by Sosie Frost
And Varius…
I wished I heard him more. It was Jules who kept checking on him, making sure he was just quiet and not measuring out the rope.
This pounding wasn’t the usual foot through the drywall. It was a knock. And if the unfortunate bastard rapping at the door wanted to live, he should’ve prayed that I’d reach the porch before Tidus and his accompanying hangover.
I stumbled down the stairs, patting at my chest to make sure I at least had a sports bra on under the tank top. The hair was another story. The pink scarf did its best, but the curls were quietly consuming everyone and everything in their path. If I got lucky, they’d devour the jackass pounding at the door so early in the morning.
A yawn conquered me. My head butted against the frame as I pulled the chain away and swung the door wide.
“Hi!” Mellie sauntered into my living room as if appearing out of thin air. Her hair was a mess, she yawned as hard as me, and she rocked a pink pajama shirt with orange leggings. “This is for you.”
She handed me a sticker that read Ironfield Regional Hospital.
My stomach sunk.
“Mellie…what…”
Rem poked through in the doorway. He motioned with a finger over his lips and nodded to the sleeping Tabby on his shoulder.
Exhaustion hardened his features. Dark circles shadowed under his eyes. His lips had thinned in an undercurrent of rage. He stood bare-chested and silent. The baby slept in his arms, wrapped in his flannel shirt, strategically knotted to create the world’s most redneck onesie. Both girls seemed to be okay, but my stomach dropped.
His expression revealed everything.
“Oh no. What happened?”
Rem didn’t hesitate. His chestnut eyes narrowed on me, honest and completely sincere.
“I love you, Cassi Payne.”
I gripped the door. “What?”
“I love you, Sassy. I shouldn’t have let you go.”
I blinked. Sucked in a breath. Frowned. “…What?”
“I love you.”
Words I’d been dying to hear, but not like this. Not at the crack of dawn while I worried about the two exhausted little girls and the secrets they shared with Rem.
“What happened?” I asked. “Rem, the girls…”
He didn’t hesitate, even as the shame destroyed him from the inside out. “Got a call from Em in the middle of the night.”
“Is she okay?”
“She was once I got her to the hospital.”
A worst fear then. He confirmed it.
“Overdose,” he said. “She’s okay. But the girls were alone. Emma called me before she passed out, and I got there before any harm was done. Mostly. The kids were scared. I didn’t grab a change of clothes for them before I left for the hospital. I waited for Emma to stabilize, and then…” He shrugged. It nudged Tabby but didn’t wake her. “I came here.”
“I’m so sorry, Rem.”
“I shouldn’t have left them.” His honesty shocked me. “And I never should have left you.”
What was he trying to do to me? “Rem, I can’t do this right now...”
He closed the door behind him. His watchful eye ensured Mellie had only crept into the living room to collapse on the couch.
“Cassi…two weeks ago, I wanted the girls to go back with Emma. I thought she’d recovered. And I thought…I could handle it. But it hurt to lose them. It hurt to stay in the cabin all alone, wondering why Emma could get her life together and move on while I was stuck in the past. I missed then. And I missed you.”
I hadn’t had time to cobble those defenses back up before honesty eroded them away. “I missed you too.”
“I thought I’d be a bad influence on the girls. A detriment to their life.”
“Only if you keep running.”
He took my hand. “I get that now. You showed me that. You saw the man I could become.”
My heart raged. I should have pushed him out. Should have stopped him from speaking the sweet words. Should have closed myself to him.
But would that have made me any less of a liar than Rem?
“You always were that man.” My words weren’t gentle. Only wish I could have punctuated them with a smack across his shoulder. “You didn’t need me to prove it.”
“But I did. I needed you, Cas. I needed the kids. I had to see what this could be.”
“And what’s that?”
“A family.”
My knees couldn’t take much more of this. I backed away, groping a hand against the wall behind me. But the wall didn’t hold me steady.
Rem did.
“I’ve wanted a family above all else. I want to be a family to the girls…an uncle, a father, whatever they need.” He smiled at me. How didn’t I melt right through the wall? “And I want to be the man for you. I want in your life. I want to be at your side. No more hiding. No more running. I love you, Cassi Payne. I’ve always loved you. And now I need you in my life.”
“Rem…”
I stood, stunned and bewildered and choked by every terrible word I should have shouted and every lovely and desperate secret I’d whispered across the pillows.
The words stuck in my throat. I had nothing to say that would be as sweet as his declarations…except maybe the offer of syrup.
“Do you…” My head spun. “Do you want some pancakes?”
Rem exhaled, a deep, shattering breath. What remained was a gentle smirk. “Yeah. Sounds good.”
Did it?
Or did it sound like yet another heart-breaking mistake?
I led the biggest complication in my life into the living room, surrounded Tabby with pillows on the couch next to her sister, and had no better answers by the time I’d reached the stove.
Despite the words and revelations and sweet declarations swarming in my head, I remembered the pancake recipe after staring at the fridge for a solid minute to identify the eggs.
What the hell was I supposed to do?
