In the waiting area I sit down to rest my trembling legs. I can’t believe it’s him.
My Brandon.
My boy.
My stepbrother.
I swipe at my face, needing to get it together. First I call my office and inform my assistant of what has happened. Then I call Adam.
The phone is answered on the first ring but no one speaks.
“Hello, this is Samantha Corrigan.”
“Did you see your client?” the deep, dangerous sounding voice asks.
“Yes,” I reply, “But he doesn’t want me to represent him.”
“Why?” he asks crossly, as though he isn’t used to anyone questioning his wishes.
“He asked for me to call you and let you know you will need to send someone else,” I say. “I have the retainer. Can you send someone to come and collect it?”
“Connor will be there in twenty minutes,” Adam says and hangs up.
I look at my phone feeling a little stunned and a whole lot relieved. I’m glad that I won’t have to deal with Adam again. He gives me the shivers over the phone so I can’t imagine what he would be like in person.
True to his word, Connor arrives within twenty minutes and takes the money. I stand and leave the station but once I’m outside I can’t bring myself to go and never come back.
Brandon isn’t going to call me, I know this.
If I go back to my office now I might never see him again. He didn’t keep in touch the first time and that rejection stings just as much now as it did then.
If I want to see Brandon, I’m gonna have to force the issue.
Chapter 3
Brandon
The attorney Adam sent was Sammie. I’m still reeling from seeing her walk into this shit hole, done up in her suit with that long blonde hair resting over her shoulder like a spill of gold. Fuck. She looked so different but just the same with her beautiful warm brown eyes that were the only ones, apart from my mom’s, that ever looked at me with love. I mentally calculate how many years it’s been since I had to leave with my dad. Has it really been that long since Mom died?
I flex my hands that are now bandaged thanks to Sammie and her demands. I didn’t want the nurse to fuss over me but I also didn’t want to be an asshole and tell her not to do her job. I couldn’t get over Sammie and the way she spoke, filled with authority and professionalism. She’s grown up good. I always knew she would.
The room is quiet and it gives me too much time to dwell on what-ifs. What if Mom hadn’t died? What if Sammie’s dad Nolan could have kept me? What if my dad hadn’t turned out to be such a scumbag?
What if?
On the outside I’ve crafted an image to help me fit in with my world, tattoos and muscles, street clothes and a scowl. I’ve modelled myself on the man I despise most in the world, the man who took me from a happy home only to neglect me as a kid and use me as an adult. I’m stuck in a world I don’t want to be in but there’s nothing for me outside of my current life.
Except Sammie.
I can’t think that way though. Sending her away is the best thing I can do for both of us. She needs to be dragged into my shit like she needs a hole in the head and I don’t want to spend my time thinking about how things might have been different if fate had just passed me over for once.
I shake my head, stunned at the woman she’s become. She was pretty before but she’s become a beautiful woman. Her lips were always sweet but when she smiled at me before she left I couldn’t stop looking at them. And when she turned to walk out of the room I noticed just how shapely she’s become.
Fuck. I don’t want to notice that shit. I want to remember us the way we were before life came along and shaped us for better or worse.
I sit waiting for a while, knowing Adam will be getting me more representation quickly. He doesn’t want me marinating in a cell, he wants me out there making him money. I don’t think he’ll be worrying about me spilling secrets but it will have definitely crossed his mind. He’s a snake like that. I guess it’s only natural for people to think the worst of others if they know they are capable of acting that way themselves.
Time passes slowly when you’re faced with nothing but your own company. I think through song lyrics in my head, but they all end up being something maudlin like Johnny Cash ‘Hurt’ and Waylon Jennings ‘The Road’. The funny thing is that I wasn’t feeling blue until Sammie walked into the room. I was feeling antsy for being locked up, sure. And smug for beating on that son of a bitch that thought he could shoot off his mouth behind my back and get away with it. There’s been a bit too much of that going on lately, with that new crew setting up in the north of the city, but that shit doesn’t bother me. It’s all in a day’s work, or a night’s scuffle. It’s sweet Sammie that’s left me feeling down.
