by Maisey Yates
“Only an idiot isn’t afraid of something that can destroy them.”
“I guess I’m an idiot.”
And then Rebecca walked out of his bedroom, taking the stairs down to the entryway two at a time. She flung open the door, taking a deep breath of sharp, night air, not caring that she had forgotten her coat, that she had nothing to protect her against the elements.
She was raw and exposed anyway, it might as well extend to this.
She wrapped her arms around herself, walking down Gage’s driveway and heading back toward her house. It felt like a lifetime had passed since this morning. Since she had first come to his door and asked him to help her with her mother.
She felt like an entirely different person.
She looked up at the sky, uncharacteristically clear, blue velvet and shot through with fragments of light. Too many to number.
She supposed that was a good reminder. That even now, in the middle of the darkness, there was hope. That there was light.
Right now though, all she could focus on was the darkness.
She couldn’t remember anything hurting this bad since she was a child. Since her mother had abandoned her. This was what she had been protecting herself from. It made sense. She couldn’t call herself a coward, not when this pain felt terminal.
She had been smart to protect herself.
She huffed out a laugh, her breath visible in the frigid air.
The sad truth was she simply had let herself care enough about anything to feel this kind of pain. This was the other side of joy. The other side of happiness. Of love. You couldn’t have the beauty without the pain.
Couldn’t have the stars without the darkness.
And she had stars.
She had Lane and Alison and Cassie. She had Jonathan. She had this town, this wonderful, beautiful town and her shop that was like the home she had always wanted.
But Gage… Gage was the one who had shown her the way.
She swallowed hard, fighting back tears, fighting against the terrible, overwhelming pain that was threatening to swamp her. She looked up at the sky again, at the smattering of lights in the darkness.
She tried very hard not to think about how she feared that, while her sky had any number of beautiful stars, her north star was gone.
And without him, she might not be able to find the way forward.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
GAGE WEST STARED out at the lake, his hands resting on the deck railing, the chill from the wood biting into his skin. He didn’t care. If he could change anything, it was that it would hurt worse.
That it would be something other than this dragging, yawning ache inside of him that was threatening to undo him completely. This was too familiar. This was too much like what he had left behind in the first place.
She was right.
He was running, but not from what he had told himself he was running from for all of these years. He was running, but not from becoming his father.
He was running from how much he loved his father. From how much he wanted to be accepted by him. From the fact that his love had never been returned no matter what he did—right or wrong.
A deep, dark pit that was there long before he had met Rebecca. Exposed now. Deepened.
Running and running, because he knew that there would never be an end to it. Because he had seen it. He had seen it every day in his mother’s eyes.
He was the same. He knew he was.
Had known it for certain from the moment he had found out about Jack, his half brother. His father had told him. Because, it had been essential that Gage know, since he was going to eventually take over the West empire. There could be no secrets.
I’ve made mistakes, Gage, his father had said. But the important thing is that I’ve handled them. So that you and your siblings, your mother, will never feel the consequences of those actions.
His words had echoed through Gage as he had wandered the halls of the house, sixteen years old and the keeper of his father’s darkest secrets. He had a half brother. One that was his younger brother Colton’s age. A brother who was not allowed to be a part of the family because Nathan West needed so badly to protect the West name.
Does he know?
Not who I am, no. But I imagine there will come a time when I’ll have to deal with that too.
He’s your son, Gage had said, feeling both loyalty and jealousy in that moment directed at a boy he didn’t even know.
But not like you are. Not like Colton.
Why?
Because he isn’t legitimate.
Not because he loved them.
That matters?
It matters to our reputation, and reputation is everything. I’m trusting you with mine, Gage. And someday you’ll likely trust me with yours. I hope you’ll remember this when you do. We look out for each other, the Wests do. Because we must protect each other. We must protect our name.
He had been reeling, dazed. And then he had run into his mother.
Did you have a good talk with your father? As always, she seemed brittle. She smelled faintly of expensive floral perfume and alcohol.
Yes, he had said. Lying.
He could sense something then. That she might know. That she suspected he knew something he wasn’t telling her. And he wondered what his responsibility was. But he felt destroyed inside, finding out that his idol was nothing like what he had imagined he was. And he couldn’t bear to expose him further. It had nothing to do with protecting his mother’s feelings. And everything to do with the fact that he didn’t want to expose his father. That man who he had wanted so badly to pattern himself after.
She had known he was lying. He could tell. Could tell in the way her shoulders had folded in slightly. In the way her lips pinched tight. And yet, she didn’t say anything either. Both of them protecting a man who didn’t deserve it. Out of love. Out of loyalty.
But he hadn’t reached out to help her. And she had not reached out to him. To do so would be a betrayal of Nathan. And neither of them would do it.
They were too desperate to do the right thing. To earn the love of the man who withheld it with such ease.
