Authors: Effy Vaughn
For three years I had wanted answers. Countless nights I had lain in bed thinking that just knowing Asher still loved me would have made everything okay. Nothing else would have mattered. Nothing could hurt more than Asher not loving me anymore.
I had been wrong.
So very wrong.
“Come on, Dix. Let’s take you home,” Bray said as he started moving me toward my Jeep.
Home. My home. Was it still my home? Did Daddy know this? Did he love me anyway? Could I tell him?
“Does my daddy know?” I asked Bray.
He reached around me and opened the passenger door. “I didn’t even know. So I’m not sure who knew, but it won’t make a difference to your daddy. He loves you and has loved you all your life. In his heart, you’re his little girl. That’s something I’m fucking positive about.”
I let Bray help me up into the Jeep. I felt as if I was walking through fog. Nothing made sense. I had watched as Asher’s truck drove away but I didn’t see Steel leave. I couldn’t look at him now. He had been the one I hoped could heal me, but he’d just made it worse.
“Why would he keep this from me?” I asked staring out the window at the field of hay.
“Because he has been protecting you since he was a kid. He would do anything to protect you. It wasn’t the right decision, but it was because he loves you, Dix. He’s suffered alone with this for three years because he loves you. He didn’t want you to know this. He wanted you happy.”
He wanted me happy? He had broken my heart. How had that been making me happy? “He can’t love me. His actions prove differently.”
Bray let out a deep sigh and cranked the Jeep. “His love ain’t normal when it comes to you. Never was,” he replied. “But don’t doubt that he loves you. Damn, Dix, he smashed in our little brother’s face because he was trying to protect you. Asher has never hit one of us. We’ve hit each other and he’s broken it up, but he’s always protected us. He picked you over Steel. That’s fucking huge. Be mad at him for not telling you, but don’t think he doesn’t love you.”
I couldn’t listen to this. He was my brother. Asher was my brother. The horror of that one fact washed over me and a wail filled the truck as I curled into a ball and let the sorrow consume me.
Asher hadn’t come home last night. Bray and Brent had gone to look for him but they’d come home after two in the morning with no luck. Momma was going to notice this morning that he wasn’t here. Keeping his disappearance from her would be hard. I could smell the bacon now and I knew we’d have a big breakfast waiting on us.
I had done the right thing. Dixie needed to know. It was wrong to keep that kind of thing from her. Why couldn’t he see that? I couldn’t just desert her the way he had. She needed to know the reasons. Asher hadn’t been thinking clearly. He hadn’t looked at the big picture.
Dixie would have found out one day on her own and we wouldn’t have been there to help her deal. She planned on finding her real mother one day and that is the kind of thing Dixie needed to know before she was blindsided by some bitch who didn’t love her. Not like we did.
And I did love her. That hadn’t changed.
I wasn’t sure it ever would.
“His room’s still empty,” Brent said as he walked into my room.
“Truck’s gone too. But his shit is all still here,” Dallas said following Brent into the room. He’d gotten up early to go work out in the barn. It was his morning routine.
“Momma ain’t gonna be happy about this. What are we gonna tell her?” I asked looking to Bray.
He shook his head and walked over to the window. “Hell if I know. Can’t tell her the truth. It would kill her.”
“Sure didn’t matter to Steel that it would kill Dix,” Dallas said as he shot an annoyed glare my way. He had been pissed when he realized Asher had kept it a secret from Dixie to protect her and I’d told her. But Dallas thought Asher could do no wrong. Dallas didn’t really remember our dad. Asher had always been the oldest male in his life. So, to him, Asher was God.
“Dixie needed to know,” Bray said looking back at Dallas.
“Really? Cause you want to keep it from Momma to protect her. Ever think that was what Asher wanted for Dixie?” Dallas shot back. He was two inches taller than Bray and his shoulders were wider. We still saw him as the baby though. No one else in Malroy would mess with Dallas… but us.
“
Shut up, Dallas!
You don’t understand.”
“The
fuck
I don’t! I understand Asher told that dipshit a secret and trusted him to protect Dixie and he didn’t do it!” Dallas said as he pointed at me.
