Julian grins back. “Yes, but you come back every summer. He waits for that all year.”
A sad but true fact: Rebel was my best friend growing up. My father never approved of any friends I tried to bring home from school, so I never had a proverbial BFF. Rebel was a poor substitution, but he did his best.
“It’s because I bring him carrots,” I announce, holding out the orange veggies. “You starve him when I’m gone.”
Julian chuckles, rolling his dark eyes. “Yeah, he’s neglected. I think he’s fat enough to roll out of the stables now.”
I giggle, and continue on my way, anxious to see my old pet.
Rebel nickers when he sees me, stretching his long chestnut neck out so he can nuzzle my fingers.
“You know I come bearing gifts, don’t you boy?” I murmur, stroking his silky coat. He chomps on his carrots, then nudges my hand for more.
“Nope, that’s it. Julian wasn’t kidding,” I tell him, eyeing Rebel’s barrel sized belly. “You’re getting fat.”
Rebel flicks his ear, regarding my comment with disdain. I giggle. “I’ll come back later and ride you.”
He snorts, and I wander out of the stable, and down the winding trail to the beach below. The smells here assail me… the sand, the sun, the water. It brings back instant memories of playing out here with my older brother Nate. Fun, lighthearted memories.
The images of my brother laughing and running make me smile, until they’re replaced by more recent memories… of a serious, subdued Nate. The Nate who is being groomed to take over for my father. Distinguished and polished, self-disciplined and sharp.
A good Greene.
I swallow hard as I stand staring out across the water, my feet sinking into the wet sand. I pull off my sandals and dangle them in my fingers.
Tilting my face to the sun, I absorb it, soaking it in. The sun means health, and happiness and warmth. I can take all of that I can get.
What if I don’t want to be a “Good Greene”? After everything that’s happened this past year, I don’t know if I want any of it.
But it’s done now.
I start work in the Fall.
There’s nothing to be done about it.
I ignore the nausea in my stomach, fighting to control the billows of anxiety that flood through me. To change the channel in my brain, I focus on something else, anything else that might distract me from my own impending fate.
The first thing that comes to me makes me smile through my panic.
A golden-haired warrior reminiscent of a Norse God.
Brand.
It’s always been Brand, even if he has never known it.
All through college, even though I dated periodically, no one ever stacked up to the image of the perfect man that I held in my head, the memory that I held close to my heart, the memory that sustained me through horrible things.
Brand.
Warmth floods through me and it doesn’t have anything to do with the sun.
I need to see him again.
Not just because I owe him my life, but because I need to see him. It’s a need I can’t explain, a feeling that hearkens back to my youth- and it hasn’t faded over time. If possible, after yesterday, it’s only flared up even stronger.
The memory of his calm face staring down at me as he carried me in his arms sends flutters through my belly.
God, he makes me feel safe.
He makes me feel safe in a world that is dangerous and ugly, a world that has only hurt me.
That’s what it boils down to. No matter what ugliness has happened over this past year, there’s one thing, one person, that can eclipse it, because in my head, he’s always personified everything good in the world.
Brand can take away the ugliness and make me feel good again, even if it’s only an illusion… a temporary illusion.
If I can get Brand to want me, then there must be something good in me, something redeeming, something to balance out all of the black ugliness.
I know the logic is ridiculous, but I can’t help how I feel. And honestly, I’ll cling to any notion that gives me hope.
And that notion is Brand.
I’m only here for the summer, and I doubt Brand will be here long, so the window of opportunity is closing by the minute. After futilely watching for him every summer, I know I can’t waste this opportunity. He’s only here because his father died. This might be my last chance.
I know what I have to do.
Clutching the newspaper under my arm, I drop into my car and head for the hospital.
***
I arrive just as a nurse is going over his discharge instructions.
No weight bearing at all. Keep the wounds clean and dry. Pain pills every four to six hours. Make sure you take them.
I linger in the doorway hesitantly, but then the nurse bustles by.
She smiles. “I’m glad someone is here,” she told me. “He can go home today, but he can’t drive himself. And…um…he doesn’t have any pants.”
I flush at the thought. “No pants?”
The nurse shakes her head. “No. They had to cut them off when they brought him in.”
She bustles away and I look at Brand. He looks so tanned and healthy and strong in the white hospital bed, so entirely out of place in this building full of sickness.
