Page 20 of Branded Betrayal

Which is exactly what I can’t do.

I won’t survive Blaze Hartman breaking me a second time.

Groaning, I get up and stagger into the powder room off the kitchen. I almost laugh when I catch a look at my reflection. Mud-stained face, raccoon eyes, soaked and now-transparent T-shirt. Sweet Jesus, I am a total wreck, and he just witnessed that unarguable truth.

Black mascara streaks the undersides of my eyes like war paint. With a frustrated huff, I use my fingers to wipe it away so I don’t look like Alice Cooper. My shoulders slump, and I hang over the sink, squeezing my eyes shut.

I’m not the same girl I was when I left this town, and he can’t manipulate me into falling under his toxic spell again.

His woodsy, spicy scent lingers in the air, sticking to my skin, almost as a taunt.

“You can’t walk away from me.”

I turn on the water and wash my hands, his words pounding between my ears.

“You’ll never be free.”

“Fuck you, Blaze,” I yell, soaping up my hands and rubbing them hard. As if that can erase the memory of him. But it doesn’t work. His seductive smirk and rugged, gorgeous bearded face still wallpapers my mind.

Because the truth is, he’s permanently etched onto my soul, like a dark stain I’ll never be able to scrub clean.

I dry my hands and walk into the kitchen. I need a sweet treat, something to take the edge off. My mind trips back to the way Blaze would lick the cake mix from my fingers. Before . . . everything.

No! I am not tainting my love of baking with that man.

I find Aunt Marg’s recipe box in a kitchen drawer. I run my finger over the top of the wooden box, the edges worn smooth from use and time. Recipes scrawled on index cards are neatly organized in alphabetical order inside the box.

I flip through them, my heart clenching as I scan all of her favorite dishes to prepare. Her pot roast. Her blackberry cobbler. Her lemon poppy seed loaf that Nash always claimed to be the best in Wyoming.

At the bottom, tucked under the stack, I find a card with no recipe on it. It’s just a note.

For Savannah—when you finally come home.

My throat tightens, tears springing to my eyes when I flip the card over with a shaking hand.

Baby girl, home is always here. Waiting. So am I. Love you to the moon.

—Aunt M.

It’s dated six years ago. Right after I left for Denver.

She wrote this six years ago and kept it here, waiting for me to find it.

Waiting for me to come home.

I press the card to my chest and let the tears fall. Loud, ugly sobs rack my shoulders as I slump over the counter with my head in my hands.

For Aunt Marg. For the years I wasted. For the home I left.

When the tears finally stop, I slowly rifle through the recipe box again. Flipping through the cards, I stop on the recipe for her famous chocolate fudge cake. She always used raspberry jam as the filling, and Nash and I would finish half of the cake in one sitting whenever she’d bake it.

Mom used to love to bake too. She and Aunt Marg and I would have Bake-Offs every month. We’d make all sorts of treats, and Nash, Dad, and Uncle Aaron would be the judges.

It’s been so long since I’ve thought about those times.

Does Nash, I wonder?

I busy myself opening cupboards and pulling out ingredients as a way to distract myself from the guilt and the grief when Nash walks in. I didn’t even hear his truck pull back up. I wipe my eyes, but he barely acknowledges me before sliding past to grab a bottle of whiskey. He pours some into a glass and swallows it in one gulp.