Brody

 

The floor creaked.

I was in the dark, a bottle of bourbon half drank on the floor beside me, and I was staring out toward the field. I was on the second-floor patio, the door open behind me. A nice breeze came off the mountain, but it was just me. All me.

And Kyle’s ghost.

He was never far away.

But the floor creaked, and I knew it was her.

I felt her in my blood, in the way my skin washed in goose bumps and chills. The recognition slammed full force into me at the same time the need for her rose, threatening to overtake me. When she stepped out through the open door, I didn’t dare move.

I feared she’d run like the last time.

It’d been two weeks since I saw her at the river, and as she stood beside me, looking out over the field with me, she was every bit the ghost she’d been that night.

She murmured softly, “Everyone left,” before turning to look at me as I took a seat in the chair to her left. “Why?”

“Your brother was worried someone would see you.”

Her forehead wrinkled, just a small line. “Someone did. You.”

I laughed, a small one. “Someone who wouldn’t keep quiet.”

“Oh.” She bit her lip, moving to the chair beside mine. She folded down, her petite body so strong but so small and graceful. “He cares for me.”

I barked out a laugh. “It’s more than that, Princess.”

I felt her surprise as she looked at me. Her eyes were wide, startled, then a slow smile spread over her face. “That name reminds me of one of the horses.”

Great. I gave her the same nickname as a real-life feral horse. Awesome.

“Anytime.”

Another peal of laughter came from her. It was genuine, and I smiled along with her. I would give her all the cheesy-ass nicknames she wanted if this was the reaction I got. When she started to fade, I asked, “Why’d you come see me?”

A person with an agenda could’ve feigned being hurt, saying that maybe I didn’t want them to come. I’d have to go on the defensive and tell her I wanted her here. Or even use it as a come-on. Kara, who most certainly had an agenda, would have somehow used the question as an excuse to crawl onto my lap.

Though, I wouldn’t mind if Morgan crawled onto my lap.

“Because I’m curious about you.” There was no game between us. No hidden manipulation. She was being real, and goddamn, my dick bulged inside my pants. I had to dig my nails into the chair. I needed to calm it down. Otherwise, I’d jump her bones.

I coughed, getting some restraint in there. “What are you curious about?”

“You.” She shifted on her seat, pulling her feet underneath her. She was facing me, leaning on the one side of her chair. Rapt curiosity was etched on her face. “What’s your full name?”

No thought. I answered immediately, “Brody Josh Asher. Not Joshua, just Josh.”

“Are you named after anyone?”

“My mom had a thing for a soap actor named Josh.”

“A soap?”

I grinned. That was goddamn cute. “Not something to clean yourself. It’s a type of show on television.”

“Ah. I had a nanny who watched one, I think.” Her eyebrows pulled together again.

I was having a hard time not reaching over and smoothing out the small wrinkles.

She added, “There was a lot of sex.”

An awkward laugh from me. “Let’s not talk about sex.”

Her eyes were on me again. They were full. They were unblinking. There was something there I didn’t want to identify. If I did, I would be in her within a minute. I wanted this time with her. It was real. It was the type of shit I didn’t want with anyone else.

“Ask me another question.”

“Do you want to have sex with me?”

A mangled cry ripped from my throat. “I’m finding the more time I spend with you, the less control I have.”

“So you do want to have sex with me?”

I saw the knowing look on her face and bit back a groan. “You goddamn know I do.” I fixed her with a hard look, letting her know that she may be able to see me, but I could see her too. “You want me as well.”

There was no hiding, only the continued spread of that smile. Yep. Tonight was going to be one of the most torturous nights I’d ever experience. I already knew I wouldn’t trade it for anything else.

“Yes.” She sat up, her feet tucked directly beneath her.

I nodded at her. “I have a feeling you could hang upside down from the post.”

“I live mostly in the woods. You develop the ability to climb trees and rocks if you want to survive.”

“Horses too.”

She nodded solemnly. “Horses too.”

“They climb trees?”

She chuckled. “No, but they can climb rocks if they have to. They can also run down cliff edges.”

“I’ve seen Snowy River.” I suppressed a shudder at the idea of her riding a horse down one of those edges. “It looked damned scary.”

“Snowy River?”

“It’s a movie.”

“I’ve not seen it.”

“Do you watch television?”

“I have in the past, when I went to school.”

I shot up in my seat. “You went to school?”

She laughed, settling into her seat again. Her feet slowly unwound from beneath her until she looked as if she was almost lounging back. “I had to. I live with horses for a choice, but I’m not a moron. I couldn’t give anyone a reason to say I couldn’t be with them. Getting a high school degree and,” she leaned forward again, a teasing glimmer in her eyes, “a college degree made it so I could do what I wanted.”

“You went to high school and college?”

She snorted, motioning in the direction where the main lodge was. “No way. I did the homeschooling thing, and I did the online thing for college. Peter made sure there was staff here to take care of me.”

I was surprised and impressed all at the same time. “Did you like Peter?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She ended with a shrug before adding, “She loved him. That was all that mattered.”

I fell silent, digesting. I was learning so much and not enough. “I’m playing him in the movie, but I’ve never met him. My manager reached out to see if I could meet him, for research purposes. He said I could ask his children for any insight needed.” I remembered when she read the words to me from her phone, reciting them word for word. “He sounds like a peach of a guy.”

She laughed a little. “That seems like him.”

“When did he stop sending people here for you?”

She mulled it over. Her mouth puckered up again. “When I turned eighteen. He came to tell me everything was legally in my name now. A lawyer came the next day to tell me about my inheritance, and the staff was all gone that same day.”

I shot forward. “Wait. These are your lands?”

She nodded.

“Shit.” A nice piece of information I was pretty sure Shanna didn’t know about.

