Follow Me Always

by HELEN HARDT

  “Are they? Because I’m pretty sure my friend was drugged.”

  “That’s what she tells you, anyway,” Beau says.

  “I’m done talking.” I grab my phone to text Braden.

  Then I drop my jaw nearly to the floor.

  Braden walks through the door swiftly, sailing past the unmanned reception desk. He comes directly to me, takes my hand, and pulls me off the chair and into the protection of his body. “Are you okay, Skye?”

  I nod. “Yes.” I will my voice not to shake.

  “And I suppose there’s a good reason why my doorman isn’t at his post?” Braden eyes Beau and then Peter.

  “He wasn’t there when we arrived,” Beau says.

  “Nice try. I got a text from him after you threatened him. Knowing Skye would be home soon, I cut my meeting short.”

  “Mr. Black,” Beau says, “I assure you that—”

  “Stop it. Stop it right now. You thought you could get to me through Skye. You have no idea who you’re dealing with. Skye has more intelligence in her right hand than the two of you have together.”

  A little warmth creeps up my neck. I love how much Braden believes in me. Still, I’m glad he showed up.

  Really glad.

  “She is formidable,” Beau agrees, “but does she have this?”

  I suck in a breath when Beau pulls out a pistol. Braden’s body tenses, but only I notice, since I’m touching him.

  Has he been held at gunpoint before?

  I haven’t, and the way my heart is beating and my skin prickling with fear, it’s not something I ever want to repeat.

  But Braden is in control. So very in control.

  “Put that away, Beau,” he says. “You and I both know you’re not man enough to actually use it.”

  Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

  What if Braden’s wrong? What if that gun goes off? Right into our bodies?

  God, Braden! Everything turns black and ugly all at once. The man I love could be gone with one pull of a trigger. I should step in front of Braden. Save him. But my feet won’t move. They’re mired in concrete. And then this maniac could turn on me next. I can’t lose Braden. And I don’t want to die. I’m too young. My life is just beginning. I have the most wonderful career in the world, the most wonderful man in the world, the most—

  Quicker than a flash, Braden executes some kind of kick, sending the gun flying out of Beau’s hand and sliding across the marble floor of the lobby until it stops against a wall.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Braden says, as Peter eyes the gun. “We both know you don’t have the balls.”

  Peter’s face goes pale, and his eyes… Damn. Are those tears welling in the bottom of his eyes?

  How was I ever attracted to this asshole?

  “We don’t want trouble,” Beau says.

  “You don’t? You always threaten people with a gun when you don’t want trouble? And by the way, my security has been back up since I arrived, so I’ve got you dead to rights for assault with a deadly weapon. Plus what you’ve done to Skye.”

  “We didn’t hurt her,” Beau says.

  “You threatened her. You disabled the elevator so she couldn’t get away from you. Believe me. I’ll make charges stick.”

  “Fuck you,” Peter says.

  “Shut up, Peter,” his father commands. “We’ll just forget this happened.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Braden says. “The cops are already on their way. You’re both going to be arrested.”

  “We didn’t hurt anyone,” Peter says.

  “You scared Skye. You threatened my doorman, and you held Skye and me at gunpoint. Plus, you’ve been drugging women for years.”

  “You can’t prove that.”

  “I can. Ms. Logan and Ms. Davis are both willing to press charges against you”—he eyes Peter—“and Mr. Ramirez. But Mr. Ramirez will walk. You want to know why?”

  Peter looks like he’s about to hurl, but Beau remains calm. On the outside, at least.

  “Probably because he hasn’t done anything,” Beau says.

  “To the contrary. I approached him after Ms. Logan was hospitalized. All it took was a little prodding and he sang like a coloratura soprano. How he and your son drugged Ms. Logan and Ms. Davis with substances you provided them. How you’ve been drugging clients for years to get them to sign contracts with your firm.”

  “You can’t prove any of that.”

  “I can,” Braden says, “and I will.”

  “What do you even care?” Peter demands. “You have everything. Why don’t you just stay out of our lives!”

  “I did, for many years. I shouldn’t have, but I did. Until it hit close to home. Tessa Logan and Betsy Davis are Skye’s friends, and consequently they’re important to me.” He looks down at me. “I’m sorry it took me so long to put a stop to this. If I’d done it when I first suspected, Tessa and Betsy wouldn’t have been in any position to be taken advantage of.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I tell him. “No one asked you to save the world.”

  “That’s what I’ve always told myself. But I was wrong. What good is my fortune if I don’t use it to help others?”

  Peter drops to the floor. “Please. It’s all my dad. I never wanted to do any of this. But he—”

  “Get up, you sniveling piece of shit.” Beau scoffs. “I’m embarrassed to have you for a son.”

  As angry as I am, I can’t help feeling sorry for Peter in that moment. Being raised by Beau Reardon couldn’t have been any kind of picnic.

  Sirens blare in the distance, and two patrol cars pull up to the building. Five blues enter, and Beau and Peter are cuffed and charged, their Miranda rights read.

