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He has a rope tied around the base of a large blackberry bush that has grown rampant. I can see he’s dug into the dirt around the base to cut into the root system and, with work gloves protecting his hands, he starts to pull the monstrously thorny plant from the ground.
Muscles strain and sweat glistens on his body as he pulls on the rope, the roots creaking loudly under the strain. He grimaces against the heat and strain of the job. In Brody style, he has the top of his long hair tied at the back of his head, but a few stray pieces have fallen loose and stick to the side of his sweaty face.
He is all male… raw, powerful, magnificent.
I want him more than I think I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. And it’s not just because of the resplendency of his form, or the model-like perfection of his face. It’s just as much the fact that Brody is a good man that has suffered, yet he bears a noble presence even in the face of his tragic circumstances.
Yes, he is a good man.
Twisted and broken? Probably.
But a good man all the same.
“Stop looking at me like that?” Brody growls, and I realize that he’s glaring at me.
Blinking hard, I swallow past the dry lump in my throat. “Like what?”
“Like. . . ” he says irritably, but then he snaps his mouth shut. He looks as if he’s reconsidering his words, but I can tell he’s also incredibly annoyed with me for some reason. “Never mind. What do you want?”
“I brought you some water. It’s getting hot out here,” I say as I hand the two bottles over to him.
Dropping the rope to the ground, he takes them from me, letting one fall to grass while he opens the other and starts chugging. Of course, it gives me a few moments of unfettered staring at him again, and I choose to watch the way the muscles in his throat work as he swallows.
When he pulls the bottle away from his lips, I redirect my attention to his eyes. He looks at me and wipes the back of one work-gloved hand across his forehead to get rid of the sweat.
The irritable look is still in place.
“Is there something else you want?” he grumbles. “Otherwise, I want to get back to work. ”
“Was the kiss we had last night really that bad?” I blurt out.
Brody’s eyebrows shoot straight up in surprise, and he stares at me blankly for a moment. “What?”
“That kiss… you said it was a one-time thing, so I figured it must have been pretty bad. I just wanted to know. ”
“Christ,” Brody mutters, dropping the empty water bottle to the ground. He bends over and picks the rope back up, getting ready to pull. I think he’s going to ignore me when he says, “It wasn’t bad, okay?”
Brody grips the rope tight and bends his knees, preparing to heave against the colossal bush.
“Then you still despise me for some reason… is that it?”
The rope slackens in his hand, and he turns to look at me as if I’m nuts. “I don’t despise you. I told you I misjudged you. I thought we were past that. ”
“Well, yeah… I thought so too, but if the kiss wasn’t bad, I had to naturally assume you still hated me. ”
“I never hated you,” Brody mutters.
“Yes, you’ve made that clear. So back to the bad kiss—”
“It was not bad,” he snarls at me.
“Then just mediocre,” I cut him off. “I get it. Maybe you could give me some pointers—”
“It wasn’t mediocre—”
“Oh, God,” I say, bringing my hand up to cover my mouth in dramatic fashion, my eyes wide with horror. “It was in that place just above bad, but right below mediocre… that dreaded zone where you had some hope of improvement from bad, but because you can’t make it past mediocre that means you’re a lost cause. ”
“For f**k’s sake, Alyssa, it was a f**king fantastic kiss,” Brody yells at me as he throws the rope to the ground in frustration. “Now, can we just forget about it?”
That’s what I was waiting for.
Hoping for, really.
I give him a soft smile and c**k my head at him in curiosity. “I agree. It was fantastic. So how come it has to be a one-time thing?”
Brody gives a heavy sigh, and his shoulders sag. He glances down to the ground for a moment, and then raises his gaze to mine. His eyes are troubled… sad. “It’s a one-time thing because you and I don’t belong together. I don’t belong in your world, and you don’t belong in mine. There’s no sense in going further. ”
“Why don’t we belong together?”
“Because we just don’t… I’m an ex-con, and you’re an heiress. ”
“So,” I say with a shrug.
“So… I spent years in prison, and you spent years in prep school—”
“I graduated from state school,” I interrupt.
“Whatever. The point is, is that we are like oil and water. We don’t mix. ”
“You’re being judgmental again,” I chastise him.
Running his hand over the top of his head, he blows out a heavy breath of vexation. “I’m not,” he says softly but resolutely. “I’m being realistic. I’m not good enough for someone like you. That’s why it was a one-time kiss, and we really should just laugh about it and be done. ”
“No,” I tell him with conviction. “You’re wrong about this. I believe we are both good enough for each other. ”
Brody turns away from me, grabbing the rope from the ground. Leveraging himself, he prepares to haul the bush out of the ground.
Just before he starts to pull, he tells me firmly as he looks at the rope in his hands. “Well, I don’t believe it, and that’s all that matters. Leave it be, Alyssa. ”
Chapter 11
Brody
Sand, surf, hot sun, and women in bikinis.