I know that wasn’t her intention. When she said that thing about the wombat I wanted to get up and hug her, but there it is. Too many years between us for that kind of thing.
When my attorney finally arrives, I’m out in a flash. Adam’s been working behind the scenes to get that son of a bitch to say we were messing around, fighting for fun. The cops don’t look happy but there you go. We might be scumbags but that sure helps when you need to get someone to change their story.
I shake the suited dude’s hand as we exit the secure part of the PD, and start towards the door, scanning for Connor. I find him in the corner and next to him is Sammie. I curse under my breath because she didn’t listen and also because she must have left and come back seeing as she’s dressed in tight jeans and a loose blousy thing. Her eyes find mine and it’s like a zap of electricity hits me when I see the longing in them. I can feel how much she wants us to have some kind of reunion, a trip down memory lane or whatever, maybe because I feel the same. But the fact that Sammie’s sitting so close to a lowlife like Connor makes me clench my jaw. I know what he’s capable of and she has no idea, otherwise she’d be running in the opposite direction.
She should be running away from both of us.
Sammie stands and starts towards me, clutching a big tan purse like it contains the secrets of the universe.
“Brandon, you’re out. What happened in there?”
“Nothing for you to worry about,” I say reaching out to steer her towards the door. Connor watches, his all-seeing eyes following us as we step through into the street. “You need to go, Sammie,” I say.
“I’m not going anywhere, Bran,” she replies, and her use of my old nickname takes me back to our home and a time when I felt free of worry and guilt.
“Don’t,” I warn, because I don’t want to feel weak. I can’t. The only thing keeping everything in place is the hardness I’ve packed inside me.
“Don’t what? Want to see you and spend time with you after all these years? Don’t care about you? What?” She’s exasperated, folding her arms across her chest and almost stamping her sandaled foot. The pretty silver chain she has around her neck glints in the sunlight, the little angel-wing charm so perfectly right for her.
“Don’t think things can be the same as they were.”
“I’m not stupid Brandon. We’re not kids anymore. I’m well aware of that.” She seems to emphasize our size difference by making a show of craning her neck to look up at me. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t grab a coffee and talk.”
“Talk about what?” I ask, thinking that I can’t remember the last time I sat down and had a talk with anyone about real things, things that don’t involve the next ‘shipment’ or some problem with a rival organization that’s trying to encroach on our territory. I’m used to talking about business, sports, booze and women, and I can’t imagine that any of that would interest Samantha.
“About our lives. About old times,” she says hopefully.
“Old times are best left buried, and our lives probably don’t belong mixing in any way,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets and glancing towards the door. Connor has stayed where he is and I’m grateful that he’s giving me space to put this t
o bed.
When I look back at Sammie, her eyes are glassy with unshed tears and I feel like a total prick. She turns and looks down the road, as though she needs time to compose herself.
“I missed you,” she says. “So much. But you never called or wrote me. Why didn’t you stay in touch like you promised?”
“It wasn’t because I didn’t care about you,” I say, and I see her swallow hard, as though she has a matching lump in her throat to mine.
“I didn’t know how to find you, and by the time I was grown enough I’d kinda got the hint that you didn’t want to see me again...”
“I did,” I say and I know I’m walking a very fine line. I need her to understand that I didn’t forget her but I’m not gonna stand in the streets and spill my guts about my asshole father and my ragged upbringing. “But what was the point, Sammie? We were living in different worlds.”
“We were still the same people,” she says. “We still are the same people.”
“No,” I say. “I’m not, and that’s why I want you to go, now.”
“Brandon,” she says and reaches out to cup my cheek. I want to pull back but the feeling of her soft hand on my skin opens a crack in my heart and I find that I can’t. I want her tenderness. It’s been so long since anyone touched me like this. “Please,” she pleads. “Just for tonight, let’s go somewhere. We don’t have to talk about the past or even the present. We can talk about the news…anything. Don’t walk out of my life again.”
