by Elise Noble
“Uh, yes, I remember. Of course I do. I was just… Look, I didn’t much like my job, okay? My old boss used to call me at seven a.m. to remind me to pick up his skinny soy latte on my way to work and at seven p.m. to ask me to make his dinner reservations. In between, I’d have to juggle calls from his wife and his mistress, and fix all his typos, and rearrange his meetings, and on Saturdays, I got to pick up his dry cleaning and feed his cat while he unwound on his boat. So I quit.”
That wasn’t a total lie. My first boss had been that asshole, but my last boss, he’d been okay. Demanding but fair. He’d wanted me to stay. Addy had wanted me to stay too, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
“Good.”
“I got sick of being treated like a doormat, and— Wait, what did you say?”
“Good. Good for you.”
“Uh, thanks.”
So many other people in town were incredulous that I’d quit a good-paying, well-respected job. I’d tried to stick it out in the city. I really had. For two months, I’d tried to block out the memories of that night, the little snippets that came back to haunt me. But every time I walked past a man I vaguely recognised, I wondered if it had been him. Friends, colleagues… I couldn’t relax around any of them. I didn’t want to go out, and when I stayed home, I began shaking every time I heard footsteps in the hallway outside my apartment. What if it had been one of my neighbours who violated me in the worst possible way? I became suspicious of everyone, and that was no way to live. A fresh start had seemed like the best option, and I’d always felt safe in Baldwin’s Shore. Stifled, but safe.
Until now.
Luca shrugged. “Sometimes, you gotta walk your own path. Follow your heart.”
And then, because I hadn’t embarrassed myself enough in front of Luca in the past two days, I spewed forth some more word vomit. Vomit with the teensiest hint of the bile that had been building for the last eight years. The oral equivalent of partially digested diced carrots.
“I tried that once before, and it didn’t work out so well, did it?”
We both knew what I was talking about, and my brain froze before I finished the sentence. But the words kept tumbling from my lips, the Niagara Falls of stupidity. Luca cursed again, this time under his breath, but I barely heard him because I was already halfway out of the truck.
“On second thought, I’ll take my own car to Coos Bay.”
Perhaps the veterinarian would help me to lift Vega into the back seat if I asked nicely? Or I could hire someone to help? There was a flyer pinned on the noticeboard at the grocery store, and—
Luca shot out his hand and grabbed my wrist. Holy heck, the man had reflexes.
“The hell you will.”
“Hey, let go!”
“Get back in the truck, Brooke.”
He held me gently, almost a caress, and I gave an involuntary shiver. Why did he still affect me this way after all this time? Even when he was behaving like a jerk?
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I shouldn’t have said that. I misread the signs back then, and… I’m just sorry, okay?”
“Sit down and put your seat belt on,” he said, speaking softly now. “We need to go get your dog.”
I slumped back into the passenger seat. Spending time with Luca was uncomfortable, but there was no way to bury the past or even to ignore it. That stupid memory would always be between us, the elephant in the room. And I really couldn’t afford to turn down his help. Quite literally—Vega’s surgery would cost half of my savings, and I still needed to finish my apartment. Aaron was being beyond generous in building me somewhere to live, but his finances wouldn’t stretch to all the furnishings, so I had to chip in too. Although I knew why Aaron was doing it—out of guilt. Guilt that he’d stayed in New York to finish his law degree while I’d given up my college dreams to care for Nonna after her first stroke. Oh, he’d offered to come back, but he’d been more than two years into his legal studies and had a full-ride scholarship, whereas I’d only just started my business degree. The gift of an apartment was his way of repaying me.
But somehow, it still felt like a consolation prize.
Hey, Brooke, you’ll never achieve your dreams, but at least you have an en-suite bathroom.
Gah, now I sounded like an ungrateful idiot. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate what Aaron was doing—I did, beyond measure—but I’d always hoped to buy a home in a location I loved with money I’d made myself. To feel as if I’d earned it. Not only had I failed, but I was trapped in Baldwin’s Shore now, perhaps forever.
