The Brody Bunch Collection: Bad Boy Romance

by Sienna Valentine

  In less than a week, someone tried to grab Sarah at the carnival and then returned to our picnic to finish the job. What would have happened if the boys hadn’t been around to protect us. What if it happened again? I didn’t want to take the chance on finding out. Wyatt meant well, and I was certain his intentions were true when he said he would protect me, but he really couldn’t watch me all the time. How could I live knowing that men like that might appear from anywhere, at any time? It was just something I never had to worry about back home, which meant that it was the only place I could truly be safe.

  Wyatt must have known the truth of that, because the only way he agreed to not tell everyone that I was leaving was if I agreed to let him take me himself. Not that I had had any other idea how I would have returned home anyway, so I had been happy to agree to that. Besides, even though I couldn’t trust myself to talk to him, I was still glad for his company. I knew that I would miss him terribly, and just the idea of leaving him was the main reasons I was second-guessing the decision at all.

  I’d waited so long for Rumspringa and all the exciting new experiences I would have, even dreaming of the chance of finding love outside our closed off little world. Not returning home at all was always something I’d considered a strong possibility. Especially when Hannah had seemed so happy after she’d left. So now that all of those experiences had been realized, and after finding such a strong connection with Wyatt, it was no easy decision to leave it all behind.

  Yet how did one choose between love and safety?

  Do I love Wyatt?

  It wasn’t the first time I’d pondered that question. How would I know if I loved him? Was it the same as how I knew whether or not I wanted to have sex with him? Was it something I would just know, or was there some other sign that would tell me for sure?

  Over the last few days, I’d even imagined myself as his wife. It hadn’t been hard, given how much time we’d spent together, not to mention how we’d lain together as man and wife. Was that act a horrible mistake that I’d regret forever, as my father warned? It hadn’t felt like a mistake at the time, and still didn’t.

  The thought of leaving Wyatt still filled me with sadness that settled heavily in my stomach, making me feel queasy. Yet being chased by those men and then watching everyone fight, seeing all that blood, made me feel sick and scared.

  I felt lost and confused for so many reason. Everything had once seemed so clear; now nothing did.

  Perhaps all I needed was some time to think it all through. Sort out my feelings. Maybe then I’d have a better idea of whether running home was the right choice or not. Of course, once I returned there was no way father would ever let me leave again. But it wasn’t like he wanted us to go in the first place. I had snuck out once before, surely if I decided that coming home was the wrong decision then I’d be able to do it again.

  Assuming father didn’t put a lock on the outside of my door to prevent it. He’d threatened to do that in the past.

  I wasn’t even sure whether I’d be welcomed home at all.

  Oh God, what am I doing?

  Wyatt’s truck pulled off to the side of the road not far from the entrance to our village, just as the tears around my eyes finally began to fall. Despite myself, a soft sob escaped my throat, giving it away.

  “Hey,” he said, reaching over and touching my hand. The warmth was at once both comforting and confusing, so I wrenched my arm away. I didn’t need any more confusion. I’d made my decision. I was already here. There was no turning back now.

  “Don’t,” I said. I wasn’t sure whether I meant don’t touch me or don’t try to talk to me, but he respected both by remaining silent while I sat for a few moments trying to get control of myself.

  I needed some time away from everything new, everything confusing. Some time back home, surrounded by the familiar and comfortable so that I could decide what it was that I truly believed and felt. It was too hard out in the English world. There were too many distractions. Too many people and things that would be trying to influence my decision. As much as my heart ached at the thought of leaving Wyatt, I didn’t feel like I could trust my heart anymore. It was too easily swayed by his soft, moss-green eyes, or his easy smile, or his unbelievably hard body. It was time to get some distance from it all.

  I grabbed the small bag with my Amish clothes, having not wanted to risk changing at the apartment in case either of my sisters spotted us as we were leaving. They would have guessed my intention as soon as they saw the bonnet on my head. With one last blurry look over at Wyatt, I pushed open the door to the truck. His perpetual smile wasn’t there, though. Instead was a look I’d never really seen on his face. Sadness.

  “I’m sorry,” I cried out as I pushed away, launching myself through the door before either of us had a chance to say anything else and slamming it behind me. I had no idea if he was planning to follow me, so I kept running until I was lost amongst the familiar trees that surrounded my village. I was home.

  Despite years of experience wearing my conservative clothes against mere days of English fashion, I still couldn’t help noticing how restrictive and stifling my old outfit was. I was hot, itchy, and uncomfortable, and I’d only been in them for twenty minutes. Getting changed in the forest so close to home had felt so strange, so inappropriate. Given what I had done the last time I had been half naked in the woods, I wouldn’t have expected to have noticed it at all.

  There was just something different about being here. Feelings of proper behavior and morality seemed to fill even the air that I breathed, and I was instantly worried that my parents would know exactly what I’d been up to with one look at my face.

  Every sinful detail.

  My face burned with shame even before I knocked of the door of my own house, and I had to stand there for a few moments to regain my composure.

