“Let me do this. I need to do this.”
“Do what you gotta do, girlfriend,” she whispered softly, then gave me an encouraging smile. “Slay those drinks.”
Wrong.
I’d been wrong.
I hadn’t gotten halfway through getting us caught up before it began.
Girls whispering: “Did you hear? Cayson Dixon is back.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t Hunter just stirring everyone into a tizzy because he came off that ranch?”
“Of course, it was him, Sawyer called him by name.”
“Where has he been all this time?”
“Like that matters? What does matter is there’s another available Dixon with him back. With Sawyer off the table, it was getting harder and harder to ‘run into’ Hunter since he barely comes into town.”
Mothers and grandmothers not bothering about being silent as they gossiped: “Well, I heard that Dixon boy is back—the troublemaker one. But I’m sure he’s grown out of those ways, and my daughter is lookin’ to settle down. She sings the solos in the church choir, you know.”
“I live next door to their mother. I just know she would appreciate a nice show of what my granddaughter can whip up in the kitchen. Mothers like to know their boys will be well-cared for.”
“Well, if you remember, that Cayson boy and my Brooke used to be quite the thing. Flames like that don’t just die. One look at each other, and I’m bettin’ sparks will fly again.”
I wanted to scream.
Not even half an hour since he’d stepped back into town, and everyone was losing their damn minds.
I was one of them.
I wanted to get one more glimpse of him. I wanted to fall to the floor in relief and joy because he’d come home—something I’d wanted so desperately and had been sure would never happen.
But keeping him at a distance was best.
In the time he’d been away, I’d let myself fall more in love with him and forgotten more and more of the emotional pain he’d caused.
Seeing him made everything come rushing back with stark clarity, and I knew . . . I knew I needed to protect myself.
I’d already been hurt by Cayson Dixon enough for one lifetime.
“You okay?”
My head snapped up to find Brady, one of our employees who had switched fully to the bar side of Brewed a couple years back, stepping up beside me.
“Your mom was just here,” I murmured, the information coming out short and irritated as I gestured to where the Marry-Off-Cayson women of Amber had been coming and going in the café. Clearing my throat, I glanced behind him. “You’re supposed to be at the bar.”
“I am. Everyone’s taken care of right now, so I wanted to check on you.”
One of my shoulders lifted as I looked back to the espresso bar and grabbed the next cup. “No need to.”
“In all the time I’ve worked for you, I’ve never seen you kick anyone out,” he said with a hesitant laugh, his voice lowering when he continued. “Also never seen you drop a glass or mug or anything the way you did when he walked in.”
“First time for everything.”
“Yeah, I guess.” He took a step away but paused. “I know the Dixons are like your family, I can only imagine you took Cayson’s leaving as hard as they did.”
Family . . . right.
Then again, Amber as a whole was more of a family than a community . . .
Like a family, Amber has secrets they struggle to keep. Pasts they long to forget.
Amber has its bad seeds and darkness.
Darkness that spreads, tainting everything it touches and weighing the family down whether or not they’re aware of the devil hidden among them behind saccharine smiles and perfectly-delivered lines.
And every family breathes easier when the darkness leaves. Even if they’re among the lucky unaware—if that unrestricted breath comes as a surprise.
I hadn’t been so lucky.
And though it should’ve, Cayson’s disappearance had never helped anyone breathe easier.
It had been suffocating.
Brady knocked his knuckles on the counter and started backward. “Just wanted to check on you.”
“I appreciate it, Brady.” I glanced his way and offered him a brief smile. “I really am fine.”
He nodded, but it was clear he didn’t believe me.
Doubted anyone would until I believed myself.
“Gonna unpack or just stand there until you convince yourself to leave?”
I turned to find Sawyer in the doorway to the guest room, leaning against the frame with arms folded across his chest.
Instead of the cold glare I was met with at Brewed, he was watching me with a look so conflicted, I wondered if he was starting to think I should leave. If he was starting to see what I had—that coming here would only make it worse.
“Just thinking,” I finally replied and leaned against the wall, mimicking his stance.
“Why’d you come back, man?” he asked when I didn’t offer anything else.
Something like a laugh crept up my throat. “I didn’t know . . . I didn’t think about how much I would hurt her and you until I was already here.”
“Not what I asked.”
“I just started driving,” I admitted. “I needed to get away, so I did. Next thing I knew, I was in Amber, and you were right in front of me.”
He studied me for a while before assuming, “Your girl?”
“Not like you’re thinking. It’s . . .” A heavy breath punched from my lungs as I forced all that pain back. “We needed to be over. We stayed together for a lot longer than we should’ve. I mean, I talked to you more than her, and I lived with her.”
Sawyer lifted one of his hands in a gesture that showed equal parts question and surprise before folding it again. “Last I heard, y’all were fine. Then suddenly, you’re here, and y’all are done.”
“We were fine. We’ve been only fine for about a year. But we . . . well, it was a lot more complicated than that.”
“But that is why you decided to come back.”
