Chapter 15 Dex #2
The place only had a couple of patrons now that it was past the lunch rush and before the dinner crowd.
Aidan refilled condiments at one end of the bar as Cora rolled silverware into napkins next to him.
I could just make out the cook, Fiona, through the pass-through window, washing dishes.
I didn’t see Wylder and knew he was likely in the back, cursing over order forms or bookkeeping. But then, I saw her.
Brae’s hair was out of the two braids now, but her golden strands still held the wave of their earlier arrangement.
They cascaded down her back, falling around her in the kind of curtain I ached to sift through with my fingers.
I wanted to tug the strands so her face tipped back and I could take that perfect damn mouth and—fuck.
I tried to think of anything but what Brae would taste like. Would her morning coffee still cling to her tongue? Or would she taste like pure sunshine?
Because that was what she looked like. A braid at her crown held the waves back, khaki shorts exposed tanned, muscular legs, and she had on those shoes that were an explosion of color. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was Owen who had doodled all over her white high-top Converse.
As if sensing eyes on her, Brae lifted her head. She took me in for a beat of one, two, three as she paused mid-wipe at a table. And then she was striding toward me, tucking the rag into her back pocket.
She might’ve been tiny, but she crossed the distance in the blink of an eye. “What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?” But my voice was too tight, my throat strangling every word.
“Oh, I don’t know, Buttercup. Maybe it’s the fact that you’ve got storms gathering in your eyes. Or that your hands are fisted so tightly, you look like you’re going to break a knuckle. Or that you’re making your earlier glowers and glares look like sunny smiles.”
I wasn’t sure how, but she somehow made me want to smile in that moment. Her no-bullshit, cut-straight-to-the-point-while-giving-me-shit way eased something inside me. The honesty of it.
“Sheriff Miller is a prick.” It was the most honesty I could manage, but it was something.
A hint of surprise hit Brae’s golden eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know.” But those eyes searched deeper, pulling together pieces I both wanted her to see and desperately wanted to hide. “Something he said got to you.”
Right to the point. That was my hellion. Never pulling a damn punch.
“He goes for the jugular every time.” But that wasn’t exactly right. “No, he goes for the sucker punch.”
“He goes for the tender spots. The injured ones,” Brae said softly. Her slender throat worked as she swallowed, and I swore I could feel her warring with herself to let something go. “He almost made me quit looking once. Got me that good.”
“What’d he say?” I had no damn right to ask, but the words tumbled out anyway.
Those golden eyes lifted to mine, darkening with pain and doubt. “Told me I shouldn’t be taking time away from a son who needed me to chase a ghost because I felt guilty. That my kid deserved better.”
A different sort of rage caught fire in my veins. Because I saw exactly the kind of mother Brae was. She was the kind who gave everything for her kid but still second-guessed if it was enough. Because she cared. And that bastard had twisted her up about it.
“He’s a goddamned fool. But a manipulative one. And he loves to get in a kidney shot,” I growled.
Brae’s lips pressed together in a half smile. “Felt more like an ovary punch, but he certainly fights dirty. And he’s smart enough to get in the kill shot, take a half-truth and twist it. Because I do feel guilty.” Those golden eyes turned glassy. “Because I wasn’t there when Nova needed me.”
I stared at her for a long moment and felt the sudden urge to tell her about my past. The excuse my mind made was that someone would.
Hell, Miller had just threatened to do as much.
And countless other residents in Starlight Grove could do the same.
Maybe someone had already let something slip.
As my gaze slid around the mostly empty bar, only a couple of lunch stragglers in a far corner left, I could still feel the possibility of someone telling Brae their version of my story.
But none of that was the real truth. I wanted to give Brae something that would show her she wasn’t alone, even if I couldn’t exactly give that to her. “Half-truths turned to lies,” I rasped.
Brae studied me for a long moment, peeling back the layers I’d become an expert at keeping in place. “What truths does he twist for you?”
That urge to tell her intensified. I’d never wanted to tell a soul. I’d only wanted to bury it deep. But Brae’s vulnerability made me want a piece of that bravery, too. And I didn’t want her to be alone in her pain.
I didn’t look away as I gave her ammunition I never gave people. Because they could use it the way Miller did. The way so many others did—by accident or on purpose. But I handed it to her anyway. “My father…was a serial killer.”