by Dee Tenorio
The solid slam of Cole’s body into the ground made her jump, and the choice was made. She jumped for the glass flower vase on table.
“I love her, man.”
She stumbled, hugging the vase to her chest as the words spilled out of Cole along with the blood in his mouth. Oh, God…
“I love her.”
Locke flipped Cole over like a dead fish and she thought—like Cole must have thought because he almost seemed to smile—that it was over. But then Locke’s fist snapped forward and Cole’s head snapped back.
“No!” But her cry was drowned out by the crash of the vase over Locke’s impossibly thick head. Water shot everywhere, but mostly down onto his face, flattening his short platinum hair over his forehead.
Locke spun on his knee, swiping the water off his face as he got to his feet. “Goddamn it, Mandy, what the hell are you doing?”
“Me?” She shoved at his chest, not that it made any difference to him. “What are you doing? You can’t just come in here and start beating people up! What’s wrong with you?”
She gave up on him, dropping to her own knees to check on Cole. He’d gotten wet in the downpour too, his dazed eyes blinking slowly. His face was already puffing and red, which meant he was going to be lumpy and bruised all to hell in another day or two. “Cole, are you okay?”
Locke’s hand hooked her upper arm, pulling her up. “Get back, you’re going to cut yourself on all the broken glass.”
She shook him off, her entire body shaking with anger and for the first time in her life, fear. Not that Locke would hurt her, but because she’d never seen him as someone who could truly hurt another person. But he had. And he wasn’t the least bit sorry about it.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, glaring up at him.
“Mandy—”
“What’s wrong with you, Locke? How could you do this? He’s your friend!”
He flinched, but apart from his scowl becoming a grimace, nothing changed. “You’re my sister.”
“Then you shouldn’t have sent him here with some stupid plan to marry me, should you?” Amanda stood up, ready to punch him in the face all on her own.
Impossibly, Locke’s visage darkened and he looked down at Cole. “He told you?”
“Of course he didn’t. I overheard the two of you at the house months ago!” All the embarrassment, the disillusionment, the blinding anger, rushed back into her. “How could you do that to me, Locke? To Cole?”
“All I did—”
“All you did was ruin any chance for me to have Cole in my life. You knew how he was and you forced him into a position where he had to pretend he wanted me. Do you have any idea how stupid, how ridiculous, that made me feel?”
“Amanda!”
She didn’t care how much paternal authority he put into his voice. “You had no right to interfere in my life that way. Not mine and not the boys’.”
“Don’t bring them into this. This is about you.”
“No, it’s about you. You think if you buckle us down and keep us all in line, nothing bad is ever going to happen to us. Well it can. And it will, only by the time it does, we’re all going to hate you.”
The color drained from Locke’s face.
“It’s over, Locke. You don’t get to dictate my life. You don’t get to choose what I do, where I live or the choices I make. You don’t get to pick who my friends are or who I love. If I want Cole in my bed, that’s my choice. If I want half the town there, it’s my damn choice!”
“Then make the goddamned choice, Mandy!” he suddenly roared, looking away from her. “Do something with your life and your education. Stop blaming me because you’re too afraid to try anything yourself! What was I supposed to do? You were wasting yourself waiting for a goddamned prince charming who wasn’t coming to rescue you. So I sent him. I did what had to be done to snap you out of this…this…limbo you live in.”
“I don’t need rescuing!” she yelled, wishing she had something else to throw at him. Her entire body shook with too many emotions to define. “I like my life. I’m happy! Can you say that? Can you look me in the eye and tell me you’re happy living like an uptight monk, raising your siblings and having absolutely no one and nothing to call your own?”
“Of course I’m happy! I’m goddamned ecstatic!”
“Then why are you alone?” She backed up a step at the crackle of anger suddenly alight in his eyes.
“Because all of you needed me! You still need me. For thirteen years I have lived and breathed nothing but you kids. It was all up to me. Was I supposed to tear up the nightclubs like you and Susie? Ignore the fact that I had six kids to raise? Finding someone for me wasn’t exactly easy. What woman in her right mind would ever want to take on everything I came with?”
“I’m not a kid anymore,” she replied, hating the buried resentment in those words. Even if she understood it. “And you’re not my father.”
Locke jolted. His raised finger, still pointing at her in accusation, slowly lowered. He had been drawing a breath to keep yelling at her, but now his teeth clacked shut and his jaw clenched as his head shook. She could see a million different thoughts trying to burst past his lips, but they were pressed so flat the flesh had gone almost white.
Remorse made her throat burn and ache, as if she had swallowed a rock that couldn’t fit through, and her eyes filled with tears she didn’t want to fall.
He looked as if she’d stabbed him with his own knife.
And worse, she felt as if she had.
She almost reached out to him, but she knew she couldn’t let herself. This couldn’t keep going on. He had to learn where the line was. He couldn’t hold onto them all forever. And he couldn’t hide behind them anymore, either.
As if he realized she wasn’t going to take it all back, Locke stepped backward once. Twice. Then shaking his head, he stalked out of the house, slamming the door behind him hard enough to make the glass rattle.
