“I guess you’ve got to take the good days with the bad. When do you start at Parks and Wildlife?”
“Next week.”
“It’ll be a nice change of pace.”
Ugh, what was with this banal conversation? “What gives, Brandon?” she demanded. “And don’t give me that bullshit about being in town. Why are you here?”
He rubbed his chest. “I don’t want you to get mad at Matt.”
The blood drained out of her face. What the hell? Had he told her brothers what she’d said? Was this some kind of intervention?
“He was worried about you. You shouldn’t be feeling guilty.”
Guilty? Wait. “What are you talking about?”
“Matt told Darcy about your conversation the other night. About you missing Charlie and Mum and Dad. About you feeling responsible for their deaths.”
The relief her brothers didn’t know of her feelings for Matt was quickly replaced by a sense of betrayal. “He should have kept his mouth shut.”
“We’ve been worried. You haven’t been out recently, and you’ve been brushing off everyone’s questions.”
Yeah, well, she had her reasons.
Brandon took a long drink of water before putting the glass on the table with a bang. “The thing is, you don’t know the whole story behind Charlie’s death.”
Georgie stared at him. “What?” Had they kept something from her all these years?
Brandon clutched the glass in both hands. “You remember what Charlie was like then. He’d scared all of us with that stupid spider.”
She squeezed her eyes closed as the memory returned. Her hand shook as she whispered, “That’s why I cursed him.”
“Yeah, well I went one step further. I bought a plastic snake and set it up to fling out at Charlie somewhere he least expected it.”
The pain in Brandon’s eyes made her grip his hand as her brain whirled to connect the pieces.
“The cattle yard seemed like the perfect place.”
Georgie’s jaw dropped as horror filled her.
“Our old dog, Bertie triggered it instead of Charlie. The cattle stampeded and Charlie was in the way.”
She hadn’t been there that day, but she’d pictured the stampede a hundred times, pictured her brothers and father trying to get to Charlie in time. The guilt she felt would have been nothing compared to that of Brandon’s. “That’s why you left.”
He nodded.
How terrible for him. She leapt to her feet and hugged him. “It was an accident, Bran.”
He held on to her and sighed. “I can accept that now, but I couldn’t face any of you.”
She slapped him on the shoulder. “You shouldn’t have shut us off like that. We could have dealt with it together, as a family.”
His chuckle was sad. “Yeah, well we all dealt with it our own ways. I don’t want you to feel guilty anymore. Mum and Dad’s deaths weren’t your fault either. Stonefish were watching the place. They could have easily got that information from a number of people.”
She closed her eyes. In her rational moments she knew he was right, but the guilt wouldn’t fade immediately. Maybe it would be easier to deal with though. “No more secrets,” she said, ignoring the twinge of guilt. Her feelings for Matt didn’t count. “If we’re going to fix the Ridge, we have to be honest with each other.”
“No more secrets,” Brandon agreed. He glanced at his watch. “Now are you going to cook me some dinner?”
She laughed. “There’s a pizza menu behind you. Order while I go have a shower.”
