by Jaci Burton
“I need to explain about Gail.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Are you going to invite me in?”
“I don’t think so. We don’t have anything to say to each other. I think what I heard made it quite clear.”
“You heard wrong.”
He pushed past her and left her standing holding the door while he stepped inside and waited for her. She couldn’t very well cling to the front door without looking stupid, so she closed it and walked into the living room, chin held high.
She would not cry.
“That day I had dinner at your parents, I went to a bar afterward.”
“And picked up a woman.” How convenient that he left that part out. No wonder he hightailed it into another woman’s arms after the inquisition from Aidan. No doubt her brother told Brett to keep his distance or some other meddling comment. She knew Brett had been disturbed at the house that day, but she’d never wanted him to elaborate on his conversation with Aidan.
“Not really. She kind of picked me up.”
Despite her best efforts to control the magic, the temperature in the living room began to drop. She mentally cursed both her powers and her stupid nipples for reacting to the cold. Wrapping her arms around her chest, she glared at him.
He tugged his jacket closer, obviously aware of the deep freeze about to happen in her house. “I never touched her.”
“What you do with your personal life is no concern of mine. You made it quite clear early on you didn’t want a relationship with me. I didn’t listen and I forced you into it.”
His lips curled into a half-smile. “You hardly forced me, Kaitlyn.”
“You know what I meant,” she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. She turned and flopped onto the couch, curling her feet underneath her. “You don’t owe me any explanations.” Please go, before I say something else stupid, like “I love you or I’m the best thing that could ever happen to you, dumbass”.
“I do owe you an explanation.” He slipped onto the sofa next to her. “Gail was drunk. She came onto me.”
“And you just couldn’t resist telling her you wanted to fuck her. Look, I might be dense, but I have finally grabbed a clue here, Brett.”
“No you haven’t.”
Great. Now he was calling her clueless. “I’m pretty damned smart. I know what I heard, so don’t fill me with a line of bullshit.”
Brett blew out a breath of cold-tinged air and raked his fingers through his hair. “This is hard to explain.”
“I’ll bet it is.” Hard to make up excuses is what he really meant. He couldn’t because there weren’t any. Stab, stab, stab. She was bleeding all over the furniture, her soul slowly leaking out her body. Why wouldn’t he just go away? She needed a good cry and a dose of amnesia and she’d be just fine.
“I was afraid of you.”
She arched a brow, dragging herself out of her self-misery. “Afraid…of me.”
“Yeah. Kait, I’ve known you since you were twelve years old. I’ve been trying to avoid getting physical with you since you were seventeen. Hell, that first time I kissed you I nearly self-combusted. I had to push you away then and I tried to push you away now. Hell, I’m still trying. That’s what I was doing that night at the bar. Gail offered and I grabbed at the chance to be with someone else, thinking I could forget about you.”
“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?”
“Let me finish. I took her to my house but I never touched her. We never even made it out of my car. I was disgusted with the idea of having anyone in my bed but you. I took her back to her place and hadn’t seen her again until tonight at the fundraiser. It was a really stupid mistake and I’m sorry I made it. I just wasn’t thinking.”
“I’ll say.” She wanted to believe him. She wanted to feel complimented by the fact he needed another woman to forget her. But why did he want to forget her in the first place?
“I’m sorry, Kait. I never seem to make the right choices where you’re concerned. And that’s what I came here to talk to you about.”
Uh-oh. “Fine. Talk.”
“We can’t see each other anymore. Things between us just aren’t going to work.”
“I see.” How nice of him to make that decision for them both. And how nice to get her hopes up by apologizing and clarifying the situation with the other woman, only to turn around and dump her anyway. “Why did you even bother coming over here, then? You could have left me believing you’d fucked that woman, and you would have been free of me.”
“You don’t understand.”
That did it. She stood and stared down at him. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard you say that I don’t understand? Well, I understand plenty! I understand that I gave you my heart and you stomped all over it. I understand that I gave you my body and you sure as hell enjoyed using it, but it’s not quite what you’re looking for.”
“Godammit, that’s not what I said!” He shot to his feet and met her fierce glare with one of his own. “I’m trying to explain something to you and as usual you’re not listening!”
“I’m not listening? I’ve been listening plenty. I just don’t like what I’m hearing! Why don’t you leave?”
Not bothering to do it the normal way, she directed her magic to the front door. A strong gust of cold wind blew it open, crashing it against the backstop. Brett’s gaze shot to the door and back at her. “This isn’t the way I wanted to end things.”
“You don’t always get to be the one to choose how it goes. Now get out.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again and brushed past her. She used the wind to slam the door shut behind him, leaving her alone with her own anger and her own thoughts.
The room grew colder and her heart chilled. Even the tears sliding down her cheeks were tinged with ice.
The warmth and renewal of spring had given way to a blast of late winter, cold and fierce and hanging onto her with icy tentacles that wouldn’t loosen its hold on her soul.
She shut out the light and headed upstairs to bed.
* * * * *
“So, you just let him walk away, or rather, you just threw him out?”
