Chapter 33
33
Brax
I was at the office by seven a.m. By nine a.m. the paperwork was completed and ready to file.
I figured Essie had already left for Lodestar. She hadn’t texted to let me know or ask where I was. That stung more than it should have, considering I hadn’t texted her either.
Just in case she was home waiting for me, I swung by the house. After verifying that her car wasn’t in the garage, I headed straight for Lodestar.
I was going to fix this. I was going to make this right for her.
Her cherry-red SUV was parked right out front of the stables. I didn’t see any sign of her in the training ring, but Pirate’s stall was empty, so maybe she had taken him for a trail ride to stretch his legs. At least I knew she was here and not off plotting Alan’s demise without me.
“About time you showed up here,” Adam said behind me.
I turned slowly to face my brother. He leaned a hip against the stall door. Smug bastard.
“You.” I jabbed my index finger into his chest for emphasis. “You are a fucking traitor.”
“Look, I was going to get you,” Adam protested. “Of course I was. But James wanted the story, and once I told her what was happening, she insisted we call Essie right away. I told her I had promised, but she said if I took one step toward that door, I’d be on the couch tomorrow night.”
“You.” I jabbed my index finger into his chest again. “Are fucking whipped.”
“That I am,” Adam said cheerfully. “Come on. Essie’s out with James, and they won’t be back for a bit. We’ve got some stalls that need mucking.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
Adam shrugged. “Suit yourself. Dad said you were to go up to the main house the second you showed your face, so feel free to mosey on over there and see what he wants to chat about.”
I didn’t have to think long about that.
“Hand me that pitchfork,” I grumbled.
Adam grinned.
We started at the far end, tag teaming each stall rather than working separately. For the first couple minutes, we worked in blessed silence, focusing our efforts—if not our minds—on shoveling shit and spreading clean hay.
But that didn’t last long.
Not that I had expected it to.
“Sure was surprised to get your call last night,” Adam said conversationally. “I never thought I’d see the day when my rule-loving, law-abiding brother spent time behind bars. You want to talk about that?”
“No,” I said. “I do not.”
Adam gave me a long look that clearly said, too bad . I shrugged wearily. “Say it, then.”
“Come on, man.” He shook his head like he was actually disappointed in me. “What the hell were you thinking? Alan Gaffney is trash. Pathetic, drunk trash. You use your brain on someone like that. You ruin their life. What you don’t do is assault them physically. And if you do, you sure as hell don’t send your brothers home first.”
“I’ll tell you what I was thinking,” I growled as I scooped up a steaming pile of shit. “I was thinking, that motherfucker just bit me .”
Adam blinked. “What?”
“I wasn’t going to fight him. You’re right. He’s too pathetic for that. Anyway, Essie was against me smashing my fist into his face. I just wanted to talk to him. Set a boundary. ”
“The kind of boundary I set with Steven MacAllister?” Adam asked drily.
About a year ago, Steven had purposefully spooked a horse James was riding. She had been bucked off and bruised her ribs. She was lucky she hadn’t been hurt worse. Adam had fired Steven—and let him understand that if he ever set foot near James again, he’d be in a body cast.
“Something like that,” I admitted. “But then he bit me on the goddamn shin, and I kicked him. He’s lucky I aimed for his ribs and not his head.”
“He bit you.” Adam’s lip curled in disgust. “That is vile.”
“Still have the teeth marks.” I grimaced and Adam shuddered. “He can press whatever charges he wants, but they won’t stick. I’m not worried about a criminal case.” A civil case might be a different story, but I had a plan for that, too.
We didn’t talk for a couple minutes as I maneuvered the full wheelbarrow outside and dumped it in the manure pile. I paused and looked past the pasture to the copse of trees in the distance. My breath came out in thick puffs of steam in the cold air and I wiped the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve.
Still no sign of Essie.
With a sigh, I turned back to the barn, where more shit awaited me.
“I want to know something, Brax.” Adam rested his hands on the end of the pitchfork and leaned his weight into it.
“Yeah?” I grunted.
“Why did you call me instead of Essie?”
