Brandon was silent, and then he swore quietly. “You don’t know the whole story, Ed.”
“I know plenty. I know you didn’t care enough about us to come back.” He’d prayed every day for over a year that Brandon would return, and everything would be all right again. Disgusted at himself that he was still this upset after over fifteen years, he turned to go.
“Wait.” Brandon swore again. “I need to tell you the truth. Please, Ed, give me a second.” The anguish in Brandon’s voice made Ed hesitate. Brandon ran a hand through his hair and exhaled noisily. “Charlie’s death was my fault.”
Ed jolted. Of all the things he’d expected Brandon to say, that was not one of them. “What?”
He cleared his throat. “I caused the stampede which killed Charlie.”
Ed’s mind whirled. “How? Why?”
“I don’t know how much you remember, but Charlie was going through a stage where he was trying to scare us. He had this black plastic spider…”
The one that had terrified Tess. “I remember.”
“So I wanted to get him back. I bought a plastic snake, set it up outside the cattle yard, so Charlie would spring it when I asked him to check the water trough.”
A good idea. Charlie wouldn’t expect to be pranked outside the house, not near the new cattle they were trialling. “What happened?”
“Gertie sprang it instead. It flew into the cattle yard and startled the cattle. Charlie was at the gate.”
Gertie had been their old blue heeler. “Fuck.” Brandon’s absence made so much more sense now. What a horrific thing to live with. Ed’s anger vanished, and he stepped forward. “Bran…” What could he say? “It was an accident. If it hadn’t gone bad, you would have been our hero for getting Charlie back.”
Brandon shifted away. “Well it did go bad.”
Hell. Ed’s insides felt raw. “I blamed myself for Charlie’s death for years as well.”
“Why?”
“We had a fight that morning. I wished Charlie would go away… and then he did.”
Brandon squeezed his shoulder. “I’m sorry. At the time I was so caught up in my guilt, I didn’t consider how anyone else was coping. I figured you were all better off without me.”
He would have been so lonely. “I’m sorry I never asked. I figured you didn’t care.”
His brother’s smile was sad. “I missed the family and this land every single day. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to come back.”
Shit. “We missed you too.” He hugged his brother, wishing he could take back the years of hurt. “Sorry for yelling at you.”
“I deserved it,” Brandon said, hugging him back.
They separated, and Ed smiled at him. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me too.”
Ed cleared his throat and behind Brandon, he caught sight of Sam and the others still on the verandah. How much had they heard? Heat filled his cheeks. “I’d better check on Tess. Enjoy your beer.”
He hurried inside.
Chapter 20
Tess stared at the ceiling of the bedroom the next morning, comforted by Ed’s heavy breathing in the bed next to hers. After Ed had told her about his altercation with Brandon, they’d stayed up late reading Charlotte’s journals. But Ed’s pain at something which had happened years ago made her realise she had to face her own family issues before they got out of control. She needed to call her parents. First, she switched on her laptop to check her emails, in order to gauge how frantic her parents were.
Two hundred messages when normally she was lucky to get ten a week.
She tensed at those from Tan with the subject Call me and ignored them in case they came with some kind of tracking malware. Instead, she clicked on the first one from her mother.
It was full of concern. Tan had said she’d run away, where was she? Had she run off with a boy?
