Colt’s sporting a thigh-high cast with a dozen different signatures scrawled over the front. There’s a drawing of a naked woman upside down that he probably penned himself with his dick.
“What happened to your leg?” I don’t bother with hello.
“Fell off a roof two weeks ago.” He presses out a dull grin, and I see Mitch hiding behind his face like a ghost. “Glad it wasn’t my neck.”
“Yeah, well, better luck next time.” I yank on my baseball cap. “Aim head down. You’ll get it right eventually. Where’s your brother? Rolling around with a broken back somewhere?”
“China. Building homes for orphans.” He runs his fingers through his hair. Girls used to fall over themselves trying to get Colt into bed. They thought he was some god who was going to rule their world with his pearly smile and cut abs. Now look at him. Tumbling off roofs, barely able to keep the family business afloat. They can’t save Townsend. Hell, not even I could save Townsend. There’s not enough alcohol in the world to pull off that miraculous feat.
“Sounds like Mitch is a real hero,” I say.
Colt and Hudson somehow managed to stay friends after my mother devoured their father like an anaconda. The blame should probably be the other way around. Young widow, fragile mindset, vulnerable, but it was my mother in question, and the word vulnerable is nowhere near her lexicon, let alone her person—not after my father died—not a moment before. Everything she does is calculated, and if she wanted to bag a very married Townsend, then, by God, that’s just what was going to happen. And it did, for a good long while until he died of a heart attack right there tucked between her legs.
Hudson and Colt could let it go, but not Mitch. He acted like I personally plunged a knife in his back when he wasn’t looking. He was already with Lee at that point. First she dated Colton. That’s when I hooked up with her at a party. She was mad as hell at Colt. Best night of my life, even if I was drunk out of my mind. So was she, which isn’t like her, and that probably explains the sleeping with me part. Soon after, she broke up with Colt, and it’s not too hard to understand why. I spent the summer with relatives on the East Coast, and when I came back she was with Mitch—missed my chance. I always wondered what would have been different if I had stayed. I don’t believe Mitch Townsend was ever Lee’s destiny, mostly because I don’t believe in that destiny crap unless it concerns Lee and me. Nope. Mitch Townsend wasn’t Mr. Right, just Mr. Right Place at The Right Time. Lee got comfortable that’s all. She’s loyal—doesn’t know when to quit. I know this because every now and then I’ll look at her, and sparks fly. You can’t deny chemistry like that. Lee might, but I never said she wasn’t above lying.
“Say a prayer for him.” Colton’s lips keep flapping like anybody cares. “He’s gonna need it.”
“Will do.” Dear God, please let Mitch drop dead in China, preferably between the legs of another. Either gender will do. Ah heck, make it a big hairy woman.
I blink a smile over at Colt. “Just sent one up.”
2
Missing You
Lee
My limbs swim over the bed in search of a tactile response—for arms or legs. There’s a mental hiccup just after I wake and instinctually I reach for him. For a brief moment I believe he’s still here, close enough to touch, then it all comes back to me, Colt and his broken leg—Mitch on the other side of the planet. Not even the tiny being that flutters in my belly can comfort me. The void he left eats through the darkness. It drills into my soul with a weight as heavy as the sea.
Eleven days without my husband and I’m starting to forget how to breathe. I can’t see past the permanent lens of tears anymore. Eleven days without contact. No phone, no email. He said, worst case, there’ll be no phone coverage and you won’t hear from me. It’s been eleven days, and it’s worst case. Nothing—not one damn word.
The alarm on the nightstand blinks in a panic—two o’ eight. There’s no point in trying to pretend to sleep, so I call Colton and coerce him into coming over.
I scuttle downstairs in the dark, waiting for the trail of headlights to illuminate the night as I nestle on the couch. It’s soupy out as a dense fog pushes over the landscape thick as batting unfurling in bolts. I glance up at the three-quarter moon spraying its beams over the haze. It ignites the neighborhood with its glittering magic. A part of me is convinced I can walk through that precipitous bloom and land on the other side of the world—touch Mitch.
