The Return of Brody McBride

by Jennifer Ryan

  “Rain . . .” he tried again.

  “Then, I fought my way through all the anger and dissecting everything that happened and was happening in my life and realized there was only one thing that really hurt. The only thing that mattered. You left me.” Her face turned from the sky to him. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “I wanted you back. In the end, that’s the only thing I really cared about. You aren’t a cheater, Brody. I can’t defend or explain what you did, but as much pain as it caused me, Autumn has brought me infinitely more joy. It’s taken me a long time to realize I’d rather have her than to erase what you did.”

  “Then you know how I feel. As much as I’d like to take that hurt away from you, erase that day from my life, I don’t want to because I love that little girl.”

  “I know you do,” she said, a soft smile curving her lips. “So, here we stand.”

  “I just want to put the past behind us, but I have no idea how to do that, Rain. I have so much to be sorry about, so much to prove to you.”

  “You don’t have to prove anything to me, except that you want to be a part of my and our daughter’s futures.”

  “I do, but saying so isn’t enough to convince you.”

  “Then let’s settle the past.” An easiness laced her voice and softened her face.

  Brody took the piece of paper out of his back pocket and held it out to her.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “You said, let’s settle up. So, this is for you. I should have given it to you a couple days ago, but I had to settle some matters with my accountant and have Owen draw up some legal papers.”

  She took the paper from his outstretched hand. Once she opened it, her passive expression turned hard. “What is this?”

  “Child support.” He waited for the smile to bloom on her face when she saw the check, for her excitement to show. When she did the opposite, he crossed his arms over his chest, defensive at her less than exuberant response.

  “Are you trying to piss me off?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” His voice cold as the pit of his stomach.

  “This is a hell of a lot more than child support.”

  “It’s a quarter of a million dollars. If you want more, you can have it. Take it all. I don’t care. It’s just money, but it’s money owed to you for caring for our children alone all these years. You have your inheritance from your grandparents and your mother, but even if you and I weren’t together, I’d still have to pay you child support. I’ve made a lot of money over the years. Considering that and what a court would have me pay, I’m giving you that check. If you want more, I’ll give it to you.”

  Crushing the check in her fist, she pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. “I don’t have the money anymore.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My inheritance money,” she explained. “This is so strange. You handing me a check for all this money, it’s so unbelievable.”

  “I have a lot of money, Rain. What I don’t have is the woman I love and my children living under one roof. I can’t buy that, but I can make life a hell of a lot easier for you and the girls until I make that happen.”

  She sucked in a deep sigh, that far-off look coming over her again as she stared up at the stars. “When you came back, you thought I’d be living in California, a graduate from college, working on my career.”

  “It bothers me you lost out on your dream.” he admitted.

  “Your understanding about how important school was to me helps. It really does. I resented you for a long time for going off and living your life the way you wanted when I was stuck here with two babies.”

  “One that didn’t belong to you,” he added, watching her closely.

  “I really wanted to go to college. More than anything . . . except being with you.”

  “You were all set to leave in the fall,” he said, remembering how he’d been so afraid of losing her. Much like he felt now. Only this time would be worse, because she had his children and losing all of them would destroy him.

  “More than anything I wanted you to come with me.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Think back to those days, Brody. Things between us were moving so fast. Everything was moving in the right direction, but I had to be sure you really wanted to come with me. As the summer drew on, and we got closer to fall, you pulled away, so I tried to pull you back to me.”

  “The night I brought you home after we went to the movies. Your dad was out. I told you we needed to talk. We went up to your room. You kissed me. I thought we’d set the house on fire. You stepped back, pulled off your shirt, and said, ‘I’m ready. Are you?’ God, I wanted to grab you and never let you go.”

  “But you didn’t. You pulled away and said it would never work, that you’d made a mistake thinking we could be anything more than friends. Before that night, you’d always been hungry for me, but patient and understanding about my wanting to take our time. Yet, you didn’t go through with it when I finally made the decision to make love to you.”

  He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck in frustration. “Before I picked you up that night, I talked to my old man and told him I thought I’d go with you to San Francisco. He laughed and asked me why the hell any pretty co-ed with a campus full of men to choose from would want a guy with no job and no future. I barely remember the movie, because I couldn’t stop thinking about the truth in what he said. The city is no place for a rancher. What was I going to do? Find some lame job that barely paid anything, scrape by on construction jobs, or worse, find myself unqualified for anything and ask you to support me until I found something?”

  “Better to leave me before I left you.”

  “The second worst thing I ever did.”

  “Yeah, because breaking up with me sent you straight into Roxy’s bed. Two days later, I couldn’t stand the distance you put between us. I came to this cabin to show you how much I loved you and wanted you back.”

  “I opened the door and you threw yourself into my arms. You kissed me with the same desperation I felt for you.”

  “I felt it in the way you held on to me. That day, neither of us would have settled for anything less than being with each other completely.” A pretty blush flushed her cheeks.

