she says.
 
“We still are the same people.”

“No,” I say.
 
“I’m not, and that’s why I want you to go, now.”

“Brandon,” she says and reaches out to cup my
cheek.
 
I want to pull back but the
feeling of her soft hand on my skin opens a crack in my heart and I find that I
can’t.
 
I want her tenderness.
 
It’s been so long since anyone touched me
like this.
 
“Please,” she pleads.
 
“Just for tonight, let’s go somewhere.
 
We don’t have to talk about the past or even
the present.
 
We can talk about the
news…anything.
 
Don’t walk out of my life
again.”

I put my hand over hers and we stand, looking at each
other.
 
It’s strange to feel so connected
with someone who’s been a stranger for so long, but I do.
 
It’s like she knows me, the real me, not this
substandard version of myself that I’ve become.
 
And I feel like I know her too, the girl inside this woman’s body who
used to tell me ghost stories and cry in her sleep for her lost mother.

“I need to tell Connor,” I say, gently taking her hand
from my cheek, lowering and allowing it to slip from my grasp.
 
I give in even as I know it’s a mistake.
 

“I’ll wait here,” she says and I turn and go back
through the door.