by Aubrey Watts
Copyright
1st Original Edition, September 2014
Copyright © 2014 Aubrey Watts
This novel is a work of fiction. Any similarities to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, are entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No parts of this novel may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent from the author.
Warning
This full-length novel is the first in a two book series. It contains adult themes, explicit language, and sexual situations that may offend some readers. Reader Discretion is advised.
Also Available by Aubrey Watts
Justify (Kimball Brothers #1)
Justify (Kimball Brothers #2)
Coming Soon by Aubrey Watts
Justify (Kimball Brothers #3)
Trouble (Orsen Brothers #2)
Table of Contents
A Word From Aubrey Watts
Part 1: ANDERS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Part 2: VENUS
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Thank You
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About the Author
A Word From Aubrey Watts:
—
Dear Readers,
Thank you for purchasing my first full-length novel, TROUBLE (Orsen Brothers #1). I have poured my heart into this book and it is my sincere hope that you enjoy it. Please understand that this series (consisting of two novels total) will have lots and twists and turns along the way—but there WILL be a very satisfying HEA when all is said and done. For freebies and updates on my publishing schedule—remember to sign up for my mailing list here.
Happy reading!
Aubrey
Part 1
A N D E R S
Chapter 1
—
I lived for the thick, lingering silence that followed sex. There was something comforting about it. It gave me time to adjust. Time to reflect. I lit a cigarette and took a slow drag off the end of it.
The leaky ceiling above me was covered in fine cracks and the paint had yellowed from water damage. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. This entire place was on its last leg—from the termite chewed flooring to the broken appliances in the kitchen. I made a mental note-to-self to pick up a few things from the hardware store next time I was in town.
It was the least I could do.
I studied the sleeping woman spread out beside me. She was naked but a sweaty sheet was wrapped loosely around her body. Her chest rose and fell with every soft breath she took and I reached forward to tuck a strand of blonde hair away from her face. I couldn’t be the person she wanted me to be but that didn’t mean I didn’t care about her.
With a deep sigh, I maneuvered to the edge of her mattress and reached for my discarded t-shirt on the floor, pulling it over my head. I entered her small bathroom and turned on the sink, running the water until it came out warm and splashing a stream of it on my face.
The man staring back at me in the mirror was not the same one who went away five years ago. Dull eyes sat sunken in beneath a mop of messy hair and new scars had appeared where there weren’t any before. My body was my only crutch. Doing time wasn’t any walk in the park but at least it gave you ample time to shape up. Afghanistan did its part in shaping a lanky kid from the hills into a fighter but prison hardened me. I ran a hand over my jaw and exhaled a deep breath. I really fuckin’ needed to shave but I told myself the same thing I always did. That I’d do it tomorrow.
She was awake when I reentered the room, sitting up in bed smoking a cigarette with her back turned from me. She perked up when she noticed me in the doorway and the lust in her eyes made me wince. She was a pretty little thing. There was really no denying that. But I couldn’t force myself to feel something I didn’t.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and sat down beside her, pulling another cigarette from her pack and lighting it.
“Good morning,” she said hoarsely, trailing her fingertips down my back. “Round two?”
I chuckled and shook my head, pulling on my pants. “I have to go,” I told her, reaching for my boots and sliding into them.
Confusion etched its way across her face. She was trying to make sense of me. I didn’t bother telling her that there was only one woman who ever managed to do that successfully. I looked down at my watch. If I didn’t leave soon I would be late for group therapy. Attendance was required for all parolees in the state of Washington—and even though I didn’t like it—I understood why it was necessary. I wasn’t the only one who had forgotten how to exist in the real world.
“Why?” She pouted, clawing her fingers through her messy hair. “But it’s my only day off. I thought you said you’d stay home with me today…”
“I know,” I said with a nod, pulling my arms through my jacket and keeping my cigarette balanced between my lips. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
“You always say that.” She sighed and shook her head. “You’re always promising…”
Her voice cracked and she fell silent. I tried to reach out to her but she pushed me away. “I thought we had a great night last night,” she continued, “I just don’t understand why you always have to take off.”
She paced back and fourth in front of the bed and pulled her hair into a loose ponytail, turning around to face me with her hands on her hips.
“It’s not like that,” I tried, keeping my eyes focused on the foggy glass behind her. It showed my smudged reflection rather than any outside scenery. I wasn’t sure how many more gloomy days I could take. Poulsbo was really starting to wear away at me. It rained here even more than it did in Seattle. This town was too fuckin’ small and too fuckin’ bleak.
“It’s her isn’t it?”
“What?”
“The girl whose name you always say in your sleep,” she continued, waving her hand at me, “Nina.”
The sound of her name made me wince and a heavy lump surfaced in my throat. I slumped back down on the bed and rubbed my neck. This time the silence wasn’t comforting. It was deafening. But I continued smoking, allowing it to lengthen as I searched for a response.
