This would be the time to say goodbye to her wistful hopes and take her future by the horns. Loving Brody wasn’t going to just go away, but maybe while he got some closure with Nina, she could get some of her own.
Blast it. She hated it when Nina was right.
* * *
THAT EVENING, as they’d done for the last thirty years, the Mason and Harpe families came together for a birthday feast. The women had cooked all day. There was turkey, ham, stuffing, tiny roasted potatoes...the kind of food Brody had dreamed about while eating little plastic-wrapped army rations with his buddies and those massive camel spiders that could stop a man’s heart if he came upon them without warning.
They drove the five miles to the Harpe Ranch carrying casserole dishes wrapped in bath towels to keep the contents hot. Brody held a bag of rolls and a couple bottles of wine, and he stood on the porch next to his family. The door swung open, and the festivities enveloped them.
There were hugs and pats on his arms as the older people greeted him. A couple of smaller boys stood by the wall, staring at him wide-eyed. He’d be the one their parents had been talking about, he realized wryly. Brody spotted Kaitlyn across the room. She wore a loose sand-colored sweater that accentuated the auburn waves tumbling over her shoulders. She stood with one hand in her back pocket, and her dark gaze was fixed on him with a strained expression.
Standing next to Kaitlyn was Nina—and he truly hadn’t known how he’d feel looking at her again. She was as lovely as ever, except there was something intangibly different about how she held herself. She wasn’t quite the same old Nina with that pinup-girl allure. Her belly was round and one porcelain hand lay on top of it. The moment Brody walked into the room he could see Brian tense up. He passed the dinner rolls and wine bottles to one of the aunts, made what he hoped were appropriate responses to the questions he couldn’t quite make out, and moved in Kaitlyn’s direction. A deal was a deal. Besides, she’d make this bearable for him, too.
The house was busy—there were a few other family members, some teenagers, a couple small kids having mashed potatoes early off plastic plates...the perfect homey scene that made him want to walk right back out of that house and go find some silence.
The soldier in him scanned the room for tensions and movements. Cowboys counted everything they passed—it was instinct based on years of ranching work. Soldiers, however, did more than count—they scanned for weapons, noticed bags, looked for shifting glances or a nervous jitter. An enemy could be anywhere.
Anywhere but in the Masons’ living room, he reminded himself. This was awkward, but no one was going to try and kill him. Cowboy instincts would serve him better here, but his nerves were still jangly. There was the obvious handshaking, the hugs, the manly expressions of thanks for his service, the womanly questions about his comfort. And once he was past the aunts and uncles and had ruffled a few heads of smaller kids, he found himself facing the one woman he’d rather have avoided.
“Nina.”
“Hi, Brody.” The breathy, sexy voice was gone, and her gaze flickered toward Brian, then back again. “How are you?”
“Healing up,” he said. “And you?”
Her hand moved over her stomach. “Really good.”
Yeah, she would be. “Congratulations. You look...happy.”
“Kaitlyn said you got my letter—”
“I got it.” He glanced toward Kaitlyn and she was looking at her feet. “What’s done is done, Nina. Brian’s a good guy. You could have done worse.”
“Oh, Brody,” Nina sighed, putting a creamy hand on his arm. “You aren’t worse. Just different, and I—”
And there she was—the real Nina. It never could have lasted between them. Nina could only have kept up her Marilyn Monroe act for so long before he’d been faced with the real woman over the breakfast table, or out in the fields or over a fence. And that would have been the real tragedy, when he realized he’d married a woman he didn’t love half enough to be married to.
“I didn’t mean me,” he said incredulously, and Kaitlyn smothered a snort of laughter that she apparently tried to mask with a couple of fake coughs.
“Oh.” Nina’s cheeks turned pink and she shot her sister a glare. “Shut up, Kaitlyn.”
And they were right back to being teenagers again, it seemed. No one had been able to unsettle Nina quite like Kaitlyn’s utter refusal to accept her sister’s status as sexpot. Kaitlyn composed herself and gave her sister a look so earnest that it was almost sincere, except Brody knew her well enough to recognize the roguish look in her eyes. Apparently, so did Nina, because she didn’t look mollified.
“Nina, it’s fine,” Brody said. “A lot’s changed. It was definitely a shock, but I’m all right. I wish you only the best.”
“Well...thank you.” Nina looked toward Brian again, and Brody nudged Kaitlyn’s slippered foot with the toe of his boot. He was glad Kaitlyn was here to laugh at the ridiculousness of this whole situation. It helped, but he wanted out of this room.
“Brody, I was going to show you that thing,” Kaitlyn said, and he shot her a grateful look.
“The thing?” he asked with exaggerated innocence. “Yes, of course.”
There was no graceful way out of this, so it might as well be a blatantly obvious escape. He gave Nina an apologetic smile, then followed Kaitlyn. They emerged into the dining room, which was empty—thankfully—and he pulled out a chair and sank into it. Kaitlyn sat next to him, and they stared in silence at the table. A couple of vases were filled with carnations and baby’s breath, and Mrs. Harpe’s fine china glistened in the lowering light.
“Is this the thing?” Brody asked with a grim smile.
