He swallowed hard and added, “Rex…Rex was my best friend all my life. I don’t have many memories without him in them. He loved Brooke well and she loved him back hard. But she’s only twenty. She can’t grieve forever and she shouldn’t. You’re both dying to comfort her and she can’t have too much of that right now.” He stood and held out his hand. Each of the brothers shook it with tears in their eyes.
Boyd and Zane stood and did the same. Zane pulled them close, “Don’t hurt her. If you’re good enough, strong enough, healed enough to make her your own, make sure it’s truly what you want because she symbolizes forever. However much time you have left will belong to her. Brooke isn’t casual. Rex knew that and you need to be sure you know it too, especially when you share a woman with another man, even your brother. Make sure.”
Logan and Decklan nodded. Logan said hoarsely, “We’re sorry about Rex. I know there are so many things we’ve done that seem immature and spoiled, but we always liked him. He was a good man and he treated us better than we deserved, especially in the beginning. God, from the very first moment we all met him. I’m surprised he didn’t beat the hell out of us.”
The sorrow in Decklan’s voice was obvious to all three men, “Either of us would have taken his place. By the time we got outside, he was almost gone and her…her face. I’ve never seen such pain on another human being in my life. I knew then, more than any other time, she’d chosen right.” He swallowed hard, “I…I don’t know that we’ll ever earn that kind of love from another person. Someday, I’d love the chance to try, to try to be that kind of man for her. It may be too late. So much has happened but we can be there for her now, be the friends she needs us to be.”
“We won’t hurt her. No matter what, we’ll never hurt her. If that means we can never call her ours, then we’ll deal with that. We were already prepared for that. Rex was larger than life to Brooke. They were going to get married, have kids, and it would have been forever. I hate why we could someday have another chance to love her, I’d do anything not to see her in the agony she’s in right now. But if the chance comes someday, we won’t squander it again.” Logan nodded and headed in Brooke’s direction with Decklan behind him.
Jeanette watched the five men talking and gave the Bradshaws a soft smile over Brooke’s shoulder as they neared. Motioning to Sidney, the women stood and kissed Brooke, touching the brothers’ shoulders as they passed.
Sitting on either side of her on the small couch in the sun, they each took a hand, noting how cold and shaky she was. “Brooke, we…we weren’t sure how to approach you, honey. With everything we’ve done, all the mistakes we’ve made, we didn’t want you to think badly of us. I’m so…so very sorry about Rex, sweetheart.” She nodded and tears fell into her lap.
Logan said, “We’re going to sit here, just sit quietly with you, and hold your hands. I hope you can forgive us for taking so long to do this.” She squeezed both their hands and they leaned back, scooting closer to her and smoothing their thumbs over the back of her hands while she cried. “It doesn’t seem like it now, Brooke, but it’s going to be alright. We’ll be here for anything you need. You take your time and slowly it will get better.”
They sat in silence for hours, watching the sun drift across the horizon. She slipped into sleep, her head dropping on Decklan’s shoulder. They sat in awe, watching her face lose the pain of her grief and settle into her natural beauty. She had shadows under her eyes but she was still stunning.
They stared at one another, her sleeping head between them, and Rex’s flag held close to her on her lap. With a nod, they silently committed to what they wanted, what they needed. They’d made so many mistakes and by all rights, should have lost her forever. If she ever recovered from her sorrow, they vowed to prove themselves worthy of another chance.
Sidney came to take her to the guest room when she realized Brooke had fallen asleep. Instead of waking her, Logan lifted her in his arms and carried her as Sidney led the way. Her head settled on his chest, the flag resting on her stomach. They took her downstairs and Sidney pulled back the covers of a huge bed.
Logan laid her down while Decklan removed her heels and pulled the blankets over her. Sidney put the flag beside her on top of the linens and kissed her temple. Each of the brothers did the same, smoothing her hair away from her face before following her friend back upstairs and helping with the kids and guests.
Two hours later, Sidney went to check on Brooke but she was gone. No one had seen her leave.