  “The guilt over what I’d done ate at me. I loved you so damn much and if you found out, you’d never want to be with me again. If I could just make love to you, you’d know how much I love you and nothing else would matter. Stupid reasoning, but I desperately wanted to bind you to me.”

  “You did. Dawn binds us together forever.”

  “It’s not enough.” He wished she would get it, because he couldn’t seem to string the words together to convince her.

  “Well, let’s stick with settling the past before we talk about the future.”

  “Do we have a future?”

  “One thing at a time, Brody.”

  “Just answer the damn question,” Brody demanded, ready to lose it if she didn’t answer him.

  “Back off,” she snapped back. “How can we move forward when we’re anchored in the past? Let’s finish this, put it to rest once and for all, so we can stand together in the future knowing there was nothing left unsaid, nothing left undone.”

  “The only thing that needs to be said is that I’m sorry.” Brody turned his back on her, overwhelmed by the moment. Knowing he had to, he faced her when he said the rest. “I’m sorry I broke up with you. I’m sorry I ever walked into the bar that night, more sorry than I can say. I followed Roxy upstairs knowing she was playing me. I’m sorry I did something I didn’t want to do and can never take back. I’m sorry I hurt you and made you mad. I’m sorry I made you think everything between us meant nothing to me. You have to know that isn’t the case. I love you, have always loved you. I can’t tell you why I did it . . .”

  “You went there upset you broke up with me when you didn’t want to, thinking I was leaving you, and frustrated bec
ause you had a scared virgin for a girlfriend . . .”

  “I never regretted that. You were mine. Only mine. It meant something . . . everything to me. And I threw it away. Don’t you see? I don’t want to look back. I want to make things right now.”

  “All I’m asking is that you look at what happened, knowing what you know now.”

  “I want to leave it buried and never look at it again. Don’t you see, Rain, that night cost me everything.”

  “It gave you so much more.” Her voice pleaded. “It gave you Autumn and Dawn.”

  “I might not have had Autumn otherwise, but I’d still have you and Dawn.”

  “Maybe,” she conceded. “Who’s to say? But we need to talk about what happened and how we ended up here.”

  “We’re here because I’m an asshole. End of story. I walked into her room, drunk and missing you so damn much. I was pissed off you were leaving and that you had every right, because I had nothing better to offer you. I wanted you so damn bad, and if I couldn’t have you, well, I could pretend she was you. But she wasn’t. No one is you. I was a fool to believe that anyone could take your place.”

  “So you took her to bed and left her afterwards without a second thought?”

  “I was drunk and pissed and confused and miserable without you. I never even took her into the bedroom.”

  “Oh . . . I just thought . . .”

  “What? That I took her to bed and made love to her the way I made love to you?”

  Why wouldn’t she? She’d never made love to anyone before him. He didn’t want to think about her making love to someone after him. She couldn’t know, and had probably spun quite a tale of him with Roxy . . . like he’d been with her.

  “I only thought . . .”

  He hated to do it, but she had to know how little Roxy meant to him. “I kissed her to shut her up. I didn’t want to hear her voice. I closed my eyes so I didn’t see her, but you in my mind. I fell on top of her on the couch. I never even took her clothes off, just pulled up her skirt. She wasn’t even wearing any underwear. That’s the Roxy you remember, the woman who’d fuck any man she could get her claws into and take whatever she could from him. A woman who doesn’t even wear panties and is ready the minute her back hits a firm surface.

  “You think I left there without a second thought. God, that’s all I had. I might have been drunk and not thinking clearly, but in the back of my mind I knew she played on my overwrought emotions and lead me straight to hell. I still followed, even though I knew how many men she’d been with. I felt as dirty as she is. If I caught something from her, well, I deserved it. Later, I worried about it, you, until I knew I was healthy, which meant so were you.

  “See, another dickhead thing I did to you. I hated myself for it. I didn’t protect you, and I should have because you mean more to me than my own life.

  “Sleeping with her ruined any future I might have had with you. I had you. Fresh, clean, bright, smart, kind, loving, beautiful,” he said, taking her face into his hands and looking deep into her eyes. “You were everything I wanted and needed. My best friend, the woman I loved more than anything in my life. Everything in my mind was dark, and I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d lost everything good and decent in me doing what I did. Then, two days later, you came to me. One look at you, the only thing good I’d ever had in my life, and I had to have you. I needed desperately to feel your love and kindness, to fill myself up with it.”

  He gave into his need, brushing a soft kiss against her lips. “I made love to you like I never wanted to let you go because that’s exactly how I felt. I knew you’d hate me when you found out what I did. I needed to show you how much I loved you. I poured everything in my heart and soul into showing you how much I cherished you, needed you, couldn’t breathe without you.”

  “Why didn’t you stay and tell me that instead of leaving with nothing more than a note that said, ‘I’m sorry.’ I had no idea for days what you meant. Sorry for sleeping with me?”

