Chapter Seventy-Five
Isla
“I’m not leaving you here.” Wolf’s hands went to his hips as he scanned the cabin that looked even more sparse than it had ten years ago.
“Yes, you are,” I argued, dumping the meager bag of groceries and bottle of wine I’d bought on impulse on the old, chipped counter.
My brother’s judgment came out in full force with his next comment. “You purchased alcohol.”
“I also bought some shitty premade food. You going to comment on that too?” I looked around the musty place and wondered why the hell I’d decided to come back.
“You don’t belong here.”
“It’s our home, Wolf.” It wasn’t. My home was in Miami, and I’d left them.
“You left this place for a reason,” Wolf reminded me.
I looked up at my brother.
Ten years older than me, as handsome as Will, but in his own way, he was protective, honorable, adept at handling almost any situation, and he was steadfast. I suddenly wondered why my brother was alone.
Why he’d chosen a life of solitude. He didn’t have an expiration date—not like me. “Why are you alone?”
His chest rose and fell, and his gaze actually stayed on me. Then his voice became the same kind of soft he used when I was sick. “This is about him.”
“Him, who?”
“The SEAL you ran from.”
We hadn’t spoken about this in three days. Until this moment, I’d avoided the subject matter like my life depended on it. But now, here, in this small cabin that gripped me with huge memories, most of them bad, I couldn’t come up with a valid reason to keep this all inside.
“He has a son,” I admitted.
His gaze locked and aimed at me, Wolf said nothing.
I spilled more emotions I didn’t want to harbor or let go of, but I didn’t know what else to do with them. “He wanted a life with me. A real life, Wolf. Do you know what that feels like?”
“No.”
Shocked by his honesty, by his answering at all, it shoved me out of my own world for a moment. “Is this how we’re destined to be? Always navigating around people, never integrating with them?”
Instead of replying to the question I really wanted the answer to, my brother gave me the brand of practicality that only someone who’d been raised like us, and who’d lived through deployments in Special Forces, could truly understand and vocalize.
“Terrorists have memories, and he has enemies. Whether he wants to admit it or not, he’ll be hunted until he’s dead.
Creating a layer of insulation around his life with Tier Ones and security companies doesn’t mitigate that reality. He can’t step away from that life.”
“How do you know he has companies?”
My brother stared at me.
I admitted what would have been seen as a weakness if our father were here to witness it. A weakness he would’ve taken me to task for. “I felt safe with him.”
My brother replied with both the voice of our upbringing and a practicality I didn’t want to hear. “None of us are ever safe.”
Anger flared. “Then why did you insist I leave that hotel? Why did you warn me off him that night before the doctors’ appointments?”
“You live a certain life, Isla. One you chose.” My brother’s voice was calm. His gaze was as steadfast as I’d internally accused him of being. He was the compass to my chaos. And his next words hurt me more than any others. “Did he respect that?”
Tears welled because I knew what he was saying, and in part, he was right. “I’m allowed to change my mind.” I was allowed to fall in love. Wasn’t I?
“Yes, you are.” Stepping forward, my brother put his hand on my shoulder.
“You can change your mind. You can live any life you want. You can be whoever you want.” Emphasizing his statements, he squeezed my shoulder.
“But would he have truly respected that?” He gave me a pointed look.
“Or would he have wanted you to fit into his world?”
I fought my newfound, wholly unappreciated propensity for tears. “I want to be angry at you.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.”
I drew in a deep breath. “Don’t be nice to me right now.”
“I’m not. I warned you off him because you deserve to live your life, Isla. Not someone else’s. I also know how you’re drawn to, and actively court, a particular type of danger. But that doesn’t mean it’s healthy for you.”
I loved my brother, but in that moment, I didn’t like him.
I also didn’t know if he was right about it not being healthy for me.
And that bothered me as much as the comfort I was now craving.
A kind of comfort I’d lived without for so long that I wasn’t sure I’d ever had it, not until a green-eyed warfighter wrapped me in his embrace.
So how could something that had felt so right be unhealthy? Not that it mattered now.
Choosing not to argue with him, I stepped into my brother’s chest instead and wrapped my arms around him. “I hate this.”
Wolf hugged me back. But he didn’t offer anything else because he’d said his piece, and once my brother did that, he usually left it alone.
He wasn’t like our father. He didn’t berate you until you repeated his narrative.
He didn’t throw you into storming oceans without a life preserver.
He picked you up when you called him, and he drove you to where you wanted to go. And okay, maybe Wolf had a point.
Will definitely wouldn’t have driven me here.
I pushed away from my brother. “You should go. I’ve interrupted your life enough.”
On cue, like the universe had plans that didn’t include me, my brother’s cell phone vibrated from his pocket with a low hum.
Wolf didn’t reach for it. “This isn’t an interruption, Isla.” As if to punctuate his sincerity, his hand landed back on my shoulder, and he squeezed again.
The cell continued to vibrate. “Are you going to get that?”
“No.”
“Why not? It could be important.” Maybe another woman needed him to drive her across the country.
“What’s important is in front of me.”
I loved my brother. So much. “Someday, Trahern Wolf King, you’re going to have to live your life for you.”
“I am living my life, Isla, and I’ll never not have time for you.” His cell stopped vibrating, then started again.
“Go.” I tried to push him toward the door, but my brother was an immovable force. “I know you need to leave, and I need some time alone.”
Reaching into his back pocket, he came away with a new cell phone and, this time, a charging cable. He placed them on the counter. “Hold on to this one for more than a month.”
“I make no promises.”
He shook his head, but then he pulled me into another hug. “Behave.”
I inhaled familiarity, but somehow it was different now. Like distant, different. “Never.”
“Then be you.” My brother stepped back and tipped his chin toward the kitchen behind me. “But don’t drink that wine. You’ll regret it.” Then he turned and walked out of the old cabin.
I grabbed the bottle.