“Like what?”
“So forward when it comes to sex, just not vocal about it.”
He darted a look at her briefly and then turned his attention back to the road. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
Jessie’s hand squeezed his cock and he swallowed hard.
“Don’t play coy with me, Braydon Walker.”
Braydon chuckled as he caught his breath.
“The way you talked last night,” she began, “when we were in bed. And then today. I’ve never heard you talk like that before.”
“Does it bother you?” he asked, knowing damn well that she liked it.
“Not at all. I just hadn’t expected it.”
“If you want me to apologize, I don’t plan to,” he told her now, glancing sideways at her.
He saw her smile, radiant and beautiful in the dim light from the dashboard.
“But you’re such a sweet man,” she said, and he was pretty sure she was teasing. God, he hoped she was teasing.
“Sweet?”
“Yeah, you know . . . Everyone’s friend. The guy women want to talk to, share their intimate secrets with.”
Jessie talked as though they were having a normal, everyday conversation, but she was stroking his bare cock gently, almost reverently, and Braydon had to bite his lip to keep his focus.
“If that was the case, it wasn’t intentional.” Although he knew it was true. There were plenty of times that he had been the guy to clean up the mess that Brendon left behind. Women trusted him. It was a blessing and a curse.
“Do you want me to go back to being that guy, Jess?”
“Not at all. In fact, I like this side of you. I think you should let it all out.”
“Doll, I’m pretty sure you don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“Don’t I?”
Braydon’s thoughts slipped away as Jessie continued to jack his cock, nearly making his eyes cross. “Baby, as good as that feels, you’re gonna have to stop,” he breathed out roughly, taking one hand off the wheel to still her hand.
“Feels too good?”
“Yeah. But when we get back to your place, feel free to pick up where we left off.”
Before she could offer a rebuttal, Braydon’s cell phone rang. Jessie released him and Braydon managed to tuck himself back into his jeans. Barely. Grabbing for his phone, he hit the Talk button before the last ring would send the caller to voice mail.
“What’s up?” he asked, disguising the desperate need in his voice.
“Bray,” Sawyer said into the phone.
Something was wrong. He could hear it in his brother’s voice, but more than that, something started aching in his chest. It was deep, painful. Before he could get the next question out, Braydon was consumed by it.
“Where’s Brendon?” Braydon asked immediately.
“He’s on his way to the hospital,” Sawyer said, his voice calm. “He’s been in an accident.”
Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Braydon’s hands started trembling, and for a brief moment, he thought he would have to pull over. It was as though someone else had taken over his body. He felt a blinding pain, one that started in his gut and radiated outward.
“Which hospital?” Braydon wasn’t about to ask for details on the phone. He needed to get to the hospital.
“Where Zoey had her baby.” Sawyer paused, but the silence didn’t last long. “I’m following the ambulance, Braydon.”
Oh, God. He didn’t like the sound of that. Braydon mentally gauged the distance to the hospital from where they were and told Sawyer that he’d see him in twenty minutes.
“Hold up,” Sawyer said before Braydon could hang up.
Braydon’s stomach tightened; his chest felt like he was carrying that anvil around again. “What?” he barked, darting across two lanes to hit the overpass that would take them to Round Rock, rather than Coyote Ridge.
“He’s gonna be all right, but you do need to get there. I’ll be there before you, but not by much.”
Braydon took a deep breath. He had needed to hear that, and Sawyer obviously knew it.
“Are you driving?” Sawyer asked.
“Yeah.”
“Is Jessie there with you?”
Braydon looked over at her and then answered Sawyer, “Yeah, she’s here.”
“Let me talk to her.”
Braydon handed the phone to Jessie and focused on driving. He glanced down at the speedometer, doing his damnedest to keep to the speed limit so that he didn’t risk a ticket, but that was harder than he would’ve thought.
“Hey, Sawyer,” Jessie said into the phone.
For the next twenty minutes, he heard Jessie’s side of the conversation. She didn’t panic and she didn’t freak out, so he figured that was a good thing. It wasn’t until they were pulling into the hospital parking lot that she disconnected the call after telling Sawyer they’d see him in a minute.
Jessie didn’t wait for him to get out before she started pushing him toward the door. That had Braydon’s heart clenching painfully in his chest. She hadn’t bothered to tell him what was going on, and he wasn’t sure whether that was because the news was bad or because he hadn’t asked Sawyer to explain it to him.
Either way, he wanted to know.
“Brendon was drinking and driving, Bray,” she said simply when they were out of the truck. She closed the door behind them, took the keys from his hands, and clicked the lock. “He hit a tree.”
“Are you fucking serious?” he asked in disbelief.
“He was at Moonshiners,” she informed him. “Mack tried to keep him from leaving, but Brendon did anyway after Mack cut him off for the night. Mack called Sawyer and let him know.”
“Drinking and driving?” Braydon whispered, still not believing it.
Jessie looked up at him, sadness in her gaze. “Yeah.”
Fuck.
“Sawyer was at home. He was heading to Moonshiners when he saw Brendon’s truck in a ditch.”
Jessie put her hand on his arm, effectively slowing him down. Braydon stopped and looked at her.
