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“No,” Charlie said. 

She shrugged despairingly. “He broke her cheekbone. She told everyone that she had opened a door into her face. He apologized, of course, but within a few days he hit her again. Then again. And eventually, he started hitting me and Arthur.”

He could see it in his mind’s eye—a young Briar, all big eyes and blond hair, cowering back from hard fists. The idea made his blood boil. “That’s despicable,” he said, unable to keep the rage out of his voice. 

“I got the least of it. Arthur tried to draw my father’s attention by acting out. He was trying to protect me and my mother. But it didn’t always work.” 

“Someone should have put a stop to it.”

“Who?” she asked, her voice cracking. “He was a war hero, a highly decorated soldier. No one on post was going to interfere with his home life. And my mother didn’t have any family, no real friends yet. No one to turn to for help.”

Charlie was careful to keep his body still. He wanted to tremble with rage, wanted to yell and scream, wanted to drive his fist into a wall as a substitute for punching Briar’s scumbag father in the face. 

Instead, he stroked her hair. 

Finally, he asked, “So what happened next?”

She looked at him. “I don’t want to tell you.”

“I know. But you are going to have to tell me eventually. Might as well be now.”

Her eyes were huge, deep pools where doubt, fear, and hope swirled.

“Why would I have to tell you eventually?”

In response, he tilted her head up and kissed her gently. On some level, he knew that there was no going back after this. If she shared the truth about her past, he would inevitably become part of her future. And he wanted that. He wanted to protect her. Seeing her so vulnerable, so scared, made his heart ache. 

When he broke the kiss, she curled back into his chest. He encircled her in his arms. 

His breath was uneven. He had never felt anything like this, this need to tend and protect. It made him feel strong and vulnerable at once.

Finally, she spoke. “It was a hot night in the middle of summer. It had been hot for days, the sort of heat that makes you feel like you’re baking in an oven. I had this big fan in my room that made a terrible racket, but it was worth it for a breath of cool air.”

He cuddled her closer and waited out her long silence.

“The fan was too loud. That’s why it took me so long to hear the screaming.”

“Who was screaming?”

She was trembling. He could feel her hot tears soaking his shirt. 

“I found out later that my mother had filed for divorce. Some busybody at the courthouse told her husband, and he told someone … it got back to my father somehow. He … he broke my mother’s nose, knocked two of her teeth out. Twisted her arm until it broke. Kicked her so hard in the ribs she was bleeding inside.”

“Oh, baby,” he murmured. 

“And Arthur …,” her voice skittered into a higher register as she tried to force the words out. “Arthur must have seen. He grabbed one of those Nazi knives and started stabbing my father. That’s how I found him. Still stabbing my father, long after he was dead.”

His arm tightened reflexively as he tried to contain his reaction. 

He had known it must be bad for her to bury it this deep. But he hadn’t expected this. 

Her voice was dull as she continued. “The neighbors must have heard something. Eventually the police came. They tried to save my mother, but she died anyway. It took three long, horrible days in the hospital, but she died anyway. No one knew what to do with me. My mother didn’t have any family.”

“Where was Arthur?”

“In a cell.”

“They arrested him? He was defending your mother!”

“It was for his own protection. Something broke inside him,” she said. Her voice was so small he had to strain to hear her. “When the police arrived, they couldn’t get him to put the knife down. For days, he was virtually catatonic. Then he became violent, tried to attack a guard.”

“Why did he do that?

She shrugged again. “He had lost his mind. Who knows what he was thinking?”

“He never got better?”

“He’s been living in Ridge Home, just outside of Denver, for the past nine years. It’s a facility for mental incompetents. They tried everything—drugs, therapy, electroshock. Nothing helped. Nothing changed.”

“So you have been visiting him in Denver.”

She made a small sound of distress. “If you can call it visiting. Most of the time, he doesn’t even know who I am. Sometimes he gets violent. The last time—the day of the festival—he tried to attack me,” she said.

The need to defend her flared inside him. “Attack you how?”

