by Chris Taylor
“Only two? What about Toby?”
“He went to bed while you were in the bathroom. He said he needed an early night. I think the stress of the last little while’s catching up on him. I’ll be pleased when The Bobster’s back in jail. Lane promised to call me as soon as they track him down. He’s confident it won’t take too long.”
Hannah nodded. “I’m glad. As much as I feel sorry for Max and the way his nephew’s turned out, I’ll be relieved when we don’t have to worry about Toby and what plans Bobby might have for him.”
She drew in a breath and then forced herself to add, “I… I guess I should move back home. Toby seems happy here, and now that he’s had time to get used to the idea, I’m sure he’ll be keen to stay. You don’t need me here.”
Jacob stared at her. “I might not need you here, but… I like having you around. I… I want you to stay.”
His gaze held hers. She couldn’t look away. Her heart took off at a gallop and nerves danced like wildfire through her veins. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Clearing her throat, she licked her dry lips and tried again.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Jacob. We have a lot of history—not all of it good. It might be best if we leave the past where it is and move forward as…friends.”
His eyes darkened with emotion. “Friends? Is that what you want?”
Seconds passed. Every breath sounded loud in the silence. Once again, Hannah made an effort to speak. “How can we be more than that, Jacob? Almost every time I look at you, that awful night comes back to me. It must be the same for you. What kind of relationship could we have when we feel that way?”
“Is it the same when I kiss you? Are you thinking of that night even then?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“Yes!” she lied, feeling desperate. How could she even think about setting Luke aside for Jacob, the man who’d caused his death?
Jacob’s expression turned stormy and he shot her a steely glare. “Liar. You were wild and warm and passionate. You wanted those kisses as much as I did and we both know you wanted a whole lot more. Don’t tell me you were thinking of Luke the whole time. I won’t believe you.”
His words stabbed through her heart like daggers, each one dipped in poison. She was bleeding from a thousand cuts and there was nothing she could do about it. Luke’s beloved face had faded until she could barely remember what he looked like. For the past six weeks, it had been nothing and no one but Jacob.
Jacob was in her thoughts constantly and the questions ran over and over inside her head. His image everywhere, including in the face of his twin. While Toby was all sweetness and light and had an endearing, heartfelt innocence, Jacob was darker, moodier, more complex and harder to read. But that was one of the things she’d come to love about him—the challenge in his eyes. He was an enigma and she was more than a little intrigued.
The things he’d suffered in jail—and she was certain she’d barely heard any of it—made her want to comfort him and hold him close. It was madness. He was the man responsible for killing her boyfriend. And yet, she knew it hadn’t been intentional. Jacob had lost his best friend that night. Somehow, perhaps because they’d both loved Luke, she felt deeply connected to him and there was nothing she could do about it. The knowledge irritated her. She took a step back, needing to put some distance between them.
His gaze narrowed. “Admit it, Hannah; you like me. You like me a helluva lot. If this thing with Luke wasn’t between us, we’d be together already. There’s something between us I can’t explain, but for me, it’s been there for years. I loved you when you were a teenager and time hasn’t changed a thing.”
Surprise shot through her. She stared at him, aghast. She’d been so immersed in Luke, she’d had no idea his best friend felt that way.
“But… But I was with Luke. How…?”
He cursed under his breath and looked away. “I don’t know how. Love doesn’t give a reason. It can’t be easily explained. Love is love. It is what it is. How did you love Luke?”
She frowned at the question. She loved Luke because he was good and kind and they had similar outlooks. They both wanted to save themselves for marriage. While many teenagers were having sex on the back seat of someone’s car or in a cheap motel, she and Luke contented themselves with stolen kisses and hand holding.
While she’d longed to take things further and she knew Luke felt the same, it was important for both of them to remain pure. Only, Luke had died before they could marry and consummate their love. It was just another thing Jacob had stolen from her.
“What? You can’t remember?” Jacob uttered, a scornful look in his eyes.