She’d left a note, “I called a car. I need to be alone…to wrap my mind around things for a couple of days. Thank you all for everything. I can imagine you’re all thinking I could hurt myself but I won’t. Rex would never forgive me for taking my own life. Give me a couple of days and watch over my ‘kids’. I love you so much. You just can’t know how much. Brooke.”
When Sidney told the others, they wanted to go to her immediately. Sidney held up her hand, “We give her today and tomorrow. I’ll keep texting her, calling her. Jeanette will, too. She wants time and we have to give it to her. Despite her youth, she really is a grown woman.”
Brooke walked into Rex’s house alone, the reporters taking pictures from across the street but staying back and not asking her questions. She was hurting bad enough to make even them take a step back. Closing the door quietly behind her, she released the blood-curdling scream that had been building in her for three days. Since the moment her man had taken his last breath in her arms.
Then she let her sorrow out in full force, sobbing brokenly as she slid down the wall.
When it was full night and her voice was raw from crying and screaming his name, she whispered to the quiet house from where she lay on the floor, “Rex, oh god, Rex. I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. Why? Why did you make me promise I would?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Two weeks later…
Brooke didn’t accept visitors, not even friends and family. She made no calls but answered her phone when someone she knew called. So they wouldn’t worry. So they wouldn’t come to check on her. She didn’t watch television, rarely ate or even showered. She sipped Gatorade and kept every light off and all the shades drawn.
Time passed but she didn’t note it or care. Nothing seemed to matter and she was tired anyway. So tired she could hardly do more than sleep. Here, in this bed where Rex had loved her so well, she could pretend. No one had any right to expect her to let him go. If she held on to every memory, to every moment they’d spent together, it was like he was still with her.
She could almost hear his laugh, hear his voice at her ear when he’d whisper to her in the middle of the night, hear the way he’d say her name as they made love.
It wasn’t fair. Two years wasn’t nearly long enough. If she could stay here in their special place, she could stretch out the time they’d had together, and keep him alive in her heart. She owed him all the love and loyalty he’d earned. If a person did the math, anyone would agree she owed him her life. Brooke was happy to pay her debts to the man who’d known her so well.
Pulling the blankets around her, sinking against the pillow that still smelled like him, she brought him to life in her mind as she drifted to sleep, his name on her lips. More sleep was all she needed.
There was too much light in the room when she opened her eyes. She struggled to understand why the blinds were open. Sidney and Jeanette were in her bedroom, their men behind her with the twins, and she was confused. “Why…why are you here?” the gravelly sound of her voice told them all the story of her sobbing and dehydration.
Her friends took in the sight of a completely broken woman. A woman who’d lost the will to live. She’d obviously lost weight and there were empty Gatorade bottles everywhere. Her hair was tangled and she was sleeping in one of Rex’s t-shirts and a pair of boy shorts. Other things that had belonged to him were in the bed with her, his leather jacket, his jerseys, and his sketchpads. The pillows on his side of the bed were laid out and she
was curled around them.
Tears were tracking down Jeanette’s face. “Baby, oh, Brooke, we let you go too long. You haven’t been outside in two weeks. When’s the last time you ate, honey?” Her voice was quiet and anxious, one step from panicked.
Sidney sat beside her and tried to put any emotion other than despair in her voice, “Brooke, damn it! You can’t do this. You cannot quit like this. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Brooke stared at her friend and she was crying again, always crying. “You would, Sidney. Even you would. Don’t try to pretend you wouldn’t.”
Sidney nodded and started to cry, “Yes, I would. I admit it. And I hope you’d love me enough to pull me back into the world, baby. That you wouldn’t let me starve myself, wither away surrounded by Boyd’s possessions, or wearing Zane’s clothes, that you’d do everything in your power to save me from my pain. You’d help me, wouldn’t you, Brooke?” Her friend nodded slowly. “I know you would. You’d let me cry and scream and throw things. You know I’d go nuclear destructive. You’d force me to eat. You’d let me hate you for caring but you would do it anyway.”
