by Vivian Arend
Jesse waved a hand, not letting go of the young lady he had under his arm. “I’m not the singer of the group, just thought we needed to speed things up a little. You were going to put me to sleep with your lullabies.”
“You don’t mind a reason to hit the sack, now do you?” Travis poked his brother.
Jesse shook his head, lifting the woman at his side and depositing her in his lap. “You know I don’t.”
His date giggled. She didn’t seem to mind that he had his hands on her right out in public.
Allison leaned harder into Gabe as the talk got raunchier. Some of it was funny, but maybe she was too old for this kind of fun. It was one thing to talk dirty while they were fooling around, but the public shit talk had lost its appeal.
She would have been happy to just stay home with Gabe. Get hot and sweaty with him and not—
Drat. Stay home with Gabe?
She was so gone.
Another truck pulled into the parking area, brakes screeching, door slamming loudly. Gabe leaned forward and Allison went with him, turning to see who was joining the group this late.
Jesse hopped to his feet, dropping his cuddle bunny on the ground in his haste.
“Hey, watch it,” she complained.
He grinned and tweaked her nose. “Sorry, darling. I’ll be back in a minute with a surprise.”
Jesse jogged off.
Allison was ready to suggest they leave as well when loud voices sounded behind them—familiar voices. Angry and sharp, but far enough away to be undecipherable.
“Great. Come on, let’s see what’s happening now.” Gabe hoisted her up and took her hand.
Gabe to the rescue again. Allison went willingly, if only because she figured they could head home after dealing with the situation. She’d had enough, and spending time with the clan wasn’t what she needed tonight.
They were still a ways out when she recognized the newcomer as Joel. The twins seemed to have finished shouting at each other and moved to the scuffling part of the program. Joel grabbed his brother by the front of the shirt and laid into him.
“Crap. Stay here.”
Gabe pushed her behind him and shot forward. He couldn’t move fast enough, though, not before Joel had time to land a snapping hard crack to his brother’s chin. Jesse jerked backward and fell to the ground. Joel had him by the collar and was leaning in for more when Gabe stepped between them, catching hold of Joel’s fist before it could descend again.
“Fuck off. This is none of your business,” Joel ground out.
“Beating the crap out of someone in public is my business.” Allison cringed as Gabe shoved himself even farther between the twins.
“It’s not someone, it’s an asshole who needs a pounding. Now move.”
Joel attempted to drag Jesse closer. His brother scrambled to back out of the way. A loud rip sounded as Jesse’s shirt tore. He escaped, rushing to his feet, hands at the ready to defend himself.
“Jesus, Joel. What the hell’s got your panties in such a twist?” Jesse wiped a hand over his bloody mouth, spitting to the side without taking his gaze off his twin.
Joel stood, feet planted wide. The only thing that moved was his chest as he sucked in huge breaths, obviously fighting the urge to take another swing or two. Allison moved in closer to Gabe’s side, the sound of the guitar in the distance eerie. Its light-hearted tune didn’t make any sense while looking at Joel’s expression.
“You really want me to tell you what I’m so pissed about? Maybe if you look over there you’ll get a clue.”
Joel pointed toward the fire. Jesse didn’t bother to look, just twisted his face into a sheepish smile.
“You’re taking this the wrong way,” Jesse complained.
“How am I supposed to take it, asshole? I went to pick up my date for the night and she was already gone.”
Ouch. Allison glanced at Gabe, who shook his head slightly. He squeezed her fingers and tugged her to the side, farther away from where Jesse and Joel faced off.
Jesse held out his hands like a negotiator. “Come on. So I’ve met Sue. Sorry I didn’t tell you, but isn’t this really what you’ve been wanting? For both of us to be around?”
When Joel would have stepped in, fists rising, Gabe grabbed him and held him back. “Punching his lights out won’t get this solved. Talk to him.”
Joel snarled, “Talk? He doesn’t listen. I’ve told him what I wanted, and the jackass ignores me.”
