Hurricane Hearts

by Nina Levine

  She sat next to me and squeezed his hand. “Whatever you need, I’m here. Don’t think that just because Winter and I aren’t together anymore that I don’t care, because I do.”

  “I know.” He swallowed hard, unable to conceal his emotions. It was the first time in my life I’d seen Max struggle with them. However, he quickly pushed past them and looked at me. “I’ve been in touch with the funeral director. We’ve got an appointment with him this afternoon to go over everything. We’re thinking Tuesday for the funeral.”

  I processed everything he said and read between the lines. Melissa wanted us gone as soon as possible.

  Taking a long, slow drink of coffee, I stalled while figuring out how best to broach the subject that had to be discussed. When I had my thoughts in order, I placed my mug down on the coaster in front of me. Melissa was fucking anal about using them. We’d had numerous arguments over those damn things, but if there was one thing I was well trained in, it was picking my battles. This was a battle I didn’t need on this trip, so I used the coaster.

  “We need to go over Dad’s will,” I said, fully anticipating the heavy silence that followed.

  “Dad’s will?” I felt every ounce of weight in his question. Max knew nothing of the will.

  “Yes. His lawyer has it, but there’s also a copy in his safe.”

  Max’s eyes bored into mine, his expression darkening with every intense second that passed between us. This wasn’t a moment I’d ever looked forward to. In fact, I’d tried to convince Dad to tell Max about the will, but he’d refused. He hadn’t wanted Melissa anywhere near it until it was too late to alter the document.

  “You’re fucking kidding.” He shoved his chair out and shot to his feet. Nostrils flaring, he unfurled some of his caged emotions. “This is just like you two. Always fucking plotting behind mine and Mel’s back with family stuff we should have been a part of.” He stabbed his fingers through his hair and exhaled his rage and resentment. “Fuck! What the fuck’s in this will, Matt?”

  Birdie settled her hand on my leg. It was a connection, a show of support that I really fucking appreciated. She was the only person in the world who knew the intricacies and difficulties of my family relationships.

  She’d been there when Max and I had fallen out for a couple of months before his wedding. She’d helped me piece our relationship back together and rebuild it over the years.

  She’d taken my back when Melissa had tried to cut me out of my brother’s life when they’d had their first child. Every action Melissa took, Birdie shut down. She’d saved Max and me without him even knowing what was going on behind closed doors.

  And when it came to my father and the difficult relationship he had with Max, Birdie had been right there helping Dad see all the sides to their troubles. Fuck, she’d glued us all back together more times than I could count. How we’d managed to get through the last five years without her, I had no fucking idea. But then, here we were. Broken. So essentially, we hadn’t gotten through those years very well at all.

  I covered Birdie’s hand with mine as I said, “I honestly don’t know for sure. He talked about changing it a couple of months ago and I don’t know if he did or not.”

  “Jesus, Matt, just tell me what was in it.”

  “There’s no point if it’s changed. I’ll head over to Dad’s place and get it—”

  “Fuck that. We’ll both go.” He jabbed his finger in the air at me. “Right fucking now.”

  Money and belongings meant very little to me, and I detested the way death and wills brought out the worst in people. This wasn’t Max talking. Not the Max I’d grown up with, anyway. But I guessed that was the thing: people changed over the years, and it mattered who was allowed to influence that change.

  “It can wait, Max.”

  He shook his head, almost violently. “No.”

  Something was off here. He appeared a little unnerved over this. Panicked maybe. I leant forward, concerned. “What’s going on with you? Is everything okay?” We hadn’t talked for a couple of weeks, and the last time we did chat, he’d been distracted. When I’d asked him what by, he’d brushed it off. Told me everything was good. But looking at him now and listening to the tone of his voice, I wasn’t convinced.

  “The only thing going on with me is that you and Dad kept stuff from me. How the fuck would you like to be surprised like this?”