  Stop it, I admonished myself. You’ve been on Rumspringa, and everything you’ve done is excusable and can be forgotten now that you’ve decided to come home. They can bear no grudges.

  Only, I knew that wasn’t true. My father had strictly forbidden us from going, and his temper wasn’t generally something that could be reasoned with if he felt like his will had not been respected.

  Perhaps coming home had been a mistake after all.

  All of a sudden, I was second guessing-everything. After feeling so scared about what had happened this afternoon at Hannah’s apartment, I expected to feel comfortable and secure as soon as I was back in my village. But I didn’t. Being here just felt… wrong. Safe, yes, but like I didn’t quite fit anymore—and it wasn’t just the uncomfortableness of my old clothes. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what the problem was, but it was like standing there, on the front stoop of the very house I’d grown up in, I didn’t really belong.

  I just needed time to adjust again. To get back into my house, see my parents, sleep in my own bed. I’d feel a lot better in the morning. Today had just been too crazy; it had turned my head around too many times. I had woken up on top of a world that had come crashing down around me by the afternoon. Anyone would feel confused and out of sorts.

  I lifted my hand and knocked on the worn wood of my front door. It took almost a minute before it began to open; surely they had not been expecting anyone to come calling so close to dinner time. The face that greeted me was my father’s, his hard dark eyes staring down without a hint of emotion. As if he’d expected to see me, and I was simply late for dinner.

  “Hello, Father,” I said, slipping back into Deitsch. He knew English as well as any of us, but using that would only serve to remind him of my most recent transgression—and he surely needed no reminding.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice characteristically stern. He made no move to usher me in. “I thought you decided to make the Devil’s Playground your new home.”

  “I… I made a mistake, Father,” I said, turning my eyes to the ground to demonstrate my shame and remorse. “I wish to come home.”

  �
��You left despite that I had forbidden it,” he said, ignoring my apology.

  “I know, Father.”

  “And you wish now to come home, as if nothing has happened? As if you haven’t disrespected me?” He paused for a moment and I continued to study the porch, too afraid to meet the look in his eye. If he didn’t let me come home, what would I do then? Would Wyatt still be waiting in his truck to take me back? Would he even want me, after I’d chosen to leave him? “You will need to be punished for your disobedience,” he finally said.

  “I understand, father.”

  “And I will expect you to honor all of my rules from now on. To do exactly as I say without question.”

  I knew what I was expected to say here, only the words didn’t come as easily to my lips as they once did. I couldn’t help but wonder if by saying them, I would only become the liar that I’d accused Wyatt and Hannah of turning into. After living in the English world, where everyone had a right to choose their own path and has the freedom to make their own choices, how easy would it be to give that up again? To go back to doing chores and obeying my father’s strict rules about what I do and who I see.

  I had really only come back to get time to think clearly about what I really wanted to do. I had not considered the fact that living here meant I was rarely asked about what I wanted. I was mainly expected to do only as I was told.

  After having a taste of freedom and choice, and maybe even love, was I so willing to give all of that up?

  Still, for the time being I knew what I needed to do to be accepted back into this house. If I changed my mind later, was that still a lie?

  I knew even as I thought that, that I was making justifications. Yet I still had to say it in order to be invited back home.

  “I promise, Father.”

  That seemed to satisfy him, and he finally stepped aside, allowing me to pass. It was only then that I chanced a look up at his face. He wore an odd expression, the lips of his mouth curling slightly into an almost unsettling grin. Deciding it was most likely a trick of the dying light and dimness of our candle and lantern lit home, I ignored it and went to find my mother.

  20

  Wyatt

  As it turned out, the painful throbbing behind my eyelids was nothing compared to the stabbing pain that followed opening them in the light of dawn. For a moment, I was convinced that I was either waking up from a nightmare, or still sleeping through one. Not only because of the pain, but because of the instant emptiness I felt as a single thought burst forth into my freshly conscious brain.

  Beth.

  Surely she was lying next to me in bed, and her cool hands would be ready to rest against my temple and massage away the ache. Only once my eyes were fully opened, she wasn’t next to me. And I wasn’t in my bed.

  I was lying in my truck. The same place I’d passed out each night over the last few days, ever since Beth had disappeared into the woods on her way back home.

  The first night I had stayed exactly where I’d dropped her off for hours, unwilling to leave in the off chance that she would change her mind—come to her senses—and reappear, just as suddenly as she’d vanished, hop back in, give me a quick kiss and tell me to turn right back around.

  Only that was nothing more than a sad fantasy that I couldn’t wish into truth, no matter how hard I tried.

  So I had done the only thing I knew how to do when faced with a problem that I couldn’t punch my way out of. I went drinking.

  I found a bar right at the edge of town that was both close enough to the Amish village that I could return to wait for Beth again as needed, but far enough away from everyone else that I didn’t want to run into.

  I’d at least had the presence of mind to call Ash before I started drinking to let him know that I’d be away for a while. That Beth and I would be away. I had kept my promise to her—more than I’d promised, really. She’d asked me not to tell anyone until after she’d gone home, but I was giving her even more time than that, as if it would somehow prove how much she could trust me now. As if she’d ever even find out.