“Because you’re being stupid,” Jesse said.
“Says you.”
Jesse snorted.
“Enough.” Gabe stepped between them and glared at them both. “You guys twenty-two or twelve? Grow up.”
“I’m trying.” Joel dragged a hand through his hair, pacing away before turning back and growling in frustration. “Jesse. I know we’ve got this reputation. But when I tell you I want to date a girl by myself that isn’t some fucked-up code for you to go and try to convince her otherwise.”
“Shit.” Gabe turned his glare on Jesse, and suddenly all three of them were staring his direction.
Jesse shrugged. “Fine. I thought you were goofing off. She’s a nice-enough girl, but nothing special. I thought—”
“Goddammit, Jesse, it doesn’t matter what you think. It matters what I said. Listen to me next time, you bloody idiot, or I’ll fucking bury you, got it?”
Allison covered her mouth. Even as he shouted at his twin, Joel had evidently decided to let the matter drop. He stepped back, body relaxing. Hands falling to his sides.
“And you.” Joel turned his disapproval on Gabe. “Stop getting in the middle of everyone’s business.”
Gabe laughed. “What? It’s not okay I stopped you from breaking your knuckles on Jesse’s head?”
Joel cursed. “Okay, that part is fine, but it’s not okay you helped him get involved with Sue in the first place.”
What? Allison froze in horror.
So did Gabe. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Joel pointed at Jesse again. “Jackass used your truck to go see her when I was out of town in Calgary. At least he didn’t pull some stupid fuck-upped business of pretending to be me, but still.”
“I had nothing to do with this,” Gabe insisted.
“He didn’t. Totally my fault.” Jesse grabbed his twin by the shoulder. Joel shook him off. “Come on, he was oblivious. You know Gabe always does what he can and never asks questions. I took advantage of his saintly good nature. Just—I’m sorry, okay?”
Gabe’s grip on her had gone tight. Allison glanced into his face to see him pulling back. Closing off. She couldn’t read anything anymore. He’d turned cold.
His expression was similar to what she was used to seeing on his father Ben’s face, and it scared her a little.
Joel shook his head. “Whatever. I’m going home. Tell Sue I said goodbye.”
He turned without another word, feet hitting the ground hard as he stomped away.
Silence. Loud silence.
Jesse cleared his throat. “Thanks for saving my butt.”
“No problem. It’s what we saintly, good-natured type do.” Gabe stepped toward the parking lot as well. Allison let her fingers slip from his, and surprisingly, he let her go. He just walked away, shoulders slumped. She wanted to hang on. To reassure him.
But first she wanted to pick up where Joel had left off and wipe the smirk from Jesse’s face.
She moved in close, forcing him to tilt his head. He looked her over, gaze lingering where he had no right, and sheer willpower stopped her from slugging him. That, and the need to get back to Gabe as quickly as possible.
“You got something to say?” Jesse drawled.
Her hands shook, she was so pissed. “Joel was right. You need to grow the hell up. Gabe’s got the biggest damn heart out of any of you, and you choose to use him because of it? Jackass isn’t strong enough.”
“Now wait—”
“No, you shut up and listen.” Allison pok
ed him in the chest with a finger. If she used her fist she would be tempted to take a real swing. “You listen a damn sight harder from now on. To me, to your brother. I’ve heard about the games you boys play, but this isn’t about you anymore, this is about messing with someone who didn’t deserve your shit. If you want to goof off, find people who appreciate your screwed-up sense of humour. Gabe will probably forgive you, but I’m not going to, not for a damn long time.”
Jesse’s lips were pressed together, his usual cocky grin faded from his face.
Allison planted her hand on his chest and pushed. He was too solid to shove over, but the move let her propel herself away from him.
“Allison. Allison, wait. Shit, I’m sorry.”
She ignored his calls, eager to get back to the truck. She needed to see Gabe.
