The first thing that hits me is the scent of the air. It’s filled with chemicals and almost smells sour. Yelling from inside has me pausing at the front door, my hands shaking as I work up the nerve to push it open.
When I do, I’m hit with a cloud of invisible … something, and my nostrils flare. The house is more disgusting inside than it is on the outside, and there is no one in a room I’m guessing is supposed to be the living room that I walk into. Quietly, I walk farther in, pausing when I hear what sounds like stomping feet from somewhere within.
Another two rooms passed through, and a voice catches my ear.
“Well, what do we have here?”
I turn to see a man, taller than Keaton but thinner than me, his two gold front teeth gleaming from a wicked, evil smile.
“I’m just looking for my boyfriend and his brothers.” I try to stand my ground, but when he advances, my instincts have me stepping back.
Alarm bells are sounding in my head when this man, dirt caked on his clothes and hands, smiles at my retreat.
“Boyfriend, huh? Bet I can show you a better time than he does.”
As he comes closer, I can see the red, enflamed blood vessels in his eyes, and the way his arms won’t stop twitching and moving. I step back again, not wanting him to invade my space any further, but he isn’t stopping. When my back hits the wall, I go to twist away and run down the hall, but his large hand captures my wrist.
“Hey, baby, where you going so fast?” He leers at me.
I bring my other hand up, prepared to hit him and run whichever way I can when someone else beats me to it.
“Get your hands off of her!” Keaton growls, pushing the guy, whose state has him falling over and stumbling into a chair.
“Keaton …” I start for him, wanting him to catch me in his arms, but he puts a hand up, holding me steady by the shoulder.
“I can’t do this with you here.” His eyes are stone-cold, angry.
I’ve disobeyed him and probably made this situation that much worse.
“What the fuck, man?” The creep stands up, and another man I don’t recognize walks into the room.
“Do we have a problem here?” This man is cleaner and doesn’t seem to be high like his cohort.
“Just came for my brother.” Keaton’s face is void of expression.
I see Bowen in the background, down the hall, dragging a half-conscious Fletcher by the upper arm.
“Your brother owes me money. And I don’t need word of this place getting out. You understand that, right?”
The tone of this man’s voice lets us all know that isn’t a question … it’s a threat. My blood is ice in my veins. What the hell has Fletcher gotten himself into?
“How much does he owe you?” Keaton grits out between bared teeth.
I’ve never seen the man I love so incensed. Keaton Nash is a level-headed, kind, amiable doctor. He shouldn’t be in a place like this, dealing with people like this. His loyalty to his brother has landed him here, and anyone in the room can feel the fury rolling off of him in waves.
“Three grand.” The director of this … drug house—I don’t want to say meth because I know nothing about it—flicks his coat to the side.
I see the flash of the gun at his belt, it’s unmistakable.
Keaton calmly pulls out his wallet without taking his eyes off the man. “Here is five hundred dollars. You have my word that I’ll be back tomorrow with the rest. Now we’re taking my brother.”
Bowen walks past us, Fletcher lolling all over him, as Keaton steps between me and the two strange men. I slip my hand into his, not because I want him to know I’m okay, but because I feel the wrath of what’s about to come down over us. These men might not harm us, but I know I just made some mistake. I can feel it. And when he leaves his hand limp instead of curling it around mine that fear is confirmed.
“You better be back tomorrow, Nash. Don’t forget that this is a small town, a small county. I know where your mother lives, and I can find out where your pretty redhead here lives, too.”
My lungs seize, the air I don’t let out burning from within them.
Keaton pulls me toward the door. “You have my word.”
34
Keaton
“I told you to stay in the car.”
I breathe in and out of my nose, trying not to scream at Presley. I’m not even sure I could, with the exhaustion and adrenaline downshift flooding my bones.
My car has long since been shut off, put in park in my driveway, but we haven’t gotten out. If we did, I’d have to invite her inside to have this conversation, and I don’t know what I want to do yet.
Why had she shown up here tonight? What did she want to talk about before all hell had broken loose?
My God … Fletcher was messed up with the drug dealers who apparently started a meth house just over the county line. How the hell had he gotten involved in that? I knew his drinking was getting out of control, but this?
I look at the steering wheel of my car as if it will provide answers. I’m not sure if I want to punch it until my hands bleed, collapse my head in my hands and cry, or pray to my father, wherever he is, and ask what the plan is? What do I do? I’m not equipped to help my brother with something as big as getting clean from meth.
And then there is Presley.
Seeing that guy touch her, the gun on their leader’s belt and the place I’d taken her to? Having her there was more than I could bear. I’d needed to help my brother, to get him out of there, but I couldn’t breathe the moment she’d walked into that hell hole. All I wanted to do was abandon every thought of saving my family, of being the leader of the Nash boys, and carry her the fuck out. Over my shoulder like a caveman.
I’m livid she didn’t follow my instructions to stay in the car.
