Who I Am With You

by Amanda Lanclos

  “I know and that’s why you’re better than me. You care.”

  “Austin, come on now. You’re my brother; neither of us is better than the other. But if you’d be a little less of an ass to the women you slept with, maybe they’d like you.” I laugh when I see his face. It’s pretty damn comical to see when he’s gotten a dose of life’s medicine. “Better be glad it’s me telling you and not Stella. That woman there, she sure will tell you like it is at the drop of a hat and not even give it a second glance.”

  “You’re right about that. That woman scares me.” He trembles a little. “She smacked me with that wooden spoon last Sunday at church and told me ‘You need more Jesus than your Daddy can give you, boy.”

  “Sounds like her,” I chuckle. “Now, come on and help me fix this fence so I can get home and you can go make up with Casey.”

  “I don’t think it’s possible to make up with that woman.” He grumbles but something out of the corner of his eye makes him look in another direction.

  Looking out in the pasture I see two horses flying by, as if they have no care in the world. But what makes me smile is seeing the two heads, one of brown and the other with blonde hair on them. Casey and Kennedy, as I remember them. Summers were spent with us all racing our horses to see who could beat the other down to the river and now it’s the pond. It was as if we were stuck in a moment that was something we’d never forget.

  “I’ll be damned. They still got it,” Austin bellows and I can’t help but laugh.

  “Yeah, they got it all. In all the right places too.” I waggle my eyebrows as he slaps me with his hat.

  “And I’m the asshole?”

  “Don’t even act like you weren’t watching Casey’s tits and ass while she was barreling down the pasture with Sally.”

  “She’s on Sally? Shit, Dallas! That horse can hurt her!” Austin’s face contorts from happiness to fear.

  “Ken’s been working with her, she’s not that bad anymore. But, it looks like Casey is one with the horse, like it never left her. She’s alright.” His eyes turn on mine and I swear he is trying to kill me with his mind. “She’s fine, Austin. But, if her being on Sally pisses you off, I’d hate to see what you think when she’s dancing with some dude at Swinney’s.

  He growls in response and goes back to fixing the fence, ignoring my last remark. All I can do is laugh as I get back to work, because after seeing Kennedy letting loose on that horse, all I can think about is letting loose with her in the bedroom tonight. I really better stop or the wires aren’t going to be the only thing that gets tight around here.

  Watching Kennedy sleep was quickly becoming one of my favorite things. I loved seeing her hair splayed all over my pillow and my chest. I loved seeing her face so peaceful, without lines of worry or fear. I loved knowing she felt peace with me. Two months of this was amazing, but I felt like the ball would drop soon. She’d eventually remember everything from the last ten years. What if there was another man somewhere? Her breathing changes and I know she’s awake, so I try to think about other things that aren’t so damn depressing.

  “Good Morning,” she sighs with content as she burrows into my chest.

  “Mornin’,” I rumble as my heart picks up speed and the blood rushes straight to my dick. I don’t know how the hell my dick can still want her as badly as it does. I crave her. I need her. I can’t live without her.

  “Oh!” She sits up in the bed, her body going ramrod straight before looking at me. “I, I have. To. Go.” She scrambles out of the bed so fast that her feet tangle in the sheet and she falls flat on her face on the floor.

  Sliding out of the bed, I throw on the sweats that I took off the night before, “Kennedy?”

  “I. Have. To. Go.” Her jaw is clenched and her body is rigid.

  “You remember don’t you?” My hand goes to my neck, trying to ease the tension. I still don’t know what I had done to hurt her.

  She just shakes her head, before she takes off down the hallway, moving like someone lit a fire under her ass.

  “Woah!” Austin’s voice comes barreling down the hallway as the porch screen slams behind her as she leaves. “Damn, dude! What the hell did you do? She just ran out of here like she was on a mission.”

  I sigh as I walk into the kitchen, grab a coffee cup and put it under the Keurig before I press the button. I run a hand over my neck, trying to rack my brain for whatever the hell it was I’d done. “She remembers.”

  “What?”