“Take it down a notch or ten,” Brent said as he walked into the room squinting against the sunlight coming in from the window. He was still in his flannel pajama pants and his dark hair was sticking up in several directions. He rarely went without a shirt because of the tattoo on his ribs he was still hiding from Momma. Brent was the last one of us anyone expected to get a tattoo. Other than us and Scarlet, no one knew he had it. The word “yesterday” was inked on his right hip bone.
No one knew what it meant. Except possibly Bray because those two rarely had to verbally speak in order to understand each other. The twin bond had always been their thing.
“Sleeping beauty, glad you could join us,” Bray drawled.
“Woke me up. Momma had to have heard y’all too,” Brent grumbled and flopped back on Dallas’s unmade bed.
“And for the record, I think it was a shit thing to do for you to tell her too,” Brent said lifting his head up from the pillow to look at me before dropping it back down.
“Majority vote is you suck,” Dallas added.
Bray groaned and turned around to shoot his angry moody glare at all of us. “It’s done. Shut up and let it go. She knows now and Asher has got to get a fucking grip. We can’t let him fall off the deep end because he was pretty damn close before this happened. He’s carried this shit around on his own for three years. Our goal is to find him. Not sit here and discuss if Steel did the right thing or not.”
I glanced down at my phone. Dixie hadn’t texted me. I had almost expected something from her. We’d been fucking engaged… almost. Now we were related. My stomach turned again. The only thing keeping me from losing my shit was the fact we hadn’t had sex. We had come close but she always put the brakes on it and as pissed as I was getting, I am damn sure she did.
Asher had to live knowing he’d slept with her. Not just that but he’d taken her damn virginity. Fuck… I couldn’t imagine that.
“The screwed up stuff going on in my head is fucking with me. I can’t imagine what he’s been dealing with for three years. All I want to do is go drink so much I can’t feel anything.”
Bray’s scowl deepened and he headed for the door. “I’m going to find him,” he said simply before leaving us all sitting around watching him.
“Guess that leaves us to explain their absence to Momma,” Dallas said heading for the door.
“I should go with him,” Brent said sitting up. He wasn’t a morning person and Bray had looked like a man on a mission.
“You’ll be in his way. He’ll be gone before you can get on a pair of jeans. Let him go. You go charm Momma with pretty boy,” I said nodding my head toward where Dallas had gone.
Brent nodded and headed out to hopefully grab a shirt before going down to the kitchen with Dallas and Momma.
At seven this morning, I had been sitting in my truck that I had parked behind the high school’s football field, when I got a text from Dixie. She’d asked me where I was. I had sat there and stared at it for ten minutes before responding. She didn’t ask me why I was here. She would know. I felt safe here. It was deserted this time of the year, with school being out, and it was the only place I could think of to be able to just park and know I would be left alone.
Thirty minutes later the passenger side of my truck opened and Dixie climbed inside. She didn’t knock and I had expected her. When I told her where I was, I knew she’d come. I knew Dixie better than I knew anyone else. I loved her more than I loved anyone else. I’d proved that yesterday to Steel.
Steel.
I loved him but I couldn’t be trusted near him right now.
“You been here all night?” Dixie asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“You sleep any?”
“Nope.”
I hadn’t even been able to close my eyes. I wanted to. I wanted to escape from this even just for a moment. But I hadn’t been able to do that last night. All I saw when I closed my eyes was Dixie sobbing in Bray’s arms. Then I had to fight the urge to go find Steel and beat the shit out of him for doing this to her.
“Bray came by late last night looking for you.”
I had ignored all their text messages and calls. Putting my phone on silent, I put it away and sat here alone. They wanted to make sure I was alright ,but I hadn’t been alright. I never would be.
“I was mad at you. Yesterday. I hated you for a moment. For not telling me. For keeping it from me,” her soft voice cut through me. I knew she hated me. She had so many reasons to hate me. But hearing it from her lips wasn’t easy.
“I know,” I managed to croak out through the emotion clogging my throat.