“Sorry, that was all I had. I’m not as good at the dramatic scenes as my sister is.”
“Thank God.” He leaned toward Kaitlyn and nudged her with his arm. In response, she tipped her head onto his strong shoulder, and it took all the self-control he had not to pull her into his arms. Instead, he leaned his cheek against her silky hair, and they sat there like that for a long moment. She made him feel stronger, saner.
The soft scent of her shampoo, the slight weight of her pressing into his arm and shoulder, comforted him more deeply than he cared to admit. His gaze moved around the familiar dining room and fell on a silver framed picture on the sideboard, and he knew what it was the moment he saw it.
“Is that their wedding?” he asked.
“What?” Kaitlyn took a moment, then straightened. “Oh! We were going to put that away.”
All the comfort shattered in that moment. More hiding. More escaping. No, it was time to face things. He rose to his feet, his leg aching with the sudden movement, and he limped over to the picture and picked it up.
Nina made a beautiful bride, and her dress was more chaste than he’d imagined it would be. That must have been Brian’s influence. Brian looked proud, scared, bashful—his cheeks were ruddy and he looked blissful, the idiot. It was a photo of the small wedding party—and Kaitlyn stood next to her sister. It wasn’t surprising, but somehow he hadn’t yet wondered about Kaitlyn’s role in her sister’s wedding.
“You were the maid of honor, weren’t you?” he asked woodenly.
Kaitlyn was silent, and when he looked over at her, her expression said it all.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last. “She’s my sister. What was I supposed to do?”
And while he knew she was right, the silliness of this whole debacle evaporated and he was left staring at Kaitlyn as his heart sank within him. It wasn’t the wedding itself that scraped back that protective barrier between his heart and reality, it was Kaitlyn. She’d stood by her sister, smiled in photos and silently given her approval to the biggest lie any of them had ever told.
“Did you email me that day?” he asked.
“What?” She shook her head. “No,
I... That night, I think. I just felt awful and I had to talk to you, so I sent an email.”
“Yeah, I thought so.”
Her emails were the ones that reassured him the most, and he would have breathed a sigh of relief at hearing from her on the very day it all went down. He’d trusted her more deeply than he’d even realized.
“Brody...”
“No.” His throat was tight, and he pulled away as she reached for his arm.
“What would you have had me do?” she demanded, tears sparkling in her eyes. “She’s my sister. Is she an idiot? Of course! But I knew that long before you did. And when family gets married, you make nice and you smile for the camera.”
“And then you email the schmuck who’s waiting for her.”
Kaitlyn shook her head slowly, and he could see that she was biting back words, but he wanted to hear them. He’d had enough of this pussyfooting around the truth.
“Just say it!” he said.
“I told you before that you were dumb for even proposing.” Her chin trembled and she balled her hands into fists.
“You never said dumb.”
“Well, I’m saying it now.” Anger snapped in her dark eyes. “Yes, I emailed you. I needed to hear back from you—to know you were okay. Do you have any idea what it feels like to wonder if someone is dead or alive? Well, I do! That entire bloody wedding I was thinking of you, and when it was done and I could finally escape to be by myself, I emailed you because I couldn’t get you out of my head and I just wanted to hear something back.”
Brody scrubbed a hand through his hair. What was she trying to say? Her eyes shone with something deeper, and as he looked down into her face with tears sparkling at the rims of her eyes and her lips quivering with the attempt to hold back her emotions, he knew what he wanted. It was all he could seem to think about whenever he was with her—whether it was good for him or not. He slid his hand behind her neck and pulled her closer, then dipped his head down and caught those quivering lips with his.
The kiss was bittersweet, filled with heartbreak and longing, and when she pulled back, he murmured, “I picked the wrong girl.”
“I know.” She wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “I love you, Brody...for two years I loved you more than you’ll ever know.”
Her words struck him and he stared at her in shock. She’d been in love with him all that time? And he’d been treating her like a little sister, never once suspecting that she felt anything more for him than friendship. But he could see now that in her sweet, honest way she’d been more woman than her sister had ever been.
“If I’d known—”
“No!” Kaitlyn’s voice turned fierce. “Don’t even say it!”
Her eyes flashed fire and she shot him a look of warning.
“Why not?” he demanded. There had been enough hiding over the last year, enough cautious words. It was time to just say things like they were, because if there was one thing he’d learned from Afghanistan, it was that life was fleeting and words should never be wasted.
“Because it isn’t true!” She took another step back. “You loved my sister, whether she was good for you or not, and if she’d waited for you, you’d be marrying her and I’d still be the little sister off to the side. So don’t you say something you don’t mean—”
“Do you love me still?” he interrupted her.
She didn’t answer him, but her eyes were full of agony. He could see it written all over her—the blatantly obvious truth he’d missed when it mattered most. Kaitlyn was in love with him, and the realization was both humbling and terrifying.
“Because I’ve fallen for you, Kate—”
Not that it mattered right now. It didn’t fix anything to realize it.
“You’re attracted to me. That’s different,” she said with a shake of her head.
“I love you. It isn’t different at all.”
“What?” It was her turn to stare at him in shock.