Only then did she let the tears fall.
Chapter Thirteen
Cole sat on the couch, an ice pack on the left side of his jaw and another bag balanced on the back of his head. Unfortunately, the relief they offered didn’t do much to solve his problems. The probably wouldn’t do much for his bruising, either. His teeth still felt loose, as if they were just floating in his gums, and if his eye wasn’t black by afternoon it’d be a miracle.
“You should go to the hospital,” Amanda muttered, dabbing at his skinned knuckles with witch hazel. It hurt like a bitch, but since his entire body was one giant ball of pain, a little more wasn’t anything to complain about. What stung worse was despite the fact that she’d gotten him the ice and was cleaning the cuts he hadn’t even noticed yet, she had yet to look him in the eye.
“Nah, nothing’s broken.”
“You lost consciousness, Cole.” Was that worry or anger in her tone? Probably both.
“Only for a minute or two.”
She sighed, plucking a bandage from the first-aid kit she’d produced after helping him to the couch and rushing to her room to get dressed. Much as he’d enjoyed seeing her in his shirt and nothing else, it probably wasn’t comfortable patching someone up sitting bare-assed on a coffee table.
“I don’t know why I bother mentioning it to any of you. You could lose an arm and still not think it was worth going to the hospital. ‘Hospitals are for pussies’,” she mimicked, though whether she meant to copy Dean or Daniel, he couldn’t quite tell.
“Well, I think we both know that neither of your brothers is going to notice a few lost brain cells. But I promise, if my vision doubles or I feel any symptoms, I’ll go in, no arguments.”
“Like you’re one to talk. What did you think you were doing, fighting with him like that?” Exasperation. Worry. They were the same, right?
Cole squinted his eye at her, but she was still muttering at his hand. “It’s called trying to stay alive. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Oh, wait, that’s right, you don’t think your Viking ove
rlord brother is scary.”
“Yeah, okay, fine. He’s scary. I’m sorry, I’ve never seen him actually consider killing anyone before. You hereby have my permission to wet yourself and run screaming whenever he’s around.” And yet, she still managed to sound sarcastic.
“It probably won’t come to that. Now that he’s felt the power of my oxygen-deprived fury.”
She finally looked at him, her lips curling up a little. Then she rolled her eyes and tossed the swab she’d been using into the lined basket at her feet. “You are such an idiot.”
He was, he really was. His head ached, his shoulders felt bruised and his other hand was still bleeding, but it still had the potential to be the best moment of his life. All because she was looking at him again. “I wasn’t lying to him, Amanda.”
Just like that, her lashes shuttered and she went back to working on his knuckles.
Frustration had him pulling his hand from hers and tossing the ice packs on the couch. “Damn it, I know you have no reason to believe me. About anything. But you have to believe that. I love you, Amanda. I’ve loved you since we were kids.”
“Oh, come on,” she growled, getting up and stalking to the opposite side of the room, where her closet hid all the cleaning supplies. She grabbed a broom and started sweeping at the glass pieces still on the ground. “I know you’ve been lying to me. You don’t have to go that far.”
“When did I lie?” He got to his feet too, because hell if he was going to sit there while she ripped his heart out. “When did I tell you anything but the truth?”
Her eyes blazed, but she couldn’t seem to come up with an example. Which only made her angrier. “You only went out with me because he told you to. Just like everyone else, you just get in line and do what he says.”
“No, I did this to protect you.”
At least the truth managed to fluster her so much she couldn’t untangle her tongue.
“Your brothers had this brilliant plan to find you a husband. If I didn’t go along with it, they were going to keep asking around until they found someone who would. I had every intention of telling you what was going on that first night, but I couldn’t get you anywhere private. Then I just couldn’t do it.”
“Why?”
“Because all I could think about was how bad I wanted to kiss you!”
She stopped sweeping, her mouth open and her eyes startled. Yeah, well, he was startled too.
“I came back here the next day but you were naked—”
“I was not naked. My God, I can’t be the only one in this town who’s ever heard of a thong!”
“Well you’re the only one in this whole world that makes me absolutely insane!” he snapped. “All these years, I’ve kept my thoughts and feelings about you to myself. Because I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt my relationship with your brothers. You don’t know how hard it was not to show you how much I wanted you. How much knowing you meant to me. Do you have any idea how empty my life would be without you, Amanda? No one else gets me the way you do. No one else listens or cares what I think or what I’m doing when I’m working. You care about me. I couldn’t risk that because I wanted to sleep with you. I couldn’t lose you.”
But he still just might.
“So why not tell me the truth? You had every opportunity to tell me what was going on.”
Cole crossed his arms. “Like you had to tell me you knew Locke was trying to force me into marrying you?”
Her mouth clammed shut. Of course it did.
“Honestly, I realized this might be the only chance you’d get to step away from all the restrictions and frustrations and just find out what you wanted. You were miserable, feeling incompetent and in over your head. Not that you were, but that’s how you seemed to feel. I got Locke to stay out of the way because he wants you wrapped up in foam and protected. If I didn’t have his agreement to stay out of our relationship, he would have pulled you back in. I wanted you to have your chance to fly.” And, God, how she flew.