I buckled up, and Luca started the engine. He’d put a pile of towels on the back seat for Vega to lie on, and I recognised them as being from Aaron’s linen cupboard.
“Does Aaron know you borrowed his towels?”
“I’ll wash them afterward.”
A no, then. We lapsed into silence as we drove past the diner and out of town. No milkshakes today.
Every so often, I snuck a peek across at Luca, but he never looked at me. With his eyes hidden behind the sunglasses, I had no way to tell what he was thinking. At first glance, he seemed relaxed, one hand on the steering wheel and the other resting on his well-muscled thigh, but then I began to notice the little signs of tension—the tight skin across his knuckles where he gripped the wheel, his tapping foot, the rigid set of his jaw. It mirrored my own. And as we drove, I thought of the past. Of the fun we’d had as teenagers. Of trips to the Steak ’n’ Shake, hikes in the forest with Aaron and Addy and Colt and Romi, picnics on the beach, the way he’d give me a piggyback when I got tired and dunk me in the ocean when I threw sand at him. I missed the old Luca. More than anything else, my mistake had cost me a friend. Tears prickled, and I wiped at my eyes with a sleeve. Why did Luca have to come back and stir up all these old feelings?
We were halfway to Coos Bay before he spoke again, so quietly I could barely hear.
“You didn’t misread the signs, Brooke.”
What? What was he talking about? “Huh?”
“That night. You didn’t misread the signs. I just should’ve been better at hiding them.”
A second passed as his words filtered into my brain. I didn’t…misread…signs…hiding… What? I stiffened so fast I feared my spine might snap. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?
“I… I…”
“What you wanted to happen, what I wanted to happen, it just wasn’t an option.”
“Why? Why wasn’t it an option?”
“Because your brother’s my best friend, Brooke. And if you’ve been friends with a guy for longer than, say, twenty-four hours, you don’t sleep with his sister. There are rules about that.”
“Rules?”
“A code. Plus I was leaving town two weeks later. Anything we might’ve had would’ve fallen apart, and we’d both have hurt Aaron in the process.”
“So you hurt me instead.”
“And I’ll always be sorry for that. Always,” he added under his breath.
What was I meant to say to that? In part, it was a vindication, a revelation that I hadn’t been quite as stupid as I thought all those years ago. He’d liked me. Luca really had liked me. But whether he’d liked me or not, ultimately, we’d still ended up in the same position, except maybe he’d been hurting too. Had he been hurting? Or had he forgotten me as soon as he arrived in Fort Benning? His face was impassive now, a blank mask as he stared straight ahead through the windshield.
He’d never called. He’d never written. Until now, he’d never visited, although he’d gone to see Aaron. Did he still like me? Or had I merely been a passing infatuation?
“So what now?”
“Now? Now, we go and pick up your dog.”
Had he always missed the point so intentionally? “You know exactly what I meant.”
“Yeah.” Boy, that was a long sigh. “But nothing’s changed, has it? I’ll be gone in a week, two weeks max. It’s easier that way.”
Easier for who?
“Do you have
another contract lined up?”
“Nothing’s confirmed, but there’re a couple of possibilities. I hear Sierra Leone’s nice this time of year. But in the meantime, I’ll help you to carry the dog up and down your steps whenever Aaron isn’t around. Unless you have a boyfriend lined up to lend a hand?”
“There’s nobody. I decided to give dating a rest for a while.”
“Bad break-up?”
“Something like that.”
“Sorry you had such a shitty time.”
He sounded as if he meant it, but what did that matter? Our lives were separate now. It occurred to me that despite our shared history, I didn’t really know him. Perhaps I never had?
Fifteen minutes until we reached Coos Bay. Quite deliberately, I turned to look out the passenger window and folded my arms, protecting what was left of my heart. With Luca Mendez in town, the risk of further damage was all too real.
And with my stalker in Baldwin’s Shore as well, a broken heart wasn’t the only danger I faced.
