Chapter 20
I think about you all the time. We were under gunfire today— shrapnel was flying everywhere and all I could see was your face.
—A letter from Carson Wilder to Perry Bramble
H e and Perry spent the night at his place, in the room he’d shared with Alyssa. Carson didn’t sleep well. He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the window until the light turned gray.
She’d said that she loved him.
He thought he might be dying of something.
Without putting much thought into it, he put his clothes on and drove over to Austin’s. The life of a rancher began early, and he knew his brother would be out working already.
He wasn’t disappointed.
“Howdy,” Carson said as he walked into the barn.
“Hi. Why do you look like you’re about to tell me you’re doing more work for the enemy?”
He frowned. Oh, right. The wagon. Everybody was so upset about that damned wagon. It didn’t matter to him. The Hancock family didn’t matter to him. Well, he still wanted to punch West in the face a little bit. But other than that, they didn’t matter.
“I need to have a talk with you about something. Something big.”
“Okay. What?” Austin looked worried.
“About Perry. I don’t know what … to do.”
Austin turned his face sideways and looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “What?”
“I kissed her.” He cleared his throat. “And then I slept with her. Several times.”
“Lord almighty.”
“Yeah. I … was never going to do that.”
“It’s about damned time, you dumb asshole,” Austin said.
“What?”
“You’re obsessed with her. Your life starts and stops because of her. When you married Alyssa, I figured I was wrong about that. I know you grieved Alyssa but you can’t keep yourself away from Perry. She’s your person.”
She was his person. He knew that. He was on the verge of losing her too. On the verge of her moving and starting a different life and having babies with someone else, and it made him want to die.
“I want her,” he said, and then he gave voice to what had been burning up inside him all night. “And I can’t think of a good reason not to marry her.”
Austin nodded, slowly. “Are you in love with her?”
Everything in him rejected the possibility, just as he hadn’t been able to process her declaration of love last night.
“I don’t need words with her. She’s been there my whole life.” Austin squared off with him, his arms crossed over his broad chest. “Does she need the words?”
“Marrying someone else fractured my relationship with her, and Alyssa’s death didn’t fix it.
Perry was unhappy that I married someone else and now she’s wanting to leave and make a family with someone else.
I have to keep her with me. I’m going to have to sort the logistics of it out after the fact. ”
“Carson, that is not a thing you sort out after the fact.”
“She’s my best friend. If I don’t do something, she’s going to leave. She’s going to move away.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes. Because I don’t know what I would do without her.”
“You like sleeping with her?”
“What kind of question is that?”
Austin shrugged. “It’s a valid one.”
“Yes. I do.” That was underselling it. It was the best sex he’d ever had in his life.
She blew his mind constantly. Not only was it hot, but they also laughed.
They sometimes made each other shake. He had made her cry.
It was everything. Just like they were. He couldn’t even begin to explain it to his brother, and he wasn’t going to try. That was private. It was for them.
“So, the sex is good, you can’t bear the thought of not being with her … but you’re not sure if you love her?”
“I don’t even know what that means. Everyone in our family had such toxic romantic relationships.”
“I’m doing okay.”
“Yes. You’re doing great. But … I’ve been married before. I thought I was in love before.”
“Just because you have feelings for Perry now doesn’t mean you weren’t in love with your wife.”
“You know, I wish that was what I was struggling with. I wasn’t in love with my wife. And I feel awful about that. I just … I’m sorting through that. I don’t know what to do with it. And I don’t know how to feel okay about it. I’m also terrified that I’m walking into a bad situation.”
Austin frowned. “You didn’t love Alyssa? How the hell do you figure that?”
“I just wanted to marry someone I thought could be good for me, and I did. It was selfish as shit. I know that. It’s why I’ve been so …
it’s why I couldn’t seem to get back up again.
Because all I’ve ever wanted is to be better than our dad, and somehow I walked myself right into being him.
I used Alyssa.” He shook his head, something breaking inside him. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Of course you didn’t. You know there’s a big fucking difference between what our dad did—having a wife and kids and continuing to do what he wanted—and being a man who wants to do the right thing, the good thing, and makes a mistake.”
“I guess, but Alyssa knew, Austin.”
“If she hadn’t died, it would have been a divorce, not a tragedy.”
Perry had tried to tell him that. She’d tried to tell him that Alyssa’s life didn’t come down to her relationship with him, but he’d had a hard time accepting that.
This morning, though, he realized it was true.
She’d had a life, a family. There was a reason he’d let her parents bury her back in the place she called home, with her family. It was where her life would have ended if it had only ended at a different time.
He would have been just a bump in the road.
Maybe that’s what she would have been for him too.
He nodded slowly. “I never wanted to be divorced either. I guess it’s hard to come to terms with how much you’ve screwed up … everything. But now I just want Perry with me.”
Austin sighed. “First of all, no situation with you and Perry could ever be terrible. You know her better than you know anybody else in the world.”
“Yeah.”
“She makes you happy.”
He thought of all the years. All the games. All the kisses. All the Perry. “Yes.”
“You don’t have to be scared of being happy.”
His brother’s words felt radical. Maybe they shouldn’t. They did, though.
“Perry’s special. She always has been. I never wanted to protect anything in my whole life—I just wanted to protect myself. And then Perry showed up on the ranch, and I wanted to hang on to her and never let her go. I also thought she should probably run away. But I didn’t want her to.”
“I know what we went through as kids was tough but …”
“What you are you talking about?” Carson asked.
“Mom leaving.”
“She did what she had to do. I’m not happy about it. But I—”
“You can’t tell me that’s not what you see. Whenever somebody leaves.”
He gritted his teeth. “I’ve always figured I needed to be different from Dad. Because women left Dad.”
“That’s true.”
“I want to be the opposite. I want to be Perry’s hero.”
Suddenly, he felt different. Different than he had since Alyssa’s death. He had given up. On everything. And he had decided that he was just going to try to live in the moment. But that wasn’t enough for Perry.
He wanted to give her everything. He wanted to be Perry’s hero.
“Carson …”
“This is going to be … it’s maybe what should’ve happened all along. We fit. It makes sense. I’m going to tell her that.”
“I’d caution you that she might want more romance than this,” Austin said.
Austin didn’t know Perry; Carson did. Because of that special connection.
One that Carson didn’t know how to put into words.
But soon he would have a word for it. Perry was Perry.
His best friend. The person he’d always known.
The one who had always been there. And soon she would be his wife.
He’d had a wife before. But the word would mean something different when it was Perry.
“You don’t know her like I do,” Carson said. “She wants safety and security, and I can give her that.”
Austin gave him a long look. “If you say so.”
“If she’ll have me, I guess I have a wedding to plan. Are you up for being best man?”
Austin smiled. “I’ve never been the best man. But I’ll always be your best man.”