Chapter Twenty-Four

Elle

The ride home was pure torture. The silence was like a cloud of smoke hanging over us. Choking out any chance of us coming together in forgiveness.

I was dying to know what Mom had said to Nate and even more important, what had Nate said to her? Jimmy was grumbling in the back. His brow permanently creased in unhappiness. And Mom had a faraway look that completely shut us out.

When we got home, we each went our separate ways. Mom surprised me by not jumping all over me for letting Jimmy get hurt. Or reminding us how she had thought he wasn’t ready for high school. Let alone college.

I’d expected her to put her foot down and use this to prove her point. I’m sure Jimmy was moping around like a man waiting for the guillotine. It was probably only a matter of time before she informed him that he would not be going back. And he could forget about Stanford for a few years.

My heart went out to him. It wasn’t his fault. He’d done everything everyone had asked him. But because of outside jerks, he would lose his dream.

I spent the next few hours alone in my room staring at the backyard. I know, what else is new? My mind constantly went over the day's events. I couldn’t get rid of the sickening feeling of Joe McCain’s arms trapping me. The fear in my gut when Nate and Tom had fought like animals. The overwhelming terror that he would be hurt. I couldn’t forget the look in Jimmy’s eyes when he couldn’t get free. The shame and guilt. Every thought and emotion tumbled over each other for the rest of the afternoon.

But most of all, I couldn’t forget the way I felt when Nate rescued us. The pure heroicness of it all made me swoon just a little inside. The strength and power, the willingness to sacrifice himself for two people who didn’t deserve it. All without a second thought.

My insides fluttered when I thought about it and refused to stop fluttering when I thought about the last time he had looked at me. Those silvery blue eyes of his begging me for forgiveness for some stupid reason. Didn’t the boy understand? We should be begging him for forgiveness.

“Elle,” Nana called from downstairs.

Taking a deep breath I pulled myself together and headed downstairs. She probably needed help with dinner.

I’d just cleared the top banister when I saw him standing just inside the front door. Nate, looking up at me with tight lips and a sad smile. His battered face reminding me how much we owed him. My heart jumped and the butterflies took off.

“Elle,” he said. “I … um … need to talk to Jimmy. It will just take a second.”

All I could do was stare down at him in disbelief. He looked so handsome, even with cuts and bruises. So tall, so strong, so different.

“Elle?” Nana said with a smirk that broke me out of my trance.

“Sure, I’ll get him,” I managed to say somehow.

“How about on the deck out back?” Nana said to Nate. “I’ll bring you lemon aid.”

Nate nodded and started to follow Nana out the back when he looked back up at me with a blank, expressionless look that pissed me off for some reason. Why couldn’t I read him? What was he here for? And why was my insides going crazy with a weird mixture of fear and hope?

“Jimmy,” I said as I stepped into his room. He was laying on his bed, his hands folded behind his head, staring up at his ceiling. A Watson trait I was coming to understand. “Nate’s here, he wants to talk to you.”

He shot me a look that told me to forget about it.

“You’re coming,” I said, “if I have to drag you down the stairs by your feet.”

Huffing out a big breath, he pushed himself off his bed and stormed past me. Rolling my eyes I followed to make sure he arrived there and didn’t duck out.

When we got to the back door, I saw Mom and Nate talking outside. She nodded her head and then smiled at him. My insides turned over. That was not good. It couldn’t be good. Nothing was ever good.

She saw us and gave Nate a quick smile as she stepped back into the kitchen with Nana. I knew without looking that she and my grandmother had positioned themselves to watch every moment.

“Here he is,” I said as I turned to leave. This was between Nate and Jimmy. Or at least I assumed so, He hadn’t said he wanted to talk to me.

“Stay,” Nate said, “you need to hear this.”

I stopped myself from leaving and turned to face them. Jimmy had his arms folded across his chest, his chin up and his eyes shooting out pure anger.

Nate smiled and slowly shook his head. “Okay, this ends now,” he said as if it were a decree from on high. “Stop acting like a little kid and forgive your sister.”

Jimmy’s eyes bugged out as he sputtered in disbelief, “Forgive my sister. Forgive my sister. Are you crazy?”

Nate didn’t move, instead, he tilted his head and said, “She was doing what she was supposed to do. And if you had half a brain, you’d know she was right.”

Jimmy’s face lost three shades of color. People did not question his intelligence.

“She shouldn’t have stuck her nose in my business,” he said, as if it should have been obvious.

Nate laughed. “Of course she should. You’re family. That makes it her business. All she did was what she is supposed to do.”

“But …” Jimmy stammered. “But, she only went out with you to protect me. How do you think that makes me feel?”

Nate shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t care. No one does. Grow up and realize you’re not the center of the universe. She did what she was supposed to do. Besides. I tricked her into going out with me.”

“You what?” Jimmy asked.