He was leaning against the driver’s door staring off into the darkening sky. Somehow he still spotted her coming, shifting to vertical as she approached. He pulled the door open, and she crawled in without a word, scooting to the middle and buckling up.
After all her bravery shouting at Jesse, she wasn’t sure what to say.
He drove slowly, his body tense beside her. She dropped her hand onto his thigh and he immediately covered it with his own.
They rode in silence the entire way back to the house.
Chapter Nineteen
Gabe burned inside and he wasn’t sure what would put out the flames. All the frustrations, all the pain piled up, and he was slowly being crushed.
The saving grace was Allison’s presence, and even that he had no right to enjoy. Their relationship was a sham, a fake. Maybe comparable to what Jesse had done. She’d unwittingly used his desire to be there for others against him.
Yet he could have sworn something more was growing between them. He had to believe it. Had to cling to that hope.
Had to know, because waiting any longer was wrong. He wasn’t strong enough to let this one ride.
If it had been winter he would have lit the fire, just for something mundane to do with his hands. Instead, he found himself wandering the house. Moving things around. Adjusting chairs. Hell, he probably would have gone out and found a hole or two to dig if Allison hadn’t come up and wrapped herself around him.
She snuck her hands under his shirt, pressing her palms to his back. Her cheek resting on his chest. God, he felt as if she was drawing strength from him when she did that, and he didn’t have anything left to give right now.
Except, it was Allison, and he would always have something for her. He caught her head with a hand, stroked her hair. Pulled the strands over her shoulders and tangled his fingers in the soft mass.
His heart stopped racing, and when she tugged him toward the bedroom, he went.
She crawled on top of the covers and patted the space beside her. “Come here, Angel Boy.”
A snort escaped involuntarily. “I’m not great company right now.”
“I gave him hell.” Her eyes flashed. “Jesse, I mean.”
“I figured that’s what you were doing. You didn’t have to.”
She caught him by the chin. “I wanted to. And you stop it with that suffering-in-silence business. You don’t have to be quiet around me. Hell, you’ve heard me moan and groan and complain more than anyone. If you want to call your cousin a few bad names, I can take it.”
The sentiment was nice, but wasted. Jesse was right. Gabe rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “No use. It’s true. I do try to be a saint, and look at the results. I’m as fucked for trying to do good as not.”
Allison leaned over him, touching his face gently. “What’s wrong?”
Make or break time. He’d taunted Rafe to be brave enough to fix the things that needed fixing. Gabe stared into her concerned face and knew this had to change. It was time to move forward. Now he’d find out if it was with her or without.
“You remember my brother Michael?”
A flash of surprise lit her eyes. “Of course.”
“I think you’d already moved away when he died.”
She nodded. “I still heard. Paul was pretty tore up—the entire grade twelve class was.”
Gabe took another breath to brace himself. “It was my fault.”
Allison jerked. She sat upright and stared at him, confusion crossing her face. “I…hang on. I thought he got hit by a car.”
Gabe shuddered, throwing an arm over his eyes. He had to get to the end of this, but he couldn’t bear to watch her as he spoke. “He did. But it was my fault. I was supposed to go out celebrating with him that night. His eighteenth birthday had been only a few days earlier, and he wanted to hit the bars. The Angel Boy Colemans, painting the town red. He was so excited, in that way only he could get. He was like this light in the family, always joking around, making everyone happy.”
She grabbed hold of his free hand and gently stroked his fingers.
He was surprised she wasn’t running from the room in terror.
Gabe pushed forward. “He’d always looked up to me, and I had promised to take him out once he was legal. Big-brother shit, the older more mature twenty-one-year-old initiating the newbie. Rites of passage and all that. Only I called it off at the last minute.”
The pain flared again. If only he could turn back time and change his actions.
“Something came up?”
Oh God. “Had a girl I was seeing, and she’d promised me the moon that night. I ditched him to go out fooling around. It was nothing important, nothing I had to do so desperately. It was selfish and thinking of what I wanted, not what he needed. When he had too much to drink, I wasn’t there to stop him from wandering out into the road and getting hit.”