Hannah blinked hard and focused on him. “Of course I can remember! Our love was good and pure and real. We respected each other too much to sully that love with the tawdriness of premarital sex. We were going to get married right after high school! We had our whole lives planned out! You took that from us, Jacob, and it wasn’t fair!”
He frowned. “I can’t believe you’re still angry at me. I repaid my debt for that mistake!” His voice rose. “I spent two years of my life in prison! It was hell every second of the day! What else do you want from me?”
All of a sudden, the anger she’d held inside her for more than a decade ignited and found its voice. Her face went hot.
“Two years!” she scoffed. “Big deal. What’s two years when you’ve taken a man’s life? It was only because you were the son of Warren Black that you were let off so lightly and everyone knew it. Your father was a legend in our town. A man who gave his life in the line of duty; a hero to all around.”
Jacob’s eyes widened in shock. “You think the sentence was inadequate?” he shouted in disbelief. “Do you mean to tell me you think the judge treated me lightly because of who my father was?”
Hannah put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes. “Of course it was inadequate! I wasn’t the only one who thought so. If Warren Black hadn’t been your father, we all know you would have done a lot more time. You climbed drunk behind the wheel of a car and killed someone. How long do you think you should have gotten?” she shouted, tears now blurring her vision.
“My sentence was fair and reflected the circumstances. If you’d bothered to show up at the sentencing, you would have heard the judge’s reasons for finding as he did. But no, you couldn’t be bothered. My life and what happened to it was of no concern to you. You were too busy mourning your saintly boyfriend who apparently could do no wrong. That just goes to show you didn’t know him well at all,” Jacob sneered, his breath coming fast.
Hannah’s heart skipped a beat and then a fresh wave of fury gushed through her veins. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” she yelled.
Jacob turned away from her and began to pace the small confines of the kitchen. “Your perfect Luke Parker? The boy who could do no wrong.” Jacob came to a sudden halt. In three long strides, he was beside her, crowding her against the breakfast bar.
“Let me tell you about Luke Parker. I’d known him since we were in diapers. He was good at being the kind of person people wanted him to be. He spent his whole life pretending.”
Hannah stared at Jacob in horror and began to shake her head. Even though she’d had suspicions of her own, she couldn’t bear to hear them voiced by someone else.
“No, no, you’re wrong!” she cried. “Luke wasn’t like that. Luke was good and kind and true. We loved each other and what we had was real! You were jealous! That’s why you’re saying these things. You’re trying to justify your actions and hide behind the fact your stupidity got him killed!”
“He was having sex with half the cheerleaders, Hannah! For fuck’s sake, wake up and see him for what he was!”
Shock and pain rendered her momentarily speechless and then she found her tongue. “How dare you! How dare you sully his name! You’re despicable! He was worth ten of you! You aren’t—”
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! I can’t stand it anymore!”
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Hannah and Jacob turned as one and stared at Toby who stood in the doorway that led down the hall. He had his hands over his ears and swung his head from side to side. Tears streamed down his cheeks. At the sight of his distress, Hannah’s heart clenched with pain.
Dragging in deep breaths, she fought to regain control. This wasn’t Toby’s fault. It had nothing to do with him. It wasn’t fair for him to be a witness to the anger that had been boiling over between her and his brother for more than a decade.
“I’m sorry, Tobes. We didn’t mean to wake you. Please, go back to bed,” Jacob implored.
Hannah repeated Jacob’s urgings, but Toby continued to shake his head. “I can’t stand it anymore! I can’t stand nobody knowing the truth! It’s been eating me up inside. I have to let it out!” he wailed.
Jacob strode across the room and halted beside his brother. “Tobes, it’s all right. Calm down and stop shouting. I promise I won’t yell at Hannah again and she won’t yell at me, right Hannah?”
He turned slightly and threw a glance in her direction. She nodded, happy to do whatever it took to pacify the distressed man.
