by Vonna Harper
“How did you know?” Brett demanded, his tone harsh and hollow.
A lot of reasons. I saw your accident.
“You couldn’t—”
Yes. I could. Don’t block yourself off from what I’m trying to tell you. Brett, just before I died, I experienced what you did.
“You had time for—” Brett started.
For fear and pain, yes.
“Brett?” she said. “What is he talking about?”
Brett’s rapid breathing reminded her of the wind that had accompanied the rain. “About why I haven’t visited your father since his stroke.”
“My father?” Confusion clouded her voice.
The wolf divided his attention between her and Brett, his too-human eyes alive with emotions she needed to understand. If she’d been closer, she would have wrapped her arms around the powerful neck and held on as tight as she could.
“I didn’t want to see him helpless,” Brett muttered.
“Do you think I do?”
“It’s not the same.”
“Of course it isn’t. He’s my father, not yours.”
“But what happened to him…”
Brett’s hands were still in his pockets, and the way he stared at the wolf made her wonder if he hated the predator that wasn’t one.
Don’t stop now. She deserves the truth, and you need it.
“Let it go!” Brett demanded of Skye.
Do you really want me to?
Carlan felt herself slipping back in time to the night she’d told Brett that his career choice terrified her. She’d been putting things off for weeks while the storm of their lovemaking dominated her world, but each day, when she left Brett and returned home to watch her father struggle to function despite his long-ruined back, she’d had to face the possibility that the same might happen to the young man she loved. Logging wasn’t just what Prospect boys did if they stayed in the area. It was also one of the most dangerous jobs in the country.
She’d begged him to join her in exploring the world beyond the trees and mountains, but the wilderness’ hold on him had been greater than hers.
Turning his back on the wolf, Brett focused on her. “He’s right. There won’t be anything, except sex between us unless I tell you, and the sex won’t last.” His chest rose and fell. “The day of my accident, I had to face that I might lose my leg, even my life. It came close.”
“My God.”
“Yeah.”
“Where did it happen?”
“In the woods. I’d been logging.”
“No.” Carlan lifted a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God, no.”
“Yes.” Pulling his hand from his pocket, Brett rubbed his forehead. “Lying there on the ground, I kept staring at my leg, trying to reconcile myself to the worst. More scared than I knew it was possible to be. Wishing I were anywhere but where I was.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“How do you feel, knowing I wasn’t a macho man but a scared and hurting kid?”
His self-disgust blindsided her. “Brett, Dad’s accident was the defining moment of my childhood. I understand what it means to be crippled. Why do you think the thought of something like that happening to you scared me so much?”
“But you couldn’t live my life for me. I know that now.” He rubbed his leg. “There’s something else, something I’ve never shared with anyone. Least of all Jake.”
“What does your brother—”
“Carlan, you aren’t the only one who railed and raged. Your anger was aimed at your brother, mine was at myself and my brother.”
Eyes pressed closed against the heat in them, she waited Brett out. As she did, her breasts, belly, and crotch spoke to her. No man would ever mean as much to her as Brett did. In fact, at the moment, she was barely aware of the wolf’s presence.
“Doesn’t make much sense, does it?” Brett asked. “No more than your outburst against Skye.”
“Maybe not. Maybe.”
“I think I know what you’re saying. Everything had backed up inside you, and you had to let it out. Even though he was dead, you wanted Skye to know what you’ve been going through.”
“I guess,” she muttered, opening her eyes.
“No ‘guess’ to it. It’s an honest emotion. Isn’t it, Skye?”
The wolf nodded.
“When I had my accident,” Brett went on, “it was just Jake and me in the woods. We were working on the side of a steep hill—his idea. I’d tried to convince him we should wait until there was no wind before clearing that particular spot. Hell, we fought over it, but he insisted that because we could get our machinery in close, it made sense. A-lot-of-money sense. Besides, it wasn’t as if we hadn’t ever worked in those conditions.”
“Jake pushed you to—”
Brett ignored her and kept talking. “In the end, I agreed because we had bills to pay. I’d cut through this widow-maker and—”
“Widow-maker?”
“A tree with a trunk that branches near the top. Hard to judge which way those suckers are going to fall. I was getting the hell out of there when it twisted crazy going down. Maybe the wind was responsible; I don’t know. It tipped toward me instead of the way I’d planned. I couldn’t run fast enough.”
Anyone simply listening to Brett might not catch the emotion behind his words, but she knew him in ways she was still coming to grips with. He was reliving his nightmare. “You could have been killed.”
“I wound up trapped under that mother. Scared…shitless. And furious at everything that had happened. If Jake hadn’t been there—He bucked the tree up into sections and then lifted the one on my leg off me. Took forever.”
“So, in addition to the weight on your broken bones, you felt the vibrations as Jake cut. And time passed.”
A profound silence wrapped itself around them. The pain must have been incredible, but what choice did either brother have? No more than Skye had had, once the river had him in its grip. “Is that why you cussed Jake?”
