Her tone was a mixture of hesitation and old frustrations when she responded, “I know. He was here last night.”
I lifted my head, my brow furrowing and making that unforgiving pounding worse. At this point, I was sure I deserved it.
“He what?”
“The bar,” she explained. “He came in last night.”
My head moved in faint shakes. Wondering if that was where he’d intended to go all along . . . but he’d packed up. He’d taken his bags.
He’d been gone for hours.
“When?”
She settled deeper into her chair and released a sigh, her stare drifting to the side as she thought. “About five. He was still here when I left for the night.”
That can’t be right . . . what was the purpose of leaving the way he had?
“We had a chat.”
My trying to understand the complicated and infuriating ins and outs of Cayson Dixon abruptly vanished at that small declaration.
“I let him know what he’d done to you in that past. What I thought about it all.” Her eyes locked with mine, daring me to say something when I’d begged her for so many years during my childhood not to confront him. “Warned him against hurting you again.”
My lips parted to say something, to ask why and how she could do something like that. But the words never came.
I wanted to be annoyed, but I’d been doing the same thing.
From the minute he’d stepped back into my life, I’d been keeping him at a distance so he couldn’t hurt me again, all while craving to have him wrapped around me. Invading my senses. Infusing himself in my veins. Inserting himself in my soul.
“Is that the reason behind this?” she asked, gesturing to me with a finger. “His return has brought my daughter to this?”
“No,” I said immediately, but hesitation lingered on my lips, my shoulders falling. “I mean, it’s complicated.” Those tears returned and fell ruthlessly as I looked back to my mom. “I thought he left again. Last night,” I clarified. “We all did.”
A crease formed between her brows and her head slanted. “When he came here?”
“He packed and left,” I explained. “He and Sawyer had gotten in a huge fight. Threw punches.”
“I see.” But nothing about her tone or her expression stated that she understood. “So, his leaving led to this.” Her confusion deepened as she studied me, as though she wasn’t sure how the two were related, or maybe was afraid to assume.
“Mom, I—” I gestured to my chest, wishing I could take this feeling within me and just lay it on the desk so she could see it. Understand it.
Because there was no way to accurately explain the anger and heartbreak and this miserable, unrequited love.
“He was awful,” I forced out. “He made my life horrible. But there was this side of him that he hid from everyone—that even I wasn’t supposed to see, but I did.”
Mom’s face transformed into a mixture of surprise and denial as she covered her mouth with her hand.
“I knew that was the real Cayson. One look, and I knew. And I don’t know why he did the things he did, or why he hid who he really was, but I . . .” A sob broke free, and I pressed my hands firmly to my chest as if that might keep my ruined, bleeding heart inside. “I fell in love with him.”
For long minutes, only the sound of my cries filled our office as my mom sat there, staring blankly ahead.
“Did he know?” she asked suddenly, her eyes focusing as she gave a little laugh. “How did I not know?”
“No one knew,” I said quickly, trying to assure her that she hadn’t missed something obvious. “Neither did he. I hadn’t realized it until a little while before he disappeared.”
Pain for me flashed across her face as she whispered, “Oh, Em.”
“I kept waiting for him to come back,” I continued. “Just waiting and waiting and waiting and not knowing how to stop even when I somehow knew he wouldn’t.” My voice trembled and wavered, and the room blurred. “Even when I tried to move on, I couldn’t because it wasn’t him.”
A self-deprecating laugh left me, and I reached for the mug to have something to hold on to.
“There’s something wrong with me, right? To fall in love with him?”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Mom said, voice soft as a whisper. “People love who they love.”
I let my attention drift to her and admitted, “When he came back, all I could see was everything he had done. I’m as afraid of him hurting me again as I am of him leaving.”
“You’re guarding yourself, it makes sense,” she assured me and tried to give an encouraging smile, but it quickly fell. “So, right now, at this moment, you still love him?”
“More than ever before,” I said without hesitation.
Her head bobbed in acknowledgment, but her thoughts seemed to drift at my affirmation. “I’m afraid for you too,” she said after a while. “He seemed different. Mature and polite and everything he wasn’t before. But to have this kind of hold on you for so long, to have you coming into work hungover because you’d thought he left after just . . . gosh, how long was he even here? A day? Two?”
She didn’t wait for me to answer, just shook her head and mumbled, “It scares me, Emberly.”
“I understand,” I said equally as soft.
Placing her hands on the arms of her chair, she let out a weighted breath and stood. “You going home?”
“No, I want to be here. You know I do.”
“Well, you aren’t going out there like that.” The reprimand was back in her voice, a tsk leaving her as she rounded her desk. “Drink that coffee. I’ll have the boys cook you up some food. When you’re feeling perfect, you can come out. Until then, stay in here or in the back.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said as I grabbed the binder for Amber Fest, intent on doing what work I could if I was going to be holed up in there.
