The Return of Brody McBride (10 page)

“Up until today, I had two daughters I’ve been raising on my own.”

“I should have been here, would have if I’d known.”

She ignored the implied accusation she should have told him.

“You want to know why I’m sad,” Rain said defiantly. “Because I’m the one who’s looked in those girls’ blue eyes and tried to be everything to them when all they wanted was their father. Every time I watched them do something for the first time, every birthday they celebrated, every time they hit a new milestone, got a good grade, were happy or sad, skinned a knee, discovered something new and you missed it, it tore another piece of my heart to shreds. Every time they asked about you and wanted you here, I’m the one who comforted them and assured them that if there was anyone you could love it would be them.”

“I do love them,” Brody snapped, stomping down his hurt and letting his anger reign. “I love you. I’ve loved you my whole damn life. I never stopped loving you.”

“Don’t you dare say you love me. If you loved me, you wouldn’t have left. You’d have stood on my porch pounding on the door, demanding I come out and face you and everything between us. You would have let me rage and then found a way to get me to forgive you. If you loved me, you’d have known I loved you enough to forgive you anything.”

“Then forgive me now.” He raked his fingers through his short hair and let his hand fall to his side. His eyes pleaded with her to forgive him, it meant something to him.

“Don’t you get it? I forgave you the day I found out I was pregnant, that you hadn’t left me all alone in this world. I forgave you again the day I brought both those girls home, even though I was terrified to be left alone with them. I forgive you every day I have them, because they give me everything you didn’t. I forgive you for sleeping with
her,
because I have them. After everything we shared, you turned your back on me.”

“Rain, I’m sorry.” Misery laced his every word.

“Yeah, well, you can take sorry and shove it up your—”

“Mom?” Dawn stood directly behind Brody where no one had seen her.

Rain pulled herself together and shifted her glare from Brody and rested her eyes on her daughter, who looked more and more like her father every day. She took a deep breath and tried desperately to remember she couldn’t have an all-out yelling match with Brody with the girls only one room away.

“Yes, honey.”

“Why are you yelling at him?”

Rain snuck a peek at Brody. His eyes went soft on his daughter, and he cocked up the corner of his mouth, concerned about Dawn overhearing them fighting. She’d give him credit for understanding they weren’t doing the best they could by their children. He cared. She could even imagine how many times he watched his father and mother fight. How often those fights turned into something very ugly—for his mother and him and Owen. She didn’t want Brody to fall back on what he’d known as a child. In order to make sure they didn’t, she needed to stop goading him into a fight.

“You know what, sweetheart, I don’t know why I’m yelling. Your dad and I have a lot to talk about, but yelling won’t fix anything, because there’s nothing broken here. It is what it is. Can’t be changed.”

Dawn looked confused, and she couldn’t blame her. Rain was confused herself. As much as she wanted to rage against Brody and all the injustices in her life, it wouldn’t change a damn thing. “I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t have yelled at him. Brody, I’m sorry. Let’s eat,” she said, putting a stop to the whole thing.

Moving to the sink, Rain grabbed the colander and dumped the stringy noodles into a bowl. She handed it to Owen, who’d stood quietly glaring at Brody with a look of disgust. “Owen, take this to the table. I’ll bring the sauce.”

Owen walked out without a word, making her sigh all the more. Dawn remained next to Brody, watching them both with worried eyes. “Honey, go on in. We’re coming.”

“Are you going to make him leave?”

“No, honey. We’re having a family dinner, and Brody is family.” When he frowned and his eyebrows drew together, she thought she might have gone a little too far.

“We aren’t done.”

“Not by a long shot,” she fired back. She turned her back on him, grabbed the ladle and the pot of sauce, and walked out of the kitchen, leaving Dawn looking nervous and Brody trying not to look as angry as he was. Rain tried not to notice the way he rubbed his hand over his left thigh. He was probably in some pain from carrying Autumn on his back. He hadn’t complained or told her no. Another thing she gave him credit for. So how come she couldn’t put the anger aside and just talk to him? Because she finally had him in her sights and she could take aim with all the things she’d given up to raise their girls.

