“Sorry. I was trying not to startle you.” She bit her lip and winced from under a green winter hat that brought out the same color in her eyes.
“You failed.” Damn, my head hurt. “That’s a lie. I should have heard you. I must have been lost in all the amazing restoration we’re going to do.”
She gave me a small, soft smile. “It’s okay. I talk to him, too.”
“Who?” I swallowed, hoping she’d say anything other than the truth.
“Sullivan.” She walked farther into the building, eyeing the structure with appraisal.
I could almost see the gears turning in her head, and it was fascinating. Her eyes lit with a fire I hadn’t seen in years, darting over the walls, the windows, and even the fallen beams. She pulled a tablet from her bag and started to write on it with a stylus. Great, now I was watching the graceful way she moved her hands, even with gloves on.
“He wouldn’t have taken it in stride, you know,” she said, breaking my stream of thoughts.
“Sullivan?” His laugh came to mind, filling my chest with a bittersweet pressure that I’d become well acquainted with over the last six years. “Yeah, he would have. He would have jumped in with both feet and a grin and made it all look easy.”
She snorted. Actually freaking snorted. And what was worse was that I thought it was cute.
Cute like a little sister, I reminded myself.
Yeah, okay, I fired back.
“Sure, he would have jumped in with both feet and a grin and no common sense.” She paused, looking over her shoulder at me. “Sully made everything look easy because it was easy for him. It was easy because the town loved him and you loved him. You and Xander tackled anything that was remotely a challenge for him.”
I stuck my hands back in my pockets, hoping the feeling would return to them soon. It had to be in the low twenties today. “I don’t know if I should be insulted or proud.”
“Both.” She grinned and turned back to her tablet, scribbling away. “And let’s face it. Sully would never have been in your position.”
“Because the town would have welcomed him with a smile.” I stepped over the support beam and made my way to where she was taking notes.
“Sure, that too,” she admitted with a shrug. “But I was thinking more along the lines that he never would have gone against Xander. Sully would have taken Xander’s word as gospel and moved on. He never would have stood up like you did—like you’re doing.” She glanced at me, knocking the breath from my lungs.
Green, gold, blue, and bronze. How was it possible for one person to have all those colors in her eyes?
“Maybe,” I conceded once she’d looked away and my brain started working again. “Or maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.”
“Maybe you would have come home after three years,” she said softly, face down in her tablet.
No, I wouldn’t have. Not for one very fucked-up reason.
“Maybe you’d be married to Sullivan.” I didn’t mean to say it.
She tensed but looked up at me after a minute, conflict etched in the lines of her forehead where her hat began.
“Maybe,” she whispered.
Maybe not. The unspoken words hung there between us, where they had no right to be.
Because they were a damned lie. I walked away from her, choosing to examine the joints where the south and east walls met.
Of course she would have married Sullivan. They were Alba’s golden couple. The outgoing boy and the quiet girl who spoke through her art. The ones who fell in love after living next door to each other for years.
They were the fucking storybook, and I was the fire-breathing dragon. And sure, I’d burned shit to the ground, but never them. Never him.
Never her.
I would have rather died than see any of my shit touch either of them.
Yet somehow, I’d given the order, and Sullivan had died in my arms.
And now I was standing here next to the woman he’d loved. The woman he’d wanted to marry. The woman he’d left behind to go join the army, not because Xander was finishing up his three years but because he thought it was cool that I’d just made it through the Special Forces Qualification Course.
I got to wear a green beret.
Sullivan got to wear his dress blues for eternity.
Willow never got to wear our mother’s ring.
I was a grade A asshole for even thinking about Willow or her eyes or how soft her hair was. It was an absolute betrayal of my little brother.
“I have the dimensions on file with the Historical Society, so I think I can get started with this plan. At least the restoration part. You good on structure?”
“Yeah. I have a good enough idea to draft a plan.” I fought my instincts to stay there, facing the corner, blocking out everything in the world besides the grain of the wood before me. Instead, I stood and turned to face her.
“Okay.” She stayed buried in her tablet. “Then, how about we look at the mine on Wednesday? I have a project I really need to finish up tomorrow.”
“Sounds good,” I agreed, willing to say anything if it would mean an end to this moment.
“Okay. I’ll see you then?” she asked, looking up.
“Yep,” I answered with a curt nod.
Her mouth moved like she might say something but then thought better of it. With a forced smile, she said a hurried goodbye and rushed from the building.
When I heard her car leave, I found the strength to move, but instead of leaving, I fell to my knees. Snow melted against the heat of my jeans, quickly soaking the material and hitting my skin with blistering cold.
Still, I kneeled there until my breaths turned even and measured.
Then I looked up through where the roof should have been and stared at the crystal-blue sky.
“I’m sorry,” I told him.
And I was.
I just wasn’t sure if it was for what I’d already done or what I was scared I had yet to do.
Chapter Ten
Willow
“Okay, why are you avoiding me?” Thea questioned.
“I’m not.” I hopped on one foot as I tried to get the other through my tights. “If I were avoiding you, I wouldn’t have picked up the phone, now, would I?”
“See, I would believe that if I hadn’t been calling you for the last three days.”
“Have you?” I lost my balance and fell back onto my bed with an oof. I gave up trying to balance and put Thea on speakerphone.