He had always seen his mother as being a faded figure. She had never been deeply involved in her children’s lives. Everything she had ever done had been in the service of her husband. Gage had always felt a little bit disconnected from her. Had seen her as weak and frail if anything. But suddenly, in that moment, he had realized that the two of them had a lot more in common than he had seen before.
It had been something he was unable to shake.
It had lingered with him, even as he had continued to do everything his father asked him to do, continued on the path to become the son his father needed him to be. He had managed to twist it all inside of him. To believe his father’s version of the truth. That being a West, that protecting that name was the most important thing.
They were pillars of the community, after all. Those pillars had to be upheld, no matter what.
Deeper, though, something about that interaction with his father had shaken him to his core. And he had felt the need to push back. To create a situation in which his father would have to prove that loyalty he’d spoken of. And he had. He had done it, and he had swept Rebecca up in it too.
When he had stood before his father, the reality of what had happened laid out before them, he had waited for something. Some warmth. Some sign that his father did any of this out of love. And he realized then that the older man didn’t.
That was when it had all become clear to him. He wasn’t his father. He was his mother. The two of them would destroy themselves for love. For people who would never love them in return. And it wasn’t only themselves they would destroy, it was everyone around them.
That night was the first night he had dared to ask her about it directly. Dared to broach the subject, to even imply that Nathan West was anything short of perfect. He was bruised, he was broken inside and out. There was a girl in the hospital bec
ause of him, his father offering to make it go away, not out of love, but of loyalty.
“Why does he do it? Does it have anything to do with loving us?”
She had looked at him, and right in that moment Gage had realized how infrequently she did that. “He has too many things to care for to worry about loving people too much. That’s why he needs us to support him. But,” she said, her expression changing, sympathy in her pale blue eyes. “You have to be careful. Because people like you and me, we’ll give and give until it takes everything from us. We care more than other people, Gage. And it’s the kind of weakness that can ruin a person. And then when there’s nothing left in us, it starts taking from the people around us.”
He realized that that was exactly what he was doing. Already. The revelation about Jack had caused his rebellion, had caused him to act out the way that he did. And he had already started hurting people.
Rebecca had been the first casualty. All for what? To gain the attention of his father? To gain love that very likely wasn’t there?
He saw in his mother that endless forgiveness, that endless ability to put up with anything, and he saw how destructive it was. Because there was no end. His father could never satisfy her, she could never be satisfied. Anyone who was with him would end up in the same position.
And he was an unholy mix of the two of them. His destruction was bigger than his mother’s could ever be. He had all the selfishness, all the inclination to protect himself that his father had. And all of that need that came from his mother.
The terrible thing was, he had run to avoid doing more damage. That much was true.
But he had done more this way. So it hadn’t been the only reason. It hadn’t been for them. It had been for himself.
If I’m not the victim, where does that leave you?
A coward. He was left facing the fact that he was a coward.
It was why her forgiveness had been more of a burden than a relief. Why he had felt stripped down afterward.
In some ways, he could understand why her mother had been so desperate to deny that same forgiveness. It was just like she’d said to him earlier. He was walking away. He was the one leaving when someone was waiting for him with open arms.
Leaving was so much easier when you could leave with a cloud of sulfur behind you. Knowing that everyone hated you. That you had broken things beyond repair.
That you at least deserved to not be loved now.
That was what he’d done. That was why he was so dedicated to believing he was a villain. Because maybe if he didn’t deserve love he wouldn’t…crave it so much anymore.
But Rebecca wasn’t allowing that. Wasn’t allowing him to burn the bridge. She was making sure he knew it was still there. And he liked to burn bridges. It was the only way he knew to manage that yawning canyon inside of him. To make sure he placed it between himself and the person he needed to escape from.
Rebecca didn’t do that. She was brave. She faced down everyone. Her mother, him. She had stood between himself and Jonathan, defending him. She hadn’t hidden. That woman didn’t have an ounce of skittish in her.
No, he was the one on the run.
And now that all of his excuses had been taken away, it was impossible to justify.
He took a deep breath, squinting out toward the lake at the full moon reflecting across the surface. Rebecca’s house was there. Rebecca was there. He ached for her, to hold her in his arms. He ached with the need that wouldn’t end, he knew it wouldn’t. Because that was how he loved.
Deep, destructive. He didn’t know another way. He was still too broken to drag her down into it. Into him.
How could he ask for a love like that? When his own mother looked through him and his own father had barely ever seen him.
He was too broken for such a thing.
“So, fix yourself.” He said those words out loud, his breath visible in the dark air.
He knew what he had to do. He knew it wasn’t because he was too busy that he had been avoiding his father. Knew it wasn’t because he had been caught up in everything else. No, he was avoiding his father because that was what he did.
In that, Rebecca was right. Initially, he had been using her. To put distance between himself and his family. Because she had never been the reason he left. It had always been them, always been him.