“He’s gonna be fine. It’s just a bump on the head.”
But it could’ve been so much worse, Braydon thought to himself. So fucking much worse. What the hell was Brendon thinking?
Wanting to ask his brother exactly that, Braydon nodded at Jessie and then turned toward the emergency room doors. Once inside, the clinical smell assaulted his senses and brought him a moment of lucidity. A quick scan of the room had him coming up empty. His family wasn’t there.
What the fuck?
“Your mom and dad are already here. Sawyer called them as soon as he found Brendon.” Jessie paused, coming to a stop in front of him. “Sawyer was going back to see Brendon before he got off the phone with me. Travis, Zane, and Kaleb are on the way. Ethan and Beau are only a few minutes out.”
From that point on, just as she clearly had with the phone call, Jessie took complete control of the situation as she made her way to the check-in desk. He didn’t hear what she told the nurse sitting there, but a moment later, a set of doors opened and she was pulling him along through them.
Braydon tried to ignore the overwhelming smells of the hospital. Surely that was what was making him sick to his stomach. It wasn’t the fact that his brother had gotten behind the wheel after he’d been drinking. How could he be that fucking stupid?
The rooms were cordoned off by curtains rather than walls. Braydon heard his father’s voice long before they made it to the room where Brendon was obviously being kept. Jessie was still two steps in front of him, her hand in his. That’s when Braydon realized he was barely moving.
He was fucking scared out of his mind to see Brendon. The fact that his twin was so messed up that he’d done something so damn stupid . . . It terrified hi
m. Worse than that, Braydon immediately felt responsible.
“Hey,” his mother greeted him just outside the small area that held a bed and several machines. “Hey, Jess.” Braydon stopped walking when his mother reached out and hugged Jessie tight and then turned her attention back to him. “He’s gonna be fine,” she told him, but even hearing the words didn’t make him feel any better.
“He’s lucky,” Sawyer said gruffly when he joined them. “Mack tried to stop him before he left Moonshiners, but apparently Brendon was determined.”
And stupid, Braydon thought again. “Why the hell did he do this?” he asked, knowing the answer to that already.
“I tried calling him this morning,” Lorrie explained, looking between him and Jessie. “He didn’t answer. I texted him two or three times, but he never texted me back. I should’ve gone over to the house to check on him.”
“Ma, he probably wasn’t there. To be this messed up, he’s been drinking all day. Hell, possibly since yesterday. He doesn’t even remember getting in the truck, or the accident,” Sawyer explained, meeting Braydon’s gaze when he finished. His brother’s eyes darted down to Jessie and then back to him.
Braydon knew what Sawyer was thinking. “It’s not like that,” he told him immediately. He didn’t elaborate; instead, he turned back to his mother. “He didn’t come home last night.”
Sawyer didn’t say anything more after Braydon redirected the conversation, and Braydon appreciated it. He knew his brother didn’t believe him when he told him that Brendon’s sudden spiral had nothing to do with Jessie, but at least he wasn’t going to cause a scene in the middle of the hospital.
Despite what Sawyer assumed, Brendon wasn’t messed up because of Jessie. The family might’ve wanted to believe that she and Brendon had been serious there for a little while, but they knew better.
“What are they doing to him?” Braydon asked.
“He’s got a bump on the head,” his mother said. “They’re monitoring him. The doctor said he’s gonna be fine. At most he’s got a slight concussion.”
“Drinking and driving,” Braydon mumbled absently.
He still didn’t believe it. Brendon didn’t drink that much. Hell, aside from a few beers from time to time, neither of them drank much. And certainly not hard liquor.
“What was he drinking? Do you know?” Jessie asked Sawyer directly.
“From what he told me, he’s been hanging out with his buddy Jack. Mac confirmed the same,” Sawyer answered with a frown. “He’s not lucid enough to talk much when he does come to though, so I’m not really sure what else he might’ve had.”
Whiskey? Holy fuck. Brendon didn’t even like whiskey.
Braydon’s father stepped out of the small room and closed the curtain behind him, joining them in the hall just outside.
“Can I go in and see him?” Jessie asked, pulling everyone’s attention to her.
“Of course, honey,” Lorrie said, reaching out and squeezing Jessie’s hand.
Jessie looked up at Braydon, and he gave her other hand a reassuring squeeze before he released her.
JESSIE LET THE curtain close behind her as she stepped into the small ten-by-ten space where Brendon was currently sleeping on a hospital bed. There was a machine on the wall making a steady beeping sound, and she took that as a good sign.
He was pale. So very pale.
His eyes were closed; there was a cut on his forehead and a line in his arm that probably went to the bag of fluid hanging from a metal stand near the head of the bed. Aside from the fact that he lacked any sort of color, he looked like he was just sleeping.
Moving around to the side where the machines weren’t taking up most of the space, Jessie reached for his hand as she stared down at him.
“What have you done to yourself, Bren?” she asked, feeling incredibly guilty about his current state.
She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help it. With everything they’d put one another through these last few months, she felt as though she’d played a small part in pushing him to this point.
“Hey.”