She gently grasped my chin and lifted my face until I was looking at her. “I can’t stop you from enjoying a drink, and I won’t. I’m thankful you can enjoy them at all. That one taste doesn’t leave you needing another and another and turn you into this angry, unrecognizable person like your father was. But remember—it won’t fix the problem. If Cayson had disappeared again, that pain of him leaving would’ve still been there this morning. It would’ve hurt worse this morning.”
My stare fell to the side as shame washed through me, clenching my already uneasy stomach. “I know.”
“If I close my eyes, will you disappear?”
“Do you want me to?” came a low, gruff voice that teased every part of me. I knew that voice.
“I’ve never wanted you to.” An admission wrapped in pain.
Wrapped in him. Bourbon and sandalwood.
“Close your eyes . . .”
I blinked quickly as the hazy glimpse of the dream trailed across the edge of my mind before slipping away again.
Mom’s thumb brushed my cheek and then gave a little, adoring pinch. When I glanced her way again, she said, “It will work out how it’s supposed to.”
“I don’t know how it can,” I admitted sadly. “I see him, and I see what happened before mixed with everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Then maybe it’s time to move on.” When my lips parted to remind her that I’d tried to do just that for so long, she said, “Maybe what you needed to let go was him coming back and you seeing that you’d never be able to get over the past.”
I was fairly certain I’d said something along those lines to Rae in an attempt to get her to drop the hopelessly-in-love-with-Cayson subject. But just the thought wrenched my fragmented heart so greatly that it stole my breath, silencing anything I may have said in return.
I didn’t watch her leave.
Just stared at the walls of the office as I thought through moments of my life that involved Cayson.
The bad, the worst, the humiliating . . . and how, throughout it all, I’d been drawn to him. I’d felt incomplete unti
l he’d come home.
Here, alone, it was easy to think I could shed the past and move on from it, let him try to show me who he was now.
But Mom had been right. I’d spent so long protecting myself from him that it was instinctive to continue to.
Now more than ever because my heart was on the line.
“Saw—”
“Cayson, it’s gonna be fine,” Sawyer said for what had to be the thirtieth time today. Exasperation bleeding into his rough laughter at having to repeat himself yet again.
Rae was uncharacteristically silent in the passenger seat beside him.
She’d been on his side this morning, encouraging and even hopeful for what tonight could mean for the family. But as the afternoon had crept toward evening, she’d gone from excited and optimistic to worried and still.
My knee bounced nervously as I looked out the window, jaw clenched tight as a dozen different reasons why this might not go fine swirled through my mind.
When I glanced ahead, Sawyer was staring at me through his rearview mirror.
“Gonna be fine.” This time it was softer, calmer.
Trying to assure me or Rae or all three of us.
I gave a sharp nod and went back to staring out the window, knee bouncing the entire time as we continued the short drive to Blossom Bed and Breakfast.
Beau and Savannah’s place.
They’d been about to start renovations to turn the house into their lifelong dream when I’d left. But I’d heard all about it over the years from Sawyer.
It wasn’t the bed and breakfast I was anxious to see.
It was what waited inside.
Sunday night meant family dinner. Always had.
I’d heard enough over the years to know that family dinner had turned into dinner with only a portion of our family that remained. Beau’s family, Saw, and Mom.
This was what Rae had been talking about when she’d brought up my mom losing hope. Not having all of us at these dinners.
But even though I was physically here, I wasn’t sure they were ready for me to show up at a Sunday dinner . . .
The last couple of days had been more or less of the same as my first one back.
After telling Sawyer I wasn’t ready to lay bare why I’d finally returned because it was still too fresh, he’d surprised me by saying he understood.
No more questions asked about why I was here or when I was leaving. About what had led to us throwing punches . . . nothing. And everything between us had gone back to normal.
Well, as normal as we could be.
But the rest?
We hadn’t heard from our brothers.
I’d tried going to Mom’s, but she hadn’t been there. Or, at least, she hadn’t answered.
I’d called her that night and got an answer then.
Her surprise and disappointment when she realized who was calling were just as gut-slaying as the day I’d seen her.
“I’m not ready,” she’d said. “Please give me time.”
So, I had.
I’d stayed out of the way and around Sawyer’s house, trying to avoid bumping into anyone, going out of my mind.
Wondering what I was doing. What I was going to do.
How I’d ended up here all while a certain wrath-fueled girl invaded my every thought in ways she shouldn’t.
The way she looked.
How she’d changed over the years.
The way her body so clearly betrayed the mask she wore around me.
Her inebriated truths. “I saw you . . . before. Just you. That’s how I knew you.”
Emberly.
Emberly.
Emberly.
Always Emberly.
A stuttered breath escaped me and caught my brother’s attention when he pulled his truck to a stop in the rounded drive of the large plantation house.
“Cays, really—”
“You know, you keep saying that . . .” I began, an edge to my words. My shoulders jerked in a quick shrug. “That it’s gonna be fine. That they’ll be happy.” I lowered my voice to hide the worry there and let my attention drag to him. “You can’t know that. Shit, even yesterday, we were all so sure I shouldn’t go to the ranch to try to see Hunter and Mom. But today’s suddenly different?”