“Come on,” she pressed on, her piercing eyes burning against my face. “You can tell me.”
I sighed and exhaled a wave of smoke from my lungs. “No,” I finally answered, shaking my head, “It’s not about her.”
But it couldn’t have been anymore of a lie.
T H E N
The Afghani desert wasn’t a place anyone would want to call home. But it was to me—for four long years—until one random day it wasn’t anymore. Honorable discharge. That’s what they called it. But there wasn’t anything honorable about it.
I sat on the front steps of my childhood home and stretched my legs, taking in my surroundings. The world seemed to breathe around me. A big “for sale by bank” sign was mounted into the ground a few feet away and the setting sun casted a yellow-orange tinge on the freshly cut lawn. It was a stark contrast to the dehydrated sand, harsh sunlight, and forever-lingering scent of gunpowder I was accustomed to.
Home. I didn’t have one anymore but this place was as good a fill-in as any. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I belonged somewhere.
My eyes roamed over the forty acres of land my father once called his own—before the recession took his job and hi
s dignity. The large oak tree in the center of the yard was a focal point of a lot of my childhood memories. The damn thing was huge. When Liam was twelve, he fell from it and broke both arms. He sported two casts for the better part of that year and wasn’t even capable of wiping his own ass.
I laughed at the memory and took a slow drag off the end of my smoke. The loud rumble of a truck approaching in the distance pulled me to my feet. A pickup barreled down the driveway, dirt and pebbles flying in its wake. It came to an abrupt stop a few feet away from me and a few seconds later, Liam climbed out and lumbered towards me.
Four years was a damn long time to be away from someone and in that time, my baby brother had grown in ways I never thought possible. He was still a pasty motherfucker but time had been kind to him. Long gone was the scrawny kid who was often the butt of every malnourishment joke. While I was off fighting a war I no longer saw any value in, little Liam Orsen had bloomed from a boy into a man.
“The prodigal son returns!” he called out to me in lieu of a hello, twirling his smoke around in his fingers before tossing it to the ground. He smiled at me warmly and pulled me into a tight hug, slapping his palm against my back as he gave me a slow once over. “Damn if it ain’t good to see you. Jesus, you’re one big SOB now. How much are you lifting these days man?”
I chuckled and kicked at a patch of lifted dirt. “Bout’ three-fifty.”
Liam whistled and reached into the bed of his truck, pulling out a pack of beer. “Well come on,” he said, waving at me as he crossed the yard, “lets go shoot the shit down at the bridge.”
The bridge…
Now I understood why he wanted to meet here. If the oak tree was a staple from our childhood—the bridge was one from our teenage years.
“Alright,” I said with a nod, falling in line behind him.
He shook another smoke from his pack and lit it with a silver lighter, offering one to me. I accepted and lit it with the end of his, taking a slow drag. “I thought you quit,” I noted as we maneuvered our way through a thick patch of twisted brush.
“Yeah well…” He shrugged and swatted at a mosquito on his arm. “A lot can happen in four years.”
I nodded. That it could.
“Anyway…I only stopped when me and Nina were tryin’ for a baby…” His voice tapered off and he fell silent—seeming to realize the weight his words carried.
“Oh,” I answered, rubbing my neck, “right…how’s that going?”
Liam stopped walking and glared at me, furrowing his brows. “She never told you?”
I shook my head. I didn’t bother telling him that I hadn’t heard from her since the day I left for basic.
“We broke up man,” he said, clearing his throat and continuing forward. “Shit…about a year ago.”
“What?” I frowned and shook my head in disbelief. “I thought you were engaged…”
“Yeah, well—” Liam shrugged. “Shit happens I guess. We just wanted different things. If you want to know the truth I don’t think she ever really got over you leavin’. She was a mess. Cried about it every time she thought I wasn’t payin’ attention…”
The thought of Nina crying over me made me wince. I took a good hard look at my baby brother. He was perhaps our parent’s greatest accomplishment—yet he couldn’t manage to hold onto perhaps the best damn woman in the world—or at least Kitsap County.
We approached the dilapidated bridge and shook off our jackets beside the river. We used to come here all the time to skinny-dip and shoot the shit. It served as the heart of Poulsbo once but those days had long since passed.
“Well damn,” Liam said with a smile, cracking open a beer and tossing one to me. “It’s been awhile hasn’t it?”
“Sure has,” I answered, taking a seat in the matted.
“Remember when Nina had that accident with the rope swing?” he asked, taking a seat beside me and adjusting the rubber band holding his hair away from his face.
“Yeah.” I nodded and stared out at the rocky water. The current wasn’t strong today. “Damn near cracked her head open.”