“But I think we both know I’m not worth that risk.” His heart ached almost physically as the words came out. “I’m a broken man in more ways than one. I’m not the same guy who left here.”
“Yes, you are,” she whispered. “You’re the same guy on the inside that you ever were. You’re just more honest now.”
He stepped closer to her, and while she didn’t retreat, she shook her head.
“The worst part is, it doesn’t matter,” she said, swallowing hard. “If you’d had the choice, free and clear, you’d have married Nina. We both know it. It would have been the biggest mistake of your life, but you’d have done it and I would have lived my life in my sister’s shadow. It doesn’t matter. I can’t be with you. I’m not going to be any man’s second choice.”
“So love me or not, you wouldn’t have me,” he said simply.
She didn’t answer, and his heart sank. It was just as well. He should follow her example and bury these feelings.
“I’m going back to the army,” he said after a moment.
“So you’ve decided, then?” she asked woodenly.
“I don’t belong here, Kate,” he said quietly. “You know that as well as I do. And what are we going to do...avoid each other? Pretend we don’t feel this? Torment ourselves for the next few years? Am I supposed to watch you marry some other guy, too?”
His voice choked off. No, going back to the army was the right decision. He might not be fit for the front lines, but there would be a place for him somewhere, and his life would have meaning. Besides, he couldn’t leave a family behind if something happened to him. That had been Jeff’s biggest worry—what would happen to his wife and kids if he didn’t come home... And that was a burden that Brody wouldn’t put on to a woman. Kaitlyn had worried about him enough, and he wouldn’t claim her heart only to make her live with that kind of uncertainty.
“And I couldn’t ask you to be an army wife anyway. You’re right to reject me first, Kate. I thought I wanted a woman waiting for me at home, but that was selfish. I’ll never ask that of a woman again.”
“Brody...” She didn’t seem to know what to say, but a tear slipped down her cheek, and he reached up and brushed it away with the back of one finger.
“Make some excuse for me,” he said. “I can’t sit at this table and choke down turkey...”
He didn’t wait for her answer—he didn’t dare. He’d laid it all on the line for his country, and now he was walking way from the woman he’d fallen in love with. Sacrifice. Service. Why did it have to hurt so deeply? She wouldn’t have her sister’s seconds, and he wouldn’t put her through a life of worry as an army wife. They were at an impasse.
So he walked out of the room, feeling her dewy eyes locked on to his back, and he forced himself to keep moving. If he paused, even for a moment, he’d walk right back over there and pull her into his arms no matter who was watching. One foot in front of the other—he knew how to force himself through pain. One step at a time.
He slipped out the side door and into the cold night. He’d go home. He’d try and get his head on straight. Kate deserved some happiness, and he was long past being able to provide it.
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, Brody stood in the barn saddling up Champ. He hadn’t intended to go for the trail ride. He could soldier through physical pain, but he wasn’t as solid when it came to his heart. But Dakota and Andy had confronted him in the kitchen after breakfast. She said that with his plans for returning to the army and everything else that had changed, this would very likely be the last big birthday bash they did for Ken and Ron together. It was the end of an age, in a way. Besides, with Nina being pregnant she wouldn’t be riding.
Dakota, like everyone else, had assumed it was Nina who’d done a number on him. But Nina wasn’t the one making his chest ache this morning.
Falling in love with Kaitlyn hadn’t been part of the plan, and it left him uncertain, muddled. Regardless of his feelings for Kaitlyn or Kaitlyn’s for him, it couldn’t work. There was no conquering this kind of miserable luck.
When he’d first arrived back home, his goal had been to do the trail ride with his dad. Besides, Brody was about to let his father down in the biggest way possible when he went back to the army—the least he could do was this one gesture.
He’d failed his last mission in Afghanistan, and he wasn’t about to abandon this one because it was hard. He and Jeff used to joke about civilian problems—and this counted as one. He was doing this for his fallen buddies—the guys who wouldn’t have any more chances with their own fathers. He owed them all.
Which brought him out to the barn on this frigid morning to saddle up his horse for the ride to the Harpe ranch with his family.
“Like old times,” his mother said, pushing a hat onto her fluffy curls. “We probably won’t have too many more like this, will we?”
His heart squeezed at the memories of years past—the Mason family riding together.
“Sure we will,” his father retorted gruffly. “He’s running the ranch with me.”
His father’s gravelly declaration didn’t hold the same obstinate tenor it used to. Instead, Brody could hear a note of pleading in the older man’s voice.
“Right?” His father shuffled his boots against the rocky ground, then fixed Brody with a stare. “Right, son?”
In that moment, Brody longed to say yes, that everything would be as close to normal as possible...that he’d butt heads with his dad for years to come, and he’d run the ranch just like his old man had done. That would comfort his parents and even make Dakota happy, but he couldn’t do it. His mind was made up.
“I can’t, Dad,” he said, and in that moment, he was a kid again, longing for his father’s approval. He just couldn’t do what it would take to appease him. His father met his gaze for an agonizingly long minute and the older man’s eyes misted. He blinked, cleared his throat and rubbed a hand over the stubble on his face, whiskers scratching audibly against calluses.
The Cowboy's Valentine Bride Page 14