  “Never. I couldn’t face you and tell you what I’d done and see the hurt and misery on your face and in your heart, knowing I did that to you. The best thing for both of us was for me to leave. I figured you’d go off to school, have the life you dreamed and planned, and I’d be a distant memory. You being pregnant never crossed my mind. Roxy pregnant with my child was the last thing I wanted. I couldn’t stay here, or I’d kill her.”

  “You might want to once I tell you what happened after you left.”

  “It couldn’t have been easy for you to see her pregnant, too. The whole town talking. Someone told me the two of you had a pretty heated argument in the grocery store.”

  “We did. If you think I was angry about you leaving, she was livid. After five months, she realized you weren’t coming back for her or me.”

  “I can’t tell you how many times I picked up the phone and started dialing your number. I’d sit in my truck, the engine idling, and I’d desperately want to turn in your direction and come home. But I thought there was nothing and no one waiting for me here. I thought you’d gone off to school, some college jock dating you, sleeping in your bed . . .”

  “I didn’t go to college, not because I was pregnant, but because I gave all my money to Roxy,” she blurted out, leaving him stunned.

  “What?”

  “The argument we had in the grocery store,” she began. “She cornered me and demanded to know if I’d heard from you. She didn’t like my answer. She thought if she could find you, you’d come back for the baby. What she hadn’t counted on was my being pregnant, too. Somewhere in her demented mind, she knew if you found out about the pregnancies, you’d still choose me and our baby over her.”

  “Damn right I would.”

  “After five months, she was tired of the pregnancy and not being able to . . . do the things she liked to do,” she finished lamely.

  “Threw a wrench into her drinking and whoring, did it?”

  “More than that. You know how much she loved attention. Everyone was talking about us, but she got the worst of it. People were betting the baby wasn’t yours, talking about the way she got you into bed, and how you’d snubbed her afterward. Your dad wasn’t a big help, he made some rather nasty comments to her about tainting the McBride bloodlines.”

  “Like he can talk,” Brody admitted bitterly.

  “Why don’t we finish this inside the cabin?”

  “Can’t,” he said quickly.

  “Why’s that?” she asked.

  “There’s a bed in there,” he said with a self-mocking laugh. He liked it that she smiled.

  Chapter Sixteen

  * * *

  THE SMILE ON Rain’s face disappeared and she turned serious again. “Brody, your father came to me when he found out I was pregnant. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so . . .”

  “What?” Brody wished they could go back to lighthearted teasing instead of hashing out their past.

  “Soft.”

  He almost laughed at the thought of his old man being anything but mean and nasty for no other reason than he wanted to be.

  “Soft? He must have been really wasted.”

  “Not at all. In fact, it was quite early in the day.”

  “You think that means he was lucid and sober?”

  “Would you stop. Listen to me. He came to ask if he could see the baby when it was born.”

  Surprised his old man even cared, he asked, “He did? He wanted to see the baby?”

  “Very much. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look so . . . regretful,” she said after taking a moment to think of just the right word. Her thoughtfulness made Brody think twice about the old man.

  “The conversation was very short, but before he left, he said something I think you need to hear.”

  “Anything he had to say isn’t worth knowing.”

  “Brody, he was your father. For better or worse, he loved you in his own way.”

  “Bullshit. That man didn’t love anyone.”

&
nbsp; “Then maybe what he had to say will make a difference for you. He turned back before he left and said, ‘Anything good in me went into my boys. It grew in them and made them who they are. If Brody put half the wealth of good he has into your baby, I’ll have a fine grandchild.’”

  Brody actually took a step back, covered his mouth with his hand, and slid his fingers over his jaw before dropping his hand to his side again. “He said that?”

  “Whatever else was between you, he was proud of his sons. In that small moment, I saw it in his eyes, Brody. He regretted not being a good father to you, but he knew you and Owen had taken what little he thought he’d given to you and made something of it.

  “After Dawn was born, he came to see me again. He stared at her for the longest time. Barely said more than a few words to me. Then, he picked her up and held her in front of him. He apologized to her for playing a part in your leaving,” she said, her eyes never leaving his.

  He couldn’t move, couldn’t believe what she was saying could really be real.

  “He turned to me then, to let me know the apology was meant for me, too. He sang her a lullaby, said it was one he used to sing to you and Owen when you were small.”

  Brody choked back the lump in his throat. “He liked to sing when he was drunk,” he said, filling up the awkward moment.

  “He had a nice voice. Dawn fell asleep, content in his arms. He left after that. I didn’t see him again until the day after I brought Autumn home. He stared at her with this strange look on his face. When he spoke, it was with such reverence. He told me she looked just like your mother.”

  “She does. When I saw her, I was taken back to my childhood when my mother was around.”

  “He didn’t stay long. Before he left, he held her for a few minutes, then looked at me with so much sadness in his eyes. He said, ‘The worst thing a man can do is leave a good woman, or make her leave him. You’re a good woman, Rain. Brody left too much of himself behind. He’ll be back, or spend the rest of his days in misery as it should be for any man willing to let love go.’ I’ll never forget his words, or the way he said them.”