  “She just got the last ten years of her life back,” I sigh as Austin stares out the door. Kennedy comes running back into the house with her fists balled up.

  “Uh oh, you’re about to get it,” Austin says in a nonchalant voice until she grabs him and punches him in the jaw. I’m impressed by the strength behind that punch. “What the hell, Kennedy? Wrong fucking brother!”

  “No it wasn’t. While Dallas has his own faults, he didn’t knock MY best friend up and then tell her she was just a ‘damn good fuck’. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, because Casey is the best thing you ever touched. You’re a lying, deceitful bastard.” Her chest heaves with each breath she takes and with the way she’s acting all I want is to take her back to my bed and show her all the damn reasons she should stay.

  “Knocked her up? What the hell are you talking about? Kennedy, you’ve lost your mind.” Austin seethes as he rubs the harsh line of his jaw that Kennedy just punched. “She left me.”

  “Don’t. Even. Go. There.” Her voice drops to a chilled level and if I hadn’t known the person she’d shown me before, I wouldn’t even think she’d be capable of sweetness in this moment. “She told me about you skipping out on her after you told her she wasn’t more to you than that. Why do you think she was so eager to go with me to New York? She lost the baby, but she’d have been a damn good mother.”

  “Kennedy,” he holds the bridge of his nose as he tries to relieve the pressure building behind his eyes. He did this all the time when he was stressed. “I honestly have no damn clue what the hell you’re talking about. She never talked to me about anything. She told me she was leaving and nothing I could do would make her stay.”

  “Kennedy, enough.” I growl. I don’t know what the hell is taking place, but damn, I want to work out our issues, not Austin and Casey’s.

  “Enough? Don’t even get me started on you. Mister, ‘I love you, Kennedy’. ‘Please don’t go, Kennedy’.” Her eyes shift to me, those blue eyes I love so much, turned on me with so much anger and loathing that they look dark with the storm brewing inside. “It didn’t seem to take you long to get over me. I came back, because I’d made a mistake. I wanted us back. Only to find you at Swinney’s with Gabi. So don’t even go there. You were so drunk you didn’t even realize someone was watching you the whole time you fucked her right in the hallway.”

  “What?” I have no clue what the hell she is talking about. I didn’t do that. “Kennedy, I never.”

  “Don’t. It was ten years ago. Shit happens. I love you, Dallas. These past few months have shown me that, I haven’t forgotten them. But, I have to love myself. I wasn’t the best person for ten years. I was driven by my career, but I wasn’t always the nicest person. My mother shouldn’t even want to help me,” she looks up at me, tears brimming her eyes and all I want to do is hold her in my arms.

  “Kennedy, please. I got you back, don’t make me do this again. I won’t survive this. I can’t survive losing you a second time.” I don’t even care that Austin is looking at me as if I need to hand him my damn balls, because it’s the truth. I can’t survive losing her again. This will kill me.

  “I’m not leaving, I’m asking you to give me time. I need it, Dallas.”

  “Fine, but how long?” I can feel my veins bulging in my neck from the stress. Austin looks as if he wants to be anywhere but here and I don’t blame him for it, because I myself don’t want to be here.

  “Dallas, if you knew half the shit I have done, you’d run for good,�
�� she sighs as she shakes her head. “I’ll call you,” she kisses me on the forehead before running from the room and speeding out of my driveway as if she can’t get away fast enough.

  “Damn,” Austin grumbles. “Bitch can punch.”

  “Don’t. You. Dare. Call. Her. That. Again.” I force each word through clenched teeth as I slam my brother against the wall.

  “Why am I the one taking the damn beatings today?”

  “You deserve them,” I grumble before letting his shirt go and moving around the counter. “She just walked out of my life again.”

  “She’s coming back,” his tone drips of arrogance and I want to punch him in the same place Kennedy had not even ten minutes ago.

  “How can you be so sure?” My heart beats, but I don’t really understand how because I can feel the fissures slowly cracking it into pieces all over again. I grip at my chest, hoping to ease the ache that is slowly starting to take up residence there.