Sawyer’s mouth parted only to shut when he looked to Rae, a heavy breath leaving him as he studied her. “Hunter’s different,” he finally said when he glanced my way again. “Everyone’s mad, but Hunter has this grudge or something that he can’t get past, like we all ruined his life—you most of all. Tonight . . .”
“Beau’s kids are here,” Rae offered when Sawyer didn’t go on. “And Savannah.”
“There’s less of a chance he’ll do something,” I assumed when she didn’t continue, a laugh rumbling in my chest when she nodded. “Mom said she needed time,” I reminded them.
“But I think that’ll change when she sees you here,” Sawyer said, head dipping for emphasis when he continued. “For this. She’s missed seeing everyone around a table.”
My head was shaking as I reached for the handle and jumped out.
I wanted to be optimistic.
But there was this coldness moving down my chest and twisting up my stomach, warning me against it.
“Just take a breath,” Sawyer said when he came up beside me, clapping a hand against my shoulder and leading the way with Rae tucked against his side.
I followed, that chill spreading and making my breaths shallow the closer we came to the front door.
When Sawyer opened it and stepped right in without knocking, I froze.
“I, uh . . .” I pointed toward the truck and said, “I’m gonna wait. I think it’s best, you know, until they know I’m here.”
“What?” He looked deeper into the house and then back to me. “No, man, come on. I told you, it—”
“Yeah, I know,” I said with a frustrated laugh.
It’s gonna be fine.
I dragged a hand over my face and released a weighted breath.
When I looked straight ahead, both Sawyer and Rae were staring at me like they were worried about what I might do.
I forced a smile and took a step forward, refusing to let them see or even acknowledge the shaking that was starting deep in my bones.
I was so focused on following Sawyer, on the voices we were walking toward, that I didn’t even notice the house.
It could’ve burned down around me, and I wouldn’t have noticed.
My jaw ticked and fingers curled into fists when my oldest brother’s voice rose over the rest.
An automatic response to always needing to be on the defensive around him.
“Look who showed,” he said, voice still the same gravelly threat I remembered. “Surprised you came. Thought you were busy hiding the fugi—”
The room came to a standstill when I stepped into it.
Beau’s face went utterly blank for long seconds before a near-feral expression took over.
It wasn’t until a little girl popped up on her toes and asked, “Who’s that?” that everyone flew into action.
Literally.
Beau charged at me, never slowing even as Sawyer yelled at him while Rae rushed to explain to someone else.
I stood my ground.
Ready.
Or maybe just fucking tired of this.
But he didn’t swing, he just grabbed my shoulder and took me with him. Half-dragging, half-leading me the way I’d just come.
“You think you can just show up in my goddamn house?” he spat as he shoved me away, letting me stumble before I was able to regain my footing near the door. “Like no time has passed? Like you didn’t wreck every-fucking-thing? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
His chest rose and fell in rough jerks as he stared at me.
Hands curled same as mine.
But where I was caught in how identical he and Sawyer were now, and how Beau looked even more like Dad with all that anger radiating from him, Beau was staring at me li
ke he wanted to annihilate me.
“Wouldn’t have even been able to count myself lucky if I’d never seen you again,” he said through clenched teeth. “You ruined too much for that.” He jerked his head to the door behind me. “Out.”
“Everything.”
I looked past Beau toward the voice and felt the air escape my lungs on a painful rush.
Holy shit.
“Savannah?”
From the way she was storming toward us, it looked as if she planned to attack me the way Beau was so well known for, but she stopped a foot from us.
Finger pointed at me.
Chin wavering.
Golden eyes glassy.
Looking up at me in a way only Savannah could—like the tiny thing was ready to give a verbal ass-kicking that could have even the fiercest men ducking their heads in shame.
“Hey, Savannah,” I said when she didn’t speak, but she just shook her head wildly in response and slashed a hand through the air. Whether to prevent me from continuing or get out some of her aggression, I wasn’t sure.
“No,” she bit out.
I nodded, waiting and taking her in and wanting nothing more than to pull her into my arms.
She was Beau’s wife, but Savannah had been in our lives for as long as I could remember. There wasn’t a time I could think of where I hadn’t considered her my sister. And it killed me to see her this way.
To not be able to hug her or just talk to her.
“You’ve missed everything,” she finally said through clenched teeth. When I started nodding, she repeated, “Everything.”
“I know.”
“You have missed births and birthdays, you have missed holidays and soccer games. And you are not allowed to come in here and introduce yourself to our children only to leave them too.”
I swallowed thickly and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. “Well, to be fair, I don’t think Beau’s letting me meet them anyway.”
“This isn’t a joke,” she cried out. “This is your family—your niece and nephews who you’ve chosen not to have a part in their lives.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I just watched as she wiped at the tears that were quick to fall and forced myself to stand tall when her words had been such a crippling blow.
Whiskey (Brewed Book 2) Page 12