I’d done my best to relax at home—even going as far as turning on the TV and listening to the mindless drone of nonsense I didn’t care about.
But I couldn’t turn my brain off. Couldn’t stop the possessive annoyance that Hope was in my space, hanging out in my room, and making my mother laugh when I’d failed in that level of companionship.
I’d gone to bed early, hoping sleep would be my salvation, but when the mattress refused to cradle me into unconsciousness, I’d given up.
So there I stood, nursing a mug of hot chocolate laced with whiskey—whiskey Mom didn’t know I drank—and instead of finding peace surveying the empire I’d inherited, I spotted an enemy who didn’t belong.
The world was hushed and heavy as if waiting for something to happen as Hope picked her way through the bottom meadow, crossed the small bridge Dad had made, and followed the path to the willow grotto.
Each footstep brought her closer. Each explore guided her unwanted presence to my door.
The thin navy T-shirt and linen pants I slept in didn’t stop my skin from prickling with unease as Hope’s head came up.
Our eyes tangled, locking together in a way that felt almost physical.
The silver moonlight obscured her face but didn’t hide her sudden stillness. Sudden awareness. Sudden fear of discovery.
Neither of us moved for the longest moment.
Her as still and wary as prey. Me as coiled and on edge as a predator.
Finally, she raised her arm and waved, breaking the spell, sending a wash of something hot and angry down my spine.
Slugging back my cocktail of chocolate and liquor, I placed the empty mug on the wooden seat I’d carved and leapt off the deck.
Soft grass was the perfect carpet as I padded barefoot toward her. Silver light and flickering stars were our only witnesses to being out of bed when everyone else dreamed safely.
When I was close enough to whisper rather than shout, I murmured, “You shouldn’t be out here.”
Her head tilted, brown hair sliding over her shoulders like liquid silk. I hated that she no longer resembled a child. I despised the fullness of her chest beneath such girlish pyjamas and the way her hips filled out her riding gear.
It’d been a long time since I’d seen her, and this new woman in front of me didn’t compute with the waifish girl I’d done my best to scare off.
“I couldn’t sleep.” She blinked with eyes too hooded to be innocent. She spoke with a voice too rich and feminine to belong to the annoying Hope Jacinta Murphy.
My hands curled, fighting away sick appreciation. For years, I hadn’t bothered mingling with anyone other than family. Back when I’d attended school, the girls showed off their newly formed bodies and flaunted their sexual preference. Their obvious flirting turned me off rather than on. They all seemed so desperate to impress, so eager for a connection that would end up destroying them.
Hope, meanwhile, was none of those things.
She was shy beneath strength. Quiet beneath conversation. And when she’d hugged me?
God, she’d shown me pain had multiple levels.
A hug from family could sear and sting.
But a hug from her?
It drew blood.
“It isn’t safe to wander around this late on your own.” My hands balled, my voice thickened, and I did my best to keep my eyes on her face because there was no way I could look at her body. No way I could permit myself to see the change in her, the growth, the knowledge that she might drive me to rage and disturb my carefully perfected world, but she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.
Soft but sharp. Trusting but careful. Fragile but brave.
All the things that drew out the best and worst in me. I wanted to be kind, so she was happy. I wanted to be cruel, so she’d leave.
I didn’t have the strength to fight both instincts or convince myself I was content with being alone. My phobia of getting close to anyone ordered me to back up and point at Mom’s house. “Go back, Hope.”
She bit her lower lip, looking at where I pointed before capturing my stare again.
I didn’t stand a chance with the way she studied me. The same way she’d watched me as a child with a certainty and calmness that made me fidget and bristle. Only now, a deeper element was there too. A terrifying welcome. A petrifying invitation that had nothing to do with the years we’d danced around each other and everything to do with this new torturous existence.
“I don’t want to go back yet.” Her voice whispered through the grass, sounding part breeze, part shadow.
“What do you want?” My jaw clenched.
What the hell sort of question is that, and why did I ask it?
She cocked her head, hair tumbling, eyes searching. “To walk.” Taking a hesitant step toward me, she smiled softly. “Want to walk with me?”
“What I want is for you to get off my property.”
Her smile warmed instead of cooled. “Can I walk on it first? Then I’ll get off it.”
I couldn’t understand her. Was she joking with me? Teasing? Being plain exasperating? Crossing my arms, I raised my chin. “Walking it would take hours. It’s big.”
A snicker fell under her breath. “Big, huh?”
I froze. Did the girl who’d screamed riding my horse just make a sexual innuendo? Then again, nothing was child-like about her anymore. Her youth had transformed into an elegance I didn’t like.
I wanted to shut her up, to send her away, and forget about this odd encounter. Instead, I found myself dragged into the strangeness. “Oh, it’s big. Bigger than you’ve seen.”
Her cheeks pinked. Her gaze dropped to my mouth. “I like big.”
The heavy air electrified with something I didn’t like. Something that made my heart race and body tingle against my will.
