Authors: Maisey Yates
“Were you all here the whole time?”
Colton nodded, and so did Lydia. “That's what we do,” Colton said. “That's what I do. It's what I've done ever since you left.”
“I need coffee,” Lydia said, her tone firm, giving every indication that she had no need of coffee, she only wanted to remove herself from the conversation. “Rebecca, why don't you come with me?” She smiled pleasantly at Rebecca, making it very clear that it wasn't optional.
Rebecca didn't look at him. Instead, she turned and went with Lydia without giving them another glance. Probably for the best. He didn't exactly want to play up his connection with her. Both because he didn't want Colton to know about the accident just yet, and because he really didn't want his brother to know about the fact that he had slept with Rebecca.
“That was subtle,” he said.
Colton lifted a shoulder. “That's Lydia. She's a politician. She gets things done one way or another, but not necessarily with subtlety.”
“I'm not going to hurt her,” he said, speaking of Sierra.
“I don't believe you.”
He deserved that. He knew he did. But hurting Sierra was the last thing he wanted and he'd be damned if he let the accusation stand.
“Do you think that I came back to help handle Dad's affairs and cause more damage? That doesn't make any sense. I can't fix what happened in the past if fixing it means making the last seventeen years completely different. The only thing I can do is change what I'm doing now.”
“And then you're going to leave.”
He gritted his teeth. “Plenty of people maintain a relationship with their families while they live in different towns,” he said, echoing what Rebecca had said earlier.
“Yeah, but even you have to admit your track record on that is pretty bad.”
“I'm not going to deny it.” Tension stretched between himself and his brother. Tension and so many years of silence bringing them to this moment. “There were things that I couldn't talk about. Things I still don't want to talk about. But I was young, and I was stupid. I did the easy thing,” he said, nearly choking on the words because there hadn't been anything easy about leaving his family. “But I'm thirty-five years old, I'm not eighteen. I'm not going to handle things the same way now that I did then. It was easy for me to think that time stopped here while I was gone. That Sierra was still a little girl, that you were still a skinny kid. But now, I'm thinking I'm not the only one that's guilty of that. You think that I went away and did nothing, that I learned nothing, that I suffered nothing. I had a life. Seventeen years of it. I'm not the same person I was when I left.”
Colton eyed him warily. “Sure, I hear you. But I'm not sure that I can trust the person standing in front of me any more than I could trust the person you were.”
“Let's meet tomorrow. I want to talk to you about the financial situation. The best I can do is be transparent with you about this stuff. The best we can do is start, right?”
“I guess so.”
Maddy reappeared then, her expression just as guarded as Colton's. “She said you can come in.”
His heart dropped slightly, and he realized then that he hadn't really imagined she would let him visit her. He had expected to get turned away at the door. The fact that Colton, Maddy and Sierra were accepting him in any capacity was more than he had expected.
He had imagined resistance. Outright refusal. It was strange to wrap his head around something different.
He nodded, following Maddy to the door and stopping her just as she started to push it open. “Thank you for calling me,” he said.
“I told you not to come.”
“I know. But would you have listened if our situations were reversed?”
A reluctant smile tugged at her lips, and she quickly forced it back down. “No. But also, I haven't been out of Sierra's life all this time so I would punch you because you would have no right to tell me to stay away.”
“You're protective of her and I get it. I respect it. But I don't want to hurt her, I promise you. I think you're right. I think we are alike. Which means I know, and I trust, that if I mess this up you'll come after me with a knife.”
“I will eviscerate you with the confidence and skill of a woman who is no stranger to self-defense. On that you can trust me.”
“I do.”
“Good,” she said, pushing the door open and indicating that he should go in without her. “Oh, and, Gage?”
He looked at her again. “What?”
“Don't hurt me either.”
That small moment of vulnerability from prickly Maddy made his chest tighten. “I won't,” he said, his voice gravel. And he prayed to God right then that he could keep that promise.
