My dad broke her. He broke her spirit and her confidence, and over the months she’d been dating Mr. Foster, she’d been getting that back. I smiled as he slid the ring on her finger and she said yes, throwing herself into his arms as they hugged and shared a tender kiss.
I looked away from the happy couple and to my two new brothers—Drew was still eating like nothing big had just happened, but Dean’s gaze met mine again and my stomach twisted in a way I’d never felt before. Something churned deep inside of me, and I knew exactly what it was. Fuck.
CHAPTER1
NORA
Three years later…
“How’s school going?” I walked into my step-brother’s room and plopped down on his bed. He was hunched over his desk, studying, as was his norm.
“It’s going. I have a test tomorrow that I’m studying for, and finals are next week.”
“You got two letters in the mail.” I raised both letters. One I knew was from Dean. I always checked the mail just so I could see his clipped writing across the envelope before anyone else. Dean never wrote to anyone but Drew, and nobody really wrote to him either. I think Mom had sent him a care package every Christmas and on his birthday since he’d been gone overseas, but the only real connection he had with our home anymore was his brother. “One’s from Dean.”
“And the other?” He sat back and held his breath. He’d been working his ass off for the past two and a half years. He went to school year-round, taking every full and mini semester class he could take so he could finish his graduate degree and move on toward getting into veterinarian school.
I held up the letter from Georgia Coast University. “You need me to open it?”
Drew didn’t move for a minute, instead he just stared at the envelope with his name and address printed across the front and the familiar logo of the school mascot. “I didn’t think I would be so worried about this.” He laughed at himself and his reaction to the letter that would either secure his spot in the veterinarian program or end that dream for him.
“I can read it for you—if you want.” My stomach was nervous for him. Over the last three years since my mom married Grayson, Drew and I became good friends. Mom made me transfer from my all-girls’ prep school to the local public school, which was not an easy transition to make.
Drew had my back and helped me make it through my first year of high school before he too graduated. When you go to an all-girls’ school, girls aren’t really worried about impressing the boys because there are no boys to impress. Public school was a whole different beast, and I learned quickly that I was not prepared for the dog-eat-dog world of the public school system.
If the girls feel like their place in the ecosystem of school is being threatened, they get nasty, and apparently I upset some kind of cosmic balance when I transferred in. The thing I wanted most was to just keep my head down and finish school, but sometimes the things you want the most are impossible to hope for.
If one of the most popular boys in school is your step-brother, you get “friends” who simply want access to him, and if one of his popular guy friends decides he likes you, and you turn him down... Sometimes rumors get started until you are walking down the hall with snickers following behind you.
Dean found out about the rumor his friend was spreading and put an end to it. Carson didn’t see it coming when Dean tackled him on the football field and planted his fist in his face, threatening to kick the shit out of him if he ever even looked at me again. Dean’s actions caused a huge fight between him and his dad that day, and they suspended him for two days. I think that was the day I fully lost my heart to Dean Foster.
From the day I met my stepbrothers, it was easy for me to see and treat Drew as a brother and friend. It was Dean that I found myself tongue tied around when he was still living at home. It was Dean that I thought about when I lay in bed at night. I’d been around boys before, but Dean wasn’t just a boy. He was on the cusp of being a man, and I felt my first taste of desire for a man I knew I could never have.
When he left for boot camp, I cried. When he was deployed to South Korea, my heart shattered because I knew I may never see him again. Each time he canceled plans to come home, I grieved for the time I could have spent with him.
“Okay,” Drew sat forward and held out his hand, breaking my thoughts of his brother. “Let me see it.”
I lifted the letter from the college out to him and watched as he tore open the envelope. He unfolded the letter, and I watched as his face lit up. “I got in.”
I smiled. “Never had a doubt, big brother. You deserve it.”
“I can’t wait to tell Dean.”
“How is he doing?” I tried not to appear too eager for information about Dean, but inside I was desperate for any scrap of news about him.
“Last I heard, he was okay, but you know you could always write him yourself, Nora. I’m sure he would like to have more letters from home.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged to play off my interest. “Tell him I said hi.”
“Will do.”
I left Drew’s room and went to my own, closing the door behind me, Drew’s words spinning in my head as I flopped down on my bed. Dean had no clue about my feelings for him, and after all these years of wanting him, those feelings weren’t going away.
I sighed and closed my eyes. I just needed to work up the courage to tell him and hope that he wouldn’t reject me because his dad married my mom.
CHAPTER2
DEAN
