“That’s right,” Mrs. Riley said, a smile stretching over her face.
“Oh, and what an impression we’ve made,” Momma said as she walked up to hug her like they were friends or something. “I’m Wendy, and this is my husband, Mike. These are just two of our boys, Cayson and . . . well, you heard our Beau.” Momma laughed, but the way she looked at me was the same way she always did after I got mad.
Like she was tired. Like I made her tired.
“Well, it’s great meeting you,” Mrs. Riley said. “My husband would’ve joined us, but he got a call from the company he’s separating from as we were headed out, and these calls have lasted hours lately.”
“We’ll meet him soon,” Momma said with a wave of her hand. “Why don’t y’all come in? I just made some tea.”
Mrs. Riley looked from me to my dad and then my momma. “We don’t want to impose . . .”
“Nonsense,” Momma said.
Dad gave another one of those soft laughs. “What you see is what you get with us. Gets a little loud and crazy around here sometimes, but that happens when you have four boys close in age. Might as well just dive on in with this rowdy crew seeing as we’re now each other’s only neighbors for miles.”
At that, Mrs. Riley laughed and started for the house. “I guess we can stay for a few minutes.”
I watched her daughter follow after her, her head turning to continue looking at me. But Dad had a hand on my shoulder, keeping me in place until they were up the stairs and inside.
Then he was turning me to face him and bending down to my eye level, looking at me like he was real concerned. “You good, son?”
My head bobbed.
“You were hurtin’ your brother.”
“I know, sir,” I said quietly as the fight with Cayson flashed through my mind the way it always did. Dizzying me up because it was blurry and confusing. Bits and pieces that only told parts of what happened.
He let out a slow, long breath. “Gotta be more careful. Gotta control it,” he said and tapped his fingers against my chest.
I went still.
Too still.
And then I started shaking from deep in my bones. A warning that the anger would come if I was pushed a little more . . . and all because he’d tapped me.
“We’ll talk more later,” he said firmly as he straightened. “Hose yourself off.”
I don’t know how long I stayed there, trying to do what he’d said—control it. But by the time I finally started moving toward the side of the house where the hose was, she was there.
“Why are you so angry?”
My head snapped up and my eyes found her instantly. Standing on the porch, leaning over the railing and looking at me the way she had earlier . . . like she was worried.
Eyes like honey full of concern instead of fear. Long black hair twisted in a braid and falling over her shoulder. Face so dang pretty it was hard to look at her, but I also wasn’t sure I could look away.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
Her head tilted like she was thinking real hard. “You get in a fight with your brother?”
“I always get in fights with my brothers.”
“But is that why you’re mad?”
My head was shaking before she finished asking the question. “No, ma’am. I get in fights with them because I’m mad.”
A bright smile crossed her face, her giggle following soon after. “Ma’am? I’m nine years old!”
“Me too.” I shrugged. “But my momma taught us to respect women of all ages, and I’m pretty sure you’re an angel.”
She threw her head back as another laugh left her. When she looked at me again, her eyes were narrowed curiously. “What’s your name?”
“Beau Dixon.”
“Well, why do you say that, Beau Dixon?”
I dropped my stare to the grass for a moment as that feeling from earlier formed in my stomach—like I was embarrassed. With another shrug, I looked at her and said, “Because you made it stop.”
Her smile disappeared. “Made what stop?”
“Everything.”
She watched me for a while, her eyebrows pulling together again. “What’s that mean?”
I thought about the way her voice had broken through the anger and need to hurt someone. Thought about the way my anger could take over in an instant . . .
I didn’t understand it. I couldn’t control it. How was I supposed to explain it to some girl?
“Can’t explain it,” I mumbled. “Any of it.”
“Well, can you tell me why you’re covered in mud?”
The corner of my mouth pulled into a frown. “My brother.”
She nodded before turning and walking away.
I wanted to go after her. Chase her. Ask her not to turn away from me the way everyone else did. But I had a feeling chasing after her would change her worry to fear real fast, so I trudged off to the hose and had just gotten it turned on when she appeared beside me.
“Can I ask you something?” When I nodded, she said, “When I got out of the car, your dad was holding you down, and your brother was crying.” She took a step closer and looked right into my eyes. “Why?”
And the truth just came out of me. “Because I was hitting him.”
She didn’t move. Not sure the girl even blinked. “But why?”
“Because I was mad.”
“I know.” Another step closer, and I was pretty sure she was trying to get inside my head with the way she was looking at me. Dizzying me up in a different way than my anger did with how she smelled—like sugar with a hint of lemon. “But I’ve never seen anyone mad the way you were mad, Beau Dixon, and I wanna understand it.”
“Why?”
Her mouth lifted in a smile that kinda made her look like her momma. “The way you looked at me. It made me sad.”
“You musta messed up real bad,” Hunter interrupted as he rounded the corner. “Who’re you?”
“Who’re you?” Savannah echoed, lifting her chin.
“I live here,” Hunter answered as he moved closer.
