37. Nash
THIRTY-SEVEN
NASH
Okay, this woman was off her literal rocker this time.
I could play along with the self-sacrificing shit from Rowan; hell, I’d lived with it for years. But I’d be damned if I let her do the same thing.
I could only suffer one idiot in the family, thank you.
I tailed her around the corner and down two flights of stairs until she stopped in her tracks in front of the fucking double doors leading outside.
She didn’t move.
I waited for what felt like an eternity, yet all she did was stand there and stare at her opportunity for freedom. Why wasn’t she moving? Why didn’t she run?
What kept her here? And why the fuck had I followed her, knowing I needed to keep my distance?
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Bonnie and Clyde, the tag team duo who were known as the absolute worst of the bunch in the Guild, heading straight for her. And they were never good news. Nothing about that duo was good anything.
I had to get Harper out of their line of sight, and fast.
"Harpie girl."
The words were barely more than a whisper, but they jolted her out of her stupor and dragged her eyes to me in a flash. She blinked slowly, like she couldn’t see me, and then her eyes met mine and I could see the fresh tears swimming in their depths, barely avoiding spilling over her lower lashes.
"Nash?"
My nod was slow and calculated, hand outstretched as I inched toward her so I wouldn’t spook her. "Yeah, it’s me. We gotta get you out of here before trouble shows up, you hear me?" I motioned her over, but she didn’t move, her eyes trained on something just over my shoulder. "Harpie girl, come on. Come to me."
And then this woman did the single most idiotic thing I’d ever seen her do in her life.
She turned, bolted right out the front fucking doors, and disappeared from sight.
Fuck me.
Now, normally, I could catch a mark. That was typically no trouble because most of them lived sedentary lifestyles. But Harper had run track in high school, and she held several records for the region. She couldn’t be caught if she didn’t want to be.
And I seriously doubted anything had changed in the seven years since I’d last played tag with this bitch.
Fucking hell, man.
The muscles in my legs burned with every step I took, legs stretching as far as they would go as I utilized my longer legs to catch up to her. Every time she rounded a corner or a bush, I lost seconds of time trying to cut her off. But I knew these grounds like they were—well, like they were my home, because they were. I let her think she’d worn me down, and when I bent over and pretended to suck wind, I caught the faint glimmer of her bracelet shimmering in the moonlight. Dark had just fallen, but the full moon was out in all its glory, so finding her wasn’t hard.
She’d ducked behind a tree, no doubt catching her own breath. But Harper had been a short-distance runner. Her stamina wasn’t built up like mine. I might not be as fast, but I could run for hours without taking a break.
All that time I’d spent running from my past had trained me well.
"Harper, c’mon, now, don’t do me like this," I called, giving my voice a breathless rasp, taking pauses between words. "It’s not safe out here for you."
"It’s not safe inside, either, is it, Nashville?" she taunted back, her breathing labored. "I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Why not just let your father kill me and get it over with? "
"He’s not calling the shots here, Harpie girl. He doesn’t get to take your life away unless we say so."
That was, of course, the single most stupid thing I could have said.
Her laughter was high-pitched and further away from me than her last sentence, alerting me to the fact that she’d moved positions. From just off to my left, her voice echoed among the trees. "What an alternative. Trust the men who killed me seven years ago to keep me safe from the man who wants to kill me for my mother’s money. Sounds so smart."
She had a point. I inched toward where I heard her voice, hoping I was right. "We don’t want you dead, Harper. We wanna keep you safe."
Now, her voice was almost as clear as a bell from my right. "What a bold lie. You said you wanted to hurt me."
Fuck, was this girl a ventriloquist? She threw her voice like a pro. "You’re right. I did want to hurt you. I still do. I’m a fucked-up asshole, Harper, I never denied that. But you have to trust someone. And at least I’m honest about what I want."
"I don’t need anyone. I lived seven years just fine on my own, and tomorrow, I’ll go back to that life and do it all over again."
That realization hit me like a ton of bricks in the chest. She was right; in less than twenty-four hours, she’d be going back to her life, and we’d be left picking up the pieces she left scattered on the floor. So what did it matter now what she did?
I couldn’t answer that, for fear I wouldn’t like the answer.
"Harper," I tried again, aiming for her weak points, "don’t make Rowan worry."
A flash of white around the edge of a high bush alerted me to her location. I did my best not to give away that I could see her. "He’ll survive. Hell, he’s going to sacrifice his whole life for mine. Why does he get to be the only self-sacrificing asshole around here? Why can’t I solve all your problems and walk away?"
I stepped a foot in her direction and lowered my voice, pretending to be further away as I closed in on her. "I’m tired, Harpie girl. Let’s not argue out here anymore. Let’s go back inside, and you can yell at me until you’re out of air for all I care."
She shifted against the trunk of a nearby tree, and I inched closer again, holding my breath as she worked out another response in her head.
I lunged a second too late.
She had just opened her mouth and turned in my direction, and spotted me just inches away from her. The fucking girl bolted like a rabbit chased by a fox, and now I was left chasing her again. This time, though, I could tell she’d lost some of her speed, so I gained on her in no time.
