Heart of Integrity (Hearts of the West, #2)

Chapter 6

Ifor strolled merrily along the main street of Lone Pine, whistling an old Welsh lullaby that was as dear to him as the memory of the mother who sang it to him.

He inhaled a happy breath. Susan was coming to church this Sunday.

He hadn’t wanted to leave the post office. There was something warm and kind about her, though at the same time, something shy and uncertain. He’d noticed something—a strange flicker in her eyes when he’d called her father a nice man.

Perhaps their relationship was a troubled one. After all, it was only dawning on him now that she’d traveled here all by herself—halfway across the world. And her father’s appearance had been a surprise, she’d said. Which must mean she’d been intending to live here all on her own.

Unease flitted into his heart as he remembered his own experiences of a troubled relationship.

Next week would mark two years since the death of his brother, Rhys.

Two years of carrying the shame of his debauched end, and navigating all the grief and confusion that had rocked him and his father to their cores.

He’d suspected something had been amiss, but never could he have fathomed what the truth had turned out to be.

His stomach knotted with nausea. How had Rhys gone so wildly astray? They’d been the best of friends as boys. With only a year and a half between them, they’d been practically inseparable. But the fracture had started to seep in during their teenage years. And after their mother’s death, their increasingly-strained relationship had broken fully. Rhys had drifted farther away from him—and from their father. And no amount of pleading or affection had been able to reach him.

He’d known of people who had gone off the rails before. A hushed-up uncle nursing an addiction. A villager who’d defied the expectations of honor and faithfulness. But his own brother had eclipsed them all by his profligacy.

The drinking had been the first thing. Before he’d stormed out and left home, Rhys had been knocking back more and more alcohol, trying to hide its obvious effects without much success. Then the rage had seemed to break loose from deep within him.

They’d all been grieving deeply after their loss. But while he and his father coped by shedding private tears and sharing public memories, Rhys had bottled it all up until there’d been nowhere left for it to go but right back out with alarming velocity. And viciousness.

They’d tried to help him, but he’d refused it. The clergyman hadn’t been able to get through to him either. That night...the things Rhys had said...it was horrid to think of, even now, almost two years later. Time hadn’t erased the shock or shame at all. Not of that.

Nor of the tragic culmination of Rhys’s reckless choices.

Ifor blinked back tears. He’d been the one to find him. Him—and her. The wife of Rhys’s employer. It had been no small surprise that he hadn’t lost his job, given all the days he’d made mistakes in the factory due to his drinking excesses. But that day, when he’d walked into Rhys’s little apartment...

Ifor closed his eyes against the abhorrent memories.

He hadn’t known that would be the last time he’d see his brother alive. Didn’t notice the large, fast-moving man who’d entered the building shortly after he’d left. The man who’d emptied his pistol into his brother’s chest—just asRhys had fired a fatal shot at the cuckolded man, too.

But he’d heard about it that evening. The whole village had.

And they’d been whispering about it ever since.

After the hardly-attended funeral, he and his father had hoped the looks of disapproval and words of condemnation would’ve abated. After all, it was Rhys who’d done all those terrible things—not him. Not his father.

But the blame had settled on their own shoulders. And it had taken crossing an ocean to try to remove it.

Yet, two years on, it only seemed to have taken deeper root.

And, secretly, he feared he’d never be able to break free from its weight.