  “I don’t believe you, big brother. Is it Melissa? Is everything good there?” I knew he’d hate that question, but it had to be asked.

  Predictably, his face pulled into a scowl and he snapped, “Everything’s good, but FYI, being married brings responsibilities with it that would be a lot easier to take care of if I knew what was going on with things in my own family.”

  Birdie knew me like she knew the back of her hand, so she didn’t need to be told that statement would piss me off. She gripped my leg harder, causing me to slow my mouth down, which was her intention. However, this time it didn’t shut me down completely. This time, I wasn’t letting shit slide.

  “How about you tell me about those responsibilities, Max? Make me see exactly what you’re dealing with here. Because, quite fucking honestly, I don’t know any other married man who deals with a wife like yours.”

  Fuck.

  Not the way I’d wanted today to go. Not by a long shot. But after thirteen years of this, it was way past time to call bullshit and try to get my brother to open his eyes to his marriage.

  The way he stared at me with both bitterness and denial told me we wouldn’t be getting far with this today. And when a knock sounded on the front door, I knew the conversation was dead for now.

  “I’m going to see who that is. I suggest you step out for a bit. Give me some time to calm down. And then we’ll head over to Dad’s.”

  With that, he exited the room, leaving me feeling like my chest was about to explode. There were far too many years behind us filled with these kinds of moments. The kind where we were almost at the edge of no return with feelings and hurts and grudges and needs about to be laid out on the table, only to be packed back up and shoved into the dark recesses of our souls, never to be excavated again.

  I couldn’t do it again.

  I refused to do it again.

  This would be the trip where it all came out. Good or fucking bad, we would pass that edge of no return.

  Family was everything, even when it was the hardest thing in the world. One thing I knew for absolute certainty, though, was that my family needed to clear this hurdle so we could build a new normal.

  No matter how hard that was.

  12

  BIRDIE

  “Take as long as you need. The girls have told me they’ll help out for as long as required,” Cleo said as I watched Winter sitting on the end of the bed texting his club president.

  My heart wanted to cry as I took in his body language. The way he sat hunched, exhausted, and kind of adrift, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him so ravaged. Our breakup and his family problems over the years had hit him hard, but this was like a whole other level of devastation.

  His argument with his brother had been coming for a long time. I didn’t know what had gone down between them during the last five years, but I could tell from what had been said that they hadn’t cleared up any of their issues they’d had while Winter and I were a couple. He’d left me to go outside for some fresh air and time alone to gather his thoughts after the argument. Max had told me which room was Winter’s, and I’d spent the time alone in here trying to get hold of Cleo and talking with Mum. I felt out of my depth with this situation and needed Mum’s advice on how to help Winter through it. She had, of course, given me her usual advice: trust my heart to guide me in the moment. Not really what I’d been looking for, because my heart was a mess of confusion and I wasn’t convinced I could trust it to guide me at all.

  Shifting my attention back to Cleo, I said, “We can’t afford for me to—”

  She cut me off. “They’re not l
ooking to be paid in the usual way, Birdie. They want to do this for you because they love working for you.”

  Frowning, I pulled the few strands of hair from my T-shirt that sat like strays on it. I lost way too much hair and was forever cleaning it off myself. “What do you mean by ‘in the usual way’? What other way is there?”

  “They’ll exchange the hours they do now for time off at a later date. You don’t need to worry about work, babe. We’ve got you covered. You just concentrate on what you’ve got going on up there. And look after that man of yours.”

  I eyed him again. His head was still bowed, exchanging messages. I wanted to correct her that he wasn’t my man, but I left it because right now, he felt like my man to look after. “Okay, well just call if you need me back.”

  “Will do.”

  We ended the call and I moved to find my phone charger. As I walked past Winter, he reached his hand out and curled it around my thigh. “Where are you going, Angel?”

  My breath hitched at not only his touch but also at what I heard in his voice. Need.

  I turned and stepped into the space directly in front of him. “Nowhere. I’m staying right here with you.”