“I don’t know, Saw. There was a lot of shit happening down there.” When silence made up of questions and slow-building irritation filled the room, I released a heavy sigh and conceded, “It was part of it.”
He pushed from the frame and stepped into the room. “I’m trying to figure out what happens when everything gets resolved for you. I’m trying to figure out how to prepare for you leaving again.”
“Jesus,” I mumbled and raked a hand through my hair. “If you want me to leave now, I will.”
He gestured to my bags and then the room we were standing in. “Clearly, I don’t.”
“I’ve been in town for about twenty minutes, and all you’ve done is interrogate and harass me on when I’m leaving.”
“What else did you expect?” he snapped. “You left in the middle of the night, Cayson. You left without a word. We all thought you’d just snuck out again. No one knew you were actually gone for about a day. And then you didn’t just leave for a week or two—you stayed gone for nearly ten years. You can’t blame me for wondering. You can’t blame me for worrying about our family.”
My stare fell to the floor as Sawyer’s words replayed and mixed with conversations I’d tried so damn hard to forget.
All of which discredited what my brother said. What he knew to be true.
“No,” I murmured as I stepped from the wall and headed for my bags. “Guess I can’t.”
Once my bags were on the bed, and I was opening them up, Sawyer asked, “You couldn’t have given us a heads up that you were headed back?”
“Would it have made a difference?”
He let out a weak huff and turned for the door. “Guess we’ll never know.”
I watched him go.
Once I was sure I was alone, I loosed a ragged breath and dragged a hand through my hair, gripping at the short strands as the weight of this day and these past months pressed harder and hard
er against me.
As the grief and betrayal and pain clashed into that toxic bitterness I refused to carry around.
With another breath, I forced myself to release it all and went back to unpacking.
Grabbing a handful of my clothes, I turned for the dresser and opened the top drawer.
My body went still and I slanted a quick look around the room to see if anyone was watching. Waiting for this. Waiting to laugh . . .
Nothing.
Setting my clothes on top of the dresser, I opened the other drawers only to shut them when I found them empty, then went back to the first one.
Eyeing the few clothes in there.
The black lace that I’d bet my life didn’t belong to Sawyer.
Grabbing the clothes, I dumped them onto the top of the dresser. My jaw clenching as another article of lace tumbled out of the Amber High gym shirt that most definitely did belong to Sawyer.
I picked up the bra, glancing at it for only a second before looking at the scrap of underwear.
Rae was a guy’s fantasy, no doubt, but she was all curves. Whoever these belonged to was definitely not the girl who had just been tucked close to my brother’s side.
Fucking asshole.
“Hey, Cays,” Sawyer’s voice met me before he turned the last corner in the hall. “Rae’s asking what you want for—”
“Door,” I bit out.
His brows slanted low over his eyes. “Uh . . .”
“Door. Shut it.”
“Okay?” he said hesitantly.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, I balled up the scraps of lace and launched them at him.
“The fuck, man?” He held them up and gave me a wide-eyed look as he tossed the lingerie back, but I didn’t bother catching them. “Look, I don’t wanna know what you do in your spare time.”
“Yeah, see, I thought the days of you sleeping your way through the surrounding cities stopped when Rae came along.” I jerked my chin in the direction of the open drawer. “One of the girls you’re screwing clearly wants your girl to find out if she’s leaving that shit around here.”
Pure confusion and denial tore across his face. “I’m not—I haven’t—” His stare drifted for a moment before his shoulders sagged with a mumbled “Shit.” After a second, he heaved a sigh and his eyes met mine. “Emberly.”
I felt my expression fall.
Felt that familiar stab of anger and jealousy spear me.
“The fuck?”
“Not like that,” Sawyer said quickly, hands raised in front of him. “It isn’t like that.”
“Fucking Emberly?” I asked in low warning. “That’s her sister.”
I’d known.
I’d known.
I’d already known.
But this was Emberly. I’d never been able to have a rational response or reaction to that girl.
Sawyer looked behind him to where the door was still firmly shut, then back to me. “Yeah, I know. But you’re gonna make it a problem when there isn’t one. It isn’t what you think,” he said firmly.
“Explain,” I demanded, folding my arms over my chest and mentally counting down in a poor attempt at calming myself.
“She stays here . . . Rae knows that,” he added quickly.
I knew that.
I’d shattered a phone the first time I found out.
“Jesus, stop looking at me like you’re about to give me a beatdown.”
“Thinking about it,” I said through clenched teeth. “Talk faster.”
He ran his hands over his face, grumbling about looking at Beau’s twin. “She’s always stayed with me—shit, she used to stay with us when we were growing up.”
“Yeah. When her mom went out of town.” One of my brows ticked up, my voice taking on a mocking tone when I asked, “She not able to stay on her own yet?”
“Man, shut up,” he grumbled. “She has her own place, she’s just . . . Emberly.” The way he said her name was as if it should explain everything.
It didn’t.
Because what my mind was coming up with had that anger burning hotter—anger I’d never had a right to feel when it came to Emberly Olsen.