“I know, I’m so sorry. I thought … I wanted to help …”
“Well, you didn’t help!” My voice is louder and filled with more rage than I wanted to let bleed into it. “You only identified yourself to them. Do you realize how reckless these guys can be? This isn’t New York, Presley. There aren’t cops keeping real tabs on these guys. They roam the surrounding areas praying on the weak and for the most part, going unchecked. And now they know your face.”
She has the decency to drop her eyes in shame. “I couldn’t let anything happen to you.”
And in her recklessness, she’d let everything happen to me. When that creep had put his hands on her, I’d seen my life flash before my eyes. I was in too deep, with a woman who had no regard for her well-being or the feelings I’d confessed to her. Feelings she hadn’t returned.
“I think we should … take some time.” The words feel like sawdust in my mouth.
“What … what are you saying?” Presley’s voice notches up an emotional octave.
My right hand scrubs over my face. I haven’t been able to process anything that has happened in the last three hours, my brain is fried, my emotions are all over the place and I know I’m going to fuck this up but I don’t care.
“I’ve dedicated a lot of time to you in the past couple of months. And I’ve really enjoyed it … but I have a life here. I have people I need to take care of. You … you make that complicated.”
“So, you’re saying, that because of who I am, because of how I affect you, you want to end this? You’re telling me that you feel too deeply about me, and I’m reckless, and it’s dangerous because it makes you stray from your same-old routine? Well, excuse me for bringing a little spontaneity to your life. Excuse me for trying to better you as a person.”
Her words sting.
“Oh, come on, Presley. I saw you the other night when I told you I was in love with you. You looked like you were about to sprout wings and fly into the atmosphere. Anything to get away from me as fast as you possibly could. I told you how I felt about you and you avoided me for almost an entire week. Don’t tell me this was moving at the speed you wanted it to. You’re so freaked out about how we feel abou
t each other that you can’t even say it back, let alone be around me. From the very start, you had no intention of putting down roots here. I think … I think this is going to be best for both of us. I think we both knew from the beginning that we were too different to ever work. You said it on our first date. That you didn’t know if you could see us together. If we’re being honest, this”—I point back and forth between us—“might have been dead on arrival. Maybe it’s good that it’s ending before either of us get seriously hurt.”
My words are lies, burning their way out of my throat. I was already seriously hurt. My heart had been broken the second she hadn’t returned the feelings I’d told her about. But there was no point damaging my ego, and my pride, even further. Closing myself off would have to do.
Is this why Katie had just left all of those years ago instead of breaking up with me in person? Because it was easier than having the conversation, than cutting yourself open and bleeding and then trying to stitch it all back up. How I wished I could do that instead of sitting here being a full-on masochist in front of a green-eyed beauty.
“That’s really how you feel?” I can hear the tears in her throat, see the sparkle of them out of the corner of my eye as they roll down her cheeks.
But I refuse to look at her. I only nod.
“Okay, then. If that’s what you want. We’re done.”
Her words aren’t mad or angry. They’re worse. They’re final. Empty and hollow.
As soon as they leave her mouth, she’s opening the passenger door and fleeing into the night. I almost want to get out, to make sure no one follows her home, but that would be hypocritical.
I didn’t have to worry about her anymore. We were over.
And out of everything that had happened tonight, our demise was the thing cracking my heart into icy, bleeding shards.
35
Presley
He’d dumped me and I didn’t even have the courage to tell him that I was going to stay in Fawn Hill.
I’d been too much of a wimp to tell him that I was going to buy the space for the yoga studio.
And worst of all, I was far too scared to tell him that I love him back when he accused me of running.
Part of the reason Keaton had ended things between us was because I’d been his weakness. His distraction that kept him from fulfilling all the duties of his life. To know that I was the thing that made him reckless that threw his schedule off balance … shame wasn’t a big enough word to describe what I felt.
Keaton Nash was nothing if not a stand-up, responsible, in-charge kind of guy. He thrived on order, and I’d thrown his life into chaos. My personality, my instincts, the way he blew off his normal life to be with me instead … it devastated me that I was the cause of his turmoil.
And to know that Fletcher could have ended up in much worse shape if Keaton hadn’t ignored that third phone call … God, it killed me. My heart physically hurt knowing that just another second wasted, and he could have been gone.
Keaton’s words had hurt, like a burn branding my shame with each syllable. The things he’d said about me being freaked out, about me not wanting to stick around, about our relationship being dead on arrival … they stung so badly because they were true.
But I was at fault too for the way my heart felt now. Like the skin had been flayed off. As if it were a dead machine rotting for spare parts inside my body. The ache I’d been rubbing at in the middle of my breastbone all week was the cause of a spark of joy, of hope for a future, being fully stamped out.
I’d gone to Keaton’s house that night with the intention of telling him that I love him. That I am in love with him. And within a couple of hours, the fire that Grandma had lit under me to tell him how I felt had been completely extinguished.
My heart was broken. What he’d said to me, that we’d been “dead on arrival”? I could feel the lashings he’d doled out on it.