“Oh, with a chair,” she said, with the kind of weary dismissal that told him Arthur had done the same before, or worse. “It’s not his fault. He has delusions. Paranoia. The doctors think it’s good for him to see me.”

“But is it good for you to see him?” 

“How can I not? He’s my brother,” she said simply.

“Still.” He hated the idea of Briar in a room with a madman, even if he was her flesh and blood.

“It’s moot right now anyway. The rockslide. I can’t leave town.”

Charlie paused, thinking. “So covering up for Arthur, covering up what happened, got you started lying. And the rest just spiraled out from that?”

Her words were low and fierce. “I gave us the lives we should have had. My father and mother were happy together before the war. But serving with the army changed my father, changed everything. It took away all of our happiness.”

Privately, Charlie disagreed with her, but he didn’t think it was the moment to bring it up. He reached for her hands. “I understand why you lied. I don’t blame you. And I appreciate you telling me the truth now.”

She laid her forehead against their joined hands. Her shoulders were shaking with sobs. “I miss lying so much. Things were so much easier when I didn’t have to face the truth.”

There was nothing to do but stroke her shoulders as she cried.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Briar

Briar didn’t cry for long. These were old wounds, though deep ones. Plus, she felt faintly embarrassed to be weeping all over Charlie. 

Earlier in the evening she had been frustrated and annoyed with him. It probably wasn’t smart to blubber all over a man who had so recently accused her of telling his secrets. But she couldn’t help herself. 

All the pain she had repressed for years was part of her life again, and it felt especially weighty because she couldn’t talk about it with anyone. Just confessing the truth to Charlie had lifted part of her burden.

It was dark on the glider, deep in the shadow of Charlie’s front porch. Somehow the darkness had made it easier for her to confess to him. 

As her tears subsided, she noticed the smell of him—soap and man. Her arms were wrapped around his slim torso, and the heat of his body made her feel safe and secure. 

But the longer he was silent, the less secure she felt. What if she had scared him off with her story?

When she couldn’t take it any longer, she pushed back from him and wiped her eyes. “I should go.”

“What? No way,” he said, snuggling her closer. 

“But … your parents.”

“They sleep like the dead, and their bedroom is in the back of the house. If you listen closely, you can hear my mom snoring.”

Briar was silent for a moment, then started to giggle when she realized that the low sound she had taken to be a faraway engine was actually coming from inside Charlie’s house.

He grinned at her. It was just a flash of teeth in the dark, but her wrung-out heart suddenly pulsed back to life. The rush of happiness after the agonizing sorrow was like finding an oasis in the desert.

“I’m thinking about this army thing,” Charlie said, oblivious to what was going on inside her. “It’s all about carefully crafted truths, right? Like, you can’t say that you don’t have powers. But you could say that you didn’t go to the festival, right?”

“I guess.”

“Okay. So if the army does start testing everyone with O-negative blood, all you have to say is you don’t have a power like the other people in town. That’s true, right?”

He looked so enthusiastic, she hated to disappoint him. “I don’t think that would last for long. Every question they ask is a new opportunity to make a mistake.”

“Well, we can practice anyway. I’ll help you come up with some phrases. And who knows, maybe they won’t ever make the connection.”

“Maybe they’ve already made it,” she countered. “Maybe this is just the first phase of testing. Wouldn’t it make sense to check everyone in town, in case there are other people who have latent abilities?”

Charlie blew out a breath. “Yeah, that would make sense. I just wish I knew what they knew, you know?”

She smiled a little at his phrasing. “Yes, I do.”

Charlie angled his wrist in the dark, trying to get a look at his watch. “Shoot. I’m supposed to meet Will at the mine soon.”

“The mine?”

He nodded. “We couldn’t really talk today at the clinic. But he’s been pushing me to keep my power a secret. He’s really worried about the way the town is treating people with powers.”

“So am I. I thought things would get better after the mayor’s speech. But after that article in the paper, and the announcement today about medical testing, I think people are more suspicious than ever.”

“Damn.”

