Braden chuckled. “With Jillian and Page to keep them company? My guess is yes.”
She didn’t mind the idea of her kids being up so late. Not if it was with Braden’s darling stepdaughters. And not if it meant she’d get to see their faces when she got home.
Braden pulled open the front door and held it for her.
Bree flicked the lights out, forcing herself not to look back.
The door closed. “You’ll be back in nine months,” Braden said.
What he didn’t say was the part that usually followed:if all goes well. You’ll be back in nine months if all goes well.Two-hundred-seventy days.
“I know.” She had to practically shove the words off her tongue, but at least they went. She gripped the stair rail, the pulse in her palm hammering against the cool steel. “It’s more than that. It’s leaving the kids. It’s living in fear. It’s knowing that that creep is ruling my life again.”
Braden stopped halfway down the steps, spun back to look at her, his jaw clenched so tight it had to hurt. “Trust me, Bree. If I could take this guy out in his sleep and get away with it… there’d be no stopping me.”
More burden. More rocks filling Bree’s middle. “I know.” This time she stopped there. If she said any more it would force her into a full-on freak-out, and she could not let that happen in front of Braden.
She focused on the steps as she lowered herself from one to the next. Beneath the streetlamp stood Braden’s truck. Taped-up boxes filled the flatbed, seeming to weigh it down the way she had him.
The air was soured with unspoken words. Words that would rile and rage and rob her of all things good. Words that – if she chose to speak them– would give new life to the small, tormented girl inside her – that girl that came to life the day Carl Ronsberg singled her out. Sure, she’d learned to bury that little girl long ago, giving life to the confident, semi-adjusted woman she’d become. Still a different version of who she might have been, but adjusted just the same.
“I meant to tell you,” Braden said, opening the passenger door for her. “I might have found someone to help care for the orchard while you’re there. So you won’t have to do it all on your own.”
A distraction. One point for Braden. “That’s good.”
He closed her door, circled around the truck, and climbed in behind the wheel. “He grew up on an orchard his father owns not far from here, so he’s got plenty of experience.”
Whoa.“Did you sayhe?”
“Yes…” He dragged out the word while giving her his take-it-down-a-notch look. “It’s not like you’ll be sharing your bed. He’ll stay in the guesthouse.”
“How old is he? What does he do? What kind of guy can just put his life on hold and move to some orchard in an entirely different state?”
The look was still glued on Braden’s face. “Take a breath, Bree. He’s about your age. Never been married. Kind of between jobs –”
“He’sthirty-twoand he’s never been married?”
When her brother tipped his head, Bree bit back her words. Braden hadn’t married until he was in his thirties. She grasped for something else. “Does he have any children?”
“No. And can we save the twenty dozen questions for later? We don’t even know if it’s a sure thing.” He fired up the truck, began backing out of the drive.
Sure. She could do that. Forget that this news filled her with enough angry heat to launch a hot air balloon across Glacier National Park. “I just don’t feel like spending mysentence to miserywith some jobless, lifeless louse. I’d rather do the work my self and be left alone.” She felt a hint of relief once that was out, but guilt was quick to snatch it away.
Braden put on the brakes, the rear of his truck halfway into the quiet street. “You know, Bree, you’re going to have to learn to trust people somehow. They’re not all Carl Ronsbergs, you know?”
Oh, she knew. But she also knew there were all types out there: Ronsbergs, and those whocreatedthe likes of Ronsberg. She had to watch out for both. She shrugged, done with the argument for now. “I just figured it would be a woman, that’s all.”
He sighed. A heavy, laden sound. “Probably because old Ms. Clemmins has run the place all this time.”
Bree managed a stiff nod. “Yeah, that’s probably why.”
She vowed to let that be the closing words on their discussion, but as Braden cranked the wheel and pulled onto the street, the topic pinged and ponged in her head faster than Braden’s rhythmic tap on the wheel.
Yet one particular question bounced higher than all the rest. One that made thoughts of her stalker fade faster than the house in the distance. Just who was this guy Braden had in mind?
