Whiskey (Brewed Book 2)

by Molly McAdams

  Once I had the ice pressed to her knuckles and was wrapping the length of the towel under her palm, I said, “Tell me why I shouldn’t find him.”

  “You left,” was her only response.

  I let my fingers trail across hers before releasing her and settling against the desk. Arms once again folded so I wouldn’t wrap her up in them. “You told me to.”

  “No, you . . .” She blinked quickly before her head fell so she was staring at the floor. And then she was sinking into her chair and whispering disbeliefs that sounded more like accusations. “You left. Sawyer said you were gone.”

  I nodded absentmindedly. “For how often you tell me to go, I can never tell if you’re more angry that I would or surprised that I didn’t.”

  A breath of a laugh tumbled from her lips, one of her shoulders lifting as if she couldn’t explain it either.

  Leaning forward, I let myself reach for her. Pressing my knuckles under her chin and lifting until I was looking into those confused and pained eyes. “Tell me why I shouldn’t find him.”

  “Because I took care of it.”

  “If you had to take care of it, that means he did something.”

  Her eyelids fluttered shut on an inhale, but everything about it looked wrong.

  Instead of calm, she looked haunted. As if she were trying to outrun something she knew she’d never be able to.

  “Why did they tell me you’d left?”

  A groan built in my chest at the way she kept trying to avoid the subject. “Emberly . . .”

  She opened her eyes but kept her stare to the side. “They wouldn’t have lied to me when they knew how much I was hurting.”

  “Emberly.” Her name was a demand, a plea, a vow. That I was there. That I was still hers. That I would do whatever she needed to make this better. That I would fix this. “What happened?”

  Nearly a minute passed in silence.

  I was ready to get on my knees and beg her to tell me what had happened if it had her shutting down this way.

  But then her lips parted with a jagged breath and her gaze shifted to meet mine. “I found out he was the source of my nightmares.”

  It took a few seconds before I understood, but then I was pushing from the desk. My thoughts nothing more than a chaotic mess as I turned for the doorway. The need to unleash all the rage building and burning in my veins more prominent than ever.

  Her touch brought me to an abrupt stop.

  Pleading.

  Calming.

  Her fingers wrapped gently around my forearm because she knew as well as I did that she couldn’t actually stop me from going. But her touch, that girl, could have me doing anything.

  Shifting the world.

  Staying here forever.

  Falling to my goddamn knees.

  “I took care of it,” she said firmly, quietly. “He will never come near me again.”

  I wanted to believe her. I did.

  Emberly could take care of herself, I knew that. But if Kip had been behind the bullshit she’d been put through, I wanted my say. At the same time, my stomach was twisting because I had a feeling it really was my fault.

  If he’d been throwing out my name all those years to make her think I was behind it, I couldn’t help but think it was to get back at me for stopping him that night on the ranch.

  “Why you?” The words came out soft, almost inaudible, as I tried to keep my stomach from lurching. “Why was he targeting you?”

  “Just the unlucky chosen.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Her grip on me tightened, silently begging me to drop it.

  “Tell me—”

  “Because they chose me, that’s all.” Tears were welling in her eyes, her words wavering with emotion and amplifying her lie.

  She knew, and she’d had every right to hate me all these years. To want to stay far away from me—to want me away from her.

  All that pain and torment she’d gone through, I’d inadvertently caused. I’d let happen because I’d kept myself as far from her as I could stand, unable to see what was going on.

  I bent close to press my forehead to hers, curling my hand around her neck and savoring those seconds with her.

  Those heartbeats rapidly thrumming against my fingers.

  Those breaths washing across my lips.

  “I’m sorry, Emberly.”

  Her hazel eyes were wide with alarm when I pulled away. Her face paled as the words “you’re leaving,” slipped past her lips, voice all shaky and thick. “You’re looking at me the same way you looked at me the night you disappeared . . . you’re leaving.”

  My chest wrenched at the sight of her. At the sound of her voice.

  At the tears that began falling as she spoke.

  I gripped at my neck as a battle waged inside me. But as much as I wanted to deny her words, to take Hunter up on his offer, I no longer knew how.

  “I wish I’d never come back,” I finally said, and watched as her body caved. “Say what you want, we both know what happened to you was because of me, so that’s on me. Which means everything you’ve accused me of is true—I’ve hurt you more than I could ever understand.”

  Her entire body moved with her ragged breaths, coming so fast and so soft that it shredded me.

  “Not only that, but coming back hurt you . . . being here is hurting you. And, Emberly, that’s the last fucking thing I want to do,” I choked out, my throat thick with the emotion I was struggling to suppress.

  “Leaving,” she whispered and lifted her head to capture my gaze. “Leaving again would hurt me.”

  “It’s what you want,” I ground out, reminding her of when she’d demanded I leave.

  “I—no.” It was barely audible as she let her head fall again, lifting her joined hands to press against her chest.

  I waited, knowing whatever she was trying to say was getting lost in the magnitude of what she was feeling. Lost in the toxic devastation we’d created.

  “I want you to leave because I’m terrified that you will,” she said a while later, words clear but whispered.