There it was again. Their girls. It’s how she’d always thought of them. Somehow, she’d never really taken it in that every time she looked at the girls she daydreamed of how it should have been, her and Brody raising them together.

She was angry because he hadn’t stuck around to make that dream come true.

She’d been eighteen, dreaming of going off to college, marrying Brody, having children, having it all. Part of her wish had come true, but something had always been missing. Him.

She’d given up college reluctantly, but willingly. She could live without it. It was difficult to accept that after everything that happened, she couldn’t live without Brody. It hurt too much to watch the girls grow up without him, to have them feel as if something was missing from their life, too.

Dawn took her seat at the table. Rain smiled at the two girls. They’d left a place for their father between them, and Rain’s heart melted. Despite her anger toward Brody for leaving her, she made sure the girls knew the Brody she’d loved. They begged her every night for more stories about him. So easy to remember the good times. Meeting at the bleachers for lunch in high school. Afternoons on the weekend, riding horses at his ranch. Watching him play baseball and hitting a line drive down third base, him running the bases with a cocky grin on his face, tipping his hat to her in the stands. Friday night parties with friends, sitting around a bonfire, snuggling together to keep warm—and be close.

She placed the sauce on the table and gave Owen and her father a halfhearted smile to let them know she was okay. She headed back to the kitchen to grab the salad and garlic bread. She caught Brody slipping a pill bottle back into the front pocket of his jeans. The look of shame and guilt on his face hurt her heart. She couldn’t imagine how it made him feel to have to need those pills. His father drank himself near to death for most of his life. He’d always hated that his father couldn’t get by without the booze. Now, here he was, a man who couldn’t get through the day without pills to take away his pain and help him cope with everyday life.

Home, he was fighting another kind of battle. She wasn’t exactly showing him she wasn’t one of the hostiles in this world. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if he’d rather go back and fight insurgents, rather than face off with her. This was personal for both of them, and that meant it was messy and complicated. Where he’d been for the last few years, things had been easy—identify the enemy and take them out. Here, they had old wounds, old feelings, past hurts and baggage. The only thing keeping them both from fleeing this field of battle: the stakes were too high. Two little girls counted on them to not be those teenage kids who’d fallen sloppily in love and let it all fall apart—or self-destruct, in Brody’s case.

Yeah, that’s exactly what he’d done. She’d known him long enough to understand whenever something went well for him, he’d find a way to screw it up. She had just been naïve enough to believe he’d change for her. Stupid. Brody was Brody. And wasn’t that one of the reasons she loved him. He never lied or made you think he was anything but what you saw in front of you. He’d never pretended to be her knight in shining armor. He’d always been a badass with a big heart where she was concerned. Too bad that night with Roxy he’d been too much the I-don’t-give-a-damn-what-anyone-thinks guy and not the I-only-care-what-Rain-thinks guy. His fault for letting Roxy push his buttons and opening the door for him to be that part of himself he’d tried so hard to leave behind with her.

She approached Brody and put her hand up to place it over his heart, a gesture she had done so often long ago, she didn’t even think about it. Until he shied away from her hand . . . again. An unconscious protective gesture not to let anyone close enough to hurt him. She pulled her hand back, but he grabbed it, pressed it to his chest, and kept his own hand over hers. The intensity in his eyes made her catch her breath. His heart pounded against her hand. He wasn’t as calm behind the new shield he wore to protect himself. Long ago, he wouldn’t have needed that shield with her. It broke her heart he couldn’t just be with her anymore.

“It was sweet of you to give Autumn a piggyback ride. It probably hurt your leg to carry her around like that, but you made her happy.”

“She makes me feel happy. Well, and a little terrified.” He grinned, the one she remembered from so long ago. His chest heaved out and sank, relaxing him a bit beneath her hand and easing the ache in her heart because he was trying. “It’s been a long time since I was happy.”

Uncomfortable with that familiar look and sound in his voice, she hurried to break the intimate moment. “We should go in. They’re waiting for us.”

“Why do you have Autumn?” He didn’t take his eyes off hers or release her hand.