“That, and a million other reasons. I was trapped for hours. Determined not to let Jake know how much I didn’t want this to be happening, same as him. I didn’t let go until I was out of the hospital. It nearly did me in, because I had no business driving so soon, but I went back to where the accident happened and took an ax to the ground. Pulverized it. Called my brother every name I could think of, blamed him until I’d gotten it out of my system. Then I turned around and blamed myself.”
His eyes had become so dark she couldn’t begin to see to their bottom. “If I hadn’t blamed Skye the way I did, would you have told me what you just did?”
She didn’t expect him to rush his response. In fact, she wasn’t sure she was going to get one. Just the same, one silent minute piled on top of another until she was afraid they wouldn’t end. Finally, he sighed. “I want to say ‘probably not,’ but that doesn’t say the half of it. There’s been this huge logjam of emotion inside me. Shit I didn’t know how to deal with.”
Tell him what you’re thinking, Skye silently begged. And tell me.
“Logjam?” she said when she could speak. “A shitload of emotion. Yes, that’s how it felt for me.”
If anything, Brett’s gaze intensified. “Feelings so bottled up, you couldn’t make sense of them?”
Don’t hold anything back, please.
“It’s been like that ever since Skye died.” She wasn’t sure who she was talking to, maybe her brother and lover. “Then today…today everything broke free.” Her mouth sagging, she stared at the wolf who stared back at her with Skye’s eyes.
“You were ready to throw your anger at him,” Brett said.
“Because he made me.”
“Made or paved the way?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?”
Brett was right. Just looking at the wolf convinced her, left no doubt that what of Skye resided inside had brought her there today. “Thank you
,” she told her brother. “For freeing me.”
All I could do was be here. You had to make it happen.
“He’s right,” Brett said. He took her hand, then turned so they faced the creature capable of killing them. “You’re the one who had the breakthrough.”
Breakthrough. Freedom. “What about you?” she asked Brett. “Do you think Skye put that axe in your hand?”
By the set of his mouth, she wondered if she’d have to weather another of his silences. Instead, he slowly nodded. “Something got me behind the wheel of my truck, despite the pain. Something planted my feet under me and controlled my legs while I hobbled to where it happened. And something was there when—”
“Something?”
“I didn’t see anything, but there was a presence.”
Not just me, my companions as well.
Shuddering, Carlan looked around. If the other wolves were there, she couldn’t see them.
“It’s all right,” Brett said. “You’re safe. We both are, aren’t we, Skye?”
Yes.
As the word swirled around her, Brett drew her into his embrace and pressed his mouth against her forehead. When she looked up, he parted his lips. Alive in ways she couldn’t remember ever being, she answered his wordless message.
Their kiss started easy but deepened. A warm shudder slid over and through her. She wanted one thing out of life—Brett, his mind and body. Desperate to let him know, she slipped her arms around his waist and pressed herself to him. Yes, he was aroused. The same as her.
Sis? Am I forgiven?
Pushing back from Brett’s embrace took all her strength and will. Looking at the creature that was all she had left of her brother brought tears to her eyes and compelled her to tightly grip Brett.
“Of course you are. Skye, does that mean you’re free? You can—You no longer have to exist in this body?”
My job isn’t finished. Neither is yours.
“What are you talking about, my job?” she asked.
“Not just yours, both of ours,” Brett said. “Honey, there are a lot of decisions to be made. We have to determine what’s best for your parents, and what you’re going to do once they’re safe and cared for. Then there’s me, my future.”
“Whether you’re going to continue to log, you mean?” The way her heart hammered, she wasn’t sure either Brett or Skye could hear her question.
“Yes.”
Once she’d seen Brett’s career in black-and-white. Either he walked away from the inherent danger or she’d walk away from him. Now, wiser than she’d ever believed she’d have to be, she understood it wasn’t that simple. Whatever the decision, they’d reach it together.
A sigh she hadn’t heard for too long tore her attention from Brett. Looking at the wolf, she slipped past the outer package to the brother she’d grown up with. That had been Skye’s sigh, the soft and deep sound he’d always made when the world pressed in on him.
“I don’t want this for you.” Sorrow clogged her throat, and if Brett hadn’t increased his hold on her, she wouldn’t have been able to go on. “I want you to find peace.”
I want the same thing. Ears perked forward, he stared into the woods. I’m not alone. My companions—
“Who are they?” Brett asked. His tone gentle and strong, it rubbed her nerve endings and awakened places only he had ever touched.
Others like me. Those who still have work in this world to do.
She waited for Skye to say more. Instead, he started toward where he’d been looking. Just before disappearing into the trees, he turned toward her, and for a moment, she saw not a predator, but her brother.
Whole and strong.
“Carlan?” Brett whispered. “I saw. Are you all right?”
Blinded by tears, she pressed her cheek against his chest. “I am now.”
The End
Publisher’s Note
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About Vonna Harper
Vonna Harper writes erotica because she can’t help herself, because the music she plays while at the computer speaks to the woman in her. She has penned everything from capture to BDSM stories, science fiction, shape shifting, and a handful of stories Amazon banned. It might be a lost cause but she still tries to hide her Vonna stories from certain family members. A lifelong country gal, she loves being in the wilderness.