He laughed, the sound swallowed up by the thick pine trees and the dense night. He had come back to town bound and determined to fix Rebecca Bear, and he had found that she wasn’t broken. Instead, she had shown him the million different ways he was splintered into unfixable pieces.
Maybe it was time he went and fixed one. He didn’t know if he could ever be what she needed. Didn’t know if he could ever justify trying to make a future with her.
Hell, he didn’t know if he had the balls to give himself over to the kind of love he felt like he could have for that woman.
But he did know that if she could stand on her own two feet and face all of her monsters, then he could damn well go face a few of his own.
*
REBECCA WOKE UP to pounding on her door. Her heart slammed against her chest, mimicking the rhythm. She scrambled out of bed, padding down the hall and wrenching the door open, her heart freezing completely when, for one moment, she thought it might be Gage.
But no, it was Jonathan. His arms were crossed across his broad chest, his expression matching the steel-gray clouds outside. “Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning,” she mumbled, taking a step back and gesturing for him to come inside.
“It’s ten thirty. I didn’t think you would still be asleep.”
“I had a rough night.”
“Did you go see her?” Jonathan looked like he hadn’t slept last night. It was strange to see him looking like this. Careworn and concerned, when normally he was impenetrable, at least from her point of view.
It took her a moment to realize that he was concerned about their mother, not about anything to do with Gage. Of course. Then, yesterday came back into focus. The fact that she had gone to see her mother. That Gage had gone with her. And then…
Well, she didn’t want to think about the rest.
“Yes,” she said.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “She lives in a trailer park, but I imagine you knew that, since you knew the address. Obviously she didn’t manage that money very well after she took off.”
“I know. I make sure that she doesn’t go hungry.”
“How? She didn’t seem like she wanted any help from me.”
“Oh, I get it to her in a variety of ways. But, she doesn’t know it’s from me.” He looked around, his expression stern. “Is he here?”
“The milkman?”
“It’s not 1950, so no, that isn’t what I meant. I meant West.”
“No,” she said, battling against the sharp slice of pain that went through her when she gave him that answer. She wondered how long it would be before it stopped hurting.
“Okay,” he said, clearly not quite sure what to do. She wondered if he had been intent on dragging Gage out of her bed and giving him a pummeling.
He turned as if he were going to go. “Jonathan,” she said, her voice stopping him in his tracks. “Can I ask you something?”
He turned back toward her. “Sure. It doesn’t mean I’ll answer it.”
She smiled. She could always count on Jonathan to be a little bit taciturn. “Have you ever wanted to rebuild things with Mom?”
“No,” he said. The word was so firm, so sure. It surprised her. Because she didn’t really know what she wanted from her mother. Hadn’t until she had gone to that house and realized that she didn’t need anything from the older woman, she only needed to change something in herself.
“Not at all?”
“Rebecca,” he said, his voice rough. “She left you when you needed her most. I’m never going to forgive her for that. I’m never going to want to rebuild that bridge. And if she tried
I would be the first one to light it on fire so that she couldn’t cross it.”
The conviction in his voice, the vehemence, surprised her. She didn’t know why it should. Jonathan had always been there for her. And she had kept him at a distance. Sure, he wasn’t the most demonstrative person alive, but she had never made a move toward having it be any different.
“I… I thought…” Her throat started to close. “I just thought that… Jonathan, I have spent a long time being afraid that everyone in my life would leave me eventually because I was so much trouble. Because I needed too much.”
Her words were cut off as Jonathan pulled her into a hard, strong hug. She knew it came from somewhere deep inside of him. Knew that it cost him, because he never did things like that. Ever.
She pressed her face against his shirt, and she let the tears that had gone unshed in her sleep fall.
“If you are afraid of that, then I didn’t do a very good job with you,” he said.
She shook her head, sniffing as she did. Then she pulled away from him. “No,” she said, “it wasn’t you. You never gave me a reason to feel that way. You were there, day in and day out. It hurt me the way that she left. But I know that what she left you with… As unfair as it was for her to leave me, leaving you with all of that responsibility was even worse. She’s just lucky that you’re you. That in spite of the way she was, the way that your father was, you were willing to stay and take care of me.”
“It wasn’t even a hardship, Rebecca. I’d give up my life for you without even hesitating. It’s one reason it killed me to see you with West. I don’t understand how you could do that. I don’t understand how you can want to do anything but kill him slowly and painfully for what he put you through.”
“I don’t know if I can explain it,” she said, knowing even now that it wasn’t that easy. That it would take hours and recounting all of the things Gage had done since he’d come into her life, large and small, in order to make Jonathan even begin to understand. “I definitely wasn’t looking for it. But he’s the reason… He’s the reason that I realized that I’d been hiding. Afraid that people would leave me. Holding on to the past so I didn’t have to deal with the future. So I didn’t have to let people close. But he…he made me want someone close. He made me think maybe I could have that.”
