HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (13 page)

“Sure,” she said, looking shaken. “They’re kind of the talk of the town, so to speak. Or the ones you’re not supposed to talk about. Zoe Holland and her boy, Toby.”

“How can you talk about someone and not talk about them at the same time?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that question.

“You know how small towns are—or maybe you don’t,” she said. “But as much as Zoe’s story horrifies people around these parts, no one can really look away. Even as hard as it is to look at sometimes.”

This wasn’t what I wanted to be talking about, but at least Hadley was verbal again.

“So what’s the story?”

Hadley sighed. “Zoe’s husband. The father of that sweet little boy. He’s the story—a drunk who talks with his fists. Mom said—I haven’t been caught up with the entire narrative—that she asked for a divorce and a restraining order on him, and that’s when he snapped on her. Well, that’s the latest reason he snapped on her. Who knows why he does it.”

“Why won’t she leave?”

“He won’t grant the divorce.”

“Why not? She can’t love him. He has to know that.”

“You’re naive, Hunter. It isn’t about love. It’s about power, and lording it over someone who’s weaker than you are.”

I shook my head. “Why won’t anyone do anything?”

“That’s just the way this town is,” Hadley said. “You’re not supposed to stick your nose in other people’s business.”

“Even when a woman and a child are getting hurt?”

“Especially not then. I’m sure the sheriff was embarrassed as hell to serve that restraining order—fat lot of good it did Zoe.”

I watched Toby run around with the other kids, now completely engrossed in chasing and capturing lightning bugs. Zoe sat off by herself, on a half-rotten picnic table bench, hugging her arms around her. No one so much as approached her with a drink or a plate of food or a kind word, even though people continually glanced at her and lowered their voices to hushed whispers, probably about Zoe’s blackened face.

“Why doesn’t she just leave?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off of the sight of a woman who needed help, surrounded by able-bodied people unwilling to step in when necessary.

“There are lots of reasons why women don’t leave their abusers,” Hadley said. “They think he’ll change, they don’t have anywhere to go, they don’t know how they’ll support themselves or their children. I don’t know which of them is Zoe’s, but I’d bet money she’s afraid for Toby, afraid of what’ll happen.”

That was it. It wasn’t Hadley’s fault that she’d been infused with the apathy of her family and the place where she’d grown up, though it disappointed me a little. Zoe needed help, and if no one at this party was about to do it, I would.

I stood up, brushed my jeans off, and started over there.

“You’re just going to make it worse, Hunter,” Hadley called after me, but I paid her no mind. I was an outsider to this community, sure, but I was a human being. If I saw a problem I could fix, why shouldn’t I try and do something to help?

Zoe’s eyes flickered up to meet mine as I stood over her, and sank back down to the ground.

“I am sorry about my boy,” she said. “He’s only four years old.”

“I didn’t come over here for an apology,” I said. “I came to ask what you need.”

She looked up again at me and didn’t look away. “What I need? I don’t understand.”

“Ma’am, I can’t say that I’m the smartest man in the world, but I’m smarter than these assholes here, at any rate, if you’ll pardon my language.”

I was rewarded with the ghost of a smile. “No pardon necessary.”

“Maybe I’m missing something, but when I see a woman in trouble, I do what I can to help.”

She shook her head. “It’s kind of you, but I’m fine.”

“You’ll have to excuse me for stating the obvious, but your face looks to be about the opposite of fine.”

“Oh, this old thing?” Zoe gave a wry smile and flipped her hair back in front of her face. “Nothing. An accident.”

“If you think you’re doing your son any favors by staying with that man, you’re wrong.”

Her dark eyes reflected the fire, burning. “And where am I supposed to go?”

“With me,” I said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “To my family’s ranch. Away from here, from these idiots who refused to step in when you needed help.”

“They’re not all idiots,” she said slowly, her eyes sliding past me. “Didn’t you come here with Hadley Parsons? What would she say?”

“You coming to the ranch…it’s not like that,” I said slowly, treading carefully through all of the implications of Zoe’s line of questioning. She was assuming Hadley and I were together, first of all, when I had no idea where the two of us stood. Zoe’s second assumption was that I was implying that taking her and her boy to the ranch meant she’d have to give me something of hers in return.

“Then what’s it like, cowboy?” She’d seen an opening, a way out, even if it was the wrong assumption, and she was going for it. I swallowed hard, hoping I wasn’t making a mistake.