  Everything passes in a blur as the cops take both Beau and Peter away.

  Finally, when they’re gone, I step out of Braden’s arms, but then nearly fall. He steadies me quickly.

  “You okay?”

  “No,” I say. “Not even a little bit.”

  “You seemed so calm.”

  “It was an act, Braden. They had me cornered. I didn’t know what to do. I’m so glad you showed up.”

  “I had a feeling Beau wouldn’t take this lying down. But I underestimated him. I figured he’d come directly to me.”

  “Why? He’s obviously been exploiting women for years.”

  “Not just women. He uses the drugs to get what he wants in business as well.”

  “He’s a coward.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Braden says. “I won’t make this mistake again. He found my Achilles’ heel. I’m so sorry to put you through this, Skye.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “I know you will. You’re strong. The strongest woman I’ve ever known. Well, you’re tied, anyway.”

  “Oh? Tied with whom.”

  He exhales slowly. “With my mother, Skye. You’re tied with my mother.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Back at Braden’s place, he pours a bourbon for each of us.

  I take a sip, letting the smoky liquor burn my throat. It’s a good burn. A burn I need at the moment.

  My heart is still thumping from having a gun pointed at me.

  I always thought I could imagine what that might feel like. I was wrong. It’s terror. Sheer terror. Your life doesn’t flash before your eyes. All you see is fear. Fear with its ugly black-and-red head, laughing at you in a satanic, mocking way.

  I don’t want to experience that again any time soon. Like ever.

  “I’ll always protect you,” Braden says.

  “I know.” And I believe him. I know he’ll always try. And I know doubly that if he ever failed, he’d never forgive himself.

  And with that thought, I know something about his mother.

  “You blame yourself,” I murmur.
“Not just for feeling repulsed by her scars when you were a little boy. You blame yourself for her death.”

  “Yes. I do. I always will.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” I don’t know what happened, but already I know it wasn’t his fault. Braden was six years old. Braden could never be at fault. I know that as well as I know my own name, Skye Margaret Manning.

  “She survived the fire,” I say. “She was strong.”

  “She was. She made sure Ben and I got to safety.”

  “Any mother would save her child first.”

  “I know. But she was never the same. Even though she was still beautiful.”

  “I’m sure she was, if she was your mother.”

  He simply nods.

  “You don’t have to tell me, Braden.”

  “No. I want to. It’s time.” He shakes his head. “I’ve never told this story to anyone.”

  I smile. “Then I’m honored.”

  “I haven’t even told my therapist.”

  “I’m doubly honored.”

  He draws in a deep breath. “She and my father stayed together, and he did get sober. He tried, but he wasn’t cut out for marriage, really. In his way, my father loved her.”

  I nod.

  “But she was never the same after the fire. She fell into depression.”

  Oh God. I know where this is heading, and I don’t want to hear any more.

  But as he continues, I widen my eyes. This path leads to an unexpected place.

  “We kept her going. Ben and I.”

  “She loved you very much.”

  “She did. And she loved Dad, for all his faults.”

  “You love him, too, don’t you?”

  “In my way. But I’ve never forgiven him for what he cost me.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  He stays silent as time seems to suspend itself. I don’t push. If he’s done talking, that’s okay. Oh, I’m wildly curious, but it can keep. Braden and I have all the time in the world.

  “She got sick,” he finally says. “One of the burn wounds never healed properly, and it got infected. She developed a bad strep bacterial strain. The one they call the flesh-eating bacteria.”

  “Oh my God. Streptococcus A.”

  “That’s the one. I had just started high school, and Ben had just started middle school.”

  “And you lost your mother.”

  He nods, his eyes heavy-lidded. Still, no moisture pools in them. Braden doesn’t cry. I have the feeling he hasn’t cried since that day.

  If he even did then.

  “Why is this so difficult for you to talk about?” I ask. “It’s not your fault.”

  “It is.”

  “Braden, it’s not. Blame your father if you want. I at least get that. But not yourself.”

  “You don’t understand, Skye. That day… That day of the fire…”

  “What? What happened the day of the fire?”

  “I didn’t want to leave my room,” he says. “I didn’t want to leave my precious comic books to get burned into ashes. She’s yelling at me to get out. She’s got Ben in her arms, and she doesn’t have an extra arm for me. So she finally leaves, gets Ben to safety, and then she comes back for me. She lifts me up and I drop the handful of comic books. I yelled at her, Skye. I told her…”

  “It’s all right. You told her what?”

  “I told her I hated her for making me leave my comic books.”

  “Oh God…” I gulp.

  “That’s right. She got me to safety, and then she went back in to get the comic books. But they were already ablaze, and that’s what…” He shakes his head.

  “That’s what burned her,” I say monotonously. “The fire from your comic books.”

  He doesn’t respond.

  Finally, “Maybe. I don’t know if it was the comic books or not. But she went back in, and she got dragged out by a fireman with third-degree burns on the left side of her body.”