  God, how I wanted to take hold of his face and kiss all his pain away. Soothing kisses, nothing more. If only it was that easy.

  His hold of my leg eased, but only enough for him to run it up over my ass before slipping it around my waist and pulling me down onto his lap so I straddled him. He caught me off guard. So much so that he had his mouth on mine before I realised what was happening.

  Although I was exhausted, and although kissing him like this was the last thing on my mind, my body detonated with desire the second we connected. Unable to stop it, a moment later my hands were on his chest and I was pressed against him.

  Winter’s kiss was demanding. As were his hands. He took what he needed, and what he needed was my complete submission. I surrendered to the raw animal side of him, completely consumed by his touch, his smell, his growls.

  When he stood, taking me with him, I didn’t fight him.

  When he spread me out on the bed and positioned himself over me, I didn’t say no.

  When he pulled my T-shirt off and dropped his mouth to my breast, I let him.

  God, how I let him.

  But as fast as it all happened, it all stopped.

  “Fuck!” He reared up and off the bed, his face full of anguish.

  I lifted myself up onto my elbows. “What’s wrong?”

  Spearing his fingers through his hair, he looked at me with regret. “That shouldn’t have happened. I’m not going to use you to ease my grief.”

  “I don’t feel used, Winter.” I felt anything but used.

  “Well you should. That was an asshole move.”

  Feeling naked, both physically and emotionally, I left the bed to locate my T-shirt that he’d thrown on the floor. I needed to busy myself with a task to distract myself from what I’d just wanted to happen. “You are not the kind of guy who makes asshole moves.” Finding my tee, I slipped it on. I then moved to my bag to grab my phone charger, trying to return us to where we were before he kissed me. But I couldn’t let him think this was all on him, so I added, “And it’s not like I stopped you.”

  Winter remained silent while I plugged my phone in to charge. When he didn’t say anything, I said, “We both need sleep, you especially.”

  He held my gaze for another long silent moment before nodding. “You take the bed.”

  “And where will you sleep?” I had never been to this house so I didn’t know if Max had other spare rooms or not.

  “Don’t worry about me, Angel. I’ll find somewhere.”

  Oh God. I was about to make what was sure to be a very bad decision, but there was no way I could let him sleep on an uncomfortable couch or some other place where he probably wouldn’t get much rest. Winter was exhausted; he needed some good sleep.

  “I do worry about you. Sleep in here with me.”

  The look he gave me sucked the breath from my lungs.

  This was the reason I’d fallen for this man all those years ago.

  It was a fuck-yes-but-I’m-aware-of-what-this-is-costing-you look. It was awareness and understanding and appreciation. It was respect and gratitude and love. Maybe it was because I knew him so well, but Winter could express so much in one look. And his ability to grasp the depth of what things meant to me was beyond my understanding. I mean, the man was all kinds of bossy and arrogant most days, yet he could be sensitive and sacrificing too. He was a bloody contradiction and always kept me guessing.

  Before this moment became something we didn’t need it to become, I grabbed my floral Peter Alexander pyjama shorts and a clean top from my bag. No way would I sleep well in my jeans. Exiting the bedroom to use the bathroom and to change, I was hyperaware that I did so with Winter’s eyes burning heat into my skin. And although he wasn’t with me while in the bathroom, I felt him everywhere.

  By the time I got myself under control and returned to the bedroom, Winter was lying on the bed, fully clothed, hands resting under his head. He tracked my movements, eliciting a whole new flurry of feelings deep inside me.

  I could get used to his eyes on me.

  No one made me feel better in the world than this man.

  When I reached the edge of the bed, I hesitated. This was probably the moment where I should make a better choice, because there was no doubt in my mind of what would happen the second I laid down next to him. It wouldn’t matter that we didn’t have sex; that wasn’t what this was about. This was about the emotional connection we shared. Sleeping next to him, with his arms around me—which I knew was exactly where this was going—would cause a shift in our relationship. It would move us closer to where he wanted us, and while I had all these thoughts swimming around my head about that maybe being a possibility, I wasn’t sure I was ready for that shift to occur.