  Or maybe I had done it because I wanted everyone to leave me the fuck alone with my misery. To that end, I told him we were “going off-grid” for a while, refusing to be any more specific. That would give me a further excuse to avoid his phone calls, of which there were still a few. Texts as well. But I ignored every one. Beth had left the cell phone that Hannah had leant her back at the apartment, so I knew the calls weren’t from her, and I didn’t care to hear from anyone else. No one else mattered.

  So that left me alone to drown myself in alcohol, and according to my phone, that was… four days ago.

  Four fucking days.

  For the first two, I’d sobered up enough each morning to drive back out to the village, stopping off at the side of the road and waiting for hours, still hoping to see Beth come hiking back out. I got a few funny looks from Amish folks as they rode by on their horse-drawn buggies, but I think I did a good enough job of pretending to be studying a map or, if I was outside my truck at the time, yanking open the hood to act as if I was having engine trouble. A couple of them actually stopped and offered to give me a ride back into town for help.

  But Beth was never with any of them.

  It took two damn days, but I finally got the hint. She wasn’t coming back. Ever.

  She had told me once that she wasn’t even supposed to leave in the first place, which meant that there was even less chance she’d be allowed out a second time. And really, why would she want to come back? As far as she believed, there was nothing waiting for her here besides more lies and danger. I could promise to protect her from the danger, but I was the one who lied. Who would protect her from me?

  No. She wasn’t coming back, and I had no one to blame but myself.

  So I just kept drinking for another couple of days with no more interruptions. Each afternoon, when I woke up and the bar opened, I was waiting for it—having never left the parking lot except to piss—and then every evening I’d fall asleep in my truck again.

  The only exception today was in how early I had woken up. I’d forgotten to put the cardboard sun blocker on my dash last night, and the consequence was an early-morning headache. The fucking bar wasn’t going to be open for hours yet.

  I reached over and grabbed a half finished water bottle, downing it in one long swallow. I’d have to head to the 7-11 a couple blocks away on a resupply mission, only I knew I’d have to walk. I was sober enough that my heart was back to feeling like it was shattered into a million pieces—that comfortably numb feeling that complete drunkenness brought nowhere to be found—but still not quite sober enough to drive.

  A completely shit in-between state, with absolutely no benefits to it whatsoever.

  The 7-11 probably sold beer.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time, but a bunch of new texts on the home screen distracted me. They were from Ash, inviting me and Beth to some sort of fucking brunch with him, Hannah, Sarah and Reid today.

  Yeah, right. I rolled my eyes despite there being no one around to see it.

  The last thing I wanted to do right then was be around a bunch of lovey-dovey fucking couples, reminding me with every touch and moony look in each other’s eyes of what I’d lost.

  I thought Sarah was the uptight one, yet she had forgiven Reid for the same issue, and Hannah had to put up with all sorts of other baggage dating Ash. What kind of a complete and total fuck up was I to have been the only one of my brothers unable to hang onto his girl? Was I really the black sheep of this family after all?

  It had taken me this long to finally meet a woman that made me feel something real, maybe even love, and I had let her slip through my fingers.

  Do I love her?

  It was hard to think straight with the pounding of my head, but why had I been drinking in the first place? I’d gotten drunk before, but I’d never gone on a four-day fucking bender. Who does that?

  Someone in a lot of pain that they
’re trying to forget. Someone who has lost something very important. Someone with a broken heart.

  Shit, I think I am in love with her.

  That realization just made everything worse.

  I stared at my phone. It wasn’t even seven in the morning. Still, I flung open the door and stepped out, blinking and shielding my eyes from the sun. If it was socially acceptable for a forty-something yuppy-ass couple to drink Mimosas at this time of day, then there was no reason I couldn’t have a beer or three.

  Cursing the brightness of dawn, I started towards the 7-11. Time to turn this into a five-day bender.

  21

  Beth

  Dawn had come and gone by the time I woke up, and once again I had been left to sleep. Before I had left for Rumspringa, Sarah and I were always expected to be up at the crack of dawn and begin the daily chores. If we slept in, one of our parents would usually be in our room very quickly to wake us. Usually Father. Yet I’d been back for four days and they hadn’t woken me once.

  I was being shunned by my own parents.

  It’s not like I had been unaware of the consequences that would be waiting for me when I returned. Being ignored and made to feel like an outcast was a common enough punishment in our community. However, I had expected it to have ended by now.

  With no rush, I spent some time lying in bed and thinking about Wyatt. By now, he was probably back home and living his life, likely having already forgotten me. We had only known each other for a few days, after all. He might have been my first sexual experience— and destined to remain special to me forever because of that—but I wasn’t fool enough to think that I was any kind of first for him. He likely had already moved on to the next girl by now.

  The thought of that burned in my stomach, making me feel ill enough that I no longer wished to lie in bed thinking about it. So I got up and went about my morning routine of combing my hair, washing and getting dressed. By the time I was done, I felt hungry enough for breakfast, so I wandered to the kitchen in search of something to eat.