“Shit.” Bishop jumped to his feet, but I couldn’t focus on him. Couldn’t hear anything but the words reverberating in my head.

An old barn. Eastern slope. An old barn. Eastern slope.

I was going to be sick.

Suddenly, someone grabbed my elbow, tugging me away from the counter. Finn. His eyes the same deep blue-gray they’d been that day at the barn. So many years ago, so many lifetimes it seemed, and yet the same. So much the same. He wasn’t smiling, though. Wasn’t laughing. Not like that day. The one that destroyed my life.

The moment that took Bishop away from me.

Finn had his hands on me again, but this time, I was aware enough to yank away from him.

“Don’t fucking touch me.”

“Anabeth,” Finn said, leaning forward. Reaching for me. So much like that day, like that moment in the barn when he’d almost killed me. When he’d killed the only good things I’d ever had in my shitty life.

I jerked away again, hissing as I stepped on a chunk of ceramic.

“Shit. Finn, back the fuck off.” Bishop picked me right up off my feet, cradling me in his arms as he carried me to the other side of the counter. Away from the hurt and the mess. Away from his brother. But it was too late. The damage had been done. Years and years and years before, I hadn’t paid enough attention. Hadn’t done what I needed to, and there was no coming back from that. Just like the mug—my absolute favorite that I’d had since Miss had made it for me when I’d come to live with her—I was broken beyond repair.

“Put me down,” I said, pushing Bishop away. Needing space. Needing air to breathe. Needing to get away. He did as I told him, watching me with wary eyes as he set me on my feet.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” A lie—I was anything but fine. “I need to go take care of my foot.”

“I’ll help you,” Bishop said, reaching for me. As if to protect me, to shield me. Too late, though. So many years too late.

“I’ve got this covered. Just…let me go.”

Bishop did as I asked, looking hurt and confused. But I didn’t have it in me to soothe him, didn’t have the words or the heart to make him feel better when my own emotions had just been laid bare. There was only so much I could do at one time, and dealing with the sudden plunge into memories of the darkest days of my life took priority.

Finn closed the door behind himself, having stepped out onto the porch. Good. I didn’t want to see him. Couldn’t stand to look into those eyes so much like Bishop’s and remember.

So I limped up the stairs, and I closed my bedroom door behind me. And I slid down the length of it to the floor, curled up in a ball, and sobbed for all the things I’d done wrong. For all the losses I’d suffered.

And for all the mistakes I could never, ever repair.

---

Bishop

“What the fuck just happened?” Gage stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the door Finn had walked out of. Looking just as lost as I felt.

“No clue.”

“That wasn’t about a broken mug.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

He grunted before bending to pick up the chunks of ceramic littering the floor. I should have helped him, but I couldn’t stop watching the hallway Anabeth had disappeared down. Something was very wrong. And I needed to figure out what.

As if reading my mind, Gage said, “You want to finally tell me your history with that broad so I know what we’re dealing with?”

Not in the slightest. I groaned, turning away from the hall as he dumped the ceramic pieces into the trash. “I really don’t want to rehash shit.”

“You haven’t hashed yet. At least, not with me.”

He was right. He was also my best friend. If anyone should know about Anabeth and me, it was Gage. The thought of telling him made my neck tight, though. “We dated.”

“No shit.”

“She was in high school—same grade as Finn and Elijah. She’s older, though. Got held back one year because she couldn’t keep up with all the moves.” I shook my head, catching his questioning gaze. “She grew up in the foster care system. Miss was her grandmother, though she never knew Anabeth existed. Not until the kid was already a preteen and stuck in the system, bouncing from house to house to house.”

“Fuck. That’s—”

“Horrible? Yeah.” Worse than horrible. That girl had been an emotionless stone when I first met her. A beautiful, unforgettable stone. “According to the stories, it was just as bad as you can probably imagine. But as soon as Miss found out about Anabeth, she hunted her down and brought her here. Finn and Elijah befriended her pretty easily, so she hung out at our house with them. That’s how I met her.”

“So you dated what…a couple years?”

“Almost four, yeah.” A lifetime and yet it went so quick. And then came fourteen years of not having her. A thought that felt like a knife slicing through my chest. “That girl…she was my everything, my world. But I was at school, too fucking busy finishing up my double major in forestry economics and silviculture—”

“Show-off.” Flat, deadpan, the word left me speechless. Sadly, Gage was not. “Seriously, man. Double major? What, you missed out on the chess club in high school or something?

