“Just trying to get some work done.”
“I just want to talk.”
“Not interested,” I called out, then sent Phoenix racing the rest of the way to the falls. Wind whipped past me, the cool air burning my cheeks, but I had never felt more alive in all my life.
But I knew I couldn’t outrun my brother forever. No matter how fast I ran, he would be there, waiting until I was ready to talk.
For six weeks, he’d left me alone to lick my wounds, but the time for self-reflection was over. He was back, and he made it clear, he wasn’t going anywhere.
Tugging on the reins, Phoenix slowed to a trot, twisting in a circle as we approached the river. Swinging my leg over, I got down from Phoenix with as much grace as I could muster after being out of the saddle for so long. As I glanced at my brother out of the corner of my eye, I saw the ride had been much more painful for him than it had for me.
“Come on, girl,” I whispered, guiding her over to a tree.
Wrapping the reins around a branch, I left her to graze while I headed for the bridge leading to the other side of the river where construction was underway on the new cabin.
“You can’t just keep walking away, Liam!”
“Why not? You did a hell of a job at it.”
“Hey!” he shouted, grabbing me by the arm and twisting me around. “Stop fucking walking away!”
Anger surged through me and I slammed my hands into his chest, shoving him back a step. “Don’t you dare fucking talk to me about walking away.”
“I had to go!”
“No, you chose to leave us all behind. You leftmebehind!” I snapped.
“Is that what you think I did?”
Shaking my head, I stared off in the distance. “The ranch was struggling, and you just fucking left. Everything fell on me. Pop was hanging onto the past and Jeff was lost in his own head. And you?—”
Scoffing, I still remembered that day he walked out.
“I had to leave,” he argued. “Do you have any fucking clue what it was like for me? To walk around town with everyone gossiping about me? Calling me a rapist?”
“They all knew you weren’t.”
“It didn’t fucking matter!” he shouted, losing control.
Spinning away from me, he speared his fingers through his hair in anger.
“I was dishonorably discharged, Liam. Everything I had worked for went up in smoke just like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Itdidn’t matter if I was innocent or not. Every fucking time I went into town, the whispers started again. You know how it is!”
I did. And despite wanting to believe that he could have roughed it out, the fact was that as long as he stayed, the rumors would have persisted. Deep down, I knew that.
Finally, I relented. “I know.”
“I didn’t want to leave,” he sighed. “I just couldn’t stand the whispers anymore. I just wanted to figure out a way forward, but that wasn’t about to happen here. Yeah, I fucking left, and I was miserable.”
I had purposely avoided talking to him for the last six weeks, so I really had no clue why he was back. Sure, I’d heard snippets of conversations, but I hadn’t really listened.
The only way I was ever going to know what really happened was if I finally stopped being so damn stubborn and let him in. And that was really fucking hard when I had just spent the last several years waging a war with Pop.
“So, Blake, huh?”
Grinning, he huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, Blake.”
“I’m assuming she has something to do with this miraculous return.”