Yeah, it’s a beach party, and I really don’t want to be here. I’d rather be holed up in my apartment reading a book or working at The Haven. But I’m here because Jimbo keeps pushing… always pushing… for me to rejoin society. The icing on the cake was when Casey blinked her baby blues at me last night while nursing a beer at the bar and begged me to come.
Fuck if I could deny her, so here I am.
I walk through Hunter and Gabby’s house, straight out onto their back deck. I’m hit with loud music and even louder voices as dozens of people hang on his deck, which overlooks the ocean, and even more people are down on the beach partying. There’s a volleyball game in progress, and a huge propane gas cooker down on the beach that’s being manned by a couple of locals where they’re grilling shrimp, scallops, and steaming oysters in large, propane pots. My stomach rumbles at the thought, because one of the big things I missed while in prison was fresh seafood.
Grabbing a bottle of water out of a tub of ice on the deck, I look around for a familiar face. I see a few I know from high school, but they all turn away once they catch my eye. The important people I’m looking for… Hunter, Gabby, Casey… okay, maybe Alyssa… I don’t see, so I walk down the staircase and onto the beach.
When I reach the hot sand, I pull my t-shirt off, tucking the end of it in my back pocket, and kick my flip-flops off. A sense of peace fills me as I close my eyes and tilt my face up to the scorching sun, letting it bake me from the outside in. The smell of the ocean and the sand sifting between my toes… I’m where I’m supposed to be, and for the first time since getting out of prison, I actually start feeling a connection to my home again.
“About time you showed up. I thought you had bailed,” Casey says as she punches me lightly in the stomach.
My eyes snap open and I give out an oomph from her pathetic tap, just to make her think she has a wallop.
“I told you I’d be here, brat. ” Of course, my voice is affectionate and Casey takes it as such, as evidenced by the warm smile that lights her face. It’s been many years since I’ve teased her as an older brother, and I find it’s not as bitter tasting as I thought it would
be.
“Want to play volleyball? I’m getting a team up. ”
“Sure… a bit later after we eat if that’s okay. ”
“Absolutely,” she says with a grin, leaning over and kissing me on the cheek. When she pulls back, she smiles at me brightly and starts walking up the stairs to the house. Looking back over her shoulder at me, she says, “I’m really glad you came. ”
“Yeah, me too,” I tell her, my voice rough with emotion, and I realize, I am glad I came. Just to have that bit of interaction with Casey… just to give her something that brought her happiness. It made it worth every bit of discomfort I might suffer by being at a social event.
Glancing around, I see Hunter down the beach a bit and he waves to me. He’s with Gabby, Savannah, Wyatt, and Alyssa, who are all standing around with beers in hand. My stomach knots over the prospect of seeing Alyssa. I knew she’d be here since she’s one of Gabby’s best friends, and I hope our last conversation put enough of a buffer between us to erase the memories of that kiss.
I can’t believe she actually got me to admit that our kiss was mind-blowing. She was devious in the way she went about it, and I walked right into her trap. By the time I realized what she was doing, I couldn’t get my bearings and had a hard time understanding what she was trying to say.
Only in the quiet of my apartment that night did I fully start to understand that she wanted to develop something with me. She wanted another kiss, but she was also telling me that we could be together, and that implied a relationship.
She’s crazy as hell, of course, to be thinking that. Alyssa Myers may not be at all like the spoiled, entitled, princess I believed her to be, but she definitely has no business getting dirtied up by someone like me. Way too much baggage, and who wants to bring their felon boyfriend home to meet their parents?
Like I said… crazy as hell.
I head across the sand toward them, trying not to stare overly hard at Alyssa, but staring at her all the same. She looks amazing in a black bikini top and a pair of cut-off denim shorts that ride high up her smooth legs, whereas the waistband sits low on her hips. It’s really nothing more than a narrow band of denim that’s barely covering her ass and yet, while more is covered up than I’m sure her bikini bottom would, I find the promise of what lies beneath to be sexier than actually knowing.
The only thing I don’t find appealing as I approach is that she’s standing off to the side of the group with our friend, Wyatt. He’s been best friends with Hunter since we were all kids, and a very good friend to me over the years. He’s a cop, yet never once did he turn his back on me. He even came to visit me in prison on several occasions.
What I don’t like is the close proximity in which Wyatt and Alyssa are standing, his head bent down slightly as they talk quietly. It’s clearly a private conversation, and I’m not all that surprised by the jealousy that cramps my belly.
I firmly believe I can’t have her, but it doesn’t mean that I like anyone else making a play for her. But why wouldn’t Alyssa go for a man like Wyatt? He’s good looking, successful and hey… he isn’t branded a murderer. He’s someone that she should be with, for sure.
“What’s up, bro?” Hunter says, holding his fist out for me to bump. I oblige, because it’s apparently the cool way to greet others.
“Not much. Ready to eat some seafood,” I tell him as I open my water up to take a swallow.
“It should be ready in about an hour. Until then, take a seat and relax,” he says as he points to one of the empty beach chairs.
I do just as he suggests, because while it’s a party and I should be mixing and mingling, there is nothing that I would like more than to just sit on the beach, look out over the sun-dappled water and relax peacefully for a while.