“There’s a job opening at the ranch, is what it’s like,” I said. “My brothers and I, we’re all out working the ranch all day. We let things get a little out of control in the house. We need someone to keep house for us, cleaning and maybe a little light cooking. We couldn’t pay you much, at least not at first, but you’d have somewhere safe to stay, your own room, and your son, too.”

Zoe was silent for a long time, just staring at me. “Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t even know me.”

“You have a problem, and I have a solution,” I said. “You have somewhere to go, and a way to support your child, if you choose to take it. All you have to do is let me know when you want to go.”

She blinked rapidly, and I could see in the firelight that she was fighting back tears. “Yesterday? A year ago? Five years ago?”

“We can go as soon as you’re ready,” I assured her. “All you have to do is let me know.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“Hunter Corbin.”

Zoe swallowed hard, then stood up and shook my hand. Everyone was taking note of what was happening, even if they pretended to have other conversations going on, but I didn’t care about these worthless busybodies. I was just glad to have helped someone in need of it. I’d been in that position before, needing somebody’s help, and my brothers hadn’t been sure how to bring me back to myself. It was Hadley who’d shown me the way, Hadley who had been equal parts patient and tough with me, Hadley who had opened her heart and let me move in there with her, shitting all over everything and fucking everything up. How had Hadley been so good to me? I’d broken her damn heart with my stupidity, even if Eileen hadn’t exactly helped. I had to make things right.

“Hadley’s lucky to have you,” Zoe said, wiping her eyes, “but I don’t think she sees it that way just this moment.”

I frowned and looked over my shoulder just in time to see Hadley turning tail and running into the woods. If it was possible, I’d fucked things up even more.

I knew darkness. I’d known it in Afghanistan, the sickening green of night vision leading me through when my own eyes failed me. I knew it from the ranch, too, the orange of town just a smudge on the horizon, the stars bright and bold, scattered across the sky. But the darkness of these deep woods was different, slowing me down, giving me pause, making me feel claustrophobic.

I wasn’t afraid of the dark. I’d seen—and done—terrible things by the light of day, things that still gave me nightmares, things that should’ve made people swear me off for good. But this darkness was close and damp. Even though the sun had gone down hours ago, it was still just as hot and humid as it had been. I sweated mightily, tramping after Hadley even though I had no idea where I was going, no idea if the sounds I was following were even her.

I paused for a moment and tried to listen, but the night sounds were all but deafening—cicadas sawing in the branches, crickets competing underfoot, the occasional gust of wind making the big trees groan and creak. I couldn’t see a thing, couldn’t even tell which direction Hadley had taken off. Mosquitoes continued to dive bomb me, and I realized that if I ever got out of here, I’d be one red, throbbing, giant bug bite. It was humid enough—and the ground was soft enough under my shoes—for me to worry seriously about falling, then worry abstractly about whether there was a bayou nearby. Bayous meant snakes and alligators, and after losing a leg in a tour of duty in Afghanistan, it would be a pretty sorry way to die, lost in an East Texas swamp, a late night snack to reptiles.

“Hadley?” I called, cautiously. Who knew what else was in these woods with us. “Can you hear me? Hadley? It’s Hunter. I just want to talk. Tell me what I’m doing wrong. Please.”

I leapt back as the bushes near me rustled, but she stepped out, wiping tears from her cheeks with the heels of her hands.

“It was stupid of you to follow me in here,” she fussed. “What if you’d fallen, or ran into something? What if the prosthesis had failed?”

“I didn’t, and it didn’t,” I said. “Everything’s fine with me. I’m just trying to figure you out.”

She sniffed. “Looks like my time with you has come to a close.”

“What…what do you mean?” My heartbeat was so rapid I could feel my neck pulsing.

Hadley gestured vaguely at me. “You don’t need a physical therapist anymore. Stay active, keep doing your exercises, and you’ll be fine. I’ve cured myself out of a job.”

“Hadley, you haven’t been just my physical therapist for quite a while. You know that.”

“It wasn’t professional, my treatment of you,” she said. “I violated so many ethics codes and just general practices. I got too close to you, Hunter, and now I’m paying for it. I’m trying to right my wrongs.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong. We’re two people who fell in love.”

She shuddered. “No. It was just physical.”

“The physical part…that was significant,” I agreed. “But it was more than that. I know it was more than that.”