But yet still so alone.
I can’t fathom why his mother hasn’t come. It makes me seethe on the inside, and I’m so terribly sorry that I called her at all. I can only imagine that she’s grieving, but I’m sure Brand is too. He doesn’t deserve to be alone.
As if Brand can hear my thoughts, he looks up.
He smiles when he sees me, a smile that shows off one dimple in his cheek, but doesn’t quite reach his eyes. His eyes take me aback. They’re beautiful, yes. They’re like oceans and oceans of blue. But they’re haunted by something. They scream out his demons to anyone who looks closely enough.
“Hey,” he greets me. “You didn’t need to come back.”
Not exactly the greeting I was hoping for. I would’ve preferred that he was just the tiniest bit happy to see me. But I paste on a smile and pretend it doesn’t matter. I’m good at that.
I toss the newspaper onto his lap.
“No? I had to come back and see the hometown hero, didn’t I?”
Brand’s face scrunches in confusion, but then he scans the article. “Oh, geez,” he mutters. “Perfect.”
That’s sort of what I’m thinking as I stare at him, perfect, but I don’t mention that, either.
“I hear you don’t have any pants,” I tell him instead. I try not to imagine what he looks like without pants, because, God, Nora. He’s injured. In a hospital bed. Get a grip.
He grimaces. “Apparently not.”
“And you can’t drive,” I add.
He grimaces again. “Nope.”
“And I owe you. So let me take you wherever you need to go. After I get you some pants,” I add quickly, red staining my cheeks.
A slow grin spreads over his face. “You don’t want to walk out of here with me naked?” he asks drily.
More than you know, I think.
“Nah,” I say. “We don’t want to give the little old ladies heart attacks.”
Or me.
“What size do you wear?” I ask, trying to put the image of Naked Brand aside.
“36x34,” he answers. “But it’ll be hard to put pants on, because of the knee brace. Shorts will probably be best, but you don’t need to get them. I can…”
He trails off hesitantly.
“Well, I guess I do need to ask you to get them. I don’t know what else I’d do. My bag’s in my truck, but I don’t know where my truck is.”
He sounds annoyed by that, and I laugh. “I can see you don’t like to depend on other people,” I tell him. “I get that. But trust me, I owe you. I could buy you a million pairs of shorts and my debt wouldn’t be paid. And we’ll figure out where your truck is.”
I walk out wh
ile he’s protesting.
I return thirty minutes later with a pair of athletic shorts.
I toss them to him. “They’re stretchy, so I figured they would be easier to slide on.”
“That’s perfect,” he tells me. “I’m not fancy.”
I’m awkward and hesitant, because I don’t know what to do now, not while Brand holds the shorts in his hand, and I know he needs to put them on. He probably needs help standing. His knee is in a stationary brace, his ankle must be sore, and he’s not supposed to bear any weight. And he outweighs me by a hundred pounds.
“How’s this going to work?” I ask him dumbly.
He grimaces. “I hate to ask you, but could you help? Or I can call the nurse…”
I shake my head immediately, rushing to grab the shorts. “Absolutely not. It’s the least I can do.”
I don’t know why my hands shake as Brand pulls back the sheet. I don’t know why I’m hesitant to look at his legs, which lead to his pelvis, which leads to his… Gah. No wonder my hands are shaky.
I grit my teeth and slide the leg hole over Brand’s knee brace, as carefully as I can. I see him grit his teeth as I slide them up, over his bandaged thigh. I’m as careful as I can be, but I know it must still hurt.
My fingers graze the hot skin at his waist, and the smoothness of it is electrifying. It’s silky and velvety at the same time as it is rock hard.
I suck in a breath as his fingers bump mine when he reaches for the waistband to finish pulling them up.
“Well, that was an Olympic maneuver,” he says wryly. “Thanks.”
I nod. “Where’s your shirt?”
He gestures toward the chair, and I grab the black tee, tossing it to him. Taking a step, I untie his hospital gown, glancing at his muscle-bound back as I do.
A bald eagle flies across his shoulder blades, a ferocious expression on its face, its sharp talons exposed and ready to attack. Bold black letters are scrolled above it. I stand on a wall to protect what is mine.
Warmth rushes through me again, through all the hidden parts of me, at the idea of this fierce man protecting what is his.