“What?” I said at the same time.

Nate shrugged again and said to Jimmy. “Of course I did. I started falling in love with her about two minutes after I met her. How else was I going to get her to go out with me? I told her that it was because we had to convince the other kids that I was protecting you because of her. And you know what? It might not have been entirely true. But how else was I going to get your sister to like me? So, Like I said, get over it.”

“You used me as an excuse to get to my sister.”

Nate chuckled. “Of course, I did. And you know what? Any guy who has ever felt about a girl the way I felt about Elle would have done the same thing. Someday, you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

My insides turned to mush as I stared at Nate. Was this true? Had it all been a way to get me to go out with him, and how did that make me feel? My mind tossed the idea around in my head for a good second and a half before I realized I didn’t care. In fact, it was the greatest compliment a girl could ever get. And it was coming from Nate Clark.

“But, You don’t understand.” Jimmy sputtered. “How am I supposed to go through life knowing that if it hadn’t been for my sister I would have gotten beaten up on a regular basis? How do you think that makes me feel?”

Nate studied him for a moment. “Like a failure, I imagine. Something I’m pretty sure you’ve never felt before in your life. Am I right?”

Jimmy looked up at him and I could see that Nate’s words had hit home.

“Well,” Nate continued. “Like I said, get over it and welcome to the real world. The rest of us feel that way a great deal of the time. You’re not as unusual as you thought.”

“But it’s not fair,” Jimmy said and I swore he wanted to stomp his foot.

Nate reached out and placed a hand on his shoulders. “Nope, it's not. There’s a reason they have weight classes in boxing. If I went in against a guy a foot taller and eighty pounds heavier. I’d get my butt kicked too. That is all beside the point. None of it matters. Your sister was right. You were wrong to blame her. Tell her you’re sorry and let’s move past this.”

Jimmy stared back up at Nate for a long minute. I could see him processing what Nate had confronted him with. Why hadn’t I tried this approach? This direct confrontation.

Because Jimmy would have never listened to me the way he was listening to Nate is why. There was something between them. An honesty that let Nate say the words that needed to be said.

At last, Jimmy pulled his eyes away from Nate and looked at me. I held my breath for an eternity until he said the words. “I’m sorry, Elle,”

My world melted as I said, “I’m sorry too.”

He smiled and stepped to give me a quick hug. I pulled him into a tight embrace. My brother had forgiven me. Life was normal again. My heart swelled back to its normal size.

Smiling to Nate over Jimmy’s shoulder I tried to let him know how much I appreciated what he had done.

“Now then,” Nate said. “That’s enough. Too much and people will think you guys actually care about each other. Besides, I need to talk to Elle. Alone,” he added for emphasis.

Jimmy glanced at him then back at me before shooting me a quick smile as he nodded.

My heart jumped as I saw the serious frown on Nate’s face. What now? I wondered.

“I’ll talk to you later Nate. Thanks,” Jimmy said as if everything was over and behind him. What was it about guys. They were yelling at each other one moment. Then they could pretend it was no big deal. How did anything ever get truly resolved?

Nate nodded to him without taking his eyes off me. My thought immediately left Jimmy and focused on the large man in front of me. I felt like a trapped butterfly, unable to move. Unable to look away.

The shutting of the back door startled me for a moment as Nate stepped closer. We looked into each other’s eyes for the longest time. A million messages were sent and received. It took everything I ever had to pull myself away from his stare, but I had to. There were things I needed to know.

“Why aren’t you going into the army?” I asked him as I stepped away. I needed space. Some separation from him if I was ever going to be able to function like a normal person.

Nate shrugged his shoulders. “I’m still going into the army,” he said. “But it will be as an officer and with an engineering degree.”

“Why?” I asked, there was something more. Biting my lip, I held my breath and waited.

“You want to know the truth,” he said with that smirk of his.

“No, I want you to lie to me,” I snapped.

Nate sighed heavily and looked off into the distance. “Because,” he said. “Just in case any future me ran into a future you. I wanted to be enough. Something you could be proud of. Something you deserved. You know, just in case.”

My heart melted into a puddle. Okay, the new best compliment ever.

“Oh, Nate,” I said. “You have always been more than I ever wanted. More than I’ve ever even needed. Until you, I had no idea of what I wanted in life. But now. I will always know what I want. A hero. An honorable man who loves me as much as I love him.

Nate’s face froze for a long second as he listened to me. Then a huge smile broke out as he pulled me into a deep hug. One of the deepest, most glorious hugs on this planet.

“You know, Elle,” he said as he held me with his strong arms. “Just because I love you more than any man has ever loved a woman. That does not mean you are in charge.”

I laughed as I buried my head onto his chest. “We’ll talk about it later,” I said. At the moment, the last thing I wanted was to get into an argument with Nate Clark. Besides. We had the rest of our lives to work out the details.