I’ve never been afraid of the dark. Contrary to popular opinion I rather enjoy it. I like to sit and bask in its stillness, take in the world robed in its midnight splendor. There’s something relaxing about a room void of any ocular energy. I like the way the air shifts and takes on a strange heft—the way its weight presses against you like a body. The dark can comfort you far more than the light can if you let it. The light magnifies all the flaws in the universe, but the darkness lends a certain magic to the world. That’s the reality I’d much rather live in.
Katrice and her husband, Steve, live a half block away. They’ve only been married a couple months, but I don’t have the balls to ask her to come over this late. Colton is another story. Him I’d ask to dig in the sand until he found diamonds at this late hour. He owes me. He owes Mitch.
Twin lamps light up the street like a flare before landing harsh in the driveway.
When I called, he didn’t sound the least bit tired. He sounded irritated more than he did roused from a hard-earned slumber. The only thing he likely abandoned for me tonight was his hard-on.
I watch as he jogs up the walkway. Same broad shoulders, same flame of golden hair as his brother and for a second I let myself believe it’s Mitch—that he’s come home early to surprise me. Then Colt comes in clear with his schoolboy swagger, that get-in-my-bed grin—nope, definitely not Mitch.
I push out a tiny smile and hold the door open. A crisp breeze whistles in and inflates my nightgown like a flower before I tighten Mitch’s cashmere robe over me.
“You’ve got timing, you know that?” He gives a mild look of irritation as he steps inside.
Truth is, my eyes were ready to close off the world, heavy as anchors just before he pulled in. I could have gone to bed, but I promised Mitch I’d make Colt lose sleep at least once, and tonight seemed as good as any. I’m sure Mitch will dream up some supreme punishment later that involves manual labor and long hours, both of which Colt is spectacularly allergic to.
I lock my arms around him tight and take in his scent—musk and beer, a woman’s perfume lingers on his neck like a poltergeist. The girth of his body against mine, feeds me on some level. For years people thought Colt and Mitch were twins, and tonight they could be. I pull back and inspect him for signs of my husband. I see him there in the cheeks, the perpetual smile in his eyes, those perfect bowtie lips.
“Were you closing a deal?” I ask.
“Negotiating.” His brows dip as he frowns.
Colton is in the business of using women, not to be misconstrued as a player. These women demand to be utilized in the most sexually degrading manner possible. They line up for his dominance, desire him—worship at his feet until he points his unholy crutch in their direction.
“Shall we?” I tease, leading him up the twisted stairwell that leads through the attic until we emerge in a bath of dense salt-air. It was Mitch’s idea to add a rooftop patio—that way we could see the moon dance over the water, he explained. He said we wouldn’t want to miss it. And tonight the moon shimmers its spell over the Pacific like a song. It spells out I love you over the ocean like a poem written in the waves. Mitch was right—we wouldn’t want to miss this.
Colton takes a seat next to me on the glider. He hikes his cast up on the small rattan table and groans.
It’s so beautiful here. The beach house was Mitch’s gift to me, to us. And it’s times like this when I take in the grand scope of the sea—glittering and black—that I realize it’s one gift that will never stop giving.
“I miss him,” I
whisper, pulling Colt’s arms over my shoulders to keep from shivering. The ocean shouts as it detonates over the shore. It demands our attention at this late hour, filling our ears with its rushing fervor. There’s something magical about hearing the consistency of the waves as they crash, listening to them whisper an apology to the shore after the harsh beating.
Colt leans in and singes a hot breath in my ear. “He misses you, too,” he says it muffled through a yawn.
“I bet you never planned on going. Bet you broke your stupid leg on purpose.” God knows he’s done more creative things to escape an honest day’s work.
“Stupid, huh? I get it,” he moans with his lids half-shut. “You dragged me out here to tell me how much you hate me.” He rubs the sleep from his eye with his palm. “You want to push me off the balcony?”