The game was called “ship in the harbor.” I don’t know how the hell we came up with it. It had nothin’ to do with anything. All it involved was grabbing hold of the rope in awkward ways—the goal being to dive into the water as close to headfirst as possible. Whoever could contort their body the best would win. It was stupid. It was dangerous. And it was fun as hell. Until, inevitably, it all went wrong.
I could still remember the way she looked when she first climbed onto the rope that day; stepping over empty cans of beer the three of us had nicked from our parents. She wore her hair up in a bun on top of her head but a few strands fell loose around her temples as she swung her legs upwards without effort, twisting her body around the rope as her nose kissed the dirt. Inertia pushed her cleavage forward against the fabric of her pink bikini top and Liam and I pretended not to notice. She wasn’t a girl to us just yet…’least not in that way.
“Well what’re you waiting for?” Liam called out to her. “Swing already!”
And so she did, her limber body cascading into the air and splashing against the water—head first and feet last—the dark current sucking her under in one gulp.
We looked at each other in anticipation as we waited for her to come up. And when she finally did, she was on her back with her dark eyes focused on the oppressive storm clouds above her, drifting as though she wasn’t quite asleep or awake. The most impressive thing of all was the fact that she was somehow managing to stay afloat with a large gash behind her right ear and a stomach full of alcohol.
“She’s fuckin’ bleeding!” I called out to Liam, jumping into the crimson water and paddling towards her. He followed suit and we fished her out, dragging her semi-conscious form onto the bank and digging our feet into sharp wedges of rock in the process.
How the hell had we ever thought this was safe?
She spit water in my face when I got close enough to her to survey the damage. She found humor in everything; even the grimmest of situations. “I’m fine,” she insisted, pushing me away from her.
But it would take twenty stitches for that statement to be true. After that, we ripped the swing down and we used the rope to make trip wire.
Liam’s laugh tore me away from the memory. “Shit,” he muttered, taking a slow drink of his beer as the scent of incoming rain and burning firewood engulfed us. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, basking in it. “What I remember more than anything was the look on your face…”
“What?”
“You know the one.” Liam laughed and pulled an expression I couldn’t quite place. “You looked like you were gonna fuckin’ piss yourself...”
“Haha.” I rolled my eyes and a lapse of silence fell over us.
“You know,” he spoke up after a few minutes, suddenly serious. “I think that’s when I realized you loved her.”
My blood ran cold, but I kept my eyes focused on the water and didn’t react.
“Aw don’t look like that man,” Liam added, “you don’t have to deny it on my account.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know.” He nudged me in the shoulder with a sad shake of his head. “She’s only ever had eyes for you. Ask anyone around town if you don’t believe me…they’ll tell you…”
“That’s ain’t true,” I retorted, feeling my mouth go dry. “We were only ever friends. That’s it.”
“Who are you tryin’ to convince?” Liam chuckled. “Yourself or me?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Nah,” he said, brushing dirt off his hands. “You know she’s working up at Sparrows diner. Why don’t you go pay her a visit?”
“Yeah…not sure that’s such a good idea…”
“Why not?”
I shrugged and ashed my smoke, staring off into the horizon. The sun was setting over the water and the air had a light quality to it that I only ever found in Poulsbo. Fireflies danc
ed in the distance and a lonely cricket chirped.
“You had the life I always wanted,” I spoke up after awhile, “the girl, the land, the house with the fuckin’ white picket fence. All of it. And you just let it go. What about me man? What do I got?”
Liam was quiet.
“I’ll tell you,” I continued, “all I got is one bad leg and the scars to match. That’s it. What’s she going to want to do with me? You know she never even wrote me back...”
There were so many times I found myself wanting to pick up the phone and call her. But what would I have said to her?
Her silence spoke for itself.
“That’s because I never gave her your letters,” Liam spoke up after awhile, rubbing his neck. Something flickered behind his eyes and his tone was laced with regret.
“What?” I frowned and shook my head in disbelief. I couldn’t have heard him right. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
He looked up and met eyes with me, ripping the seal off another beer and chugging it back. “Come on,” he said with a nod, clearing his throat and wiping his hand over his mouth. He poked me in the shoulder for emphasis. “You know why.”
I pulled at a patch of weeds and slapped at a mosquito on my arm. “Still doesn’t make it any less shitty,” I told him, “there wasn’t a day that passed that I didn’t hope for a letter from her. And now you’re tellin’ me this shit?”
“I know,” he interrupted, “and I’m sorry, I am.”
“Oh, you’re sorry?” I looked over him. “You know…I thought she hated me…for fuckin’ off. But now I’m sure she does. Do you even realize what you’ve done? She thinks I never tried to reach out to her…”
“Why did you?”
“What?”
“Fuck off…”
I shook my head. I wasn’t about to talk about this shit with him. Not anymore. “Where did you say she’s working?” I questioned, pulling myself to my feet. Thunder clapped in the distance and heavy raindrops began to splash against the water.
“Sparrows,” Liam answered.