I can’t help but wonder what that must feel like. To be his. To stand within those strong arms, to kiss those full, firm lips. If I were his, I know he’d protect me until his dying breath. I could sleep every night without a fear, without a doubt. He’d keep the monsters at bay.
I shake the ridiculous thoughts away, and step back.
He’s not mine.
Brand lets the hospital gown fall away and I inhale sharply.
Sweet Mary and all the saints.
God, I wish he were mine.
Washboard abs don’t describe what Brand’s got hidden under his shirt. His chest and stomach look like they’re carved from bronze marble. How many hours in the gym does that even take??
He’s got another tattoo on his chest, some sort of tribal symbol. It almost looks like a Japanese throwing star.
His bicep bulges as he moves, distracting me as he pulls his t-shirt over his head. Another tattoo is there on the flexing muscle. A skull in a beret over two crossed swords. Death Before Dishonor.
I gulp.
Is there anything sexier in the world than this man? Honorable, brave, strong. The trifecta of perfect male attributes.
I gasp when he pulls out his own IV, leaving it dangling on the bedrail.
“Holy crap,” I breathe, eyeing the limp tube. “I could’ve gotten the nurse.”
He rolls his eyes. “And we could’ve waited for an hour. It’s fine. It’s just pulling a needle out. Not exactly rocket science.”
He blots at a tiny spot of blood, and I catch sight of yet another tattoo. I remember seeing it when he was pulling the debris off of me in the café, but I couldn’t make out the words then, not through the smoke and the haze of my concussion. Without thinking, I pick up his arm and turn it over, exposing his forearm.
Black words scrawl from the wrist to the elbow.
Though I walk through the valley of death, I fear no evil.
My lady parts tingle.
This man is like catnip for my vagina.
I gulp. “I like your tattoos.”
Brand glances up. “Yeah, I was lucky. Right after I discharged, they changed the rules. Said that officers can’t have tattoos from their elbows to their wrists. I would’ve been screwed.”
“I like them,” I tell him softly, which is the biggest understatement in the history of the world. I fricking love them. They reveal so much about this man, more than I bet he wants people to know.
Honor. Bravery. Strength. Loyalty.
God. My nether-regions are tingling again.
“Thanks,” Brand answers. He twists away to gather his things on the bed table and I realize that I had still been holding his arm as I pondered his many sexy traits.
Embarrassing.
A nurse comes to help transfer Brand to a wheelchair, and I watch how she does it, filing it away for future use. She also explains to him once again how to clean the wound on his thigh and lectures him one more time about not over-doing it.
“Now don’t put any weight on that leg,” she tells him sternly. “I don’t want a repeat of last night.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Last night?”
She shakes her head. “Mr. Killien is stubborn. He got up in the night by himself to go to the bathroom. Apparently, he didn’t want to use his bedpan.”
He snorts. “No one wants to use a bedpan.”
She scowls at him. “No weight on that leg. Period. You can’t break open your artery again, and you don’t want to put weight on your knee and ankle.” She looks at me. “You’ll make sure, right?”
I nod quickly. To be honest, I’m a bit afraid of the stern old woman.
She wheels him down to the first floor and I trail behind with his sack of belongings. Glancing inside, I just find his pants that they cut off, his wallet and a phone.
I wonder if anyone has called him? If anyone has thought to look for him or check on him?
Because he seems so alone.
It tugs on the maternal place in my heart, the place that wants to keep him safe. He’s obviously seen so much shit, so much terrible shit, all while ‘standing on a wall’ to protect me and everyone else in this country. Taking care of him now would be the least I could do.
And God, I want to be near him.
I want to breathe him in.
I want his goodness to fix me.
Please, God.
We slide the passenger seat of my car all the way back, and between the nurse, Brand and me, we get him situated. His long leg, encased in a knee brace, barely fits.
As I get in, I glance at him. “Just tell me where to go.”
He nods. “Sure. We’re headed to my friend’s cottage out by the lake. I’ll tell you where to turn.”
“Okay.” I head for the exit and Brand runs his finger along the leather-bound dashboard.
“Nice car,” he tells me casually as I turn onto the highway.
I roll my eyes. “Thanks. I wanted a convertible, but my father thought that was too tacky.”
“A Jaguar XJ isn’t anything to sneeze at,” he answers. “Although they’re mechanical pieces of shit.”