“Of course, Toby,” she hurried to reassure him. “I’m sorry, too. I lost my temper, but I’m okay now. In fact, I think it’s time for me to leave.”
“No! You can’t leave!” Toby begged her. “Not until you know the truth.”
“Toby—” Jacob’s voice was thick with warning. Hannah frowned.
Toby stared at his brother, his expression full of resolve. “No, Jake. You’ve protected me for long enough. You love Hannah and I think she likes you, but she’s never going to love you until she knows what really happened that night.”
Hannah’s stomach plummeted and icy dread formed a hard lump in the bottom of her belly. The room around her receded until all she could see was Toby. His lips were moving and she strained to hear. A sense of foreboding filled her. She was certain she didn’t want to know what he was about to disclose.
Instead, she wanted to turn and run and forget she’d ever met the Black brothers. Her life was fine until they’d pushed their way back into it. But her feet were rooted to the spot. She couldn’t move. Toby turned to her, his eyes filled with sadness and remorse.
“Jake wasn’t the one driving that night,” he said quietly.
Hannah reeled back in shock. He could have told her he’d grown wings and could fly to the moon and she wouldn’t have been more surprised.
“What… What do you mean?” she stammered, trying to take it in. “Are you saying Luke was behind the wheel?”
Once again, Jacob tried to intervene, his voice filled with desperate warning. “Toby…”
Toby turned on his twin, anger and determination glinting in his eyes. “No, Jake. It’s time Hannah knew the truth. It’s time I owned up to what I did.”
Hannah blinked, sure she’d misheard. “What are you talking about? What do you mean—what you did?”
“I was the designated driver that night. Both Jake and Luke were drunk. We’d been out celebrating the end of our high school education. I’d agreed to take everyone home. It was late and I was tired, but that’s not what caused the accident.”
He paused and Hannah barely dared to breathe. Dread had morphed into terror. She didn’t want to listen to another word.
“Luke was sitting up front, with me. He started bragging about a girl he’d chatted up in the bar. It had happened earlier in the night. Both Jake and I had noticed, but we ignored it. Luke was always flirting with the girls.
“When he disappeared for a while, we didn’t think too much of it, but as I was driving us home, he told us all the details about the girl he’d been with and what they’d done together.”
Hannah stared from Toby to Jacob, aghast. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing; didn’t want to believe it. If it was anyone but Toby recounting it, she would have told them they were telling lies.
Luke wasn’t a womanizer, despite her occasional disquiet. He barely looked at other girls and never when they were together. It was one of the things she loved about him. She wasn’t ready to accept it might all have been an act.
“It wasn’t the fact he’d slept with another girl that made me angry,” Toby continued softly. “I’d seen and heard that kind of thing more than once from Luke before. It was when he started scoffing at you and your wish to stay pure that I got angry.”
Hannah gasped with pain. It felt like a hot sabre had pierced her heart. The desolation on Toby’s face said it all. There was no way he was lying.
“What… What did he say?” she whispered, not wanting to ask the question, but knowing she had to face the truth.
Toby shrugged and looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know exactly, but it wasn’t nice. He was laughing at you for not wanting to have sex with him. He scoffed at the knowledge that you thought he was saving himself for marriage. He called you nasty names.”
Jacob stood as still as a stone, with his fists clenched by his side. His face was expressionless. Tears filled Toby’s eyes and slid down his cheeks.
“I couldn’t listen to him talking about you like that, Hannah,” he sobbed. “It wasn’t right. You were so good and kind and beautiful. I loved you as much as I loved Jake and Lane and Rusty and my mom. You were the sister I never had, the angel who looked out for me. You always had time for me, no matter who was around. It didn’t matter to you that I’m… I’m not good at things. You never once made me feel bad. I couldn’t let Luke say those things about you and laugh at you like that.”
Tears burned behind Hannah’s eyes. Her chest was so tight, she could barely breathe, but she forced the words out.
“What did you do, Toby?”
