Where Winter Finds You

by J. R. Ward

  Stepping out of the room, she walked down the corridor. That Trez wasn’t in the waiting area wasn’t a worry. With his blood in her, she could sense him right out in the hall. And given the very distant scent of smoke, she knew who he was with.

  The fact that she wasn’t nervous at all at the idea of the two males talking was a good indicator of how much she trusted Trez.

  But she already knew that.

  Nodding to the nurse at the station, Therese opened one side of the doors and looked to the right. Her brother and her lover were sitting on the floor next to each other, smoking and talking in low voices.

  As soon as she stepped out, they both looked over.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Gareth looked away quick. But at least he didn’t up and leave again. Or start yelling.

  Trez’s dark eyes were grave. “How are things in there.”

  “I guess the same as they’ve been, right, Gareth?” She took the grunt as a good sign. Okay… maybe it was more of a not-so-bad sign. Not-as-bad-as-it-could-be sign. “Mind if I join you two?”

  Trez took out his phone and checked the time. “Listen, I was going to quickly go and check in with things at work—”

  “Oh, of course.” She lowered herself down next to him. “I don’t mean to trap you here. But if you talk to iAm, can you please tell him I won’t be in for a couple of nights? I’m not leaving until…”

  As she let the sentence drift, her brother looked over at her. And kept looking.

  “Absolutely.” Trez took her hand. “What can I bring you?”

  “Food, maybe?”

  “Sure. What kind?’

  “Gareth?” She glanced across. “Anything in particular?”

  Her brother took a drag off his cigarette and then exhaled while shaking his head. “I’ll eat anything. Dad’s the same.”

  “Roger that.”

  When Trez hesitated, she answered the is-it-appropriate by making the move to kiss him.

  “See you in a little bit,” she said as their lips met briefly.

  “Yup, you will.” He ditched his cigarette butt in a soda bottle, then got to his feet. “Later, Gareth.”

  “Later.”

  Therese watched her male go—and was aware that the vibe changed immediately. But at least her brother didn’t seem overtly hostile.

  “How long you been seeing him?” Gareth asked as he dropped his own butt into that bottle. Before the hissing had even faded, he was lighting another.

  “They let you smoke out here?”

  “Don’t start.”

  “I’m not. Honest.” She sighed. “So how you been? And not long. To answer your question about the dating thing.”

  “So he’s not why you picked Caldwell.”

  “No, I met him here. His brother is the chef at the restaurant where I work.”

  “Seems like a nice guy.”

  “He is.”

  Before the pause became a silence that grew long and awkward, she took a deep breath and jumped into it all.

  “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  Her brother’s yellow eyes twitched, and she braced herself for an argument. Instead, he just shook his head. For a while.

  Sitting beside him, she gave him the space and time he needed to sort his emotions out. And she appreciated that he didn’t do a rant-and-rave that would accomplish nothing and exhaust them both.

  “I just really…” He started and didn’t finish. Started again. “I just couldn’t believe you would abandon us. You didn’t just leave them… you left me, and whatever, I know you’re my sister, but you’re a friend, too. My roommate. You know. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

  “You’re only saying that because it does.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” He took another drag. “I need to stop smoking. Thank God vampires don’t get cancer—and no, I absolutely do not do it anywhere around Mom.”

  “I never even considered for a moment that you would.”

  “I’m glad you came now, even though I wanted to scream at you when you walked in.”

  “I got that impression.”

  “That’s why I left the room back there. I didn’t want to make things worse. It’s been so damned hard.”

  “Thank you for calling. I honestly didn’t get the messages.”

  “I know. He said so.”

  As tears came to Therese’s eyes, she glanced left and right, up and down—like she was giving herself an eye exam—so that none fell. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed them.”

  “We’ve been empty since you left, too.” He tapped the tip of his cigarette on the bottle’s open neck. “Some people are the heart of a family.”

  “That’s Mom.”

  “No.” Gareth looked over at her. “That’s you. That’s always been you. You keep us going, keep us organized. You’re…”

  Clearing his throat sharply, he shifted his eyes down and then rubbed them hard, one by one, with the knuckles of his free hand. “Look, I can’t talk about this. It’s killing me, and I gotta pull it together for them—”

  “Oh, Gareth,” she whispered as she reached for him.

  Except as she went to give him a hug, he put a hand up and leaned out of range. “Nope. None of that. I’ve got to get a hold of myself.”

  “I’m going to hug you later.”

  “Fine. Just not now.”

  Therese took her first full breath since the moment she’d marched out of her parents’ house. Gareth, on the other hand, seemed to still be struggling with his emotions.

  Trying to change the subject, she murmured, “So you’ve been lifting a lot, huh.”

  “I have.”

  “How’s that female you were dating?”