I didn’t appreciate her answer. How did she know she liked big? What exactly were we discussing here? The size of my cock or my farm? I wasn’t adept at playing these games. I didn’t want to play these games. I wanted her gone.
“Look—”
“I get it.” Hope interrupted me, her voice losing its horrifying invitation and returning to simple acquaintance. “It’s late, and you want to go back to bed. Don’t mind me.” Her lips twitched, unable to help herself. “Besides, if your farm is so big, surely you won’t care if I walk a small piece of it? You won’t even notice the areas I’ve explored.”
“I can’t leave knowing you’re out here on your own.”
“Why? Think I’m going to get abducted?”
“No.” My hands curled into fists. “No one would dare trespass. I’m worried you’ll trip and break your leg, and no one will be around to save you.”
“So you’re worried about me?”
I scowled. “I didn’t say that.”
“You said you’re worried I’d trip and break a leg.”
“Exactly.” I nodded. “You’re not to be trusted.”
“I have walked before, you know.”
“Yeah, on red carpets.”
She stepped toward me purposely, planting bare feet into thick grass. “Wrong, I’ve walked on Scottish moors well past midnight after an ex dumped me. I’ve gotten lost in a thunderstorm after a picnic went wrong. I’ve—”
“Someone dumped you?” Once again, anger bubbled at something I shouldn’t care about. She was dating already? She was only seventeen, for God’s sake.
Her eyes flashed. “To be fair, I wanted to be dumped.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want to give him my virginity.” Her voice was level and honest, not in the least bit self-conscious discussing this sort of thing with me.
This girl had no limits. She openly talked about napping with her deceased mother and now fooling around with some boy.
“Are you always this forthcoming with personal stuff?”
She ducked to pluck a dandelion from the grass. “Not really.” Holding out the orange weed to me, she said softly, “I find you
easy to talk to. You’re my friend. My only friend. And if you’re my friend, that means you immediately qualify to hear stuff other people don’t. I can joke with you about inappropriate things. I can tell you secrets. I can be honest…more honest than I’ve ever been with anyone.”
I didn’t take the proffered dandelion.
“No, you can’t.” Pushing her hand away until it fell to her side, I shook my head. “Friend isn’t a word I’d use to describe me. I’ve told you that before.”
“Why not?” She dropped the weed into the grass, her face gloomier than before. “What would you call this then?”
“An inconvenience.”
She sucked in a breath before fire mingled with the green of her gaze, making them burn. “You know what? You’re just as mean as you were when you were fourteen.” Temper painted her cheeks a bright red. “Just because I make you uncomfortable doesn’t mean you have to be cruel to me.”
“Who said anything about you making me uncomfortable?”
She laughed icily. “Oh, come on. I see you. I understand you. I’m not asking for anything more than you can give, Jacob. I’m not asking you to go out with me or expecting you to kiss me or even believing you’ll eventually tell me your secrets in return for mine. All I’m asking for—”
She cut herself off, pacing away with jerky steps. “Ugh, it doesn’t matter. I’ll go.” Spinning in place, she stomped in the direction of Mom’s house.
I watched her for a few seconds. I didn’t move as her hair bounced and her stupid pink and white striped pyjamas made her look as young as when we’d first met.
I’d successfully gotten my wish. No more weird attempts at joking, no more awkward interactions, and no more bizarre chats at midnight when adults believed we were in bed.
I turned to go.
The wind picked up.
The guilt I always tried to outrun found me.
The prickle of disappointing the one person I missed more than life itself ghosted down my spine.
I groaned, looking at the galaxies above. “Really?”
Another gust of air.
“You’re really gonna make me feel like shit over this, Dad?” I hissed into the night.
The breeze died away, leaving the air stagnant and stifling.
I knew the wind was just nature and nothing supernatural surrounded me, but I’d long since turned to a figment of my imagination for guidance. It’d become a habit. A crutch. Something I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.
I’d told Hope that I felt my father’s praise and judgment.
I felt it now, and I wanted to tell him to back off. To yell at the phantom to leave me the hell alone. I was allowed to put a girl who meant nothing to me in her place. I was permitted to be honest about not wanting her friendship.
But even as I shouted silent thoughts into the sky, a wash of shame was my reply.
Thick, terrible shame because I knew why Hope was here. Her dad had sent her to us because she was lonely. And I’d just made it worse by not offering her sanctuary in the one place she hoped she was welcome.
“Wait!” I called, my voice slicing through the darkness and lashing a lasso around her waist.
She slammed to a stop, turning to face me as I jogged toward her. “What? What did I do now?”
“You didn’t do anything.” I pulled to a halt, raking fingers through my hair. “It was me. I’m…I’m sorry.”
“You are?”
“Don’t push it. You were right. I was cruel. That’s all I’m apologising for.”
She linked her fingers together in front of her. “Thank you.”
“You’re not welcome.” I wanted to stay mad, but a half-smile curled against my control.
She grinned back. “You really are hard work. You know that, right?”
I brushed past her, my linen pants growing damp from dewy grass. “So I’ve been told.”
She trotted to keep up, falling into pace with me. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Act all pissy to keep people at a distance?”