  “Emberly . . .” A groan rumbled in my chest as I moved to lean against her desk the way I’d been before.

  Arms folded.

  Hands clenched tight so I wouldn’t reach for her.

  “You’ve been telling me to leave while I’ve told you I wanted to stay. If this is about my job,” I continued quickly, “that’s different. That’s my job. That could have easily been figured out if you would’ve just talked to me about it.”

  “Not just your job . . . leave the way you disappeared before. Leave me. Leave for Beaumont one day and just not come back. Leave me for Gabriela.”

  “Gabriela,” I said dully. “I don’t know how many times I can tell you that I want nothing to do with her.”

  “But she still loves you,” she claimed, finally meeting my stare, the look in her eyes begging me to understand.

  If the air surrounding us hadn’t been so suffocating, I might’ve laughed. “I can assure you, she doesn’t.”

  “Cayson, I’ve seen her messages come through.”

  “Then you haven’t seen what else she sends.” I leaned forward a little, holding her gaze and speaking slowly so she would hear the honesty in my words. “She feels guilty and wants me to be the one to tell my crew what happened between us. She’s afraid they’re gonna hate her if I don’t come back. Nothing more. Even if there was more for her, there isn’t for me. You should’ve known that. You should’ve felt that.”

  I leaned back, head shaking a little at having to go over this with her again. At the fact that Emberly truly thought I would leave her for someone else.

  “If I’m not welcome in your life, or if I’m hurting you more by simply being in it,” I hinted meaningfully. “Yeah, I’d leave. But leaving you for anyone else?” A breath punched from my chest. “Did you forget that I’ve been waiting for you? Did you not hear that I’ve loved you for most of my life?”

  “I told
you, leaving would hurt me,” was all she said, her stare holding mine for a few moments before drifting to the side. “I think there’s this part of me that is strong and confident. That formed and grew from everything that happened in high school—my way of surviving it, or something.” She nodded as if agreeing with herself. “I’ve projected that part of myself on the outside so people see her. So people don’t see that there’s anything wrong. So they can’t mess with me. But inside, I am terrified and I am so insecure. And when it comes to you?”

  It felt like we were blindly moving closer and closer to the edge of a cliff with each minute that passed.

  My lungs felt tight as if preparing for the fall.

  The air around me felt ominous as if my soul were preparing to be ripped in two.

  “That insecurity turns crippling,” she admitted. “I don’t know how to let you love me, but I don’t know how to let you go.”

  I wanted to ask why. Why was it so hard for her to accept that I wanted her, that I’d always wanted her. But as soon as the question touched my tongue, I realized I already knew.

  She’d spent so long thinking I hated her, thinking I was tormenting her—as she’d put it. Of course her first, second, and third instincts were to prepare for the worst with me.

  My head lowered as I pushed from the desk and started for the door, feeling like I was being dragged to the floor with each impossible step.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, voice pitching in her panic.

  I kept my stare on the floor for a moment before turning to find her there, joined hands pressed to her stomach. “Told you, if I was hurting you more by being in your life, I would leave.”

  “But I don’t—” A pained cry ripped from her chest. “I don’t want you to leave.”

  “You need me to.”

  “I need you here.”

  “Now,” I said through gritted teeth. “In a few days, you’ll need me out of your life. And I’d just leave then only to come back when you’d had enough time to sort through everything that haunts you.”

  Her head shook fiercely but her tears only fell harder, as if some part of her knew it was true.

  I pulled her to me, holding her watery stare and memorizing the lines of her face. The way her body felt against mine. The absolute peace and agony of holding her.

  When I spoke, a tremor wove through my words. “I love you. I know you love me. But we’re not living like that.”

  When I turned, her sob broke through the dread surrounding us.

  My name left her, twisting with anguish and shredding my soul, but I didn’t stop as I pushed out of the door leading to the bar.

  I’d already taken that last step off the cliff.

  I was falling.

  No changing direction.

  I’d spent most of my life walking away from her. I could do it one last time.

  I jolted when I stepped out of Brewed. All the noise and laughter and music of Amber Fest forcing me back to reality in a brutal way.

  I staggered out of the way of a group of racing teenagers. Getting caught up in a couple of them and mumbling apologies that felt so out of place when I’d just left my soul in the building behind me.

  Left the girl I would always love most sobbing and crying out for me.

  I ground my jaw against the wave of gut-wrenching pain and continued on the path I’d been on, only to come to an abrupt stop when an all-too-familiar face popped up in front of me.

  Similar enough that it hurt, yet so different.

  “Hey!” Rae said excitedly. But her wide smile abruptly fell as her face transformed to confusion and surprise, as though she’d just realized she hadn’t been expecting to see me. “Wait, hey.”

  “I have to go,” I murmured and started around her, coming face to face with my brother.

  Sawyer didn’t speak.

  Just stared at me with all the shock and confusion Rae had shown, hints of regret and hope peeking through before I sidestepped him.

  “Cayson,” he barked and grabbed my arm to stop me.

  But I ripped from his hold and stormed through the crowded street until I reached the Dixon Farm booth.

  Hunter’s head listed when I reached him, his expression hard and unreadable. “You ever coming back?”