It had been a long damn time since anyone had asked anything of him. Since anyone had expected anything of him. Maddy made him want to try.
She gestured for him to go on, and he did, walking into the darkened room, a curtain that separated the entry from the main part of the room blocking his vision.
“Sierra?” he asked.
“Come in.” He heard his sister's weary voice.
He came around the curtain and his throat tightened, so suddenly, so swiftly, that he could hardly catch his breath.
Sierra was hooked up to IVs and wires, different monitors with various displays that were representative of his sister's life, shrunk down to a pair of green lines. Her blond hair was disheveled, her hospital gown tied crooked, circles beneath her eyes were visible even in the near darkness.
Her husband, Ace, was standing at the head of the bed, his expression one of pure exhaustion and awe. There was a little bundle in Sierra's arms.
“This is Lily Jane Thompson,” Sierra said, beaming as she angled the baby in her arms so that Gage could see her tiny, perfect face.
His gaze flicked to his brother-in-law who was beaming with pride even in his sleep-deprived state. He put a protective hand on Sierra's shoulder, sliding it over to the other, rubbing her gently.
Gage felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. He could see Sierra perfectly as she'd been when he left. A little blonde girl with tousled curls. And here she was, her hair just as messy as it had been back then, holding her own little girl. And she had a husband by her side. A man who was going to take care of her.
She really didn't need him. Hadn't for a long time. And when she had, he hadn't been around. Like all of them. Like everyone he'd left behind.
“Do you want to hold her?” Sierra asked, looking up at him with bright blue eyes. He had a feeling she didn't actually want to relinquish the baby, which was fine by him since the idea of holding something that tiny and fragile scared him shitless.
“I can see her just fine from here,” he said, his voice foreign to his own ears. “She looks perfect to me,” he said, not sure what else you were supposed to say about a baby. Not sure at all what a person was supposed to say in this situation. To the sister you didn't know anymore.
“She is,” Ace said, his tone firm.
Gage had a feeling that Ace would effectively end anyone or anything that ever threatened his wife or daughter.
He respected that. And as much as he couldn't quite believe that Sierra was a grown woman with a baby, as badly as it settled with him in general, he knew that he couldn't have picked a better man for her.
For some reason, that cast his thoughts back to Rebecca. She had an older brother. One who would probably kill him if he had any idea what had happened tonight. There was no way Rebecca's brother, or any man, would ever happily look at him and their sister and think that he was the best man she could possibly end up with.
Good thing he didn't intend on ending up with anyone.
“I just... I had to come and see you,” he said.
“I'm so glad that you did.” She smiled.
“Maddy was right,” he responded.
“About?”
“She said that you were nicer than she was.”
That made Sierra laugh. “It depends on who you ask.”
“Not really,” Ace said. “Sierra is nicer. Unless she's drunk and recently bucked off a mechanical bull. Then she's kind of mean.”
“There's a story there, I take it.”
“There is,” Sierra said, sounding cheerful. “I'm going to tell it to you someday.”
He believed it. And there was something in that simple promise that warmed him. Made him feel... Something a lot like hope.
“Get some rest,” he said. “Thank you again. I'm glad I got to come and see her.”
“Of course. You're her uncle Gage.”
Those words hit him square in the chest. Now there was another person in Copper Ridge who was depending on him. Who was part of his family. His blood. A web that kept on expanding. There was no cutting ties to this damn place.
As he looked around the hospital room, he wondered why he had ever wanted to.
He nodded once, then turned and walked out of the room. It wasn't the best goodbye. But then, he wasn't very good at goodbyes in general.
When he got back into the waiting area, Rebecca and Lydia were there, holding coffee cups. Neither of them seemed to be interested in drinking them, which only served to reinforce his belief that the coffee in question had merely been decoy coffee.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked Rebecca.
“If you are,” she said, sounding slightly dazed. He couldn't really blame her.