I didn’t look at her, fighting my temper to answer politely instead of commanding her to get on a plane and fly far, far away. “Why do you think it’s an act?”
“Because no one wants to be alone—even those who go out of their way to scare everyone into hating them.”
I ignored her, focusing on walking to the boundary fence in the distance.
Hope’s breathing picked up with the exercise, but she didn’t lag behind. After a couple of strained seconds, she muttered, “How about we make a deal?”
“What deal?” I flicked her a look, surprised she kept up with me. She kept breaking into a jog to cover the distance I did in one step.
“We agree to disagree.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It will if you let me explain.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Explain.”
“I would if you stopped galloping across this paddock.”
“I’m walking.” I chuckled. “I’m doing what you asked. You said you wanted to walk. So walk.”
She halted, her chest rising and falling, out of breath. “I see there are no grey areas with you. It’s all black and white.”
I turned to face her; the moon was no longer behind her, but shone directly on her, casting her face in liquid silver, making her look like a perfect statue. A forest goddess that pagans would’ve prayed to for good crops and bountiful seasons. With her hair wild and free, her breath fast, and eyes bigger than I’d ever seen, she truly was the prettiest thing.
And I despised her for it because pretty was an illusion just like love. An illusion that could cause pain the moment you coveted it.
Jamming hands into linen pockets, I rocked on my heels. “What are you getting at?”
Coming closer, she looked me up and down from feet to nose.
I shivered under her inspection as she lingered on my lower belly, my mouth, my eyes.
“What are you doing?” I backed up a step, prickling with awareness, on guard for an attack just from a single stare.
“I’m doing you a favour.”
“I don’t want any favours.”
“I see that, but you’re getting this one, and you’re going to accept it because I’m sick of fighting with you.”
“If you’re so sick of fighting, you know where the exit is.”
“Yes, and you know how to be nice even when you’re being mean.”
I opened my mouth to retaliate.
I had nothing.
Stalemate.
She crossed her arms. “Why does everything have to be an argument with you?”
“Not everything.” I did my best to follow this new thread of conversation. “Just this thing that happens when you talk to me.”
“I annoy you?”
“It’s that obvious?”
That awkward silence again. Only this time, I didn’t feel guilty. I hadn’t delivered it in my usual scathing way. Humour had laced the question even though truth rang too.
Hope believed she’d had a breakthrough in understanding me.
I would gladly teach her about disappointment.
She hadn’t figured me out; I’d just remembered my oath to my father about protecting those who needed protecting. It didn’t matter if I liked her or not. She was our guest, and I would behave from here on out.
“You annoy me too.” Her whisper caught me off guard. “Just saying.”
I chuckled under my breath. “I already figured that.”
“Good.”
“Fine.” I froze.
Shit.
What the hell?
I’d been raised hearing that flippant saying. Mom and Dad had trademarked it for saying ‘I love you.’
It was a phrase that meant a lot to me.
And I definitely didn’t just say ‘I love you’ to Hope.
“This walk is over.” My voice turned cold and detached. “Go to bed, Hope.” Turning my back on her, I travers
ed the meadow in the opposite direction.
Get it together, Wild.
There had to be a simple explanation for the moods Hope brought out in me. I was overtired, overworked, overstressed. She just played on those issues. That was all.
Hope appeared at my side, skipping and jumping over tussocks of thick, ready-to-cut grass. “What just happened?”
I didn’t look at her, just kept walking.
When I didn’t answer, she said, “You were thawing toward me. Then, all of a sudden, you iced me out again.”
“I’m not a season. I don’t thaw or ice.”
She laughed cynically—far too old and jaded to come from such a young girl. “You’re worse than a season. At least you know what you’re gonna get with winter or summer.”
“No, you don’t.” I rolled my eyes at her city stupidity. “The weather is the most temperamental thing on the planet.”
“Wrong. You are.” She ran ahead of me, planting herself in my path. Holding up her hand, she bumped my chest with her palm, forcing me to stop.
“Don’t touch me.” I growled.
She dropped her hand, leaving behind charcoal and ash from her unwelcome heat.
“The deal. You didn’t let me tell you about our deal.”
“There is no deal.”
“There could be if you let me finish.”
Inhaling hard, I crossed my arms and put a step between us. “Fine, if it will make you leave, tell me. Fast.”
“Okay.” She nodded, brushing back hair and standing as tall as she could with importance. “You don’t like people getting too close. You don’t like being touched, and you don’t like losing those you love.”
My eyes hooded in warning. “Where are you going with this, Hope?”
She held up her hand, begging for patience. “I don’t have any people to get close to. I don’t mind being touched, and I’m afraid of losing those I love but can handle it if it happens.”
“What do you want? An award?”
“No, I want you to understand. We’re opposites in that respect. We’ve both lost a parent, and it’s changed us in different ways, but it doesn’t have to be an issue between us.”
“That’s because there is no us.”
“But there could be.”
I laughed coldly. “No, there couldn’t.”
The Son & His Hope Page 16