When I just continued to watch him expectantly, he shrugged. “She can run Brewed flawlessly in her sleep. Work the bars, do the owner stuff without fail. Everyone’s paid. Everything is always in stock. But her personal life? It’s chaos. She can’t remember to pay her own bills. She loses her car keys at least once a week.”
The corner of my mouth lifted as a hazy memory from high school came to mind. When the janitor had to cut off yet another of Emberly’s locks because she kept forgetting the combination and never had her books.
“I mean, I could go on with the shit she forgets, but her water and electricity get shut off practically every other month because of it. So, she ends up here until the payments go through.”
He studied me, waiting until he was sure I’d backed down from the anger and potential threat.
“Got it.”
“That’s how it’s always been,” he muttered. “You know this. It’s Emberly. She’s like my sister.”
My stare narrowed before drifting to the side as I considered his words.
The weight and implication behind them.
I gestured to the clothes after a moment. “You have to know how bad that looks. Her lace and your old shirt?”
“Yeah, I guess it would.” His face scrunched in bemusement. “But she normally has that drawer full of clothes. And, uh . . . that isn’t my shirt,” he said, looking at the gym shirt.
“It says Dixon on it.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “I can see that, but it isn’t mine. Leighton had doodled all over mine. I threw it away when she died.”
I waited for the pain of his late girlfriend to surface, but it never came. It had been absent since Rae.
“Sorry for assuming,” I said gruffly.
He breathed a laugh. “Not sure I can blame you.” His stare shifted to mine and his voice softened. “Rae? I would never . . . she means everything.”
“Understood.”
He nodded a few times and backed away, gesturing to the open drawer as he did. “Em probably has stuff in the bathroom too. Sorry I spaced on telling you, but I’m so used to her coming and going that I don’t think about her being here unless she’s here.”
“Yeah, makes sense.”
But I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
About the countless times I’d known she was here, had stayed here, and had assumed something else had happened. Only to have Sawyer try to wipe all that away.
He had the door open and a foot in the hall when he remembered, “Dinner.”
I blinked, trying to bring myself back to the room and the conversation. “What about it?”
“Rae was asking what you wanted. You hungry for anything in particular now that you’re back?”
“Now that you’re back.”
The words had flowed so easily but packed a punch.
They felt wrong, maybe because I didn’t feel back.
Maybe because I’d had no intention of coming here, I’d just ended up here.
Maybe because everything had already gone to hell.
I shrugged. “Anything, really. I can pay for it or cook it, whatever y’all need.”
“Cook it?” he asked, not bothering to hide his surprise. “Cayson Dixon disappears and comes back knowing his way around a kitchen?”
I tried to smile, but it was forced and felt all kinds of wrong.
“I’ll let you know what we decide on,” he said as he left.
My expression fell as old resentments flared.
I came back knowing a lot more than that.
I opened the door of my truck late that night, my movements slow as I stepped onto the street and shut the door behind me. Wary.
Mostly because I didn’t know what to expect with how she’d reacted to me earlier. I also wasn’t really sure this was something I should be d
oing.
But it’d felt like I was about to crawl out of my skin with the way Sawyer was keeping a close eye on me. As if he was sure at any moment, I would disappear for another decade.
So, I’d headed out . . . after nearly three minutes of assuring him it was just for a drive and talking him out of coming with me.
I’d been here ever since, watching the doors of the dimly-lit Brewed, waiting until they’d finished shutting everything down for the night.
Emberly glanced up at the sound of my door closing and went still, her face falling into something like horror before that hatred took over.
“Em?” the guy next to her said when he noticed the way she’d frozen, then followed her line of sight to me. His chest puffed out a little as he took a step to the side so he was slightly in front of her with his guarded stare on me. “Cayson.”
My head jerked back, and I blinked a couple times. “Holy shit. Brady?”
He tipped his head in a slight nod.
“Damn, I didn’t even recognize you at first. How’ve you been?”
The look he gave me said it all. His upbringing was prompting him to continue with pleasantries, but his instinct was to defend Emberly. After a few seconds, he skipped both and said, “Brooke’s glad you’re back.”
“Uh . . .” A laugh fell from my mouth, all awkward and hesitant. “That’s, uh . . . all right,” I mumbled, not knowing how to respond.
The last thing I wanted to talk about at that moment was an ex, mainly one that was his sister.
Especially in front of the girl he was trying to hide.
I rubbed at my jaw before gesturing her way. “Kinda came to talk to Emberly, though.”
Brady spared a glance over his shoulder at where she was standing stiff as a board, hands pressed to her stomach, looking down the street.
Squaring his shoulders when his focus returned to me, he crossed his arms over his chest, making him look like an overeager protector. “I think Em said enough the first time. She doesn’t want you here.”
Her attention snapped to him, eyes growing wide at his declaration.
“I can speak for myself,” she said firmly as she began walking away from Brewed, toward me. Her narrowed gaze barely touching on Brady before piercing me again. “But, he’s right.”
Whiskey (Brewed Book 2) Page 3