Hadley gave me a half-shrug, looking at everything and nothing and especially not at me. “Lots of people think they fall in love with their health care professionals,” she reasoned. “Think about it. We met regularly, we had a close bond, we had to trust each other … of course you think we’re in love.”

“We also had sex with each other—lots of it.”

“And that was my fault,” she said. “That was where I overstepped my bounds. I am sorry for it.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Don’t believe I’m sorry?”

“Don’t believe any of this.” I crossed my arms over my chest and studied her. “Don’t you remember even the first day we met? You helped me shower.”

“I was just doing what I thought you needed.”

“You threw away all of my pills and moved in with my brothers and me.”

“So my methods were unconventional.” She lifted her chin at me, combative. “So what? You’re standing on your own two feet right now, so to speak, aren’t you? Otherwise, you would’ve still been getting around on crutches, unable to be independent, strung out on whatever substances you thought you needed to ignore what was really going on.”

“If you want me to believe that us having sex…having feelings for each other…was just another unconventional method you had stashed away in your doctor’s bag, I’m going to have to call bullshit on you.”

“Call it whatever you want,” Hadley said. “I’m telling you that my work here is done.”

“What is it, Hadley?” I demanded, my temper starting to get the better of me if only because of my frustration with her stonewalling me. “Tell me what I did wrong. I know it was wrong to not kick Eileen out on her ass the moment she showed up. I know—now—that she’s trouble. But that’s over and done with. I came here for you. Why can’t you see that?”

“Let’s just go our separate ways,” Haley tried again, but I wasn’t about to let her go so easily. I could practically smell whatever it was she was fighting to keep under wraps. I had to know what it was, so I tried a different tack.

“You ran off because you saw me talking to that poor woman—Zoe Holland,” I said. “Are you jealous? Do you think something’s there, that I’m attracted to her? Because I’m not. I just offered her a way out—something no one in this town has bothered doing.”

“What did you offer her?” Hadley asked, peering at me.

“A job on the ranch,” I said. “A safe place to stay. A way for her to earn a living while supporting her son. A way out of abuse. She took it. I’m going to take her and Toby to the ranch whenever she’s ready and she’s going to be our housekeeper and part-time cook.”

Hadley didn’t say anything for a few moments, and it was hard to judge what she was feeling in the pitch black of the woods, slapping away mosquitoes from my face.

“That was…really kind of you to do that for Zoe,” she said finally.

“It wasn’t anything special for me. It was just the right thing to do.”

“No, it was special.” Even though it sounded like Hadley was paying me a compliment, her nice words seemed to be hurting her even as she said them. “Nobody here likes Zoe because she’s kind of abrasive. They don’t understand her graveyard humor, but it’s what’s gotten her through. That’s why no one would help her or really was able to comprehend her situation. They thought she was asking for it, in a way, and yours is the first real offer of help I think she’s ever had.”

“Then why do you sound so torn up about it? Are you afraid her living on the ranch is going to change things?”

Hadley barked out a laugh. “Of course it’s going to change things. Zoe’s going to whip that place into shape.”

“I meant between us. You’re not jealous of her?”

“Of course I’m not jealous of Zoe Holland,” she scoffed. “And there is no ‘us.’”

“Tell me what’s really going on, Hadley.”

She pushed the auburn strands that had pulled free from her messy bun back against her scalp, squeezing her eyes shut against the sight of me.

“Hadley, look at me.”

She didn’t give me any indication that she was listening to me anymore, or that my words had reached her ears. She only wiped her hair back, again and again, slicking back the strands on top of her scalp. It worried me, made me dread to find out what, exactly, was on her mind. Maybe I shouldn’t be trying so hard to unravel whatever had tangled Hadley into knots.

“Why can’t you just be bad?” she asked finally, still not looking at me.

“Excuse me?”

“Just be an asshole. Fly off the handle. Get in a fistfight. Be mean to people.”

“I really don’t understand where you’re going with this.” I felt like an idiot, felt scared, felt like we were on the brink of something that neither of us could turn away from.

“Why can’t you give me a reason not to love you?” she demanded, and even in the dark of the woods I could see the tears shining on her face.

I wanted to say something to that, but I was struck speechless. Did that…did that mean that she did love me? I knew it, deep down, even if neither of us had exactly said it up until this point, that we loved each other, but this was proof. This was proof that Hadley had feelings for me she couldn’t deny. Why was she trying to deny that? Was she really that concerned about ethics and all that stupid shit? It didn’t make sense to me why she would deny something as real as we both shared with each other.

