“Don’t be foolish. That’s not why,” he said with a calm that Annabelle could see he was far from feeling. “It’s just different, that’s all.”
“Not from where I’m standing. You were protecting your siblings with your passive behavior just like I am, so don’t go judging me when you were doing the same thing.”
His eyes bored into hers, angry blue shards. “We’re not talking about my family. This is about yours.”
“Hurt, does it, when I poked at that sore spot that you have right there?” Annabelle jabbed her finger hard into his chest. “That place that tells you you failed? You didn’t do everything you could to protect your siblings when they needed you most.”
He pushed off the pickup and grabbed her shoulders. Lowering his head, he looked into her eyes. “I’m not having this conversation with you now, when you’re not rational.”
“I was being rational. You just didn’t want to hear what I had to say, when you know it’s the truth. You just hate that I was right,” Annabelle snapped at him. “I know my brother has faults, and he’s behaving badly, just like yours did, but unlike you I can actually do something to fix it.”God willing.
He released her and stepped back to the car, almost as if he needed it to hold him upright. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t bullshit me. You know I’m talking about Brad.”
“Brad is beyond fixing, because my father has broken him.”
“Yeah, but did you ever try, or did you just think… Well, hell, at least if I let Brad do what dear old dad wanted me to do, it takes the heat off?”
Annabelle knew she’d hit the jackpot the minute she started speaking. She saw the flash of surprise and then the guilt that he hid quickly, but it was there.
“Ethan.” She lifted a hand towards him, “I’m sorry. I had no reason to say that. I’m just angry about…well, pretty much everything.”
“Because that makes it all fucking right, doesn’t it? Speak and then apologize, the story of your life from where I’m standing, Annabelle.” Anger flashed from his eyes. Gone was the man who’d made love to her and talked firmly to Cooper. This one looked like a caged lion suddenly, and she’d done this to him.
“It hurts because it’s the truth,” she said gently, ignoring his anger because she knew it stemmed from deep inside him, from that place where he locked away his feelings. She tried to reach for him again, but he pushed her aside.
“I came here because I care about you, and I wanted to help, not to talk about this bullshit you’ve invented about Brad.”
“It’s not bullshit, and deep down you know that. Now wasn’t the right time for me to raise the subject, and I’m sorry for that, because I known it hurt you like it hurt me when you talked about Cooper. We’re not rational about the people we love.”
Like you.
“I don’t love my brother, so you can stop putting me into the same fucking box as you and your brother,” he said, then wrenched open the car door and climbed inside, before slamming the door shut behind him. “Call if you need me.”
She stood in the driveway and watched him back out, angry and hurting. She’d stirred up something inside him and she knew he needed time away from her to work through what he was now feeling. It hurt that’d she’d done this to him when the only reason he’d come to see her was to help her, to show her he cared, and she was sending him away in pain.
Sighing, she turned back towards the house. Guilt wasn’t a pretty emotion, and now she had even more of it. She hadn’t really thought about how Ethan felt about Brad when she was in Texas, but when he’d started in on Cooper she’d launched an attack right back, and her words had hit their target dead center.
Ethan felt guilt about Brad because he was a man with a hero complex. He fixed things, loved people, made women feel good. His circle wasn’t huge, but those within it knew that Ethan Gelderman would do anything for them. The fact that he had a brother out there in the world whom he’d cut adrift didn’t sit well with him. He’d given up on his father and mother long ago, but not Brad. Brad was still a raw spot that he’d never been able to heal. And now she’d scratched at it, scraped open even more emotion.
What worried her most was that he’d never forgive her, because she might think it best if he wasn’t in her life, but she didn’t really believe that…not really.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ethan felt like his head was about to explode. His breathing was rapid, and his skin was tight, as if someone had switched it and this one wasn’t his size. He couldn’t seem to fill his lungs with enough air to really breathe deeply.
“You’re fucking wrong,” he said loudly, slamming his fist onto the steering wheel. Annabelle had to be wrong…but Ethan knew deep inside him, in that place where the dark and angry shit lurked, that Annabelle had hit him with deadly accuracy when she’d talked about Brad.
He drove too fast on the way back to Jake’s place, and soon pulled up in front of the barn his friend was working in. Ethan wanted to just get in his bird and fly away from Howling, but he couldn’t do that, not to Jake. He climbed out, stalked inside and found his friend under the hood of a car.
“I’m leaving, so see ya.”
Jake lifted his head and looked across the engine at Ethan, then stood upright wiping his hands on a rag. “What’s up?”
“Nothing’s fucking up, I just need to leave!” Ethan snarled before bracing both hands on the car. He then lowered his head and tried to breathe as the emotions inside him threatened to boil over. He heard Jake walk away from him, then return seconds later.
“Drink this.” A soda was waved under his face, and because he didn’t want to say something he’d regret, he agreed. Taking the can, Ethan stood and drank deep.