  “Stop overthinking this, Angel,” he said, his deep voice a rumble of sexiness that I wished didn’t affect me so damn much. “We’re just sleeping here. And if you need me to leave, I will.”

  “It’s not just sleeping, and you know that,” I muttered, finally lying next to him. As close to the edge of the bed that I could.

  Before I saw it coming, he leaned over, reached his hand across my body and slid me closer to him. “If anyone needs to sleep on the edge of the bed, it’ll be me.”

  I stared at him. “Why can’t you just be an asshole? For once.” It would be a whole lot easier to push him away if he were.

  His lips pulled up in a chuckle. “Pretty sure you’ve called me an asshole on numerous occasions.”

  “Yeah, well maybe you could recreate some of that magic for me.” The truth was that while he could annoy the living hell out of me, Winter was as far from an asshole as you could get.

  We turned silent for a few minutes, both staring up at the ceiling. I was exhausted, but lying next to him had me all kinds of awake. I wasn’t convinced I could sleep.

  Needing to take my mind off the way my body was reacting to him, I asked, “What’s in your dad’s will?”

  I glanced across at him in time to see his chest rise as he took a long breath. Blowing it out, he said, “Dad had more money than he let on. His brother left him everything when he died and Dad invested it wisely. I knew about it, but Max didn’t.”

  “Wow.” His brother had died years ago, just after Max married Melissa. He’d been a wealthy man. “That’s a long time to keep something from Max.” I realised why Winter was wound tightly over this; Max wasn’t going to take this well at all. But I knew why his father had made this choice; he hadn’t trusted Melissa from the day he met her. Over the years, she’d proven those instincts right when she’d tried to get her hands on family money whenever she could.

  “That’s only the half of it.”

  I rolled onto my side, facing him. As my gaze traced the lines and angles of his face, I said, “What else is there?”

  I watched
as he swallowed, restraining myself from reaching out and touching him. God how his masculinity called to me. His good looks. His strength. His grit. His constancy. Winter was a man of his word. And he was very intentional about the way he did things. He showed up for the people in his life and didn’t let them down. He was a man who could be counted on, and that was one of the most attractive things about him to me.

  “Unless he made changes since the last time we spoke about it, he’s put a stipulation in the will that we can’t sell his house. He wants it to stay in the family and used to build wealth. He liked that I refused to sell Mum’s family home and wanted the same for his house. And he’s giving fifty grand to charity. Cancer research.” He turned to me. “Between all of that, Melissa will be completely pissed off. I see only pain ahead for Max and if I could do anything to stop that, I would. But I can’t.”

  I saw pain ahead for Winter, too. And I felt the same way—I would do anything to ease it for him.

  Reaching out, I placed my hand on his chest. “You are a good man, Winter. I don’t know any as good as you.”

  His eyes searched mine for a long few moments. They flickered with a myriad of emotions. And so many unknown thoughts. The one thought he had that wasn’t secret was that he wanted me. That blazed brightly from him, even when we were discussing something completely unrelated. This would be the undoing of me, because try as I might, I couldn’t deny how that knowledge made me feel.

  I liked feeling wanted by Winter.

  I liked that his desire for me was an open book.

  It was these thoughts I was contemplating when he said, “You need to roll over and stop talking, Angel, otherwise I’m going to be that asshole you want.”

  My entire body lit up. Lust coursed through me and I waged war between my mind and body over what each wanted. Winter thought that fucking me now was the asshole move. I didn’t share that sentiment, but I didn’t want him to do something he’d regret later. So I rolled over and stopped talking.

  Silence sat between us for the longest time. It was probably only fifteen minutes, but it felt like forever. I closed my eyes and did my best to ignore his presence and drift off.