Chapter 10 Taryn
Taryn
I watch him walk away, half horrified and half…
Half I don’t even know what, honestly. Because what the fuck was that? One minute I was trying to push my way into getting to shoot, and yeah, it was a little flirty but no big deal, and the next…
The next, he was standing behind me with his arms wrapped around me like he belonged there. Grabbing me and pulling me back against him like he had any right to my body. Rocking against me, his cock hard and ready, his body telling me exactly what he wanted.
What he remembered.
And my body had responded, coming alive in a way I haven’t felt in ages.
I’ve been living with a fine tremor for four years now, the shake so constant that at some point, I learned to ignore it.
Mostly. But it’s always there, the inability to sit still.
The movement whenever I reach out and have to try to hold my hands steady.
When I showed my mother, she wrote it off as nerves and told me to get on medication for my anxiety.
She said it didn’t matter, and then turned away and went back to her life.
The way she always does.
But Gabe’s big, rough hands on mine, his skin pressing against me, had calmed the shake immediately. And just like that, I’d been solid again. Standing on ground I understood, able to keep my knees locked and my hands still. Able to stop panicking and just be.
And then he disappeared and left me standing alone, and when I turned to ask where he’d gone, he was storming out of the room like someone had offended him.
I guess it must have been me, as I’m the only other person here, and the thought that he’s running away from me after that moment of security hits me right in the heart.
I was standing there taking comfort in his big, heavy presence, and he was evidently hating it so much that he couldn’t stand to stay.
I blow out slowly at that and press my hands against the gun, trying to catalogue all the emotions running through me and put them in their place.
Anger, hurt, betrayal, a deep sorrow, and the feeling—that ever-present feeling—that once again, I’m not enough for someone. Not enough to make them stay.
Not enough to matter.
God, I wish I had the bag I keep in my bathroom for situations like this. It’s my comfort when the emotions are too big to hold on my own. My best coping mechanism. And right now, when I’m having the biggest emotions I’ve had in years, it’s sitting in my suitcase, completely useless.
I just didn’t think I’d need it for a simple trip to town.
But I didn’t see Gabe deciding to cut through all the walls I’ve been building and right into my soul. I didn’t expect him to be the security I’ve been looking for.
Still. I know how to do this. I’ve spent years in therapy learning how to do this. I breathe deeply for a moment, finding all the feelings and putting them in their place. Carefully erecting new boundaries. Putting up a few walls to protect myself.
And then I follow him through the door, dropping the gun and earmuffs on a table I assume is the right place. Gabe has already left the hardware store, and I find him standing outside next to the truck. He looks angry and confused and, if I’m not mistaken, more than a little conflicted.
Good. I hope he’s half as conflicted as I am. Because now that I’m out here, I have two thoughts. One: I want to run right into his arms again, because he’s the only person who has ever felt like home to me, and I’m desperate for that comfort.
Two: He’s my fucking stepbrother, and there are some lines you just don’t cross. Regardless of what your heart wants. Regardless of whether or not we started crossing them when we were kids.
I press my lips together, throw my shoulders back, and get ready to act like I don’t care that he just rejected me.
I need something to talk about, though; something other than what happened in the shooting range.
Glancing at the axe in the back of his truck, I realize it’s the perfect opening.
Because I’ve forgotten about the one thing I haven’t seen yet.
“So when are you going to take me to your shop?” I ask.
He jerks like I’ve just hit him. Like I actually managed to take him by surprise.
Good.
“Shop?” he asks, like he’s never heard the word.
“Yes, shop. You know, that place where you and Gunner supposedly work? The one I was never allowed to visit when I lived here?”
His expression shutters like he’s just remembered we’re not supposed to be talking at all. “You’re not allowed in there.”
I pick up the axe and swing it casually, like I might decide to go chop something. A tree. His truck.
Him.
“And yet your dad told you to show me around. Get to know me again. Figure out what I’m up to. Take me to your shop and I just might tell you. Besides, it’s a family affair, right? And I’m part of your family. Stepsister.”