  He shook his head and kept his eyes on his cigarette. “She moved in right after you left, all ready to get mated. Like, are you kidding me? My family is imploding and you want to talk about the color theme of some reception out of the human tradition? It was a disaster.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that—”

  “Here’s what really bothered me,” he said, looking up and staring directly into her eyes. “This is what got me about Mom.” He pointed his rabbit-eared hold on the Marlboro at her. “You never gave her a chance to explain. You never got the story from her. You were so busy yelling and being all angry that she didn’t have the opportunity to tell her side of the story. What’s more, you acted like she owed you an apology for taking you in and giving you a home and caring for you all these years. That was what bothered me.”

  “I was blindsided. I didn’t ever expect it. I thought… they were my parents, Gareth. You never tried to understand where I was coming from.”

  “You didn’t know they weren’t your parents because they were.”

  Therese put a hand on his now-thick forearm. “As you aren’t in my position, you need to trust me about how it made me feel. I’m not saying I handled things well, but I know what it felt like, okay.”

  He cursed. Went quiet for a bit. “You’re right. I apologize. And I didn’t behave any better. I just was worried about Mahmen and worried about you as well. I’m your big brother. I’m supposed to take care of you.”

  “I need to take care of myself.”

  “No one can go it alone in this world, Milk Dud.”

  Therese started to smile, remembering how they had always given each other random nicknames. “Does this mean I can call you Ricola again?”

  “I got an even better one for you.” He pointed to his foot. “I dropped a weight on this thing a week ago. Right before we left to come here. Healed badly so now I’m wearing an orthotic.”

  “Oh, my God. I’m calling you Dr. Scholl’s from now on.”

  The slow smile on her brother’s face was so nice to see. “Good deal. Good deal.”

  Therese tilted forward and looked at the double doors of the ICU. “So Dad says she’s been intubated for the last two nights.”

  “Pretty much right after we arrived here. We got her admitted in a nick
of time.”

  “Do you think she’d want to talk to me?” Therese wondered out loud. “Maybe it would give her a reason to come back.”

  Gareth shrugged. “Anything. At this point, I’ll take anything I can get. The idea of death separating those two? It doesn’t bear thinking about. If she dies, we’re going to lose Dad, too.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The good thing about it being a Monday night, iAm thought, was that his fucked-up head didn’t have to function: It wasn’t required to coordinate his hands and arms, his memory or his reading skills, so he could cook food over a hot stove. He could just sit here in his office and stare at the paperwork.

  Of course the bad thing was… all he was doing was just sitting here and staring at the paperwork.

  “Fuck…” he said as he sat forward and put his head in his palms.

  When there was a subtle beep from the security system, he looked up. The rear staff door was opening, and he reached under the lip of his desk and put his palm on the nine that was mounted out of sight—

  He knew immediately who it was.

  Then again, he would recognize the scent of his blooded brother anywhere. Trez’s outline, too.

  iAm retracted his hand from his gun and straightened in the chair. “Trez?”

  Stupid. To say the name. But he was relieved. Anytime he saw the male, it was a relief, one more night lived through. One more day, survived.

  “Mind if I come in?” the guy said as the door closed behind him with a clap.

  “You are always welcome anywhere I am.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Down to my marrow, brother mine.”

  Trez walked forward, and there was no anger in his face, but no expression to those familiar features, either. There was also a stillness to him that was eerie.

  “What’s happened?” iAm asked.

  The other male paused in the doorway for a moment. Then he came in and sat down in the chair across the desk, curling up and balancing his chin on his knuckles. iAm recognized the pose. So he, himself, sat back.

  “Tell me when you’re ready,” iAm said quietly.

  It was a long time before his brother spoke, and when the words finally did come, Trez ran his fingertips up and back on the edge of the desk like he was anxious.

  “That which cannot go on will not.” As iAm’s gut clenched, Trez shrugged. “It’s a theory of economics that translates to so many other things—”

  “I know what it is. How are you applying the theory is what I care about.”

  “Not to me.” Those black eyes flipped up for a moment. “I’m okay.”

  iAm didn’t want to argue. Shit knew they’d had plenty of that lately. But he wasn’t sure if such an assessment was true—or if the male was even capable of making that call.

  It was better than a lot of other options, however.

  “Do you want to talk to Mary?” iAm blurted.

  Trez smiled a little. “So many people asking me that lately. Rehv, you.”

  “It’s because we’re worried about you.”

  “I’m honestly not suicidal.” Just as iAm was trying to hide his surprise, Trez looked up and shrugged. “I’m just not. I’m not saying I wasn’t or that I won’t be again. I’m just not right now. And after the shit I’ve been through, that’s the only kind of reassurance I can give you—or myself, for that matter.”

  “I can’t bear to lose you.” iAm had to clear his throat. “Not now. Not ever.”

  Trez rubbed his face like his eyes were bothering him. “I’m sorry about all the shit that went down over Therese. You know, last night. And before.”

  “Me, too. And I should have—”

  “You were right. I was wrong.”

  iAm shook his head. Fiddled with the paperwork in front of him. Regretted every bit of the argument—but not as much as he mourned the truth. “I don’t want to be right. Not about any of it.”