Kaitlyn scrunched her shoulders, tension tightening her muscles as she frowned at Shannon. “Yes, I threw him out.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t want to be with me!” God, her sister was dense sometimes. They’d argued about Brett for a week now, Shannon convinced that Kaitlyn should go talk to him.
“I agree with Shannon, Kait. I really think you should see him.”
She rolled her eyes, feeling trapped in her own office as Shannon and Lissa browbeat her. “I’m not going to see him.”
“I never thought you’d give up so easily,” Shannon said, arching her brow in challenge.
Kaitlyn wasn’t going to take the bait. “I know when to call it quits. I think I beat my head against the wall plenty with Brett. He doesn’t want me.”
It took her days to be able to say it out loud. Days of wandering her house all alone, the emptiness inside her unbearable. Now she said it regularly. She had already convinced herself, so she had only the rest of her meddling family to convince.
“Kait, you know how difficult it was for me to come to grips with Aidan’s, shall we say, hardheadedness?” Lissa asked.
Shannon snorted. “That’s an understatement. Our brother is an arrogant pain in the ass.”
Lissa laughed. “Yes, he is. And you love him dearly. So do I. But I had to open my heart and then force him to open his, too. It was a rocky road but it was well worth it.”
“I know the feeling,” Shannon said, nodding. “Max is a lot like Aidan. Then again, so am I. We butted heads a lot, both wanting control. We had to learn to give a little on both sides to make it work. And believe me, I’m the last person who ever thought I’d give an inch to anyone!”
Kaitlyn smiled at them. “I know what you both went through to find love. But my situation with Brett is�
�different. I wanted him. He knew I wanted him. He still doesn’t want me. What am I supposed to do? Go over to his house with a hammer and beat him over the head until he comes to his senses?”
Shannon and Lissa exchanged glances, then turned toward her.
“Not a bad idea at that,” Shannon said with a grin.
“No. Bad idea,” Kaitlyn shot back.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Lissa agreed. “Go talk to him. You two left things unfinished.”
“No, we didn’t.” It was as finished as it was going to get. She’d never put herself through this agonizing hurt again. Someday, maybe, she’d get over him and find a man who wanted her. Really wanted her.
Though even she didn’t believe her own denial. They had left things unfinished. She was angry and she’d let her anger cloud her normal common sense.
Brett didn’t want her. She wanted to know why. She needed to know what it was that kept him from taking that one final step to commitment.
“You still have to get your painting from him,” Lissa suggested. “It’s finished, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Then go get it. And see what happens,” Shannon urged. “You’ll kick yourself if you don’t at least try to figure out where his head is.”
They were right. Pride told her to leave it alone, that he’d only hurt her again.
But when had Kait ever let pride stand in her way?
Chapter Nine
Brett sat at the bar in his studio, his hands caressing the cool glass bottle of whiskey. The dark amber liquid had a voice of its own, calling to him to open it, to take one drink, maybe two at the most.
A most familiar voice. It still haunted him after all these years. How many days had he sat here staring at that bottle? Two? Three?
Hell, how many years?
He removed his hands from the bottle and stared at them, willing the trembling to stop.
It wouldn’t. It hadn’t. Not since he’d gotten that call three days ago from his AA sponsor, telling him the bad news about Frank.
He and Frank had entered AA at the same time. They’d been friends for six years, calling on each other when one needed to talk about how much they wanted a drink. They’d seen each other through the fires of hell and had come out the other side. They’d survived.
And neither of them had taken a drink in six long years.
Until three days ago. Three days ago, Frank fell off the wagon. Only he hadn’t just taken a drink, he’d taken a lot of drinks. Then he’d gotten behind the wheel of his car with his girlfriend in the passenger seat and had proceeded to roll his SUV right off the highway embankment.
Frank was fine, just a few bruises. His girlfriend wasn’t. She’d be in the hospital a long time. Her leg was shattered.
He hadn’t even been able to go to the hospital to see Frank, to ask about him, to be there for him. The whole scenario was way too close to his own life, his own mistakes the night he’d killed Amanda.
It didn’t even matter what happened to set Frank off. Brett knew the same thing could happen to him at anytime. On any day, he could open that bottle of whiskey and drink the whole damn thing down in one sitting.
He could hurt Kaitlyn.
God, he missed her. He could still smell her on his sheets when he tried to sleep at night. The studio even held her sweet lavender scent. Not that he’d even tried painting the past few days. The life had gone right out him the night Kaitlyn threw him out of her house. She’d done the right thing. He only wished he could have done the same long before he ever touched her.
The doorbell rang but he ignored it, wrapping his hands around the bottle and holding tight. It was a test. If he didn’t touch it, he was somehow perversely comforted.
Or at least that’s how it used to be. Nothing comforted him anymore. What he really wanted was to screw off the top and pour a huge glassful, feeling it burn its way down his throat. Then he wanted to keep drinking until he found that oblivion he searched for.