“Ex-stepsister,” he clarifies.
I grin, because this is starting to feel like an inside joke, and it turns out I like inside jokes with him.
“Ex-stepsister who still wants to see the shop you never showed her. I mean at this point I’m starting to doubt you guys even cut wood or make furniture.
Maybe the so-called shop is something a whole lot more questionable.
A sex shop? A porn studio? Something… worse? ”
I widen my eyes at that, pretending absolute horror at the possibility, and Gabe’s expression finally lightens up.
“Oh my God, fine,” he mutters, but a grin catches at the corner of his mouth and his eyes sparkle.
Just like I hoped they would.
Because this boy might think I’ve forgotten everything I ever learned about him, but I know him inside and out. His hair might have changed color, and he may have grown taller and broader. He definitely thinks he can hide his feelings better than he used to.
But in moments like these, I can still see right through him.
And I definitely know how to make him do what I want.
Now if only I could manage the same with Gunner.
* * *
We drive to the shop, which seems crazy as it’s only three blocks down and up a smaller side street off the main drag.
The moment we pull up and I open the door of the truck, I can smell it.
The entire neighborhood smells like fresh-cut wood and varnish, with a note of whatever lubricant they use for the electric tools underneath.
It’s rich and homey in the sharp, cold air, and it smells like…
“It smells like Christmas out here,” I say without thinking.
Gabe casts me an amused side eye. “That’s awfully romantic. It just smells like wood.”
“Like Christmas,” I say firmly. “Like the Hawkes.”
“So now the Hawkes smell like Christmas? What are we, Santa Claus?”
“Maybe you are,” I say, laughing. “Gunner’s got the beard for it. And didn’t St. Nick start out as a redhead?”
Gabe’s laugh is loud and full now, and a thrill runs through me at having caused it. He doesn’t seem like he laughs much anymore, and the fact that I’ve got him doing it already feels like a victory.
“Not my dad. He would never.”
I scoff at that. The first day I moved to Wood, Gunner took me out to show me around.
He loaded me into a four-wheeler with Gabe and drove us into the forest to find dead wood and take care of it.
At the time I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he showed me a felled tree and told me it couldn’t stay there because it was a fire hazard and would crowd the living trees out.
He brought out an enormous axe, swung it around like a toothpick, and then handed it to me, telling me to try using it on the tree.
He’d laughed like a boy when I tried and missed the tree entirely, burying the nose of the blade in the ground next to it.
I smile at the memory and receive a sharp poke in the ribs.
“What are you smiling at?” Gabe asks quietly.
I recite the memory for him, my voice full of the warmth of the past, but he shakes his head.
“That’s not who he is anymore, Taryn. He doesn’t laugh. Barely smiles. All unyielding rock. He doesn’t care what anyone else does or how they feel. I don’t even think he feels anything himself, these days.”
His voice is despondent, nearly hopeless, and for the first time, I start to see into the depths of him.
Past the mask he wears and past even the flirtatious version of him that I’ve worked so hard to bring up.
This is deeper and darker, more wounded.
I know he and Gunner don’t get along well anymore, but this feels harsher than that.
This feels like they’ve lost each other, and only Gabe has noticed it.
Their relationship is even more damaged than I thought. And it’s killing Gabe.
God, no wonder he doesn’t smile as easily as he used to. He’s up here on the mountain with only his father, and his father has disappeared on him. He doesn’t have any family around him.
Except me. His ex-stepsister.
He looks up and notices me looking at him, and suddenly the mask snaps back into place and he’s a fucking liar again. All smiles and charm. Nothing genuine.
Nothing real.
“Let’s go,” he snaps.
“Terrific,” I answer, getting out of the truck. I strap my own mask—the one I’ve worked so hard to learn in the face of my mother’s lack of empathy and my new stepfather’s creepiness—into place as well and make sure it’s on tight.
Because if Gabe isn’t going to play fair, then neither am I.
If he’s going to keep himself hidden, then I can’t show him any vulnerability, either. Doing that would just get me hurt.
And I get enough of that in New York.