Prologue
My little brother had been my best friend.
It was common knowledge around our tiny hometown of Loveless, Texas, that where one Gamble brother went, the other followed.
Our home life wasn’t the best. Our parents had a complicated, volatile marriage. They loved each other deeply, passionately, almost obsessively…They hated each other with the same intensity. At times it felt like Aaron and I were nothing more than props in some overly dramatic soap opera. So my baby brother and I learned early it was better to be anywhere other than home. I never minded him following me around. I liked being his hero. I enjoyed being the one who taught him the basics, like how to play catch, how to fish, and how to drive. I also indulged him by passing along my tips and tricks when it came to getting girls. Although I tended to stick with sports and extracurricular activities that might help me get into a good college, girls were always Aaron’s favorite distraction from what was happening at home.
It helped that Aaron was a good-looking kid. Tall, lanky, and filled with that unpredictable teenage angst that made him broody and unpredictable. He cruised around Loveless on a battered old dirt bike I’d helped him fix up and had just enough disdain for authority to place him squarely in the “bad boy” category. Teenage girls found him irresistible, adults found him uncontrollable. He was a quiet kid, often lost in his own thoughts, but he never had a problem opening up to me. I didn’t think there was a single secret between the two of us.
I was wrong. Very wrong.
I had no idea Aaron was cutting himself. Leaving scars on his body to hide the ones that refused to heal on his heart.
I never guessed his wild mood swings were anything more than puberty and testosterone taking their toll on a growing boy.
I didn’t have a clue my younger brother was silently suffering, internally agonized every single day. His mind was telling him lies, twisting him up and dragging him down…His mind was his worst enemy.
Unfortunately, I also never in a million years would have predicted that Aaron and I would end up falling in love with the same girl. Or that she would be the reason our relationship fell apart.
Kody Lawton had been the center of Aaron’s entire world for as long as I could remember. The Lawton kids, Aaron, and I were all friends growing up, but Aaron and Kody were thick as thieves, almost inseparable, and forever up to no good. Kody was a troublemaker, a fearless rebel, a sassy, smart-mouthed brat my brother thought the sun rose and set upon. But it wasn’t until Kody’s mother passed away, right as she was about to enter high school, that my brother realized his feelings for her went deeper than friendship.
I’d graduated by then. But before I left for college, I asked Kody’s brother Case to keep an eye on Aaron. I knew the death of their mother had hit all the Lawton kids hard. Kody was devastated, and Aaron, even though he was emotionally fragile at best, was whom she leaned on the hardest. Almost overnight they went from best friends to something so much more. For Aaron there was no other girl besides Kody Lawton; and for Kody, Aaron was always going to be the first boy she loved. He adored every untamed inch of her and made her feel accepted and special.
By that time I was too far away—too engrossed in finally finding some freedom and getting to live life on my own terms—to recognize the warning signs. But I did know the way Aaron loved Kody wasn’t unlike the way my parents loved and hated one another. There was zero balance, and little mattered in my brother’s life other than the girl who had stolen his heart. They got engaged the day before Kody graduated high school and started living together soon after. To the casual observer it appeared to be young love flourishing, but on the inside things were a mess. Aaron needed help, but he was too scared to admit it to anyone…even Kody.
She was the one who called me in the middle of the night, crying because she found Aaron huddled in a ball on the bathroom floor slashing his skin. Kody was the one who texted me in a panic when Aaron was so listless and drained he wouldn’t leave bed for days and days at a time. She begged me to come home. Pleaded with me to fix my brother, but I blew her off over and over again. I didn’t know how to fix Aaron, didn’t have the tools required to convince him that he needed help. I tried to comfort him from afar, but I kept my distance. I was selfish, and deep down, I was jealous. Because even with all the turmoil and upheaval Aaron brought into her life, Kody adored him. She loved him like it was the only thing keeping him alive, and maybe it was.
When I did go home to check on Aaron, it felt like visiting a stranger. I was no longer his hero. In fact, I had somehow morphed into his number one enemy. Aaron acted as if he hated me for leaving, for living my own life. It made me wonder if he knew how hard I worked to be a good brother while also hiding my attraction to his one true love. Time and distance didn’t matter. I was in love with Kody Lawton, and I hated myself for it.
I didn’t want to find her beautiful and vivacious. I didn’t want to be charmed by her sharp tongue and no-holds-barred attitude…but I was. On my first visit back home, it suddenly hit me that Kody was no longer a little girl but a young woman. One who was strong, savvy, and endlessly patient with my baby brother. I’d spent my entire life taking care of Aaron, and I couldn’t deny that I was envious of the kindness and compassion she was always showing him. It was an inconvenient crush, especially since I couldn’t distance myself from her emotionally, since we were tied together by our growing concern for Aaron. The many late-night phone calls talking to her about how much she worried about my little brother often left me hurting—for her and for Aaron—but I suffered through, caught between my love for her and my love for him. What other option did I have?
Knowing my feelings for Kody could never go anywhere, I focused on my life away from Loveless. I graduated college, joined the United States Border Patrol, and eventually worked my way up the ranks of law enforcement until I had the opportunity to apply to be a Texas Ranger. I dated here and there. Told myself I couldn’t settle down because my career came first, because I didn’t have enough to offer anyone just yet. The truth was, my whole heart was never invested in finding a new love. It was stuck back home, hung up on my little brother’s soon-to-be wife. I distanced myself more and more from Aaron and Kody, not knowing Aaron’s issues were escalating. I eventually forced myself to stop taking Kody’s calls. I needed to make a clean break, but I never stopped caring about my brother. I called him directly, urged him to get help, and begged him to see someone about his emotional unpredictability. I tried to connect with him, urged him to get out of Loveless, to experience the world outside his own dark, suffocating bubble. I even tried to get my parents involved, but as usual, they were more concerned about themselves than about their children. No matter what I said, or how hard I tried, Aaron brushed off my concern and assured me he would be fine. And I selfishly believed him. It was easier for me that way.
But he wasn’t fine. Far from it.
A couple of days before Aaron and Kody’s wedding, I received a call from Case Lawton, who was working as a deputy for the Loveless sheriff’s office. Someone who lived next to Aaron and Kody had called in a disturbance complaint. When Case got to the house, Aaron was nowhere to be found. The small home they rented was trashed, and Kody was sporting a fat lip and a sprained wrist. Case was pissed at the state his sister was in, and even angrier that my brother was missing and unable to answer for his actions. I was tangled up in an extremely complicated sex trafficking case at the border, so I hadn’t planned on making it home for the wedding as it was. Not that Aaron had bothered to invite me. The distance between us felt insurmountable at that point.