  “It was just because I wanted to believe. You know, that she’s back.” Trez pointed to the center of his chest. “The pain here—I mean, it’s not as bad as it was at first. But the problem is that I don’t get any relief at all from this toxic pressure. It’s always there. Always with me. As the love for her was, so is the grief over her death. Right here. Every second of the night and through each hour of my piss-poor sleep during the day. And I think… it kind of makes a male crazy, you know?” Touching his head, he continued, “Up here… it isn’t working so well and I didn’t appreciate exactly how badly until now. But I think I’d guessed, though, which was why I lost it when you called me on my delusions.”

  iAm found himself, for the millionth time, measuring the extent of his brother’s suffering. It had always seemed unsurmountable. Unsupportable. And now that iAm had maichen? It was incalculable. He couldn’t imagine losing his mate.

  “I think I was just desperate,” Trez said. “I desperately don’t want to feel like this anymore and the only way that happens is if Selena is back. And so I convinced myself… well, we’ve been through it.”

  “I hate this for you.” iAm rubbed his stinging eyes. “I really do. I always have.”

  “Yeah, well. It is what it is.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  Trez was silent for a while. And then he shook his head. “The only one who can walk over this bed of nails is me. But your just being here? It does help. And it really matters.”

  Before iAm could respond, Trez clapped his hands on his thighs, a clear sign that the conversation was over. And that did make sense, iAm supposed. Words only ever went so far. The rest of the distance had to be carried by the relationship that had always been between them. And always would be.

  “So,” Trez said brusquely, “what’s new with you? It’s dawning on me that I haven’t asked that in a long while.”

  iAm blinked a couple of times. Then he ducked his eyes. “Oh, you know. Same ol’.”

  “How’s maichen?”

  Pregnant. Which is fucking wonderful and fucking terrifying. “She’s, ah, she’s good.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah.” At least the priests said so. Although what the hell do they know? “Just fine.”

  There was another pause. “Then why are you drawing blood right now?”

  iAm frowned and looked down at his hand. Sure enough, he had gripped a pencil in his fist so hard that he’d broken it in half and the ragged parts were digging into his palm. Red drops were falling onto the paperwork, staining the bills. The payments. The schedules.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” his brother said grimly.

  * * *

  As Trez watched his next of kin bleed onto the desk, he had the first sense of what he had cost the male since Selena’s death. And close on the heels of that revelation, he had a further one about how he had always taken, taken, taken—and though the narcissism had always been a product of circumstance, a door prize for the shit luck he’d always had, like that mattered when iAm needed something?

  Just because the imbalance was understandable, and arguably forgivable, didn’t mean it was a fucking party.

  And now, on the far side of the cluttered desk, the other male was looking caught, an invisible cage locking down on him, his eyes lowering and likely to stay that way. Oh, and P.S., he was still bleeding at the palm, and doing nothing about it.

  “She’s pregnant,” Trez said. “Isn’t she.”

  iAm’s eyes shot up. And the silence was the answer.

  “Oh, my God,” Trez said with a growing smile. “Really? You’re going to have a young? That’s incredible.”

  iAm’s shock at the congratulations was apparent. And something Trez added to his list of regrets.

  “Hey, I’m honestly happy for you.” He leaned across the desk and took the broken pencil out of his brother’s hand. “I’m so happy for you both.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you.”

  Trez opened his mouth to ask why, but that would be two rhetoricals in as many minutes
, wouldn’t it.

  “Well, I’m glad you did.” Trez reached into his back pocket and took out his silk handkerchief. Pressing it to the wound, he found himself choking up. “It gives me something to live for.”

  iAm took a deep breath. “I want you to be the blessing one for her.”

  “It’s a daughter?” Trez blinked. And then found himself smiling again. “A daughter… and yes, I would be her blessing one. I am honored.”

  “I would have no one else but you do it.”

  They sat there for a while, as the wound sealed up, and Trez was amazed. For the moments as he held his brother’s hand in his own, and tended to the injury, and smiled at the good fortune that had befallen maichen and iAm, he felt something in the center of his chest that relieved the pain.

  This is real, he thought to himself. And this moment… this present… was the first piece of his life since his shellan’s death that didn’t hurt.

  A next generation, born out of love, born into love.

  “I can’t wait to meet my niece,” he said roughly.

  iAm’s smile was short and hidden, as was his way. He had always been the quiet one, the self-effacing, take-a-back-seat one. But like he’d had a choice? Trez had always been the marching band headed for a cliff.

  Too much noise for anyone else to take up space.

  “And she’s going to love her uncle,” iAm said in a hoarse voice.

  “I’m going to make sure of it.”

  “You won’t have to work too hard at that.”

  Trez peeked under the handkerchief. “Just a little longer, so it can take some wear and tear on the healed part.”

  “I didn’t even know I’d broken the pencil.” Then, as if iAm wanted to avoid any more emotional anything, he asked, “So… what brought you this way? Just a chat?”

  “Well, that and I need some food. For, ah, Therese. And her father and brother. Her mahmen’s at Havers’s in the ICU. They need sustenance.”

  As iAm looked up sharply, Trez shook his head and peeked under the handkerchief. “And before you ask,” he said, “yes, I am going to talk to her. I’m going to explain… everything.”