“Her name’s Savannah,” I said before it could continue. “She moved onto the property next to ours.”
Hunter’s mouth formed an O as he hooked a thumb toward our house. “Momma and Dad are telling some lady all about you.”
“Saying you Hulks-out!” Sawyer yelled as he and Emberly came running from the same direction Hunter had come from.
“Yeah,” Hunter added, “and lots of other bad stuff.”
My teeth clenched tight. My jaw hurting real bad as that embarrassment grew and grew until I felt sick with it.
“We got sents outside,” Sawyer said as he smiled at the girl next to me. “You’re real pretty, but I’m marrying my Leightons. Sorry.”
Savannah giggled behind her hand before waving at Emberly. “Are you Leighton?”
“Ew!” Sawyer and Emberly said at the same time before shoving at each other and taking off running toward the barn.
“That’s Emberly,” I said softly, trying to breathe through my embarrassment and the anger that came with it. “She’s basically our sister.”
“Oops,” Savannah whispered.
I finally brought the hose up over my head and started scrubbing at my hair and neck. Trying to drown out Hunter’s voice when he said, “Saw Cays . . . you really got him, Beau. And Momma’s tellin’ that lady about all the things they’ve tried with you. How nothin’ helps or stops you. How you’re gettin’ wor—”
I had him shoved up against the side of the house before he could finish what he was saying. Arms shaking so bad, I was pretty sure I was shaking my brother too.
He didn’t say anything. Just watched me.
He knew . . . he knew when he’d pushed me too far.
Every part of my body felt like I’d been shocked—like lightning had struck me—when Savannah placed her hand on my arm.
“You should let him go,” she said softly, her golden eyes on me.
Ju
st like before, it was gone. Disappearing as fast as it had taken over me.
My arms fell to my sides, and Hunter took off running, but I didn’t look away from the girl next to me. Just tried to figure out who she was and how she could do that.
And then that shame rose again until it was too much.
I’d been angry with myself and whatever was wrong with me. But I’d never been embarrassed until this girl had shown up. And I hated the feeling.
My head shook as I pulled away from her and stormed off until I was hidden under the trees at the back of the house. But not long after I sat against one of them, she sat down next to me.
“I turned off the hose,” she said softly.
“Thanks.”
“You’re still dirty.”
I knew that. I could feel it on my skin. That dirty feeling kinda like when I lost control, except I wasn’t angry. “Yup.”
“My mom told me to stay away from you,” she said like she was telling me a secret as she played with the grass. “You know . . . when she was sending me outside.”
I glanced at her and then quickly looked away when I found her watching me. “Lotta folks tell their kids to stay away from me.”
“That’s sad.”
I shrugged. I hadn’t ever thought so. Not until then. Not until her.
I stared at the tall, swaying grass covering up the part of our land we could see from where we sat for a while before asking, “Can I tell you something?”
Instead of answering, she scooted closer so she was in front of me and looking directly at me.
“I get real angry, and I can’t stop it. I dunno how. And everyone says it isn’t normal.”
I didn’t tell her that my parents had taken me to see people for it. That I’d just stopped going to the last doctor because I was getting worse, not better. Didn’t tell her the words my momma used when she talked about me. I was too embarrassed to.
“Hulk,” she said, her eyes getting big and round. “That’s what your brother said. Like the big, green guy.”
I shook my head, my shoulders jerking up to my ears. “I dunno. I’ve heard her say it, but I dunno what it means.”
“He’s this guy who explodes into a super huge, green guy when he gets mad. He smashes and destroys things, and it’s hard for him to get back to not being so mad.”
Oh.
My stare fell to my lap as my stomach twisted and turned.
That would be why I didn’t know who he was. My parents tried to stop me from seeing anything with violence, worried it would make me worse. One of my doctors had said so.
“Yeah, guess that sounds like me.” I looked at her and nodded off to the side. “You should maybe listen to your momma.”
She didn’t say anything for a real long time, but when she did, she sounded all kinds of crazy. “Are you gonna stay away from me because of my freckles?”
“What? Why in the heck would I stay away from you ’cause you have freckles?”
“I don’t like them,” she said sadly, then touched her face before forcing her hands under her legs. “I don’t think they belong on my face.”
I looked at her tan skin and bright eyes and the dots on her cheeks and nose that were so light, I hadn’t noticed them until then. “Well, I like ’em. And they aren’t gonna make me stay away from you.”
“Then, okay.”
“I don’t think we’re talking ’bout the same kinds of things.”
“Sure we are.” She reached to the side to pick a dandelion and then looked back at me. “There was a boy at my old school, and he was so, so mean. But he liked being mean, you could tell. He laughed at people when he hurt them or made them cry. I don’t think you’re like that at all, Beau Dixon.” She slowly blew the white, puffy seeds off the stem before saying, “You don’t wanna be angry. I think it bothers you—makes you sad.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t even know me.”
“But I told you, I felt sad when you looked at me because you felt sad.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Sure it does,” she said as she picked another dandelion and held it out to me.
I didn’t take it.