Jackass. “Not my fault I’m smart, dude.” I shrugged, huffing a laugh and ducking as he threw a kitchen towel at my head. “Your aim is shit.”

“And you’re a nerd. Carry on. You were at school, and Legs was here with your brothers.”

That sounded…not the way it should have. “She had other friends.”

Gage could pull off a seriously dramatic eyeroll when he wanted to, and apparently, he wanted to. “Fine, she wasn’t with your brothers. So what happened?”

I’d been asking myself that question for fourteen years. “I have no idea. One day, I got a phone call from her saying we were through and she was moving to Vegas. Done. End of story.”

Gage looked about as confused as I’d always felt in regards to Anabeth walking away. “But why?”

“Don’t know. I’m not ashamed to admit I was pretty fucking heartbroken. That girl had been my life for years. And when I went after her—”

“Because there was no way you weren’t going after her.”

“Exactly. But she was living with some guy. He answered the door.”

“The fuck?” Gage stood there, staring, looking ready to rage. Ready to back me up.

Not that he needed to. “I didn’t know it then, but she wasn’t with him. He was a friend of Miss’ and letting her stay at his place while she got settled.”

“But she let you think he was more.”

“Yeah.” She had, and that still hurt. I headed for the table, needing to clear my head. To sit. To purge the thoughts dragging me down so I could see clearly. “That happened on a Wednesday. Alder was on leave, so he came to drag my sorry ass home after I found myself at the bottom of a bottle with nowhere to go or stay. I joined the Navy on Monday morning and ended up being accepted into the SEAL training program right away. So I finished my degrees and got the fuck out of town.”

“And you never talked about her.”

And admit I’d met—and lost—the woman of my dreams? Fuck no. I shook my head.

Gage huffed, sitting back in his chair. Balancing it on two legs. “And now she’s a performer out in Vegas.”

“Yeah. Tarot cards, tea leaf reading, psychic shit that’s more intuition and knowing people than anything else. All the stuff Miss taught her.”

“When’s she going back?”

The question burned, the words embedding themselves in my chest like knives. Leave it to Gage to get right to the meat of the issue. “Doesn’t matter.”

The truth, but I couldn’t deny that she would be going back. And soon. There was nothing for her in Justice. Nothing for her with me. She may have missed me all these years apart, but she’d never tried to get in touch. Never reached out. She’d missed me, just not enough to do anything about it. The only reason she’d come home was for Miss, and even then, she hadn’t sought me out. I’d found her. I’d brought us right back to that place…and she would run again. But this time, I wouldn’t give up chasing her.

“Rain’s falling harder,” Gage said, yanking me from the death spiral of my thoughts. I looked up, no longer able to see past the edge of the porch. The one where Finn stood, leaning his shoulder against the wall and looking out toward the woods to the east.

“You should take Finn back to town before you get flooded in here. I don’t know what’s wrong with him and Anabeth, but there’s some sort of tension there.”

“Yeah, I saw that myself.” Gage came around the table, smacking my shoulder hard before squeezing it. “This girl makes you happy. Might be time to think about changing things in your life to accommodate hers. But no matter what, I’ve got your back, brother. Always.”

There was nothing to say to that because I already knew I’d probably be making some big changes if I wanted to keep Anabeth in my life. I simply nodded, staring out the window as he headed outside and led Finn to his Jeep. As he backed out of the driveway and disappeared into the hazy afternoon rainstorm. I sat and looked out the window for what felt like hours as my determination sank in.

Ignorance was not knowing something; stupidity was learning the same thing over and over without catching on. I’d been down this road with Anabeth, been left behind and hurt and damn near crushed by her. And there I was, ready to let her do it again.

I was as stupid as any man had ever been, but there was no stopping what I’d started. I’d fallen back in love with Anabeth, but it wouldn’t matter. She was going to leave me. To leave Justice. And once again, she’d take my heart with her unless I figured out a way to convince her to let me go with her. But there were conversations to have before I could try for that, explanations needed. About why she left in the first place, why she’d broken my heart. Why she hadn’t loved me enough then to find a way to work out whatever was going on with her.

To move forward, we’d have to go back. I didn’t know if she was ready, though.

Or if she ever would be.

At least without one hell of a push from me.