  I didn’t ask how he knew. It was probably written all over my face.

  “I don’t—” My head moved in rough jerks. “I don’t know.”

  The sound was lost in the crowd, but from the way his chest slowly deflated, I knew he was sighing. “Right. Well, your room is always there.” He dug into his pocket and handed over the keys to his truck. “I’ll get Sawyer or Mom to take me home.”

  “Appreciate it.” I grabbed for the keys, but he held tight.

  “I’m sorry.” When I started nodding, he continued. “Not just that it didn’t work out with her. I’m sorry about Dad. I’m sorry none of us knew—that you were alone in that for so long.”

  I studied him for a second, wondering if he knew how long I’d waited for one of them to say that. Wondering if he knew what it meant that one of them finally had and truly meant it. “You too.”

  “I’m proud of you, Cays.”

  I curled my hand around the keys when he released his hold on them, my jaw trembling and throat thick from this shattering day.

  When I was sure I couldn’t speak without breaking down, I ducked my head and knocked my fist on the wooden counter of the booth as I turned for his truck.

  It was the only thank you I could gather.

  The only goodbye I could offer.

  I hadn’t made it past the fourth step once I was inside the house.

  Hunter’s house.

  I’d roughly sat and fallen back so I was staring blankly at the ceiling. One hand gripping at my hair and the other clutching my obliterated chest.

  I needed to keep moving. Needed to get up the stairs and into the room where my bags were—still mostly packed from when I’d come from Sawyer’s. Needed to get in my truck and go.

  That flight instinct struggling to kick in when I was so weighed down and broken.

  Before, I hadn’t been able to even consider leaving Amber yet. Not when there’d still been a spark of hope that things would change. But this was different.

  The spark was still there. I had a feeling it would always be there. One word, and it would be a flame. One kiss, and we’d be an uncontrollable fire . . .

  For a little while.

  Leaving now protected us from getting trapped in that cycle. And, for once, I needed to protect her.

  My breathing stalled when the sound of a car door shutting broke through my ruined thoughts.

  When footsteps could be heard on the porch steps, I pushed to my elbows, eyes trained on the front door. The trapped air in my lungs escaped on a rush when she opened the door and stepped in.

  For a moment, she just stood there holding the handle before she released her own weighted sigh and shut the door behind her.

  “Mom,” I said through the barbed knot in my throat.

  Her mouth lifted in the beginnings of a shaky smile. “Shall we talk on the stairs, or would you like to sit in the living room?”

  Disbelief burst from me as I studied her, as I wondered why now of all days, of all minutes, she decided she was ready to talk to me. “Little late for that.”

  “It’s never too late to talk,” she said as she headed for the living room.

  After a moment, I stood and followed her, sitting on the chair opposite the couch she’d chosen.

  She didn’t speak, so I didn’t either.

  I’d already tried. At that moment, I was too far past trying.

  Minutes passed, and I was nearly to the point of getting up to head for the stairs again when she finally said, “All I’ve wanted was for you to come home.”

  A soft, bitter laugh left me.

  “It’s true.” In an instant, tears filled her eyes and fell to her cheeks. “You can’t understand a mother’s love, but it’s u
nending. Having you away made me feel incomplete. Having my children not speaking to each other for any length of time, but especially years, chipped away at my soul. It makes me wonder where I went wrong.”

  “I came home,” I reminded her, voice hard and grating. “I tried multiple times to see and talk to you—you refused.”

  “Understand that we hadn’t heard from you in all that time, only hearing of you through Sawyer. And then you came back out of the blue, and expected everything to be okay.”

  “I didn’t expect it to be okay, but I expected you to at least talk to me.” A breathless laugh left me. “I expected Beau’s reactions because he’s Beau. But I didn’t expect Savannah to go off on me. Or Sawyer to lose his shit every time I tried to tell him about my life.” I gestured to the living room we were in. “I sure as hell didn’t expect Hunter to be the one who was there for me.”

  “Well, Savannah . . .” Her head slanted and she gave me a look as if I should’ve understood. “She just had a baby—her emotions are heightened. And she’s trying to protect her children from getting attached to you so they won’t have to feel the pain of you leaving. The rest . . . Cayson, honey, it’s a difficult thing to explain. It’s a difficult thing to feel.”

  “What is?” I asked when she didn’t continue.

  “Wanting so badly for you to come home. Once you finally did, not knowing how to look at you without seeing all the bad and the hurt you caused when you left. At the same time, knowing it would destroy me if you left again. And between it all, I could only wonder why you’d chosen now. I kept thinking if you were here, there was a reason. That you needed something—money.”

  Shock and confusion flooded me. My mouth opened as I tried to think of anything to say and only managed a stunned laugh.

  “And you weren’t telling your brother why you were here,” she continued, “which only strengthened my worries. I wasn’t sure if you would ask or try to steal from—”

  “The hell—steal—are you kidding? Mom, do you have any idea how much I make a year?”

  “No!” she said emphatically. “How would I? You left and left us behind. It was your choice for me to not know about your life.” Her hand trembled as she placed it over her mouth, her words breaking and cracking when she continued. “But I knew about the drugs—”