“My freckles make me sad, and I don’t like them. You getting angry makes you sad, and you don’t want to be that way. So, why on earth would I stay away from you?”
This girl really was crazy. “Not the same things.”
“They are to me.”
“They’re freckles,” I said as I leaned forward to tug on her long braid. “Just a part of you like this is.”
“You get angry. It’s just a part of you.”
A heavy breath left me when I fell back against the tree and watched her, staring at me like she really believed what she said.
This girl I didn’t know at all.
This angel who had fallen into my life.
Saying things no one else ever had. Looking at me like there wasn’t something wrong with me. Like I was just Beau.
Not the violent Dixon boy. Not the angry one.
Just Beau.
“Are you real?”
Another one of those giggles left her, head tilted back and everything. “Of course I am,” she said when she faced me again. “Better question! Do you like lemon?”
Crazy girl.
Crazy, angel girl, that’s what Savannah was.
“Uh . . .” My shoulders bunched up. “I dunno. Sure?”
“Me and my mom made lemon pound cake for your family, and it’s so way good. You should try it.” She stood and held a hand out for me to take, reaching for me like she wasn’t afraid of me at all.
I took it.
Letting her help me up as I tried to understand how she could say and think the things she did . . .
We hadn’t made it out of the trees when I figured it out.
She saw me push Hunter against the house. She saw me being held down when my anger was already fading. Which meant she hadn’t seen a whole lot of anything. Nothing close to the worst I’d done.
“You’ll see somethin’,” I said quietly. “Somethin’ that’ll change your mind about me. About, you know, what’s wrong with me. Just so you know . . . it’s okay. I’ll understand.”
She grabbed my arm and turned me toward her. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Because you turn into the Hulk?”
I looked away as my teeth clenched tight. As my chest burned in a funny way that was cold and hot all at once. “I don’t like that name.”
“Okay then,” she said like it was as simple as that. “Because you turn into a bear?”
A laugh broke past my shame, and I glanced at her. “What?”
She shrugged. “You were kinda roaring like a bear when I found you.”
“I—sure. ’Cause of that.”
“Well, I happen to like bears,” she said and held out the same dandelion from earlier to me.
I watched her for a while before taking the dandelion and starting for the house again with her by my side.
“You sure you’re not an angel?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think so. My dad calls me ‘Pumpkin’ . . . maybe I’m one of those.”
I laughed and knocked my shoulder against hers.
She skipped away, laughing as she did and looking at me over her shoulder. “Come get me, Beau Dixon!”
I watched her dart away, too stunned to move for a few seconds, before taking off after her.
Running after someone without that sickly feeling covering me. Without anger pushing me faster and faster.
Chasing that crazy, angel girl because she wanted me to. Because I wanted to.
Had a feeling when I finally caught up to her that I wanted to spend every day chasing Savannah Riley.
“That sounds perfect, then we’ll be ready for you at noon on the twenty-ninth,” I said as I scrawled down the last of the details. “Please let me know if you have any questions before then.”
After a quick goodbye, I ended the call, my expression falling when I set the bed and breakfast’s phone on the counter. “Next weekend’s full too,” I said to the kitchen lamely, hating that the excitement of that moment was missing. That I couldn’t share it with Beau . . .
Hating that he wouldn’t be there for the graduation weekend or the full weekend we had just ahead. That he wouldn’t be there to say let’s live that dream before the first guest arrived, as he had since we’d first opened up Blossom Bed and Breakfast.
Hating that he wasn’t there at all.
I rubbed at the burning ache in my chest that hadn’t seemed to dull these past weeks. The stabbing betrayal that lingered and twisted in the moments when I had too much time to think. Like now.
Pushing my calendar away, I turned from the kitchen, refusing to give my thoughts the chance to form. I had a to-do list that would keep my hands and mind busy for days if I was lucky.
But just as I was stepping into our large supply closet to grab cleaning supplies, the front door opened.
Hope bloomed so fast and so deep that my next exhale sounded like I was in pain as I turned and raced for the entryway . . . only to come crashing down around me when it was Sawyer heading toward the kitchen instead of his oldest brother.
“Oh,” I said thickly, throat working feverishly to swallow past the knot there. “Hey, Sawyer, hi.” My head bobbed all kinds of awkwardly as I stepped closer to where he was watching me curiously. “Did y’all forget something last night?”
“No, just coming to check on you.”
“Oh. Well, I—” I waved toward the kitchen and living room just beyond it, trying to shrug as I did. “Everything’s fine today. Nothing needs to be fixed. I don’t need help with anything.”
He stepped back to lean against the kitchen archway, folding his arms across his chest as he did. “Yeah, that isn’t what I meant. Where are the kids?”
“School,” I answered a little uncertainly, even though I was sure of that, and Sawyer would’ve known the answer to that too.
“Levi?”
“Napping. Why do I feel like you’re interrogating me?”
“Do you have guests checking in?”
I straightened my back and tried to stare him down. “Sawyer Dixon, I am not playing twenty questions with you. Why are you here?”
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