“Only if you let me.” I let out a little laugh and expire it in a sigh. “I’m sorry.” I nuzzle into him and trace the pocket on his T-shirt. “Calling you was a mistake.” I strum my fingers just under his neck as if I were plucking the strings on a guitar. I thought Colt and I could make music once. But it was Mitch who made me sing. “I should have gone to bed—washed my hair in tears.” It comes out low, morose. After my parents died, tears were the only constant in my life. Not even Kat could cure the pain. But this is an altogether different kind of misery. The pain of missing Mitch has multiplied, blossomed into a thing—a monster—I can’t see past the heartache anymore.
“I don’t want to feel like this.” I let the tears burn hot tracks down my cheeks. They roll into the seam of my lips, and I taste the salt and the pain—nothing but a hot wash of agony I could drink by the gallon.
“Hang in there kid. Just three more days.” Colt shakes my knee trying to snap me out of my hormone-inspired stupor. “We’ll head to the airport, bright and early. We can hold up a big fat sign that says, Don’t even think of pulling this shit again, Mitch.”
I stifle a laugh. “You miss him?”
“Of course, I miss him.” Colt sinks down and wraps an arm around my waist. “He’s my little bro. Annoying as hell, but I need him. He’s pretty good at keeping the funds fresh in my bank account—keeps me out of trouble, mostly—and he took you off my hands didn’t he?”
It was Colton I dated first, then Mitch. Really I was using Colt to get to Mitch, but he grew on me, and we dated three solid months.
“This could have been our baby,” I tease, placing his hand high over my stomach.
Colton is a far cry from his brother. He couldn’t sustain a wife or child on his best day, at least not one set of each. That would be like a tiger living under water, it couldn’t happen.
“Believe me, Lee. You’ll have my baby someday. I’m just having Mitch train you.” He digs a smile in his cheek. “When you’re good and ready, I’ll come around and take back what’s mine.”
“And Mitch?” I’m completely amused.
“He can be our cabana boy. He’ll run around—cook our meals, do the laundry.”
“You know what would be fun?” I reach up and pinch his ear. “If you were the cabana boy. Of course, you’ll have to change diapers and give baths.”
“Mitch can change diapers.” He dips down and plants a warm kiss over the top of my head. “I’ll give you a bath—you can sit on my lap while I do it.”
“Stop.” Typical Colt—all innuendo and nowhere to go.
He tightens his grip around my shoulder. “What do you think Mitch would do if he knew we were sitting in the dark entertaining the idea of bathing together?”
“Nobody is entertaining that idea but you.” The sky brightens with a sliver of lightning. It cuts through the navy sky like a sword in some intergalactic declaration of war.
A storm rolls in on the crest of ominous clouds. I’ve never been one to romanticize the notion of a summer storm. My parents died on a night like tonight, leaving my uncle to raise Kat and me. He passed away my last semester in college.
Clouds gather thick and full in strange hues of pinks and grey while the moon cleverly amplifies itself from behind. The night lights up like a broken chandelier, followed by a primal growl. I pull Colton’s arms tight around me and pretend he’s Mitch. “Thank you for coming home,” I whisper in secret.
He brushes a quick kiss over my ear. “You know I love you.”
Mitch
A crowded room filled with the pungent scent of body odor, distracts me from the fact I damn near broke my back digging in soil that could double as concrete.
Bodies swarm around the tiny room, hot and sticky. The humidity in the air bites through my nostrils like a toxic stew. They talk in whispers while I sit against the wall, trying to keep my eyelids from closing permanently. I can’t remember the last time my muscles ached like this. Swear to God, I’ll never complain about losing a day in the vineyard again. Townsend field has nothing on China.