“Why are you crying?” I asked her finally, when she didn’t volunteer any statements other than that one. “If you’re in love with me, it’s a good thing. Because I’m in love with you. It’s not something you have to be crying about.” I felt like an oaf, like punching myself out of exasperation, or a nearby tree, or these goddamn mosquitoes.

Hadley heaved a sigh, and I was just as perturbed at me as she was. “That’s the thing. I don’t want to be in love with you, Hunter.”

“Oh.” I made that sound of recognition, and it was like a bag deflating. I could’ve argued any potential obstacle she could’ve brought up against us being together, but I didn’t expect this one. If she really and truly didn’t want to be in love with me, I had to accept that. There wasn’t a single way for me to ask if she would reconsider her decision. Her mind was made up.

I’d thought that what we had was real, but Hadley obviously thought differently. After every embrace, every whispered affection, everything that should’ve brought us together, she had her mind set on not being with me.

“I think I understand,” I said, nodding more to myself than to her. “I think I know why you don’t want to be in love with me.”

“I…I’m glad you understand,” she said, sounding hesitant.

“I don’t blame you whatsoever,” I continued. “I mean, I bet it was something of a novelty, right, to fuck someone who was missing a leg.”

“Hunter…”

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “Really, Hadley, it’s fine. I get it. Once the novelty wears off, I’m still half a man, right? I might be standing on my own two feet—to use your words—right now, but at the end of the day, I’m going to take the prosthesis off and still be down a leg.”

“That’s not what this is about.”

“You don’t have to make any excuses anymore,” I said. “You’ve enjoyed a professional success with me, something to boost your resume. But you want to separate your work from your play, I bet. You don’t want to play nursemaid the rest of your life. You want someone strong, someone who can take care of you sometimes, too. It makes perfect sense, Hadley. I won’t bother you any longer. I absolutely understand.”

“Hunter, please stop.”

But I was done. It wasn’t the sting of rejection. It was just that I had been so certain this was real. I’d enjoyed something of a very active love life before I shipped off to Afghanistan, and I thought I knew what a girl’s eyes looked like when she was in love with you, soft and shining, deeper than just a mutual attraction. I’d been in love with Hadley, I’d been sure she was in love with me, and I’d been sure it had been the incident with Eileen that had caused this current rift, but now I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t sure about anything. It was Hadley’s right to be upset about the Eileen situation. Hell, I was upset about that situation. But if Hadley had been betrayed before, I supposed this whole thing dredged up a lot of emotions.

It wasn’t fair to me. I didn’t ask for Eileen to do this. But Hadley probably realized that I presented many more negatives than positives, and I had to agree with her.

“I don’t know how to talk to you about this,” Hadley said. “But my reasons aren’t yours.”

“That’s fine, Hadley,” I said generously. “That’s fine. I told you I understood.”

“No, you think you understand,” she corrected. “But the reason I don’t want to be in love with you is different, Hunter. I just don’t know how to say it.”

“Then let’s just leave it unsaid.”

It hurt me to do it, but I turned away from Hadley and marched back in the direction of the clearing. It was hurting me more to stay, to hear her struggle to find the words to tell me why she was rejecting me. The only thing I really wanted to do was climb back up in my truck and go back to the ranch, but I knew Zoe Holland and her boy were relying on me. I had to stick around this place long enough to see them safely out of it.

The food smelled good as I stepped out of the woods, but I really didn’t have an appetite. A small commotion across the bonfire drew my attention, as well as the majority of people milling about with plates and bottles.

“I said, we’re leaving! Now!” A rough male voice drifted across the clearing to my ears. Even though I’d never met the man speaking before, I realized, as I moved toward the scuffle, just what the tone meant—and who was speaking so angrily. I knew there were probably more dirtbags in this place than Zoe Holland’s husband, but probably none of them who’d act out so publicly. Everyone was here—even more people had arrived at the party after dark. And apparently, this guy was eager to yank his family on home.

My fears were confirmed when I reached the picnic table Zoe had stationed herself earlier, away from everyone. She’d isolated herself, trying to stay out of the dubious spotlight of the attention of her neighbors, but a man loomed over her. She was so small compared to him. I hadn’t realized how petite she was when I was talking to her earlier, but she seemed to be shrinking in on herself right now. I sprang into action as soon as I saw that Toby had detached himself from the crowd of children he’d been romping with, watching his father threaten his mother.