“You're just going to go?” Maddy asked.
“I saw the baby,” he said. “So, yeah.”
He didn't know how to do this. He didn't know how to stand around with his siblings and have a conversation that wasn't loaded. He didn't know what to do with the emotions in his chest. He didn't know how to stand there and look at Madison and not pull her into a hug. Because she was a woman now, and not the girl he remembered. Because she had been hurt, and he hadn't been here. Because it had just been so damn long. But you couldn't hug a stranger, even if she was your sister.
And he never really hugged anyone, even if he knew them. Hell, he hadn't even hugged Rebecca and he'd taken her virginity.
“I rode with Rebecca,” he said. “I don't want to keep her too late.”
“I'm not in a hurry,” Rebecca said.
He moved nearer to her, and put his hand on her lower back. “Are you sure? I thought you had to be up tomorrow.”
“You know, I should get going.” Rebecca shot him a deadly glare. And he knew that it had everything to do with the fact that she was afraid of what he might do next in front of his family and Lydia.
He looked back at everyone and noticed the shock on their faces. Letting them all know he had seduced a nice girl like Rebecca would only confirm their suspicions that he was a prick. Probably ease their consciences when it came to hating him a little bit.
But that didn't sit right for some reason. Not after Maddy. Not after seeing Sierra and the baby. Still, there was nothing else to say. Nothing else to do.
So, he grabbed Rebecca's hand and led her out of the hospital.
* * *
R
EBECCA
'
S
HEART
WAS
THUNDERING
, and her head was starting to pound. She felt disoriented, confused and a little bit like she was living the world's longest day. Today, she had kissed Gage for the first time. Tonight, she'd gone to a bar and danced with one of her best friend's best friends, and come very close to propositioning him. Then, she had been hauled out of said bar by Gage, and she had lost her virginity.
Then they had talked. Really talked, with a whole lot more honesty than she liked to employ with people. Then they'd gone to the hospital, and somehow, she had thought it would be a good idea to drive him. Probably because she could sense that he needed her to, just as she could sense that he wanted to pretend he didn't.
Which suited her just fine, because she would rather pretend that he didn't need her to either.
Now, they were back in his truck, and this time he was driving.
“I'll take you back to your car now,” he said, turning onto the road that would take them back to Ace's bar.
“Thank you,” she said. She didn't even know what time it was now. Edging on to last call, if it wasn't closing time altogether.
She felt... Well, she didn't know what she felt. She tried to shrink the evening in her mind, compartmentalize it. She went to the stretch of time she had just spent at the hospital. That walk down the hall with Lydia had been uncomfortable. Lydia clearly suspected that something was going on between Gage and herself, but she hadn't outright asked.
She was familiar with Lydia, but they didn't really know each other, and they had certainly never discussed their dating habits, or anything of a remotely personal nature.
Lydia was mayor of Copper Ridge. And while she was perfectly cordial to Rebecca, she just wasn't the kind of person who would associate with Rebecca. Not beyond campaigning, anyway. Though, Rebecca supposed that as a small-business owner in the town, things were a little different now. But she could never quite shake off the feeling that she was nothing more than a poor, scarred girl from the wrong side of the tracks.
And then, Gage had done his level best to get her out of the hospital as quickly as possible by making physical contact with her. She hated that she had been so predictable. She knew he had only done it to get her moving. She supposed it served her right for meddling. She had no right to meddle in his family business. Moreover, she didn't know why she cared.
She didn't know how she could see him as anything other than the man who had ruined her life. But now it was complicated because he was both her own personal monster and her lover.
Really, only she could make a decision this bad.
She didn't feel better. She didn't feel fixed. She didn't feel like she had solved her problem. In some ways, she would be able to relate to her friends a little bit better. She would at least know what all the fuss was about. Because, as messed up and topsy-turvy as all of the emotions surrounding the sex were, the sex was, objectively, amazing.