“I can’t, Sidney. I’m so tired, so cold.” Closing her eyes, she added in a whisper, “I can keep him alive here. Right here I can keep him with me. I didn’t get enough time, I need more time. I lost Rex and didn’t get to keep just a small part of him for my own. We always thought there’d be more time, plenty of time to get married and have babies. I have nothing but this stuff and the smell of him on his clothes. I didn’t want his house, his shop, or his fucking money. I want him!”
She was shaking in her grief and fury, her friends trying to soothe her. Her sobs wracked her fragile body for a long time. “You shouldn’t have come. I just needed a few days. I was talking to you when you called.”
Jeanette smoothed her brow, “That’s why we’re here, baby. It’s been two weeks, Brooke. You stopped answering your phone last night. It’s dead. You didn’t answer the doorbell or any of the knocking on the front or back doors. We have keys and security codes so we used them. Did you know it had been two weeks?”
She shook her head and said, “It doesn’t matter.” Staring at the three Marines who were torn to shreds from their own grief and witnessing hers, she whispered, “Why don’t you hate me?” Sidney and Jeanette gasped.
Tilting his head, Mack asked her, “Honey, why would we hate you? We love you, sweetheart.”
Brooke winced, “It…it’s my fault, you know, all my fault. He warned me so many times and I didn’t listen. He warned me specifically about those two, how it wasn’t natural for them to be so fixated on me. I can’t tell you how many times I used the word harmless. I called them harmless and they gunned him down ten feet from me in a parking lot. You should fucking despise me, every single one of you, I fucking hate myself.”
Mack came to the bed and scooped her up in a sitting position, kneeling in front of her as Boyd and Zane sat on either side. She wavered dizzily and they steadied her. “No, Brooke. Never, ever have we thought anything like that. Everything Rex told you to do, you did. He was there through most of the photos, we all were. They did seem harmless, Brooke. We never suspected they were the ones stalking you because they were so open about it. We could never hate you, not ever. You gave him more happiness than he’d had in forty years, Brooke. I know this for a fact since I was there all his life. I knew that man as well as I know myself, baby. He was so lonely before he met you. If not for you, I wouldn’t have Jeanette and Sofia. Boyd and Zane wouldn’t have Sidney.”
Holding her hand, Boyd told her, “If he hadn’t met you, maybe Rex would have lived longer, but he wouldn’t have had the love you gave him. He wouldn’t have experienced the happiness you brought him. Trust me when I tell you, even if he’d known from the first day when, where, and how he was going to be killed, it would have been worth it to him. We only have love for you, Brooke. You were the catalyst to our own happiness.”
Zane’s hand on her shoulder steadied her. His voice was harder than the others, “I’m telling you right now, I’m not going to let you kill yourself by default. You promised you’d try to fight through your grief. You gave Rex your word, honey. I was there when you promised him, Brooke, and all of us are going to make damn sure you keep it.”
Mack gave her a little shake, “He wouldn’t want this, honey. He would be devastated to see you this way. You can’t stay here. You cannot stay in this house another day. We’ll lock it up and shut it down for a while. We’re going to pack you a bag and you’re getting out of here until you’re stronger. Sidney and Jeanette are going to help you change while Zane makes you something to eat. Boyd and I are going to close up the house. This isn’t up for discussion, Brooke. We let it go too long but we’re here now.” Mack pulled her to her feet and how much weight she’d lost was clear to everyone. “Brooke, have you eaten at all? Tell me the truth.”
“I think…some protein bars. Nutrition shakes…I don’t know.”
Logan said firmly, “Brooke, there are three young people who love you and depend on you. When you lost your folks, you handled so much on your young shoulders with less resources than you have now. You can damn well do this. You have to do this because it’s your fucking responsibility.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, he shook his head, “You promised your parents to care for the kids way before you promised Rex you wouldn’t wallow in your guilt and grief. They’re likely all three up there going ‘what the fuck’ and you’re ignoring them. I never thought you were a woman who forgot her promises, Brooke.” She sucked in a breath and narrowed her eyes at him.