  “Because of the way she looks at you. Dallas, she watches every move you make. Even if she’s hurting over that shit with Gabi, which did happen by the way. Your ass was just far too drunk to remember. Which was my fault.”

  “Fucker!” I growl punching him and laying him out in one hit. “I should have known.” I clench my hand to my chest. Now I had my mind taken off the damn pain in my chest because of the pain in my knuckles, but I welcomed it.

  After taking a long shower, I decide there’s nothing I can do but wait for her to come back. I don’t want to push her, because I can’t live without her. The best I can do is hope that she knows my intentions are true. No matter what her past is, my feelings won’t change. I’m not sure they can, she was made to be mine. Our souls seem to find and return to each other.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “It doesn’t matter what you have to do to get them to me. I need those tiles and I don’t care if you have to work double. GET. THEM.” I screech into the phone, waiting for Casey to come into my office to see what I’m doing now.

  “Who was that?” Casey pops her head into the door and smiles.

  “Why are you always so happy? What the hell has happened to me? I want to go back to the nice Kennedy I was years ago.” I sigh, rubbing my neck as I spin in my chair. This business used to be fun, but now that we had over fifty employees and half of them wouldn’t do what I asked, it was stressful. I was so over all of it. If I could leave it behind, I would.

  “Because Ken, I’m running a business with my best friend and we both love it. It’s stressful, but at the end of the day we both depend on each other. We always have and we always will.” She gives me a sad smile before walking out the door.

  She was right; we always had each other’s backs and that wasn’t something you found easily. I’d found it at four years old when we both walked into Mrs. Halphin’s pre-school class.

  “Why’d I have to remember?” I ask out aloud as I sit in the front seat of my new truck, acting like a scared child. My momma, of all people shouldn’t want to be around me. I was evil, a bitch and I deserved to be alone in life. Because I’d left the life I’d loved behind, because of a dream. I wanted to do something that would make both of my parents proud, but it ended up pushing me away from everyone.

  “Kennedy? You gonna get out of that truck?” Mom’s voice calls over the sobs coming from my mouth.

  Nodding I slowly get out of the car, rushing into her arms as I cry harder.

  “What’s wrong? That boy again?” Momma’s tone turns harsh and I shake my head against her chest before she gets her shotgun and goes after Dallas. “Then what is it?”

  “I remember Momma.” I whisper, hoping she doesn’t hear me, but I know by the way her arms wrap around me that she has.

  “Well, that’s good, right?” Her voice is weary and I don’t blame her for it.

  “No, Momma,” I look up so that I can see her eyes. “Why did you come for me? I was so mean to you.”

  “You’re my child. You could have run me over with a damn car and I’d still have been there with you. It wasn’t entirely your fault. I pushed too hard.”

  “Momma, I called you ugly names, told you I wasn’t ever coming home. Didn’t want to see any of you. Stop calling me,” her hand comes up and covers my mouth.

  “Do you still feel that way?” Her kind eyes stare at my nervous ones and it makes me realize that I have changed. I shake my head and she smiles. “The past is the past for that reason, and they call it the present because it can be a gift. No one but Casey and me know your past. You can start over again here, just as you did there. Just make sure you bring Waco and Fort Worth to visit,” she laughs loudly.

  “Who told you about that?” My face flames red and I want to be buried under the dirt right where we stand. “Darlene?”

  “Sure did. I have to admit, I never noticed that until you said something.”

  “I’m so embarrassed. I’ll never live that down,” I sigh as we walk into the house to see Casey standing there watching me apprehensively.

  “Are we leaving?” Her demeanor gives nothing away, but her eyes say it all. She wants to stay too, but she is going to do whatever I need to do because she’s the best friend anyone could ever have. She puts her own needs behind mine. I don’t know what I ever did to be lucky enough to call her my best friend, but I am so glad that I can.

  “Nope, we both need this. Our hearts need to heal and we need to be happy.” I give her an evil smile and pull her closer to whisper in her ear so Momma can’t hear me, “Besides, everything is bigger in Texas.”