Jessie looked up at Brendon’s face to see that his eyes were open marginally and he was looking back at her.
“Hey,” she replied. “How’re you doin’?”
“I’ve been better,” he mumbled incoherently before licking his lips. “Is there something to drink on that table?”
Jessie managed to translate what he’d said and peeked over her shoulder, where she noticed a glass of water with a straw perched on the bedside stand that acted as a table.
Releasing his hand, she retrieved the cup and then held the straw to his lips. Brendon sipped slowly and then pulled away, signaling that he was finished. Returning the cup to the stand, Jessie turned her attention back to him.
“Where’s Bray?” he asked, seemingly more alert, his words much clearer than before.
“In the hall, talking to your parents and Sawyer.”
“I fucked up again, didn’t I?” he asked.
Jessie figured it was a rhetorical question, but she spoke anyway. “Want to talk about it?”
“Nothin’ to talk about,” he mumbled, his eyes closing again. He forced them open and stared back at her. “I’m sorry, Jess. So goddamn sorry.”
“What are you apologizing to me for?” she asked softly, trying to keep her voice down so as not to disturb other patients or his parents just on the other side of the curtain.
“I should’ve loved you,” he said, but his eyes closed again.
Jessie’s heart squeezed in her chest. Surely that wasn’t what had sent him spiraling out of control these last few months.
Unable to say anything, Jessie reached for his hand again, holding it gently. His fingers were cold and clammy, but his chest was rising steadily and she found consolation in that.
“Jess?”
“Hmm?” she responded to Brendon.
“He really loves you, you know that? I was a dumbass for trying to get in the way of it.”
Although she understood everything Brendon said, he was still slurring, evidence that the alcohol was still coursing through his bloodstream.
“You’re good for him,” he continued, turning his head to face her and opening his eyes again. “I want you to be happy with him.”
“I am happy,” she told him, not sure what he was expecting to hear.
Jessie’s heart stopped beating in her chest as she stared back at Brendon and noticed a tear dripping down his cheek. “What’s wrong?” she asked in a harsh whisper.
“I don’t know what to do without him there,” Brendon admitted, and an answering tear slipped from her own eyes.
“He’s still there.”
“No, he’s not. And it’s not his fault. We’re adults. He’s supposed to go on and live his life. I’m not supposed to hold him back, Jess. But I’m lost without him there. So fucking lost.”
Jessie was crying steadily now. This man, this incredibly brave, strong man, was breaking her heart with this revelation. Brendon didn’t want to lose Braydon. It wasn’t a woman who was making him do things he shouldn’t; Brendon was having a hard time coping with the fact that he and Braydon were beginning to drift apart.
That explained so much. Oh, God. And now she really felt responsible, because she’d been in between the two of them for months. It was hard not to remember the falling-out at Christmas when Brendon tried to drive a wedge between the three of them.
She was pulled from her thoughts when Brendon started talking again.
“I don’t feel whole without him there. Never have. It’s like part of me is missing. I don’t know what to do about that.”
A soft inhale had Jessie looking up to see Braydon standing on this side of the curtain, his eyes glued to his twin. She felt as though she should give them space, but when she went to pull away, Brendo
n’s grip on her hand tightened.
“Don’t leave,” he whispered, his eyes closing once again.
Jessie looked back up at Braydon, pleading with her eyes for him to say something. Brendon needed him. Needed his reassurance that he wasn’t going anywhere.
He didn’t speak.
Turning her attention back to the man in the bed, Jessie squeezed his fingers. “I’m not going anywhere,” she assured him. “And neither is Braydon.”
“Yeah, he is,” Brendon muttered, his eyes closed. “He’s gone and fallen in love. Y’all are gonna get married, have babies, and he’s gonna move out. I’ll be all alone again. God, Jess. I hated being alone. I . . .”
Jessie was still stunned that this extraordinarily strong man was falling apart right before her eyes. She knew him as a troublemaker, the comedian, the misfit. He was kindhearted yet astonishingly tough. He shielded himself with that bad-boy attitude, but underneath it all, Jessie could see the softer side of him.
Granted, he’d never opened up to her like this before. Brendon had always made their interactions about sex. Until now, she’d just figured that was all he wanted from her. Listening to him, Jessie knew Brendon had been keeping himself closed off.
Sort of the way she had.
No, exactly the way she had.
They were two peas in a pod, both of them desperately needing someone to love them but fearing they would never find that person. While he kept his relationships at arm’s length, Jessie was quick to latch on, to make something of it when there wasn’t anything really there.
That was the mentality she’d had when she got to Coyote Ridge, and she’d gone into this relationship with Brendon and Braydon reminding herself of that all the time. For the first time in her life, she had kept her distance, and now she had to wonder whether she’d messed things up for all of them.
“Hey,” Braydon said thickly, moving over to Brendon’s other side.
Brendon opened his eyes and peered up at his brother while Jessie watched. God, they looked exactly alike, aside from the bruising on Brendon’s forehead. From their chiseled jaws to their full lips, their wide blue-gray eyes . . . If it weren’t for the fact that Braydon had cut his hair shorter in recent months, a random bystander wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
Braydon Page 22