My heart demanded that I rush into his arms, steal his kisses, and offer myself right there on the kitchen floor. I couldn’t focus on the labels. I’d dumped what I believed to be flour into a liquid which seemed to be milk as Jules limped into the kitchen, covered in grease, grass stains, and thorns.
He bled purple as he groped for the fridge. The crimson streak he left behind wasn’t as appetizing as the leftover pizza he’d stolen from Tidus’s box. The slice never made it to his mouth. Jules stared at Rem.
Rem handed him a dishrag, but nothing could rub away the violet stain covering his arms, neck, face. “What the hell happened to you?”
My brother glanced to me and knew better than to say anything. “Fucking blackberries.”
“What?” I asked.
“There’s a blackberry patch infesting where the second field used to be. I tried to clear it out. The berries won.”
One crisis at a time. I stared into the bowl of gloopy mix, trying to remember what the hell I was making. “Want some…breakfast?”
“No.” Jules stole a banana from Varius’s pantry shelf and tempted his own damnation with a bite. He should have left in silence. The concept was foreign to him. “What the fuck is he doing here?”
“Shh.” I smacked his arm and pointed to the living room. “The kids are sleeping.”
“What the hell are they doing here?” Jules checked his watch. “How long was I stuck in that goddamned bush?”
Rem headed for the coffee pot, the one object in the house unchanged in the last five years. Dad had always kept the coffee, coffee pot, non-dairy creamer, and a coffee-stained paper plate to hold a stirring spoon in the same corner of the kitchen. Rem shoveled the grounds into the pot, thought better of it, and added another scoop.
We should have added whiskey to it.
“Emma overdosed last night,” Rem said.
Jules exhaled. “She okay?”
“Will be.”
“And you’re here because…”
“I came to apologize to Cassi.�
��
Jules approved of this. “Good. Cause you’ve been a monumental dick. Got any more apologies lined up?”
“Probably more than I could give.”
“Why not start?”
I sighed. “Jules, he had a rough night.”
“And you had a rough five years, Cassi.” Jules pointed at me. “And a rougher two weeks when he broke your heart again.”
Rem had never backed down from a challenge. “I’m gonna win her back.”
“Great. So you can complicate her life even more.”
“No. So I can make it better.” Rem’s dark eyes followed me. “I loved her then, and I love her now. I’m not going anywhere. If she wants me…I’ll be here. Waiting. For as long as she needs.”
Goddamn it. I dropped the whisk in the batter.
Should I have yelled?
Kicked him out of the house?
Rushed into his arms?
A quiet resentment poisoned my words. “How dare you, Remington Marshall. First you chase me. Then I fall in love with you. Then you push me away, tell me lies, and spout some garbage about not being a good enough man for me and the kids.” I couldn’t look at him without hurting, so I scolded the floor at his feet. “You ran, Rem. Again. How can I be sure that this was the last time?”
“Because I’m not leaving Butterpond,” he said. “I’m taking the kids. I’m staying to look after Emma. And if you have me, I’m gonna love you.”
“How can you stand there and say that you love me?” My eyes prickled with tears, but I would not cry. “You still refuse to tell me the full truth.”
“That’s because I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because it isn’t my truth to tell.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I gave up, my patience cracking under the weight of all his supposed honesty. “This is your last chance, Rem. I need to know what you’re hiding from me. Why you ran five years ago.”
“Cas…”
“What the hell happened that night? Why did you hurt this family? Why didn’t you stay to help us after the fire?” I sucked in a worthless breath. “Either you tell me the truth…or I will walk away now. I won’t be lied to anymore, Rem.”
“I don’t want to lie.” Maybe the first honest thing he’d ever said. “But can’t we let this go? It’s been so long. It doesn’t matter now.”
“It matters to me. And it should matter to you.”
“Why?”
“So we can both forgive it.”
Hard steps squeaked the kitchen floor. Tidus emerged from the stairs, hair tussled and no shirt. At least he’d remembered pants this morning.
But my brother didn’t crack a smile or his knuckles. He refused to meet our gazes.
Something weighed on him. He nearly dropped to his knees.
“There’s nothing to forgive.” Tidus spoke through clenched teeth. “Don’t blame Rem for what happened.”
Rem’s warning was quick. “No.”
“What are you talking about?” Jules asked.
“The barn fire wasn’t his fault.”
Rem stepped forward. “Tidus, shut your mouth.”
My brother ignored him, his eyes focusing only on me.
“Rem didn’t start the fire,” Tidus said. “I did.”
23
Cassi
The farm hadn’t changed much since we were kids—all that was missing was the barn.
We didn’t have any animals, and we hadn’t grown any crops, but with Rem at my side…it felt like we’d traveled back five years.
I wasn’t sure if that was good or not.
Jules had agreed to watch the kids—or, at the very least, ensure a bleary-eyed Quint didn’t accidentally sit on them when he stumbled out of the kitchen with his Coco Pebbles. Rem had taken my hand and led me outside.
To talk, he’d said.
I still couldn’t speak a single word.
Rem guided me behind the chicken coop. I peeked in on Helena, the eggless wonder. She pecked at the earth, content, plump, and standing by her life-choices one gobble of seed at a time.
He stopped in the center of the field and squeezed my hand. “Remember this spot?”