  “You ain’t lying there, sister! Glad you remember everything. But, what are you going to do about Dallas?” Her face is full of worry as she thinks about what this could do for me.

  “The last ten years of my life were about forgetting him, but I wasn’t ever able to. A wise woman once told me, that the past is your past for a reason, but the present is a gift.” Mom winks as I look at her. “Besides, the last couple of months with him have been amazing. While the past hurts, I’m really going to focus on the last couple of months instead.”

  “You’re becoming smarter than ever.” Casey smirks as if there is a difference in me. “I’m glad you’re giving him another chance. You deserve your fairytale ending too, ya know.”

  “So do you,” I retort. She instantly hushes her mouth. Sealing her lips so tight, it almost looks as if she’s super glued them together. “I saw the way you and Austin looked at each other yesterday. Sparks were flying.”

  “As if,” she snorts. “He’s an asshole who sleeps with anything he can get to open their legs.”

  My mother starts laughing so loudly that I think she may be mental. “Oh gosh! Wait until his Momma hears that!”

  “Mom!” “Lori!” Both Casey and I say at the same time. I shake my head, because I don’t know what to do with these two, but I do know that I have to worry about what I’m going to do with Dallas. I don’t want to leave him waiting, but we need to talk about what happened with us so that we don’t go into this new relationship strained.

  “Oh come on now! You both have heard Miranda Lambert. Everyone dies famous in a small town, that’s just truth. It will get back to Darlene and when it does I’m gonna laugh so hard.”

  “Momma! That’s not funny, no matter how true it is.”

  “Yeah, it’s still pretty damn funny,” she laughs as she walks into the house.

  “You okay?” Casey asks softly.

  “Mmhmm. I want each employee to get a severance package. Six months pay, please.”

  “You still wanna sell?” Her eyes go wide. It’s almost comical that she would think I wouldn’t. While I loved our company, I love Dallas more.

  “Yes, I think it’s for the best. If we ever wanted to do it again, we could start all over, here.”

  “I’m not starting over,” she grumbles as she kicks her feet. “Not happening.”

  “Good, because I kind of like training horses, a lot.”

  “Riding Sally was pret
ty fun yesterday. Maybe I could open up a place to train girls to barrel race like we used to.”

  “Do what makes you happy,” placing my hand on her shoulder, I look her in her green eyes. “Even if that’s Austin.”

  “Don’t go there. He’s a pompous ass.”

  “Hey, he may be pompous, but that ass looks good in them jeans. I know, I’ve seen it quite often,” I wink when she growls. “See, that growl shoes that you want it to be your ass.”

  “Shut up, Kennedy.” She pushes my shoulder, making me stumble backwards a bit. “It’s not happening.”

  “Okkkaayyyy.”

  “Not.”

  “I said Ok. I’m gonna go drive to the river and watch the water while I think about what to do next.”

  “Ok. I’ll go grab some coffee from town and work on the sale of the company. I need to let everyone know that we will be closing in three weeks.”

  “I appreciate you and everything you do.”

  “You better,” she winks as she walks into the house, leaving me on the front porch steps alone.

  How do I make him love me, when I don’t even love myself?

  I knew the second he showed up. I got the tingling vibrations all over my body the moment his eyes spotted me, but he didn’t approach. My back was to him as I looked out at the river running down the bank in front of me.

  Finally after ten minutes, I signal with my hand for him to come on over. I don’t look at him, but as he gets closer my skin heats to an ungodly temperature. I’m on fire for him, even after remembering everything.

  “You okay?” His southern drawl comes out and my body trembles.

  That was always something I loved about Dallas Garrison – his sexy voice that had all the girls in school swooning. The day he set his eyes on me was one of the happiest of my life.

  “Yeah, but we need to talk.” I turn my head, resting it on my knees as I take him in. He’s wearing a plain Hanes t-shirt that hugs every inch of that hard body underneath it and a pair of Wrangler jeans that look like a damn second skin. I gulp as he sits down beside me, grabs my hand and kisses it.