“Because she’s mine.” She wasn’t about to let him think for a second Autumn wasn’t the daughter of her heart.

“I can see she’s yours. That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

“I do, but now isn’t the time to get into it.” Before he could make the demand about to leave his lips, she pulled her hand free and held it up to stop him. “We’ll talk about Roxy when we’re alone and no one’s within shouting distance.”

“Literally,” he said on a laugh.

“Absolutely.” She gave him half a smile, because they both knew talking about Roxy only ever ended with one or both of them yelling at the other. “You want to know why I have her?”

“It’s why I asked.”

Infuriatingly cocky, and definitely the Brody she remembered. Growing serious, she waited a beat to make sure he understood the importance of what she was about to say. “I have Autumn because she’s yours.” Nothing harder than laying her pride at his feet and telling him the truth.

He took a step closer, forcing her to take one back, unable to have him this close when she let her heart rule her mind.

“What are you telling me?” he asked, his voice husky and soft.

“You left. So I kept the pieces of yourself you left behind. They were all I had left of you and a dream I dreamt of us.” She tried to turn away. He caught her by the arm and spun her around so fast, she slammed into his chest. His mouth clamped down on hers, she didn’t have a chance to catch her breath, only to hold on.

With his arms banded around her, she slid her hands up his back and pressed them to his shoulders, bringing him close. Her breasts smashed against his chest, the very heat of him seeping into her skin and bones. Cold inside for so long, she didn’t even feel it anymore, but she felt him, his heat, and his demand as his tongue slid past her lips to stroke over hers. As demanding as the embrace was, the kiss was the opposite, soft, coaxing, inviting. He wanted her to know he wanted her in his arms, but more, he wanted her to want to be there, to share in the kiss with as much aching tenderness as he put into it. She responded to that sweet caress of his mouth over hers. She couldn’t help herself, had never been able to help herself. When he was close and this open to her, she’d always dived in head first, no matter how deep or shallow the water might be. She didn’t care. She just needed. Him.

Her heart wouldn’t let him go, or let anyone else inside. And it made her sad.

With a last desperate slide of her tongue over his and her lips pressing to his, she ended the kiss abruptly. Pushing her hands against his shoulders, she shoved herself out of his embrace and took two steps back.

“Don’t.” Angry, a tear slipped down her cheek. Swiping it away with the back of her hand, she tried to move past him to get the rest of dinner. He caught her by the waist with his arm, his hand planted on her hip, searing her through her jeans straight into her bones.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you cry.”

“You didn’t stick around long enough to see it when I found out what you did.”

Swamped with emotions, her mind took her straight back to the morning she woke up alone in his bed, and her heart bled with the pain she felt when she saw the note and realized he left her.
I’m sorry
. All the hope she woke with that morning, the first day of the rest of their lives together, vanished. Her soul turned cold as the sheets beside her. She’d given herself to him, mind and body, she’d poured all her love into making love to him. She tried. So hard. She put everything she is into loving him. But it wasn’t enough to make him stay.

Two weeks later, sad and desolate, she discovered he hadn’t left her alone after all. Pregnant, a glimmer of the happiness and love she’d felt the night she shared with Brody woke up again. It bloomed with her pregnancy and a future with her child and helped to heal her heart. Then she discovered not only did he sleep with Roxy, he got her pregnant, too, and the pain tore her apart again. Living without him, dealing with Roxy, struggling to raise her girls and keep them safe, and missing him more and more each day wore on her battered heart.

She couldn’t go through that kind of agonizing pain again.

“Why do you cry because I kissed you?”

“Because kissing you only leads to pain.”

Chapter Eight

B
RODY WALKED INTO
the dining room and looked at the table and everyone around it. Rain had set out her best dishes, the ones her grandmother left to her mother and now came to her. Crystal wine glasses gleamed in the fading light from the window. The food steamed in bowls and on platters around the table. Best of all, his girls sat across the table, tentative smiles on their faces, their blue eyes watching him with nervous anticipation as he came around to their side and took his seat between them. He gave each a pat on the head and sat.