Chapter 6
Jeremiah
It doesn’t take me very long to get her things secured and up on the hill but for some damn reason I’m taking my time getting back to my cabin.
Like I’m terrified of a little woman who barely tops five feet and yet somehow manages to take up all the space in my cabin.
I guess two thousand square feet just isn’t enough space for me and the woman I’ve been in love with since I was sixteen years old. She was only fourteen though so I knew better than to get involved with her.
That and she was my best buddy’s sister and there’s such a thing as the bro code.
You don’t fuck with your buddy’s sister. Ever.
I followed that warning religiously.
Until she graduated from college and I couldn’t stop myself from hunting her down and kissing her senseless. Needing to see if there was anything there.
There sure is. As soon as I felt all those plus curves against my body, my whole system went haywire and she was all I could see, all I could hear.
The little moans she made as her lips opened under mine. The taste of her…like strawberries and champagne. Wild and intoxicating. The sharp sting of her short fingernails as she dug them into my skin, leaving her marks on my shoulders like a brand.
One that I’ve worn since then. No matter how much I wanted to move on. How much I wanted to find another woman and move on from her…I couldn’t. She stole my heart and soul and I just don’t think I’ll ever get it back to give another woman.
It’s going to be hers until the day I leave this earth. I’ll just have to learn to live with it. Live with being half a person for the rest of my days.
My SAT ph0ne rings as I’m sitting on the damp ground, staring down the hill at the broken vehicle that brought her here.
I glance at it and groan, my head falling to my knees. But I know if I don’t answer it, he may end up trying to come up here himself. And he can’t.
And that’s my fault.
“Rand, you fucker. Why the hell did you send your sister up here? She could have been killed!”
He chuckles. “So you’ve seen her. I haven’t been able to get ahold of her for hours now. I know she should have gotten there but I was starting to really get worried.”
“You should have been worried. She totaled her car flying off the mountain,” my voice is bitter and angry. I can still picture it in my head and the way she must have crashed terrifies me.
I could have lost her.
I mean…she’s not mine. She can’t be mine.
But still…I could have lost her.
“What do you mean? Where is she? Is she alright? I’m going to find a ride and be out there as soon as I can.” I hear the frantic tone of his voice and I get it. I’ve been frantic since I found her.
“You don’t need to do that. Right now the mountain is cut off. We’ve had flooding and mudslides. They’ve closed the roads.”
“But is she alright? I need to see her.”
“Maybe she can FaceTime you when she’s feeling better. She hit her head. And she’s probably got a sprained wrist and maybe some bruised ribs.”
“Oh shit,” he breathes. “I can’t believe this! What the hell was I thinking sending her up there?”
“Stop it! She’s fine. And in less than a week she’ll be back home and hating the both of us with a passion for messing her life up.”
“You’re sure she’s alright?”
“She is. She’s kinda testy but then again isn’t she always?”
“Only around you,” he chuckles. But it’s a weak sound, not like his usual good humor. “You know I wouldn’t have sent her up there if you’d have stayed in touch, answered me when I called.”
“I know you think that’s a good excuse but it’s not. You should never have sent her up here to find me. She’s got a life back home that she needs to live for. A good brother.”
“I’m not that good,” he huffs and I can almost see the way his ice-blue eyes twinkle. He and his little sister share the same eyes. It’s always been a sticking point for me. A little weird. But there’s so much more to how I feel about Marina. I fell in love with her way before I should have.
I think when she started following the two of us around when she carried her beat-up old velveteen rabbit, just like the book, I knew there was something special about her.
I just didn’t realize how special she’s be to me. How much I’d need her after awhile.
And how much it would rip my heart out when I realized that I couldn’t hold her back from her future.
“And Marina is not coming home. She’s on her way to a new job in Seattle.”
“She’s driving cross-country? Who the hell thought that was a good idea?”
He snorts. “I’m glad you think there’s somebody out there who can talk her into something or out of it if she’s made up her mind.”
“Why’s she going so far away?”
He sighs, rough and ragged. I can almost hear the pain in his voice this time. And anger. “I can’t tell you that. That’s her story to tell if she chooses to.”
“Then why the hell did you send her up here? If she’s so fragile right now.”
“Because she needs to see you and you need her as well. You’ve dropped out of sight and contact with all your old buddies. I had a feeling that the only person you’d really let get inside that fortress you call a heart is her.”
“You fucker! You know that I don’t want her here. I don’t want her anywhere near me.”
“Which is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of and I’ve told you for the longest time that what happened to me is not your fault. You couldn’t have known that that vehicle I was in would hit that IED. Hell, none of us expected that attack.”
A chill crawls down my spine. I know that for a fact.
All of us were caught off-guard when the insurgents attacked us.
I’d been cut off from my guys. I was hit and thrown from the vehicle when it caught fire.
It was enough to burn me but luckily I kept enough of my senses to stop, drop and roll. Otherwise I’d probably be dead.
Or sitting in a wheelchair like my best bud.
Muffling a groan, I listen to him trying to say all the right things.
It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known what was coming. Hell, I didn’t even know it was coming. And I’d been the one gathering the intel.
I let my guys down and we lost a helluva lot of them because I had trusted my sources and not verified my intel by independent means.
And I’d cost my best friends since grade school something that he can’t get back. Something that made it impossible for me to look him or his sister in the face.
His ability to see. He’s been blind since we got hit.
And just knowing that my fuck-up cost him so dearly was too much for me to get through.
There aren’t enough sorries out there for a man who took something like that from someone.
I refuse to take his little sister too. He needs her more than I do.