She gave him a sharp look to remind him how she felt about swearing, then continued. “If Norine and Patrice are any indication, people think there must be something really wrong if the army is doing medical testing. Like maybe people with powers are dangerous. Or contagious.”

Charlie snorted. “That’s ridiculous. We all inhaled that fog. If anyone else were going to develop powers, it would have happened already.”

“There’s a lot of strange things happening,” Briar replied. “And don’t forget—two people have already died. It’s not ridiculous to be afraid.”

He was looking at her oddly. “Have you tried to tell Norine about your powers?”

Briar sighed. “Yes. Not that it did me any good. She doesn’t believe me.”

“She mentioned it to me today.”

Briar wasn’t sure which bothered her more—the idea that Norine was telling people her secret, or that Norine was having private chats with Charlie. “Patrice knows too. Or at least, I told her today. She doesn’t believe me either.” 

“That might work to your advantage,” he said with an arch look. “I know your reputation makes things hard on you, but in this case it might be a good thing if everyone assumes you’re lying.”

She couldn’t deny his logic, but it hurt to acknowledge he was right. “Norine probably told Mitzi and Rhonda already. She can’t resist good gossip.” 

“People will assume that’s all it is. Gossip.”

“I tried to tell Clayton Briggs the other day. Do you think he’ll tell anyone?”

“You can trust Clay,” Charlie assured her. 

Briar knew he was telling the truth, but in her current state of mind she wasn’t inclined to believe him. The very thought of her powers getting back to the army had panic spurting inside her. “I never thought I’d be grateful that everyone in town thinks I’m an incorrigible liar.”

“Hey,” he said, turning her to look at him. “I believe you. I trust you. And you know that’s true.”

His words sounded clear and unblemished to her ears. He dropped a kiss on her lips.

She could tell he meant for it to be comforting, a sign of support. But his simple words meant so much to her that she pressed her body against him, deepening the kiss. 

She could feel his hesitation in the rigid way he kept his hands at her lower back. Impatient, she shoved the shawl off her shoulders and slipped her arms around him, drawing him closer. 

He managed to tear his mouth from hers. “You … we … we shouldn’t. Not tonight. You’re vulnerable. You don’t know what you want.” 

She didn’t feel vulnerable. Sharing her secret with someone else made her feel inexplicably powerful. Her heart felt hollowed out, as if she had emptied out all the sadness. She wanted to fill it with him.

She lowered her head to his neck and kissed below his ear. His involuntary gasp was gratifying, so she kissed it again. 

His hands were moving now, stroking over her back and shoulders and into her hair. He was nearly panting when he said, “We should go inside. We should go somewhere.”

“Why?” she said innocently as she pulled his shirt out of his pants. She ran her palms across his abdomen until her fingers tickled the thin line of hair that arrowed beneath his belt buckle. “It’s dark,” she whispered in his ear. “There’s no one on the street. And I have to touch you.”

“Oh my God,” he groaned, letting his head drop back. 

He took two short breaths and then pushed Briar’s hands behind her back, encircling both wrists in one big hand. “Briar, last chance. You’re making me wild.”

No, she definitely didn’t feel vulnerable. The way Charlie looked at her made her feel confident and powerful. He wanted her body, sure; but he also wanted her history, her truths. He wanted all of her, and she wanted to give it to him. 

Her smile was slow and sensual as she tipped her head to the side. “Funny, that was exactly my intention. Do you think you can do the same to me?” 

He raked his gaze down her body. She was arched toward him with her hands pinned behind her back, her breasts thrust toward him. Slowly, he ran his free hand down the center of her body from her breastbone to her belly, causing them both to moan. “Well, I certainly intend to try,” he said roughly, then closed his mouth over her hard nipple. 

She gasped in shock. No matter how hard she pressed her lips together, the sound kept coming as he raked his teeth over her through the damp satin. She could feel the rasp of his stubble through the thin fabric. She arched into him, wanting more, wanting her hands free so she could hold him there, right there.

“Charlie. Please let go of my hands.”

He shook his head. “Not yet. You drive me crazy, and this will be over way too fast if I give you free rein.”