I put my hand over hers and we stand, looking at each other. It’s strange to feel so connected with someone who’s been a stranger for so long, but I do. It’s like she knows me, the real me, not this substandard version of myself that I’ve become. And I feel like I know her too, the girl inside this woman’s body who used to tell me ghost stories and cry in her sleep for her lost mother.
“I need to tell Connor,” I say, gently taking her hand from my cheek, lowering and allowing it to slip from my grasp. I give in even as I know it’s a mistake.
“I’ll wait here,” she says and I turn and go back through the door.
Chapter 4
Brandon
Connor is waiting in the same chair, looking thoughtful. He raises one eyebrow at me but says nothing. It’s the technique he uses to get people to talk.
“I don’t need a ride,” I say. “I’m gonna make sure she gets home safe.”
Connor nods and stands. “You’ll come by the bar later?” he asks, but it’s not really a question, it’s an order filtered down from Adam.
“Yeah.”
I turn to walk back out the door and he follows. “See you,” he says, turning to leave down the busy road.
Sammie is leaning against the wall with her hands in her pockets, waiting. She looks classy and sexy. I’m a man and I can’t help noticing how good she looks but I feel like a shit for it. She used to be my stepsister – technically, I guess she still is – and those kinds of thoughts have no place between us.
“You ready?” she asks, stepping away from the wall towards me.
“Yeah, let’s go and grab that coffee. Somewhere that’s got food ‘cause I haven’t eaten all day.”
“Great,” she says, and slips her hand around the inside of my arm so we can walk close.
When we were younger I would give her piggy-back rides and we’d wrestle and muck around. Everything is innocent when you’re a kid, but her touching me doesn’t feel innocent now, at least not for me. Her hand is warm and her grasp is comforting and I want to pull away as much as I want to draw her closer.
We stroll along the road, not talking at first. I wonder if she’s as lost in her thoughts as I am in mine. I wonder if she feels that things are weird between us. Different.
“Where do you live now?” she asks. “Did you get married?”
“I’ve got an apartment but it’s nothing special,” I say, avoiding telling her where. “And there’s no one sharing it with me. What about you? Someone snap you up yet?”
“Nah,” she says, with a hint of sadness in her voice. “I dated someone for a while but it didn’t work out.”
“He must have been an idiot,” I say, prickling at the idea that someone might have had the gall to reject her.
“Yeah,” she laughs, squeezing my arm. “How’d you know?”
“Most men are.” I include myself in that statement because I’ve spent most of my adult life working my way through women and trying to avoid them the next day. People in my walk of life tend to be the type with issues and I’ve got enough of them myself, I don’t need to be taking on anyone else’s.
“So, what happened to you when you left?” she asks and I must flinch because she looks up at me with a frown creasing her brow.
“I went to live with my dad. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know that. I mean, what did you do? Where’d you go to school?”
“There was a high school not far from his house.” I say. I don’t tell her how rough it was or that I dropped out before I should have, to avoid the intimidation. That, and my dad didn’t see the point of me studying if I could be out with him making money. As soon as I hit six foot he had me down at the gym, lifting weights and getting trained by his friend who’s a boxing coach. My fists are what make me useful in my world, and my cool temper, although last night it wasn’t that cool.
We come to a café that doesn’t look great but I want to end Sammie’s line of questioning and need food. “How about this place?” I ask, stopping us both on the pavement outside. She wrinkles her nose and looks up and down the road for a better alternative. There isn’t one so she shrugs.
“I don’t know. It looks like food poisoning waiting to happen.”
“There isn’t anywhere else,” I say as my stomach clenches with an accompanying growl.
“We could take a cab back to my place. I’ve got steaks in the fridge that I brought for when my dad comes visiting, but I can get more tomorrow.”