  What can I say to him? It’s a horrific story. But he was a kid. Just a kid. And kids have silly ideas about what’s important. Surely he knows that.

  Do I go to him? Take him in my arms? Kiss his lips? Embrace him?

  “Tell me,” I finally say. “Tell me what you need right now.”

  He takes a sip of his bourbon. “No one knows that story,” he says. “Not even Ben or my dad. She told him she went back in to get our baby books.”

  “Have you considered that maybe that’s the truth?”

  “No. She was in my bedroom when the fireman dragged her out.”

  “So your father knows, then.”

  “He knows she was in my bedroom. He assumed that’s where my baby book was. It wasn’t. The baby books were in a cedar chest in the living room underneath some quilts.”

  “And Ben doesn’t know?”

  “He was only three. He had no idea where the baby books were.”

  “And you did.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes Mom and I would look at them together. I liked looking at my first lock of hair.” He shakes his head. “I haven’t let myself think about this in so long.”

  Again, I’m at a loss for what to do. But my hand, seemingly of its own accord, reaches out and touches Braden’s cheek. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. It’s never been okay, and it never will be.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “You now know more about me than anyone else,” Braden says to me. “Anyone.”

  My shoulders weigh—in a good way—with the knowledge of his statement. “You can trust me, Braden. All of your secrets are safe with me.”

  He rakes his fingers through his hair. “I do trust you. More than you know.”

  “More than I know?” I lift my eyebrows. “How can—”

  He shoots his bourbon down his throat and groans. Then he regards me. Sternly. “This can’t continue.”

  My heart plummets. Whatever he’s getting at, it can’t be good. “What?” I ask softly, my voice cracking.

  “Reardon found my weakness. I went to him, threatened him, and instead of going after me, he went after you, Skye. My Achilles’ heel.”

  I rise to go toward him, but he stops me with a gesture.

  I drop my ass back into my chair. “Everyone has an Achilles’ heel, Braden.”

  “I don’t.” He pours himself another finger of bourbon. “I can’t.”

  No. This isn’t happening. Not after everything we’ve been through to be together. Not after he trusted me with his most guarded secrets.

  No, damn it! No!

  “Don’t you see?” He slams his glass down on the table. “I can’t keep you safe.”

  “But you did keep me safe.”

  “Because of circumstance. What if the doorman hadn’t texted me?”

  “But he did.”

  “Damn it, Skye!” He stands and hurls the glass against the wall.

  I cower against the crash, against the tiny clear shards that rain onto the carpet. My heart is at once still yet beating thunderously. I feel… I feel…

  I gather my will to say what needs to be said.

  “You told me in the cornfield that there was only one master of control between us,” I say, my lips trembling. “You. You, Braden. You’re in control, and you protected me.”

  “What if I can’t the next time?”

  “Who says there’ll be a next time?”

  “I was wrong,” he says. “I didn’t think anything could touch you. Touch us. I didn’t realize…”

  “Didn’t realize what?” I urge.

  “Even now, it surprises me how much I love you. How much I need you in my life. To be without you will be torture.”

  I stand again, wanting—no, needing—to be near him. I tentatively reach f
orward. “You don’t have to be without me.”

  “Don’t you get it?” He rubs furiously at his temple, as if easing a throbbing ache. “I have to let you go. I can’t take the chance—”

  I close the distance between us and fall into him, resolving not to shed the tears that threaten. He thinks I’m the strongest woman he knows. Now is the time for me to prove him right.

  “I won’t let you go,” I say against his chest. “I won’t. I refuse.”

  “Oh, Skye…” He kisses the top of my head.

  I ease back and meet his gaze. “We didn’t work this hard to be together just to have it torn away from us. By Beau Reardon? By Peter and Garrett? No way, Braden. I don’t accept this. Not for a fucking minute.”

  “You don’t have a choice.” He shakes his head. “Neither of us does.”

  “Bullshit.” I pound my fist on his chest. “If it would truly be torture to live without me, why would you subject yourself to that?”

  “For your safety.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “What if I hadn’t come tonight?”

  “You did.”

  “Damn it! Fight fair, Skye.”

  “Why should I? You’re not.”

  He levels his gaze on me. “I always fight fair.”

  “Not with me. It’s your way or the highway, always. Well, not tonight, Braden. We’re not in the bedroom at the moment, and this time I’m getting my way.”

  My heart is beating like a hummingbird’s. Fast and twittery. I’m ready to go to battle for the man I love, even if he’s the one I’m fighting.

  “I can’t lose you,” he says, his voice resigned. “Not like I lost her.”

  His eyes are sunken, as if he’s resolved to his fate.

  I curl my hands into fists, ready to win this war. “I’m not your mother, Braden.”

  He sighs. “I know.”

  “She made a choice. She chose you. I’m making that same choice. You want to condemn us both to torture without each other? I won’t let you.”

  “I didn’t keep her safe,” he says into my hair. “I lost her.”

  I pull back and grip his strong shoulders. “You were six years old, for God’s sake! Are you going to hold a child to some insurmountable standard?”