I caught her just as she rounded the corner to the back field, and we went down in a tangle of limbs, rolling right into the fucking fountain at the edge of the courtyard.
Great, now we’re all wet.
Not how I planned to spend my fucking night.
I could feel the curves of her body against mine as she bucked and fought me, squeals of indignation punctuating her yelps of pain and insistent demands to be let go. Fuck, with every second she stayed in my grip, my cock grew harder, obviously not satisfied with our little tryst the other night at the end of that leash and collar.
I didn’t want to want her. I didn’t deserve her. But at the same damn time, she was everything I wanted in one fiery, fierce, stubborn package.
"Fuck you, Harper," I spat, grabbing her by the wrists to pin them to her sides. "Stop squirming."
She huffed in indignation and turned those stunning baby blues on me, shimmering with those tears as they finally fell, coating her soft skin with tracks of pain and agony and defeat. "I hate you, Nashville Blackwood. I hate all of you."
I threw her over my shoulder with a grunt, pretending it wasn’t effortless to lift her lithe body in my arms. "Yeah, most people do. What’s one more?"
I couldn’t let her know how those words stung, how they carved a hole in my fucking heart and scooped out the last of my humanity. She thought I was a monster. I had to make her think she was right.
If she hated me, she wouldn’t miss me.
That’d be best for her. To forget us all when she left and never speak a word to anyone about where she’d been or who she’d been with. She didn’t need a bunch of broken dolls in her dollhouse. She could go somewhere, do something, when that money hit her accounts. Tomorrow, she could claim it and get far the fuck away from here if she wanted to.
Away from Port Wylde and all the bad memories it housed for her. For us.
She fought me valiantly as I took the stairs two at a time, but when I burst back through the door and kicked it closed behind me, she didn’t fight. She just let me carry her over to the kitchen counter, where I sat her as I snapped at my youngest brother.
"Bring me a bath towel or two, Ro."
His eyes skimmed over the two of us, and the asshole had the nerve to burst into laughter as he disappeared into his office and beyond. When he returned, he had two towels in hand, and he threw one at me as he made to move toward her with the other.
I couldn’t let him steal my thunder. If this was the last night I could touch her, have her near me, then I wasn’t about to waste a single moment of it.
The soft fabric tickled my hands as I tossed it on her head and turned her into a temporary ghost, rubbing viciously at her black mop of wet hair despite her protests.
"Nash, stop—wait, dammit, you’re fucking my hair up— Nash!"
She fought me for control and in our scuffle, it opened up an opportunity for Angel to butt his ass in. He yanked the towel from my grip in a flash, then set to work tugging loose her ponytail as she straightened her spine and sat still as a statue for him. When those wet strands of black hair fell against her throat, clung to the side of her face, she watched me watch her face as Angel tugged sections of it free and gently patted it dry with the towel now in his possession.
Fucker had to steal my chance, too. Of course he did.
Angel took all the fun out of things.
"You’re going to give the poor girl split ends if you torture her hair like you do yours, Nash," he grumbled, singularly focused on his task.
I took the moment of distraction to step between her legs, relishing the feel of them spreading around my hips as I closed the distance between us. Her eyes danced with an inner fire and fierceness that had me sticking my tongue out at her, and she returned the gesture in kind with a light chuckle that gave me hope she’d be okay when we were gone from her life again.
It simultaneously tore at my insides, too. I wanted to hear that laugh every day. And instead, I was forced to bank every sound, sigh, and step she made in my mind, to keep me warm in the cold when she left us.
"There," Angel announced, tossing the towel around her shoulders. "All finished."
Harper patted the top of her head and smiled, but that grin of appreciation wasn’t for me. It was for my arrogant, vain brother, who didn’t even appreciate it.
He wasn’t even looking at her anymore.
Angel had turned around already and marched off to the couch in the other room, plunking down next to Rowan with a groan.
I watched Harper’s gaze follow him, and my heart broke for her. She’d been trying to find the old Angel buried under years of self-flagellation and masking, and he was determined not to show him to her. He pretended that part of him was dead, but I knew better. Angel hadn’t changed a bit, but I couldn’t just tell her that and expect her to believe me. And their problems were none of my own. I had enough shit on my plate. I didn’t need to add his to it.
Nobody spoke for a long time, too involved and caught up in the idea of time running out on our little arrangement. I think a part of all of us was afraid to ruin the moment by saying something wrong, really. That and none of us knew what to say in this sort of situation.
Here’s to the last night you’ll ever have to spend with us?
Happy Birthday and see you later?
Please don’t leave us?
The whole thought sounded and felt too sentimental and painful to examine. So I did what I always did best, and I buried that shit so far down it had no chance of surfacing while we were alive.
And then I reached under the counter where she sat, pulled out a bottle of fire whiskey and four shot glasses, and grinned widely.
When all else fails, pull out the good booze and get wasted.
"Who wants to do shots?"