7
Luca
What the fuck had I done?
The threat of tears plus eight years of festering guilt had pried open my mouth, loosened my tongue, and made me confess a secret that should have stayed hidden. When Brooke’s bottom lip had quivered, I’d wanted to pull over and gather her in my arms, but that wasn’t an option, and now I’d done even more damage.
It had been far easier to deny my feelings when the girl I’d been in love with for over a decade didn’t know about them.
I still remembered the moment when I’d finally seen what had been staring me in the face for years. I was seventeen, coasting my way through high school with no plan other than to get the hell away from Baldwin’s Shore, and I’d been kicked out of class for fighting. Again. Going home was out of the question—my father worked the night shift at a warehouse in Coos Bay in those days, and if I’d set foot in the house with obvious bruises, getting suspended would’ve been the least of my worries.
So I went to the Bartlett place. Nonna was out, but I knew where the spare key was, and nobody minded if I let myself in. Nonna said I was honorary family, even if I didn’t always feel like I deserved that title. Brooke was there. Lying on the couch with the drapes pulled, a damp cloth over her forehead to try and ease her migraine. There’d been an awkward moment when I almost sat on her. But despite her own pain, she’d insisted on cleaning up my bloody knuckles, and then we’d just sat together in the dark, silent at first, but when her head started to feel better, we’d begun talking. She’d asked me why I fought, and when I tried to put it into words, I realised there was no good reason. Because I hated to lose, I guess. She asked me what my ambitions were. What did I want to get out of my life? I didn’t have an answer for that either. Brooke helped me to see that just hightailing it out of town wasn’t much of a plan, and if I was going to succeed, to make something of myself, then I needed to have goals.
That day, we’d both made lists, three items each.
Luca’s goals
1 - Take care of my sister.
2 - Get a good job.
3 - See the world.
Brooke’s goals
1 - Learn the right lessons.
2 - Fall in love.
3 - Be happy.
Of course, I’d laughed at Brooke’s list. I was a teenage boy—what did you expect? Lessons were for dorks. And being happy? That was a foreign concept. The idea of falling in love was dumb—why would I want to do that when I got all the pussy I needed for free? Girls lined up to get a Luca-notch on their bedposts. Sleeping with the bad boy was a rite of passage for the girls at Bayshore High, and I took full advantage of that tradition.
But even as I told her that, the words rang hollow.
Brooke had lain there with her head in my lap as I massaged her temples, and she’d told me that my new goals were wise and noble. That I was a good brother. It was she who’d suggested the army as an option—that way, I could combine goals two and three, and we both knew I liked fighting, didn’t we?
That afternoon had changed my life. And now, eleven years later, I’d achieved goals two and three. Goal one was still a work in progress. I tried, fuck, I tried, but Romi still had a tendency to go off the rails, although she’d managed to stay on the straight and narrow for the past three years, more or less. A record. She’d earned her fortune as a model, but that world hadn’t been kind to her.
I’d also realised that Brooke’s list contained a more worthwhile set of goals than mine, taking care of Romi excepted.
And they were far harder to achieve.
So there I was, stuck in my past, on my way to pick up Brooke’s dog and avoid a horny veterinarian. Every few minutes, Brooke wiped her face with a sleeve, and regret clogged my veins like treacle. Regret that I’d put her into this position. But I had no choice.
Not only was there a code, but there was also a pact. A pact with Aaron that we wouldn’t mess around with each other’s sisters. It happened when we were sixteen, and yeah, alcohol had been involved, but that didn’t make it any less serious. We’d been at a party. Him, me, and Romi—Brooke had been somewhere else, probably studying or over at Addy’s place. Those two had been thick as thieves. Too much beer and knock-off Jack Daniels led to a game of truth or dare, and because Easton Baldwin was an asshole, he’d dared Aaron to kiss Romi, and when Aaron turned down that dare, Easton had dared him to feel her up instead. Romi’s relationship with drink hadn’t been much better as a teenager than it was as an adult, and she probably wouldn’t have objected, but I sure did.