“I get it. I thought about it all night and I get it. I do,” she said, then her hand touched my hand causing me to flinch from the contact.
“Just wanted to protect you,” I said needing her to know that I never meant to hurt her. I’d do anything to keep her from hurting again.
“I know that now. Everything… I let myself remember it all. Stuff I had blocked out because it just was too painful, I remembered it all last night. How you used to be… how we used to be. How sure I was you would love me forever. Then you just turned away without a word. I never understood. It was something that haunted me. I loved you… I loved you so much. But you loved me too. It’s why you did it. I get it.”
Fuck, this was hard. It was past time we did this, but it was hard. The familiar smell of coconut and honey filled the truck. It had been so long since I’d been close enough to Dixie to smell her. Her scent reminded me of how good she had felt in my arms. How her skin was soft like warm satin. And how when I sank into her nothing had been that perfect. The pleasure on her face had made my heart pound with possession. She was mine.
“I can’t do this. You… I need you to leave. Being this close to you, I’m not ready for that. I don’t think I will ever be. My heart doesn’t seem to understand I can’t have you,” I sounded desperate. I couldn’t look at her. I just needed her to leave.
Dixie moved but she didn’t open the truck door. She scooted closer to me and her smell wrapped around me making me light headed. Fuck, she had to get out.
“Dix,” I warned gripping the steering wheel.
“I’ll leave. But first, would you hold me?”
How did I tell her no? And how would I let her go if I allowed myself to touch her?
“Please, Ash. Just hold me this once. I need this closure.”
I learned a long time ago that I would sacrifice my soul for this girl. Now she was a woman and it was no different. I let go of the death grip I had on the steering wheel and slid an arm around the back of the seat. Dixie cuddled against me, then laid her head on my chest.
Closing my arms around her I inhaled deeply and let her warmth fill me this one last time. We didn’t get a goodbye. I didn’t give us that. She was right. This was the end we had needed back then, but I hadn’t been ready to give it to her.
“I think I’ll always love you. I can’t help that,” she said quietly.
I knew I’d always love her but telling her that would just hurt her more. Dixie had to move on and find that sunshine she belonged in. The man who would love her and give her happiness and children. The man who would make her dreams come true. The man who’d better treat her like a princess or I would make him wish he had never been born.
I would never have a wife. I couldn’t do that to someone. Not while my soul belonged to the same girl since I was a sixteen years old. No amount of lies and sin would take that away. What I felt for Dixie was pure. It was a simple truth. One I didn’t even want to change. I would watch her live her life from afar and make sure it was everything she deserved.
When I didn’t respond, she didn’t say anymore. We just sat there for the next hour. I enjoyed holding her in my arms one last time and I made plans in my head to make sure I righted every wrong done to her. It was the only thing that was keeping me sane.
The sound of tires on gravel and the diesel engine of Bray’s truck broke us apart. Dixie moved over, opened the truck door and stepped out without a word. We had said all there was to say. I watched her as she walked over to her Jeep. She didn’t acknowledge Bray. Instead, she climbed inside and drove away.
I waited for Bray to get out and come to me. He’d obviously found me. I was surprised it took him so long to think about this spot, but I was thankful it had. When I saw him approaching my door, I rolled down the window and waited on him.
“Y’all talk about it?” Bray asked with a scowl.
“She got her closure,” I said meeting his scowl with one of my own.
“Been looking for your ass all morning and most of the night. Momma’s cooked a big breakfast.”
I cranked the truck. “Not sure I’m ready to see Steel.”
Bray sighed. “He thought she should know. Maybe she did. The girl never moved on. The way you left it wasn’t an ending for her. She wasn’t healing.”
“She was engaged to Steel,” I reminded him. Dixie had moved on. She had been able to put me behind her.
“Shit. She hadn’t even said yes. I don’t think she would have been able to say yes until she saw you again. That’s all pointless now.”
Dixie was going to be okay. Her daddy would love her and reassure her. She’d find a man to love her. I had to believe that.
“Let’s go home and eat before Momma comes looking for the both of us,” Bray said.
With a nod I shifted gears. “See you there.”