All of a sudden, I remembered a lot of things. Some good. Most bad. “Should I?”
“This was where I threatened to run you over with the lawn tractor.” Rem smirked. “You stood your ground.”
“And you ran over my shoe.”
“Your foot wasn’t in it.”
“You still mulched my favorite boot.”
“Yeah.” He snickered, tugging my hand to keep walking. “We kept finding flecks of pink rubber all over the damn farm during our chores.”
And Rem had always been diligent with the chores. He’d work with Tidus in the mornings. Help water the animals with Jules. Muck the stables with whoever got stuck on animal duty that afternoon. Mowed the grass with Dad. Harvested the crops with Quint and Varius.
Even helped me water the little sunflower garden Mom and I had planted.
Until that day with the barn, Rem had been another member of the family, putting in the blood, sweat, and tears required to make the farm successful.
And he never did it because Dad threw money his way. And it wasn’t because his friends were stuck doing chores before they could go get in trouble.
Rem had worked the farm because he’d wanted to help.
He’d wanted to be a part of the family.
I still couldn’t breathe. Rem was careful, walking slow with me, unable to answer the questions I couldn’t voice yet.
“Right here?” He planted his feet and leaned against a fence in desperate need of repair and paint. He pointed into the pasture. “Right here was where I watched you ride that black mare.”
“Olivia.”
“I watched you one day, just riding. You didn’t see me. Don’t think you saw anything but wind and grass. You and Olivia just flew across the field, and I thought…I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful in my life.”
“Me or the horse?”
“I think you know.”
“At this point?” Confusion and desperation rocked my soul. “I don’t know anything anymore.”
“I fell in love with you that day.” Rem frowned as the fence nearly collapsed under the weight of his arms. Old wood that’d gone too long without repair. “I was standing here thinking…someday, I’m gonna marry her.”
My heart lurched, but Rem didn’t say anything more. He walked away, his pace slow until I reached his side once more.
What was he doing to me?
Did he want to drive me to my knees? Start a panic attack?
Was he trying to make me dive into his arms and never let go?
Cause I was close. And it scared me.
He walked me over the fields, pausing at every place of significance for him. Where we’d shared our first kiss behind the shed. Our fight near the cow trough where he’d landed face first in the water. The secret tree where we’d meet under the cover of darkness while everyone slept. Even Tidus didn’t know about that.
In a matter of minutes, we’d walked through our life. Places where we fell in love. Hideaways where we’d fought. Shadows where we’d teased each other, tormented each other, and tried to hide all of our feelings.
He stopped at the edge of the field where the grass shaded a lighter color. Rusted equipment and junk now littered the corner of the farm where the barn once stood.
“And this is where everything fell apart.” Rem’s voice lowered. “I never meant for it to happen this way, Cas.”
“I don’t understand. What happened? Why would Tidus set fire to the barn? Why would you take the blame?”
“Because I had to.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Rem stared over the farm. “Your family was my family, Cassi. My dad lived only to drink, and the bottle gave out same year as his liver. My mom followed him to the grave. I was on my own, but your parents welcomed me to the farm. Every da
y. They fed me. They let me stay the night when my folks were fighting. Gave me my first job. Without them…I might have ended up a lot worse. They kept me from going too far. From losing myself.”
“But the fire…”
“I didn’t want anything to hurt your family. I’d already led Tidus down the wrong path. You think he’d have those tattoos if it wasn’t for me? The smoking? The drinking? The drugs?”
“He’s cleaned up now,” I said.
“Because I left. Because I wasn’t there every day, encouraging him.” He didn’t hide the truth anymore, even if it broke our hearts. “I was the one who got us in trouble. We pissed around. We got arrested. Hell, we almost got expelled from high school. Tidus was a good kid, and it was my fault he had that…streak in him. I was mad at the world, but he had everything. And because of me, he never saw how good it was.”
“That doesn’t explain why.”
“There was a lot you didn’t see back then, Sassy. A lot we hid from you, to protect you. You think the fighting is new? It started long before the fire. Tidus never got along with your father.”
It didn’t surprise me. “No one got along well with Dad. He worked them too hard.”
“Because he thought he was saving us. When he looked at Tidus, he saw my influence. Your dad pushed too hard. Punished him for every ounce of trouble we got into. Then he started doubting Tidus. Accused him of lying. The older we got, the less your dad trusted him, and Tidus resented that.”
My chest ached for the brother I’d thought I knew the best. “He never said anything.”
“No one was listening.” Rem shrugged. “Except me. And it shouldn’t have been me.”
“What happened?”
“One day, your mom’s migraine meds went missing. The benzos. Your dad blamed Tidus. Roughed him up when he denied it. Never once believed Tidus when he said it wasn’t him.”
I couldn’t blame Dad. Back then, I’d have assumed any missing drugs to be in Tidus’s pocket too. “Who took them?”
“No one. They were just missing. But Tidus was embarrassed to be called out like that. He got mad. Real mad. He didn’t snap because of the pills, but because of everything. Years of your dad railing on him. Beating his ass. Refusing to listen. So Tidus got pissed, lost his temper, and…”