Allison crawled over top of him. Surprise made him move his arm as she leaned over and stared down into his face.
She had tears in her eyes.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Easy to say, impossible to believe. “I could have stopped him. He would have whooped it up a little, but I would have prevented him from getting shitfaced. Could have driven him home, and he’d still be here. One minute he was alive, the next he was gone.”
In that moment their entire family changed.
She tugged on his shoulders. Gabe pulled himself to a sitting position. With her straddling his thighs, their faces were right in line with each other so she could peer straight into his eyes as she spoke. “Gabe Coleman. You don’t honestly believe you are responsible for your brother’s death.”
When he would have looked away, she tilted her head in warning.
He sighed. “We dealt with psychologists. The entire school had grief counsellors in, and one came to talk to the family. She told us how sometimes bad things happened to good people, and that life went on. I heard it, I get it. Doesn’t matter what I think, though, because everything changed. Ma lost her joy, Ben got mean and ugly. Rafe was only eight, and you know how hard losing family is when you’re a kid.”
She knew. Allison knew all too well what kind of pain it was to lose someone you loved.
She leaned forward and covered his mouth with hers. Briefly. Just a caress. Touched her forehead to his and spoke against his lips. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He breathed in her scent. The taste of her on the air. “I left after that, to hide from the pain and the blame. I was gone for a bunch of years before I realized I was running and there was nothing chasing me.”
“So you came back.”
“I came back because I loved the ranch, and I loved my ma. And…” He had to do it. Had to finish this. “I came back because Rafe asked me to.”
Allison lifted her head, the question clear on her face.
“He got drunk one night. Ben. Losing Michael tore him apart, and he started drinking. When I ran away I managed to avoid most of his mess, but one night he got liquored up enough he kind of lost his mind. He didn’t lay a finger on Ma or Rafe, but he smashed a bottle. A piece of glass flew out and hit my kid brother.”
She pressed
her fingers to her lips, shock in her eyes. “The scar on his cheek?”
Gabe nodded. “I came home. Figured I could at least be a buffer between him and the others.”
“Oh, Gabe.”
“It worked. He stopped drinking as much because he gets some weird satisfaction out of telling me just how fucked up I am.”
Allison cupped his neck in her hands, eyes filled with moisture. “You came home to rescue them, and you’ve been doing it ever since.”
Nailed it. “Even, it seems, to people who don’t need saving.”
“Fuck Jesse.”
He couldn’t stop it. He snorted. “No, thanks.”
“You know what I mean.” She squeezed harder, fingers stroking the tight muscles at the top of his spine. “You’re a decent, kind man, and no matter what your motivations were to start with, if you weren’t a giving person deep down, you never would have tried to be there for others. Especially not for as long as you have.”
“You’re doing the same thing, you know. Trying to rescue your family.”
She nodded slowly. “When Dad died, I was torn between so many emotions. We were sad he was gone. That he’d never see us as grownups, never grow old with Mom. But I was relieved in a way, because he’d been in pain for so long, and he’d unknowingly made our lives tough during the years he was ill. And then the guilt hit for feeling relief. How could I be so selfish? Everything was all twisted and confusing for the longest time.”
Allison dragged her hand over his shoulders and down his chest, her nose wrinkling as if she was trying to figure out how to say something.
“What?” He was so achingly tired from it all, but worry for her and the need to find out more urged him on.
“When I came and asked you to help me. That was wrong of me. I’m sorry.”
Gabe pressed his hand over hers, holding her palm against his chest. As good a time as any to see if he was going to get even more wrecked tonight. “I may have a reputation of being a bloody saint, but agreeing to help you? I’ll never regret it.”
“Really?” She blinked hard. “It was rude, and bossy, and totally controlling. You should have thrown me out from the start.”
“Maybe it was a little brash, but if you hadn’t decided to take the first steps, I never would have never fallen in love with you.”