“That’s why you wouldn’t sleep with me. You didn’t want to take advantage of the deal,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. Holding herself tight, one hand still clinging to the broomstick almost as an afterthought. “So what was last night, then? Why did you finally give in?”
Because she didn’t need him anymore. Because he couldn’t keep living this farce when he wanted what was between them to be real.
“Last night was exactly what I told you. The most amazing night of my life.”
She closed her eyes and a tear slipped down her cheek so fast he half-wondered if he imagined it. “Then why were you so sad? I saw it on your face when you got here and again this morning. You were sad about what happened between us.”
“I was scared,” he corrected. “You still planned to dump me when you were done with me. I had no way of knowing if your feelings for me were as real as mine are for you.”
“You listened to me and Susie in the bathroom at Shaky Jake’s.”
“Of course I listened. What am I? New?” Before she could comment on that, he pushed forward. “I couldn’t let you throw me away until you had your chance to be as independent as you wanted. Free of me or Locke or anyone else’s machinations.”
“Oh, like any of this is free of machination.”
He ignored the bitterness. “By the time it was all over, I knew I couldn’t let you throw me away at all. We all made a mess of things, but please, don’t let it change what we could have together.”
She swiped at her cheeks, the moisture making her cheeks shine. But more tears spilled, one after the other. The dread that had lived on his shoulders all these weeks sank down to his stomach. Grew barbs.
“Don’t you want to be with me, Amanda?”
She closed her eyes tight. “I don’t want to be the weight around your neck.”
“When have you ever been that?”
“You’re the one who always said he never wanted to be tied into a relationship! Ever! I’m supposed to believe you just changed your mind? That I’m so freaking wonderful that you’ll forget every problem you ever had with long-term relationships and jump in with both feet? What happens when you wake up out of your sex euphoria and realize that you can’t do it? Where does it leave me when I give you everything and you turn your back like you have on every woman you’ve ever been with?”
“You don’t really think I’m incapable of commitment. If I were, how the hell would I have stuck with your family all these years?”
The question didn’t faze her. “It’s what I’ve seen, Cole.”
Even with his face hurting—hell, everything hurt—he couldn’t stop the angry tsking sound from breaking free. “No, it’s what you’re afraid of. There’s a big damn difference.” He crossed to the coat rack and pulled on his jacket, hating the feeling of being exposed any more than he already was. He shrugged into it. “You know why I never wanted to get emotionally involved with other women?”
“Cole—”
“They weren’t you.” Not a single one had ever come close. She’d been his friend, his ally. His heart. And she never had a fucking clue. “No one else ever will be, either. But why listen to facts when we can just dig out a convenient reason for you to avoid choosing something important in your life?”
“You can’t say things like that. You can’t just rewrite the past when it suits you. You spent years treating me like just another one of the boys. All that time, you never once noticed how much I wanted you to see me. To want me.” Fat tears fell over her cheeks while she spoke, her voice thick and choked.
It’d be easier to take another punch from Locke than to keep himself from crossing the room and hauling her against him. She tried to twist away, but he hushed her and held her close while she cried against his neck.
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he whispered when she’d finally calmed. “But no one is going to make this choice for you. You have to either believe that I love you, that we can make a future togethe
r, or throw everything we could have together away. Because I’m here and I’m telling you that I love you. That I think you’re beautiful. You’re the smartest, most creative, loving person I have ever known. You may doubt yourself, Amanda, but I never have. And I never will.”
He still held her, but the more he talked, the stiffer she went in his arms. Separating herself from his words. From all the things about herself she didn’t believe. Worse, her silence might as well have been a death knell.
He pulled back, trying like hell not to shake her. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
That beautiful blue-gray of her eyes was muted as she looked up at him through a sheen of tears. “How can I?”
”It’s called faith. It’s called trust. Hell, it’s called taking a risk. Like I’m taking right now, opening myself up to you when you know I haven’t done that for anyone in my life. Yes, I should have told you the truth from the beginning. I screwed up, I admit it. But that doesn’t change the fact that I love you. I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it. Until you believe me. Because I don’t want us to end. I never want us to end.”
She wavered—he could feel her swaying closer to him—but somewhere between one breath and the next…she drifted away. She looked down, carefully pulling his hands from her arms and lowering them to his sides before stepping back once. Twice. When she met his gaze again, all he could see was regret. “So why does it feel like we just did?”
Yup, there it was. His heart, ripped out. And with such a softly spoken question, too.
He looked down at his hand, the bruising and the swelling growing by the second. Seemed fitting. Bloodied inside and out.
“No matter what happens from now on, how much it hurts, I’m never going to regret being with you. Not for your sake. Not for mine.” He went to her, his boots crunching on glass, and pulled her to a hard kiss that burned in more ways than one.
She didn’t fight him, her tears stinging the split in his lip. He didn’t care. He kissed her like a brand he only wished he could leave on her.