He ignored the persistent knocking. Whoever it was could go away. He hadn’t even been to the gallery for the past three days, let alone opened his door to anyone. The last thing he needed or wanted right now was company.
Besides, he wasn’t really alone. The demons were here with him. Always here, always a part of him, trying to lure him back to that dark place where alcohol numbed reality and made it so much easier to cope.
He wanted a drink so damned bad it hurt.
But something was different this time. Before, drink had always won out over everything he cared about. His life, his job, his friends, even Amanda. This time it was different.
Yeah, he wanted that goddamned drink. But he wanted Kaitlyn more.
“Brett.”
He snorted. Now he even heard her voice. And he wasn’t even drunk.
“Your door was unlocked. I hope you don’t mind that I just came in but I was worried when I saw your car and you didn’t answer.”
Ah, Christ. He didn’t need this right now.
Kaitlyn read the tension in Brett’s shoulders, wincing at being so forward that she would walk in his house. But dammit, her senses told her something was wrong.
He turned around and glared at her. She was shocked at seeing his unkempt appearance. Several days’ growth of beard peppered his face with dark stubble. His uncombed hair drifted over his forehead and she had to fight the urge to sweep it away from his face.
“Go away, Kait.”
He turned his back to her, wrapping his hands around a bottle of whiskey.
Undaunted, she stepped forward and slid onto the barstool next to him. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Go out the way you came in. I’m not in the mood for company.”
“Something’s wrong, Brett. Please tell me.”
He turned his head toward her, pain evident in his tired, hollow eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.
“I’m too busy to deal with you right now. Just leave.”
Pushing back the hurt at his words, she said, “You don’t look busy. You look upset. Let me help you.”
He shoved at the bottle until it slid all the way to the back of the bar. She reached over and grabbed it before it fell onto the floor. Brett shot up and raked his hands through his hair. “Look, dammit. You can’t help me. No one can help me. Get the hell out of here, Kait. I mean it.”
Now she knew something was wrong. Something serious. Brett had never acted this way. She touched the sleeve of his denim shirt. “I can help you if you’ll talk to me.”
He jerked his arm from her grasp and walked away, pacing the length of the bar. “You’ve never understood how it is with me. You just don’t know. I’m poison, Kait. I tried to keep you away but you just wouldn’t listen.”
“I care about you. I’m not leaving.”
He paused, the hurt in his eyes like a pain in her belly. “See? That’s what I’m talking about. I could insult you ten different ways and you’d still stand there and take it. Why? Because you’re good. There’s a light of goodness shining around you that everyone wants to soak in. Your sweetness, your generosity, all those things you are that I’m not. You have no business wanting to be with a man like me.”
Her heart tore just listening to him, the urge to offer him comfort stronger than any anger she might have had. “You’re a good man, Brett. I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”
He sighed and leaned against one of the pillars, crossing his arms and leveling a glare at her. “No, you don’t understand, because I never told you. Hell, I never told anyone. Only Aidan knows.”
Whatever secret he’d been keeping was eating away at him. It hurt her to watch him tear himself up like this. “I can take anything you want to tell me.”
“Can you? Let’s see if you can handle this. I’m an alcoholic, Kait.”
Shock turned her blood cold and she shivered. An alcoholic? How could that be? That wasn’t true. She’d have known…somehow she’d have known. “What?”
/> “You heard me. I’m a drunk. I’ve always been a drunk and I always will be a drunk. I have been since I was fifteen years old.”
“I…I didn’t know.” Oh, God, how could she have not known this? She was supposed to be close to him, yet she never made the connection between him drinking water and tea and coffee all the time to being an alcoholic. Some people didn’t drink out of personal preference. She’d never thought twice about it.
How could she know? She’d never seen him drunk. Ever. She looked up at him. “I’m so sorry, Brett.”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Sorry? Oh, you won’t be sorry when you hear the rest. You’ll hate me, like you’re supposed to. I was drunk the night Amanda died. Too damned drunk to drive, but I did it anyway. The accident wasn’t a faulty brake line like everyone was told. I killed my wife, Kait. Now tell me you can take it.”
His words were flung at her without caring, yet she knew what it cost him to say them, how much pain he hid behind his statement. He thought he’d killed his wife. God, had he lived with this all by himself for all these years?
She stepped toward him and reached for him, but he jerked away. She stood her ground, refusing to let him push her away this time. “I’m so sorry, Brett. Sorry for you and for Amanda. It was a mistake, and one that cost you dearly. But it doesn’t make you less a person.”
He snorted but didn’t say anything.
“And you stopped drinking. That counts for something.” It didn’t make her love him less, either.
“You don’t understand,” he said, advancing on her, his eyes nearly glowing with the pain rushing through them. “I stopped drinking when Amanda died. That’s true enough. But I still want that drink. I crave it more than anything. Every morning I get up, I walk in here and take that bottle out, wondering if today will be the day I’ll open it up. Because I want that drink more than I want to paint. I want it more than I want a successful gallery.”
He stopped and pressed his palms on either side of her, his face only inches from hers. “I wanted that goddamned drink more than I wanted you.”