I’d been about to wipe the smile off of Easton’s smug face and probably flatten his nose too when Aaron had stopped me.
“I’ll take the truth,” he whispered. “I’m not gonna kiss your sister. But you’ve gotta promise not to touch Brooke either.”
“Brooke’s not even here.”
“I mean ever. You don’t touch her ever.”
Back then, it had been an easy promise to make. Now, I wondered if he’d known something that I didn’t.
“Sure, buddy, I won’t touch Brooke. She’s not my type anyway.”
Aaron had confessed to shitting his pants on Halloween when he was ten, earning himself the nickname “skidmark” for junior year. And I’d kept my promise.
For twelve years, I’d kept my promise, but keeping my lips, hands, and everything else off Brooke got more difficult with every day that passed. So I’d have to keep my distance instead.
Returning to Baldwin’s Shore had been a mistake, but I couldn’t change the past.
“Don’t worry if Vega doesn’t eat tonight. He’s had a long anaesthetic today, and he’ll feel sleepy for the rest of the evening. But if he doesn’t eat tomorrow either, give me a call.”
Carly was acting more businesslike today, thank fuck. Probably because I stayed by the door, arms folded, and ignored her. She seemed like a nice enough woman, but with Brooke around, avoidance was the best tactic.
“Doesn’t he need a bandage?” Brooke asked.
“No, it’s important that he be able to extend and flex his leg right from the start. That gives his knee a better chance of healing successfully. But don’t let him run around. You’re happy with the exercise plan?”
Brooke was clutching the twelve-week planner plus a chart of leg exercises in her hand, and she nodded. “I think so.”
“I’m here if you have any questions.”
“How long should he keep the cone on?”
“Until the sutures dissolve. That’ll take a couple of weeks, but book in for a check-up in ten days. He’ll need X-rays at six weeks as well.”
Again, Brooke nodded. She was quiet, quieter than usual, and I wasn’t sure whether it was the seriousness of Vega’s injury that had upset her, or our conversation in the truck. Probably both. That seemed like a good bet. While she finished talking with Carly, I slipped out of the consulting room to pay off the balance on Brooke’s account. Seven years spent living on various bases plus th
e added bonus of hostile fire pay every time I got deployed to a combat zone, which was most of the time, plus a stint in the private sector that paid me more than all my years in the army combined had left me sitting on a healthy nest egg. Spending some of it to fix Brooke’s dog was the least I could do.
But of course, that pissed her off too. Back in the truck, Vega snored softly on the pile of towels wearing his giant plastic cone, and Brooke glared at me, arms folded. The glint in her gorgeous brown eyes made me wish I’d brought body armour.
“The vet said you paid for everything.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Why?”
“Because I have the money, and you have a half-built apartment.”
“So now I’m a charity case?”
I wanted to sigh, but I swallowed it down. “Aren’t I allowed to help out a friend?”
“A friend?” She barked out a laugh, a final kick to the nuts. “You think we’re friends?”
“You think we’re not?”
“Luca, you said goodbye with a note, and you’ve barely spoken to me since you left.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear anything I had to say.”
“So you didn’t even try?”
I realised now that by attempting to avoid the hurt and the awkwardness, by trying to spare Brooke’s feelings and my own, I’d made a mistake. A big one. Perhaps even an irreparable one. While I was busy fighting for my country and getting shot at, ultimately, I’d been a coward. I’d cut our contact down to Christmas and birthday cards sent via Aaron, all because I couldn’t face the roller coaster of feelings I rode every time I spoke to Brooke. Feelings. They’d become the enemy. By shunning them, I’d become an excellent soldier and a shitty human being.
“I’m sorry I didn’t try. I should have.” When she didn’t answer, I carried on blindly. “But I’m trying now.”
“Oh, sure. For two weeks, you’ll hang around to annoy me, and then you’ll disappear for another eight years.”