I steal a quick glance around the room for a sign of the clowns I’m here with. It only took four days for each of them to crawl under my skin, and now two weeks have drifted by and I’m ready to start breaking more than a few legs. It was my idea to head back to the place we’re staying at and crash, but I was outvoted by the group and forced to attend a “house meeting”—a glorified Bible study that has all the appeal, and legality of a mafia meeting. It’s not quite a house we’re in, either. It feels more like a bunker, a dimly lit canal with no beginning and no end. We’ve crammed ourselves in a hideaway out in the country to hold this meet and greet after a blistering day slaving over parched earth. If I knew the soil would be so damn hard to penetrate, I would never have agreed to the job in the first place. On second thought, if Colt had come like he should have, I would have applauded the soil for being so damn stubborn.
A man, draped in a shawl that loosely resembles a potato sack, stands with his hands spread wide. He dispenses all things truth and light with minimal animation to a spellbound community of what feels like hundreds, sardined in this tiny space. He flexes in and out of broken English before diving into Chinese. I manage to catch a word or two before growing sleepy from the Ping Pong effect of it all. You would think we smuggled in illegal contraband and distributed it to unsuspecting villagers the way we dug in like moles. Nevertheless, a healthy number has joined the militia-type group. It all feels so rogue—sneaking around, covering the windows with blankets. Turns out, the good book is covert ops in this part of the country. It’s surreal to me. Lee and I must have half a dozen Bibles lying around. At least one of those is swimming around on the floor of my truck with discarded fast food wrappers. We walk into church like heading to the mall, no worse for wear. Not a fear in the world that we’ll find ourselves staring down the barrel of a machine gun or a prison term.
I force myself to keep my eyes open and take in the scenery. When I replay the scene for Colt, I want him to realize this wasn’t the romantic getaway he sold himself on. It’s panning out to be a tinderbox of heartache with too much suffering I don’t have the cure for and not enough Lee.
The women look beat and tired. Everyone’s so hungry to hear what the man with the plan has to offer. As much as their muscles crave protein, their hearts crave hope. It’s a miracle they believe in anything—that they even care to after the desolate living conditions I’ve witnessed. It’s heartbreaking on a whole new level.
Lee. God I miss her. She wafts over me like a cool breeze.
Three more days until I see her. Everything here is in Lee time. Hours until Lee, sunsets until Lee, dreams until Lee. I see her everywhere, her beautiful face in the hills, the clouds take her shape—I watch her in the sky as she laughs and holds her hands over our unborn child. Even the stars converge to spell out her name. Lee is her own consolation, her own divine universe.
I’m so sick without her, I think I could actually die if I wanted. There’s not another good deed in the world that would make me leave her again. I’d break my own damn leg if it came down to it.
I glance around at the room full of somber expressions
. You could hear the wind blow, the crickets layered beneath the silence. Not even the sound of human breathing exists within these four cloistered walls, just some underground cleric reciting red-letter promises. He strings them out like a lullaby until the world vanishes, and Lee meets me in my dreams with a smile.
A hard thump jolts me out of my slumber.
“Shit,” I hiss, waking with a start.
A loud crash detonates to my left, and my eardrums vibrate from the assault.
I give several hard blinks and startle to a jumble of confusion—legs snake their way around the vicinity in a panic, a blur of bodies switch back and forth until the room begins to drain. Total disorientation sets in, and for a second I forget where the hell I am and what the fuck I’m doing here.
A gunshot goes off.
I hit the floor in time to see a pair of brown leather shoes stomp in this direction and one of them crushes my knuckles.
I snatch back my hand as I try to digest what the hell is happening.
A voice shouts something loud and aggressive in a dialect I’ve never heard, sounds like a rubber band warbling in and out of tune.
It all comes back, China, God—the man in the potato sack.
Shit.
The brief training we received in the “event things went south” jags through my mind. And here I thought the team captain of this junior expedition was offering comic relief as we disembarked from a twelve-hour flight.
Bodies fly over chairs and dart out every exit at once, nothing but limbs scrambling, women screaming.
A small army of men suited up in black fatigues fill the room, each armed with his own personal assault rifle. They kick and shout at the elderly that were unable to make a quick escape and herd them toward the exit, pushing and yelling as if they were lining them up for the firing squad.