“There is no choice, Brooke. You have to cowgirl up because this shit is not gonna cut it. No one expects you to feel better overnight, but you’re never going to feel better if all you focus on is the fucking pain,” Decklan added. Moving forward, he took her chin in his hand. She stared at him with confusion, sorrow, and a little anger. “Where’s the woman who beat down a football player twice her size in her cheer uniform, Brooke? Where’s the woman who can bring in two hundred acres of hay alone? Huh? Stop this shit and get it together.” He kissed her forehead and said, “Clean up and we’ll see you downstairs.”
To Sidney, Boyd said, “Baby, can you get her around or do you want us to help?”
“Jeanette and I can do it, we have her.” Stepping closer she put Brooke’s arm over her shoulders, “Come on. You’re not going to wallow in sadness to the point of ratty hair. Oh hell no, no more honey. I’ve played nice and now we’re going to go hard. Thank god you had electrolysis done. You’d be a cavewoman by now, I just know it.”
The sound of Brooke’s weak laughter gave them all hope.
The men left the room, Zane heading to the kitchen to find food for her. Everything in the refrigerator was bad so he took soup from the freezer for her, realizing they were going to have to work her back up to solid foods like they’d done for Mack and Boyd when they’d carried them out of the jungle so many years ago.
Decklan gathered trash from the rooms, noting there were only a couple of shake bottles and three protein bars. The rest was Gatorade. His heart clenched in pain.
Logan straightened the house, throwing away a half-finished bottle of beer in the living room that had likely belonged to Rex. The clothes Brooke had worn to the funeral were in a trail from the front door and he imagined her that day, alone in the house and in so much emotional pain it was physical.
Mack shut down the office, checking Rex’s email and responding to a few. He set it up to forward to his account with an auto-reply about his death. He gathered important papers and opened the safe he wasn’t sure if Brooke knew about. Inside were stacks of cash, an envelope from Brooke with photos meant only for Rex, which he closed quickly and returned with an embarrassed chuckle.
There was a letter addressed to Brooke with a post-it note for Mack to make sure she got it if anything happened to him. He put all the papers inside and took the letter. Locking it back and setting the cabi
net over it, he left the office after turning out the lights.
It was an hour before the three women came downstairs. Her normally form-fitting jeans hung on her, her soft white t-shirt showed the bones in her upper body. Her hair was still damp, braided down her back. She was barefoot but Sidney had her cowboy boots and socks in her hand. Jeanette carried a small duffle bag and a jacket.
They watched her move carefully, sitting down at the table where Zane put soup and hot tea in front of her, stroking her hair like he often did Becca and Molly. Mack sat beside her and handed her the envelope. She stared at it in confusion for a long moment. “There’s a safe in his office.” She nodded. “Did you have the combination, honey?”
“I…I don’t remember it. He gave it to me, I think Jeanette has it.”
“He left this in there for you. We’re going to give you a few minutes to read it. Then you need to finish at least half that soup before we take you out of here, alright?”
Everyone went in the living room, keeping her in their line of sight. Zane and Boyd went upstairs to clean the master bedroom and shut everything down. She opened the envelope with shaking hands. It was dated a little more than a week before Rex had died.
“Brooke, hey there, pretty girl. If you’re reading this, something has happened to me and I bet you’re a wreck. You stop that shit right now, honey. Don’t you dare quit on me.
“I talked to the FBI yesterday. These cockroaches after you are talking about taking me out. I hope it doesn’t happen but it could. So many years as a soldier teaches you bad things happen in the blink of an eye no matter how prepared you think you are. Since day one, I’ve suspected those boys that follow your tour as being the guys behind all this shit. We can’t nail them. I’ve sent private investigators to the place they say they live when they aren’t following you but it’s empty. Completely. It’s weird and it makes me even more suspicious. There are no vehicles registered in their names, no weapons. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have both.
Yes to Everything Page 31