“I yelled at Luke. I told him to stop. To stop saying those awful things. He just laughed at me and called me stupid. I…I tried to punch him with one hand. I just wanted to get him to stop. He reached for the steering wheel and I hit him again. I took my hand off the wheel and looked away, just for an instant…but it was long enough.
“I didn’t even see the gum tree. The first thing I knew was the sound of the car as it hit the trunk and then I heard the screaming…”
Toby was sobbing in earnest and Hannah was crying, too. She wanted to go and comfort him, but she had to hear it right to the end.
“Please, tell me the rest. I want to know what happened.”
Toby drew in a deep breath and sighed. “Jake and I were both wearing seatbelts. Luke wasn’t. The car hit the tree on the passenger side. The side Luke was on. He was killed instantly. Jake and I fared better. We had nothing but a few scratches. We climbed out of the car. When the police arrived, Jake told them he’d been behind the wheel.”
Hannah gasped and her gaze flew to Jacob’s. His face looked like it had been carved from stone. She shook her head in confusion. “Why?”
“Why do you think?” Jacob replied, almost spitting the words. “Toby was hysterical. He was in no position to take the blame. It was bad. It was very bad. Luke was dead. I knew we were in big trouble. I couldn’t stand by and see my brother sent to jail.”
He shrugged, as if his announcement was nothing special. “I did what anyone would have done,” he added and stared at her, as if challenging her to disagree.
She held his gaze, meeting his challenge head on. “No, not everyone,” she said.
Toby’s sobs came harder. “He did it for me, Hannah! He went to jail for me! It should have been me in that prison, getting beaten up, bullied and bashed. Why do you think I ran away? I couldn’t face the pain. Jake was in hell and I was the one who’d put him there! So, I… I found my own hell.”
Hannah took a step toward him, but he spun on his heel and turned away. Running toward the front door, he fumbled with the lock.
“Toby!” Jacob called out. “Mate, don’t be silly. Stay here. We can work things out.”
Ignoring his brother, Toby finally got the door open and slipped through. A moment later, he was gone.
CHAPTER TWENT
Y-THREE
Hannah looked at Jacob, feeling wrung out and exhausted. She was still coming to terms with the truth about what had happened all those years ago.
“Should we go after him?” she asked uncertainly.
Jacob shook his head wearily. “No, he’ll be fine. He won’t go far. He’s always been afraid of the dark. He’ll probably hole up in the garden. I’ll give him some time to himself and then I’ll go and talk to him.”
She kept looking at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked quietly. “Why did you let me hate you all these years?”
He held her gaze. “I didn’t have any choice; I did it for Toby. You would have done the same.”
The tears that burned behind her eyes spilled over and her chest tightened on a surge of emotion. “You’re a very special man, Jacob Black. A rare and exceptional find.”
He moved closer, his expression unreadable. “If I’d been behind the wheel when Luke started slinging off at you, I would have done the same thing. I would have tried to beat the crap out of that piece of shit. You deserved so much better than that. As it was, I made sure he knew, in no uncertain terms how angry I was at the way he’d treated you.
“So, it could just as easily have been me that caused the accident that ended Luke’s life. Fate stepped in that night and it was Toby behind the wheel, but it didn’t matter. It was my job to protect him. I’d done it all my life. He’d never have survived in jail. I knew I could get through it.
“When the police arrived, I told Toby to stay quiet and I’d do all the talking. They didn’t question my story. There was no need to. I kept to the truth for the most part. It was only when it came to who was driving that the story deviated. I was arrested and charged and pleaded guilty. I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. I could see how it was affecting Toby. I couldn’t add to his pain any more than was necessary. And I grieved for my friend, too. We’d been together since we were kids.”
Hannah’s heart swelled with emotion. For too long, she’d been blinded to Jacob’s goodness and she’d had no idea about the selfless act he’d done for his brother. She moved closer until she could see the flecks in his eyes. Reaching out, she cupped his cheek. She heard his sharp intake of breath just before her lips connected with his.