Like everything else in my life, maybe my romance with Keaton was fleeting. All the things that happened to me only lasted for a very short time. I glimpsed happiness or success, and then it was gone. A wisp of a dream, a shooting star gone too soon.
I’d been moping around the store for the last week, slinking behind the alley to walk or drive home a route that took double the time than if I just headed down Main Street. But that would put me in a direct path to spot the vet’s office. And then I’d slow down, press my foot to the brakes, just to see if I could catch a glimpse of Keaton.
And that was pathetic. So I was instead, like the mature adult that I was, driving double the time and avoiding the places I knew he’d be.
In better news, I wasn’t running scared. The man I love may have broken up with me and called me reckless, but I was trying to be far from that. Because I may not be creating a love life in Fawn Hill, but I sure as hell was building a life. I’d decided to stay, and the first act to furthering that was telling Grandma to put the bookshop on the market.
It had stunned a lot of residents when she’d done it, and we both knew they were gossiping about the two of us and my involvement with her giving up the store. None of them knew what we were planning … well, except for Jerica Tenny, the realtor who was helping me look at commercial listings for the yoga studio I wanted to open up.
Jerica was a slim, short woman probably around the age of my mom, except she looked nothing like the realtors I’d dealt with in New York City. She was the kind of motherly figure who looked like she baked pies and sewed costumes, instead of being the real estate maven of Fawn Hill. Which I mean, probably wasn’t as demanding as the city, but Jerica was whip smart and fair. I actually really liked her.
“This space just dropped in price because the buyer who bought the building was going to convert it, but the idea never passed the town planning committee. So, it’s within your budget, and I could probably get them to come down a bit so that you’d have enough to get a loan to fix the space as you want it.”
Jerica led Grandma and me around the half-finished space. I watched my footing, carefully trying not to step on nails or piles of sawdust. The ceiling was … non-existent, and some of the walls were half-installed. It needed paint, hardwood, an outfitted front desk space, a locker room, cubbies …
But. It was the first location she’d taken us to see that had floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. The natural light in here was off the charts. And if I was forced to teach inside rather than in the park, I’d take all the natural light I could get. The shape of the space was also ideal, I could almost envision where everything would go. And it was within the budget Grandma and I had painstakingly gone over.
“Under budget would be good. This place needs a good spit shine.” Grandma nodded her head.
I’d been taking some basic online business courses at night because if I was going to do this, it was time to buckle down. I’d learn about basic accounting, bookkeeping, customer support, marketing, and all the other things that no one realized went into owning a business. It was overwhelming, yes, but for the first time in my life, I was truly excited about my professional goals.
Looking out the window, I noticed it had another perk. It was located just off the core set of shops on Main Street, on the side toward Grandma’s house. Which meant I wouldn’t have to drive past the vet’s office.
Jerica and Grandma were staring at me now. I knew that they saw right through into my thoughts. A blush creeps across my cheeks. I’m not embarrassed that Grandma knows my heartbreak.
It’s that the entire town knows Keaton dumped me that’s causing the shame. People I don’t even know whisper about me on the street. I can feel their eyes track me as I workout in the park or pick up dinner from Kip’s to take home for Grandma and me. Were they calling me desperate? Did it look strange that an outsider would stay in Fawn Hill after their boy wonder kicked her to the curb?
I try to push the sadness and those shameful thoughts from my mind.
“I think this is the one,” I say with more confidence than I feel.
Jerica smiles, and Grandma winks at me. “I’ll start drawing up the papers.”
36
Keaton
We all take a collective breath as we get back into the car, an uncomfortable, sorrowful silence washing over us.
“If that wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” Mom’s voice breaks, and even though she’s in the back seat, I know she’s dissolved into a puddle of tears.
My eyes shoot to the rearview, where I see Forrest take her in his arms, letting her cry into his shirt. His eyes are bloodshot, and still in a stupor of shock. He wasn’t with Bowen and me last week when we’d saved his twin brother from a meth house and then paid off his debts. For a long time, I think Forrest has wanted to turn a blind eye to Fletcher’s addiction because he loves him, and because it’s easier not to stir up trouble.
Honestly, we’ve all done it. But after the dangerous position he got himself in … Bowen and I knew we couldn’t allow this to keep going. No more seeing if he could pull it together, no more homegrown interventions. Our brother needs help, and now, he’ll get it.
The sign on the building looms over the hood of my car. Calyard’s Clinic. The name masks what actually goes on inside the nice exterior. Drug treatment, detoxing, therapy for addicts, recovery and sober-living education. Fletcher had kicked and screamed when we’d told him two days ago that we were bringing him in. It was only when Mom stepped in, her voice flat and low as a stone pummeled by a river, that he listened. She told him his father was watching that he was disgracing the man who gave him his name. She told him she would not stand by and watch him kill himself. I feel like I’ve swallowed glass just thinking of that moment.
Nash Brothers Box Set Page 16