“You wanna cook me a steak?” I say, laughing.
“What?” she says shaking her head, confused at my reaction.
“I thought you were a vegetarian!”
“Nah,” she giggles, realizing why I was shocked. “That only lasted a few months, then my dad kept cooking bacon in the mornings and I couldn’t resist.”
I look into the dive behind us, thinking about the dirty hotdog I would probably order in there. Going back to Sammie’s wasn’t on the agenda but I’d be escorting her back there later anyway. No way would I put her into a cab by herself. The prospect of a home cooked meal and a chance to check out her place isn’t something I’m going to pass up despite my reservations about this whole thing.
“Come on,” she says, putting her hand out to flag a passing cab. We get in and she tells him her address which is in an upscale neighborhood. Sammie’s done well for herself and I’m so damn happy to see it.
We try to talk a bit during the ride but the driver keeps interrupting with curses about the other road users and useless, uninteresting details about his life. Sammie politely joins in but it leaves me frustrated.
We pull up outside a nice block. The outside is new and well maintained, the grounds lush with tended grass and shrubs. I get out first, reaching to help her out of the cab. Her palm is dry and her smile warm as she comes to stand in front of me, straightening her clothes and hitching her bag up onto her shoulder.
“Come on, Bran,” she says, leading the way into a spacious lobby with an elevator at the back. It smells fresh and expensive and I’m glad she suggested we come here rather than go to my place. My stairwell smells of weed and ramen noodles and I’ve never taken a woman there before for that very reason.
In the elevator I check my cell phone, finding a missed call from Adam. I guess he must be pissed that I haven’t returned to business right away, particularly since he footed the bill for my representation. Fuck him. I’ve picked up enough of his shit and dealt with it over the years. He can wait while I have some decent food and a dip
a toe into a life I was ripped out of against my wishes. Then I’ll be his all over again and I’ll make sure that Sammie understands that she can’t come looking for me no matter what.
When I look up, Sammie’s watching me with that frown again. I want to stroke my thumb over it and ease it away. Worry has no place on a pretty face like hers and I hate that I’ve put it there.
“Something wrong?” she asks and I plaster on a smile and shake my head.
“Nothing at all,” I say.
The elevator stops and the doors open, then we’re walking through a bright corridor filled with plants and nice artwork. Sammie’s door is at the end and she looks up at me when she unlocks it, hesitating to push it open, as though she’s remembered something in there that she doesn’t want me to see.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” She shakes her head and I follow her in, closing the door behind me, feeling like things are getting more uncomfortable between us the longer we spend together.
“Let’s get the food going. You must be famished.”
Her apartment is something else. Floor to ceiling windows on one side showcase a stunning view. The kitchen is open into the den. She drops her bag on the counter and heads for the fridge, pulling out a big pack of steaks and some vegetables to make a salad. I walk around, scanning the shelves that line one wall. Sammie was always a big reader and her shelves are packed with books, some names I recognize and others I don’t. There are massive legal books there too and a pretty big CD collection. I’m pleased to see she still likes some classic country although I wonder if it’s hard for her to listen to like it is for me, a reminder of bittersweet happy times.
I stand in front of a shelf of framed photos, looking at Sammie with friends on nights out and on sandy beaches, making funny expressions and smiling like her face might crack. She seems so happy but inside my heart clenches. I want to feel good about the way her life has turned out but there’s a tiny, horrible worm in my chest that resents it too; resents that it’s not me next to her with the megawatt smile, sharing all her good times. Lower down there’s a gathering of family photos and I reach out and pick up one that’s slightly faded, like my memories of the day the picture was taken. It’s me and Sammie in our yard, dressed in our swimsuits, holding our arms in the air and sticking our tongues out. We’ve got the scrawny bodies of preteens, ribs showing through our skin, and skinny legs. Sammie’s hair is plastered to her scalp from where we’d been dancing in the sprinklers and I’ve got mud on my cheek. We look like two urchins.
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