“Matthew drove out the next week. He took me to the bank and got me set up so I could get money when I needed it. He helped set up other things.”

“You don’t drive?”

She shook her head. “None of the staff offered to teach me, and I didn’t care. Shoal could take me anywhere I needed to go.”

“Do you want to learn?”

“Are you going to teach me?”

I nodded. “I would if you wanted me to.”

Her mouth opened. She was thinking about it. Then she shrugged again. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Well, think on it.” I reached down for the bourbon and took a large swig. God. I needed that burn.

Her eyes were on the bottle as I held it.

“You’re still drinking.”

I listened for the judgment. There was none.

I relaxed a little, nodding. “It helps.”

“With what?”

The air shifted between us. It grew more intimate. It’d been playful, light before. She was getting into a second layer of shit.

I motioned around the patio, still holding the bourbon. “Ever been haunted? Because I have. I am. You aren’t the only ghost here.”

“I’m not a ghost.”

“That’s yet to be proven.” I grinned at her, but I felt Kyle. He was sitting with us. He was either laughing at how much of a dumbass I was being or he was flipping me off.

I added, “He visits me often.”

She leaned forward, reaching for the bourbon. When I relinquished it, she took it and leaned back in her seat. “Does he get stronger when you drink or does he fade?” She took a sip. She swallowed it slowly before handing the bottle back, and I hadn’t wanted her as much as I did in that moment. I’d have to readjust in a minute because my hard-on was becoming too uncomfortable. But until then, I took the bottle, as well as a second shot.

I placed it on the floor between us.

I thought back to her question. “He gets stronger, but I can sleep. I can’t sleep unless I drink. I don’t want to take fucking pills. They mess up my head. If it’s going to be messed up more than it is, I want it to be from booze. At least then I can have some fun while I’m at it.” I flashed her a grin.

I waited.

Normal girls would try to be cute. Smart girls would try to say something witty. She only reached for the bourbon and took a long swallow. She hissed this time, setting it back down between us.

She coughed, rasping out, “They tried to make me take pills too.”

“Whe—” I remembered. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Her chin dipped to her chest, and she pulled her legs up so she could hug her knees to herself. “I was young when my mom died. I had to take the pills, but I got off them. I slipped some to Finn. He liked pills back then.”

“You saw them after she died?”

She looked down and was silent for a beat. “Matthew brought them out a few times.”

But it wasn’t enough. They’d basically left her.

My hands went back to digging into the goddamn chair. I wanted to throw the fucking thing at Kellerman, but this time wasn’t about the piece of shit. I could hear Kyle telling me to calm down, so I took his advice. I had to. I couldn’t scare her away. That was the last thing I wanted.

Forcing myself to chill the fuck out, I asked, “Have you talked to your siblings since we’ve all been here?”

She was chewing on her bottom lip again.

Between the need to pound Kellerman’s face in and the way she was kneading that lip of hers, my dick was raging. I couldn’t remember when I had this big of a hard-on. Holy fuck. I tried telling him it wasn’t the hottest thing he’d ever seen. I wasn’t being convincing.

“I’ve talked to Matthew but not Finn or Abby.”

“Would you like to talk to them?”

Her teeth stopped nibbling. She smoothed her hands down her legs instead. “I always liked Finn. He made me laugh. He scared me a bit because he could be reckless, but he was funny.”

I raised an eyebrow. That preppy-looking prick was funny? “Really?”

She nodded. “Abby was too. Both of them would dare each other to do pranks. I remember one time when Matthew had a date. He’d just turned sixteen, and he was so proud of his car. He was taking out Molly Connors. Finn dared Abby to smear peanut butter all over the backseat. Matthew didn’t notice when he left, and then it got dark. I guess he found out later when they went back there.” She started laughing, her shoulders shaking. “He came home with peanut butter all over him. He blamed Finn the whole time, and I guess it was kind of his fault, but no one told him it’d really been Abby.”

Abby. The girl who looked like a strong wind could blow her over. She rarely spoke and stuck close to her two brothers’ sides whenever she was around. She had that kind of pranking streak in her?

I grunted, picking up the bourbon again. “No offense, but your siblings have changed. For the worse.”

She sobered. A beat later, she said softly, “Karen died. They moved away. Life changes people. They forget.”

Life hardened people.

She didn’t say it, but I heard it.

I looked at her again, like I was seeing her anew. “That’s why you stay out there.”

Her eyes widened. She looked stricken.

“You don’t want to forget your mother.”

One beat.

We stared at each other, both knowing that I crossed the line. I should take back my words, but I couldn’t. She was going to bolt. I didn’t have time.

We moved at the same time.

I knew she was going to run, and I went for the patio door. I meant to block her, to apologize.

She didn’t go back for the door. She launched herself over the patio.

“Morgan!”

My heart stopped. Literally.

It was a ten-foot drop.

The world paused in that second, and then I was at the edge. I wasn’t ready to see her body there, but my God, if I hadn’t known I cared for her, I would’ve then.

Fear like I’d only experienced one other time crashed through me.

Not again. Please not again.

But she wasn’t down there. I searched the ground. There was no sight of her.

Shit, shit, shit!

“Morgan.”

Where was she?

I scanned the grounds, and then I saw her.

She was jogging down the field, and already knowing what I’d see, I spotted her horse at the end of the fence. She was waiting for Morgan as if the girl had called for a car or something.

A raw laugh ripped from me, and I fell back into my chair.

My heart was racing.

My body heat was a bonfire, and I’d never been so relieved before.

I was happy, but I fucked up, and I wasn’t so upset about that, either, because I had my answer. I had suspected before, but I had as much pull on her as she had on me. Whatever we were locked in, we were both in it.

She’d be back.