“She hugged me and told me she’d take care of me. I remember thinkin’ she smelled rotten. I didn’t want her anywhere near me, but I knew if I said somethin’, Billy Don would make me because that was what he did. He got off on that shit. Forcin’ us to do things we didn’t wanna do. He thought it was funny.”
Holt’s heart thumped hard in his chest.
“Turned out Jolene liked me.” Rafe cringed. “She told me as much that night when she came to my room again. I woke up to find her sittin’ on my bed with her fuckin’ hand up my shorts. I wasn’t even twelve yet. Not for another month, but that didn’t bother her. The nasty bitch.”
Holt felt the blood drain from his face. Was he saying…?
“For months, that bitch came to my room at night. Sometimes durin’ the day if Rex wasn’t home.”
Oh, Jesus.
“Did Billy Don know?”
“Yeah.” Rafe’s throat worked on a hard swallow. “He liked to watch.”
Holt forced himself not to react, but his stomach clenched, and his chest filled with a rage so potent, it was a damn good thing that bastard was dead.
“Have you ever talked to anyone about this, Rafe?”
“You mean a psychiatrist?” He shrugged.
Honestly, that wasn’t the response Holt had anticipated. He’d expected Rafe to claim that it wouldn’t help. Now Holt had to wonder.
“You might consider it.”
Rafe nodded. “I’m sure it disgusts you to know all that about me. That I was some nasty bitch’s play toy.”
“What?Of course not. What she did to you … that wasn’t your fault.” How could he possibly think that it was?
“I know that,” he snapped. “But I let her because she told me she’d move on to Rex if I didn’t. I didn’t want her touchin’ my brother. I didn’t want him to have to go through that. I knew he didn’t like girls.”
Holt recalled the court transcript. It read like a horror novel, complete with a detailed depiction of the woman determined to exorcise the gay out of Rex. That was the reason she’d been in his room that night. So even though Rafe had endured to protect his brother, it hadn’t mattered.
“I’m not disgusted,” Holt repeated.
Rafe’s expression turned arctic. “Then would it disgust you to learn that I’m the one who gave Jolene the drugs that she overdosed on? I made sure she had more than she could handle. Essentially, I killed her, too.”
Rafe was staring at him, expecting a response, so Holt gave him the truth. He approached slowly, sensing Rafe’s defense mechanisms falling into place as he neared.
Holt leaned forward and pressed his forehead to Rafe’s, not touching him any other way. “I think you’re a survivor. I think you’ve suffered far more than anyone should. And no, it doesn’t disgust me to learn any of this. It makes me love you more.”
“If I’d told someone, I could’ve protected Rex,” Rafe whispered, his voice ravaged with pain.
Holt stood tall and looked Rafe in the eye. “I read in an article from back then that Rex fought to get the sheriff to investigate your mother’s death. He claimed your father did it, but the authorities didn’t believe him. There’s a good chance you coming forward would’ve had the same result, Rafe. There’s no way to predict what could’ve happened. Not with any certainty. You need to forgive yourself.”
“I don’t know how.”
“You let me and Bailey love you. That’s a start.”
Rafe swallowed, and Holt anticipated a rebuttal coming, but Holt’s cell phone rang before Rafe could get the words out.
He saw it was Bailey, so he answered, still holding Rafe’s gaze.
“Hey. We were—”
“This is Rex. There’s been an accident.” He was quick to add, “Nothing life-threatening, but I think you should get back here.”
“What happened?”
