“There’s nothing to do,” I ground out. “Don’t you get that? I have to go tell Savannah and hope she hasn’t already been told by a dozen other people. Hope there’s some way she actually believes me when I already know she won’t.”
His brows pulled close together before he tugged at the bill of his baseball cap, a slow, heavy breath leaving him. “Stay. Wait until you’re calm. Let us all think of some way to fix this.”
My head shook because he wasn’t understanding there wasn’t a way to. “Move.”
He started stepping away, then rocked back and settled against the door, hesitation pouring from him. “Every time you’ve shown up this past week, I’ve thought back to the day Dad’s will was read,” he said after a moment. “That was the last day we saw each other for nearly ten years. Now every time you leave, I can’t help but wonder how many years it’s gonna be until I see you the next time.”
A grunt of understanding built in my chest. “Yeah, well . . .” I turned my keys over in my hand before reaching forward to put them in the ignition. “You and I are done forever, so I’ll probably see you in a few days.”
Hunter coughed out one of his rumbling laughs, nodding as he did. “All right.” He pushed from the door but didn’t move to leave. Instead, that hesitation grew and grew. “Beau, none of us want this for you or Savannah. All of us . . . we’ll do anything to help y’all.”
My stare fell to the side as that fear I’d been drowning under gripped my throat, making it hard to breathe. “We were already far past help. And now with this?” A miserable sound left me as I finally cranked the engine. My jaw strained as I reminded him, “I’m supposed to be moving out tonight.”
He stood there for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. Well, I hope you don’t. But if you need anything, we’re all here for you. Just maybe don’t go charging at any of the girls, saying you’re gonna kill them.”
A laugh scraped up my throat. “It’s Emberly,” I said, one of my shoulders lifting as if that explained it. As if that proved I wouldn’t have touched her. The girl had been more like a little sister than anything.
“Yeah, and Savannah’s always been like family for the rest of us,” he said, easily showing the similarities between the two. “What if one of us did that to her?”
“I’d fucking destroy you,” I promised softly, my stare searching for my other brother and Emberly, who must’ve gone inside.
“Exactly.” He grabbed my door, his hand tapping the side of it for a second as he thought. “Good luck today, man. I know we talked the other day, but I’m so damn sorry for my part in this. I never wanted this, you have to know that.”
“I do,” I murmured, and I did.
If I put aside all my grief and anger, I did.
I would’ve done the exact same thing, if not worse. I’d just needed someone to blame for my world falling apart.
I grabbed the handle of the door and waited for him to step back before shutting it. But just as I was about to put my truck in gear, I stopped and rolled down the window.
Hunter lifted his chin in question from where he stood, waiting.
“There’s something I said to Peter Rowe the other day, and it’s something that’s pissed me off for ten years.”
Hunter’s chest pitched with his amusement. “Think his brother’s pissed you off for a lot longer than ten years.”
“Yeah, not Philip,” I mumbled, my eyes rolling. “Why didn’t you come to mine and Savannah’s wedding?”
For long seconds, Hunter just stared at me. When he finally spoke, his voice was a mixture of irritation and impatience. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’m asking, asshole.”
A harsh breath left him, his head shaking as he rocked back a step. “Man, why would I have come? You and I had nothing to do with each other before I left for the Army, and then the invitation came all torn up. It was kind of a clue you didn’t want me there.”
“The fuck?” I whispered, thinking back to that time. When Hunter just gave me a look like he didn’t want to play this game, I gestured to the house. “No. No, Savannah and I sat on the living room floor, putting all the invitations in envelopes before addressing them one night. We didn’t do shit to yours.”
“Piper brought it to me—” He stared off to the side before a grating laugh left him. “Piper brought it to me that way,” he repeated as if that explained everything.
“Who the hell is Piper?”
“My ex,” he stated dully. “She hated the idea of this place . . . apparently even just to visit for my brother’s wedding.” He lifted his hands in a way that said there was nothing he could do, but his expression dripped with remorse. “I didn’t know.”
“Why would you?”
It’s like he’d said: We’d had nothing to do with each other, and that was all on me for pushing him away.
Putting my truck in gear, I glanced back at the house and shrugged. “I’d change it if I could.”
“Yeah, I think we’d all change a lot of things if we could.” He stepped closer, his voice barely above the rumble of my truck. “But there’s no getting those years back. There’s no changing what happened. And as much as I wanted to hate y’all for what happened, I can’t. Because what if that had been me with someone else? What if it had been Savannah?”
A muscle twitched in my jaw before I roughed over it with my palm and forced the thought from my mind.
“None of us remembers that night, man, and Savannah knows that. She’s just struggling with what followed.” He rested his hand on my door, expression all worry mixed with encouragement. “Don’t let tonight be something else you can’t take back.”
“She doesn’t wanna talk. She doesn’t want me there,” I said, reminding him of everything we’d talked about the other morning.
He tapped his hand on the door a couple times before backing away. “She just hasn’t given y’all a chance to work through it yet. She will.”
I offered him a nod before reversing and starting the short drive to my place, wishing I had an ounce of the confidence Hunter had. But I didn’t. I hadn’t even before the bullshit with the school’s vice principal happened.
Now that our kids were on their way to Utah with Savannah’s parents, I was honestly terrified for what waited for me inside the walls of what had always been mine and Savannah’s haven.
The word divorce had already been said so often, even by our daughter. I was afraid my wife was about to make it a reality.
I sank deeper into the seat of my car and stared vacantly ahead at my parents’ house . . . my mom’s house, I guessed. The house I’d only moved out of a little over a month before. Just to have my world shatter beneath my feet.
Again.
I clenched my teeth tight against the fresh wave of pain and grief, letting my eyes close when the burning there became too much.
After finally getting everything we’d ever dreamed of, after walking into the plantation house through the front door with the keys in hand, Savannah and I had gotten right to work.