I lowered the pitchfork and looked at him. “Why the hell do you think?”
“I think you’re chickenshit.”
“Well, I’d say that’s about right.” I went back to shoveling.
“She loves you.” Adam spoke quietly. Carefully. “You know that, right?”
I paused. Did I know that? Was it even true? She hadn’t said she loved me. Maybe it’s real was nice to hear, but it wasn’t the same as love. She had loved me, once. Even if she hadn’t fully recognized it then for what it was. I had wrecked that up good.
I was still wrecking things now.
“You remember how close Essie and I were in high school?” I asked. “And then one day we weren’t.”
Adam straightened and his gaze sharpened. “I remember.”
“Essie and I went hiking. We weren’t supposed to. We cut school, even though I promised Jack we wouldn’t. She wasn’t dressed for it. Fucking sneakers with no traction. I warned her.” I shook my head. Hubris. “She was fine. I was the one who screwed up. I was walking backward like an idiot. Not paying attention. I stepped in a sketchy area, too close to the cliff. The ground crumbled beneath me.”
Adam didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just listened.
I swallowed hard. “I should have died. Should have fallen to my death and gotten one of those posthumous Darwin Awards. But she grabbed me and yanked me back. She grabbed me so hard that the momentum of it sent her over. She went over the fucking cliff, Adam.” My voice cracked. All these years later, I could still feel that moment like I was still right there, screaming her name.
“It was my fault,” I said. “My fault she fell. I knew better than to break a rule, but I did it anyway, and that’s what happened.”
Adam was quiet, watching me.
I looked at him, waiting for his condemnation.
“And then?” he asked.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Essie isn’t dead. I just saw her this morning. And you’re not dead, either. So finish the story.”
I barked a laugh. “She survived. She wasn’t even really hurt. She didn’t fall that far before her foot caught on a boulder. The cliff was mostly scree, so it was slippery, but she crawled her ass right back up the cliff. I realized then that it didn’t matter that we were only sixteen. I loved her, she loved me, and it wasn’t the kind of thing that would end when we graduated. But Essie had plans. Big dreams. I couldn’t stand in the way of that. And if I had tried, Jack would have tossed me right over that cliff anyway.”
Adam snorted at that, but he didn’t disagree. He knew Jack.
“I told him I wouldn’t hold her back. I promised him I wouldn’t give her a reason to stay. That’s why we stopped being friends. I couldn’t be around her without telling her how I felt, and if I did that, she wouldn’t have wanted to leave Aspen Springs.” I leaned on my pitchfork. “Fuck.”
“That wasn’t the end, either, because now you’re married,” Adam said. “Finish the story.”
“You know that story. The story is, I fucked up again.” I wanted to kick something, but instead I shoveled another forkful of manure into the wheelbarrow.
“That’s just where you are now. The story isn’t over yet. You keep getting hung up on all the crappy parts. The imperfect parts. And I get it, because I get you , and you’ve always been like this as long as I’ve known you. So damn good, it’s annoying. But everyone messes up sometimes, and you have a damn hard time coming to terms with that for yourself.”
I shrugged. I knew that was true, and there was no sense in denying it. Nothing had made me this way. It was simply who I was. It didn’t matter that I could forgive mistakes in others. I could never forgive them in myself.
“You’re still alive, Brax,” Adam said. “Essie is still alive. And the two of you love each other so damn much, it’s kind of gross to look at, honestly.”
I choked out a laugh. It sure as fuck wasn’t a sob.
My brother had the decency to look away, give me some privacy. “I thought my story was done. James made me realize how ridiculous that was. I learned the hard way that your story, whatever it might be, doesn’t end until you draw your last breath. Even my first marriage…I thought I knew that story, but it wasn’t until years after Emily died that I understood the full truth of it. Your story changes you, but it also changes with you.”
Adam pulled off his work gloves and squeezed my shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to watch Essie go over a cliff. That’s an awful thing to have witnessed, and I can only imagine how you felt when you didn’t know if she was going to live or die. But don’t get stuck there, in that memory. It wasn’t the end. This isn’t the end. You have fucking decades left to finish the story. So what are you going to do?”