Page 34 of Forever Finds Us (Wisper Dreams #7)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Roxanne

“God. The poor guy.”

“He called me,” Brand said. “Before he left Wisper and disappeared. Before Stuey. It was two years ago. I was so busy with work. We had so many fuckin’ projects goin’, and I was overwhelmed.

Bea was with me up in Sheridan. She was tryin’ to help, but we’d just gotten so big and successful, and it was too much all at once.

“So when Dixon called, ‘just to hear my voice,’ he said, I didn’t see what I should’ve. I didn’t see how he’d changed. Or maybe I did and I chose not to notice because that was easier. It hurt less. It was less messy.”

“Brand,” I said, “I know you know this, but it isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have stopped your dad. You couldn’t have made him love Dixon. It’s not your fault Dixon left, and it’s not your fault he became an addict.”

“I don’t know that.”

Softly, I said, “I do.”

Brand shook his head. “He called again, months after he left Stuart with Bax.”

Whoa . This was definitely news. Abey had said no one had seen or heard from Dixon once since he’d left Stuart at Bax’s place in a wicker basket last year. “You talked to him?”

Nodding, he said, “He called and asked for money for rehab. I gave it to him. Of course I did. He told me Stuart’s mother died.

She overdosed. He’d been somewhat clean after the baby was born, but then Kel died, and he couldn’t hold it together.

I flew to California and checked him into a rehab in Redding.

Paid up front. And then I left him again.

He said it was what he wanted, but… I should’ve stayed. ”

“Abey and Bax don’t know? You didn’t tell Merv?”

Jesus. Bax was likely to strangle Brand when he finally told his brother that his kid’s birth mother had died months ago, and Brand had known but didn’t say anything.

And suddenly, the way he had hugged and kissed Stuey after dinner tonight made perfect sense.

Not that it was unusual for him to show his nephew affection, but tonight felt different.

He hugged longer and harder, and he whispered something in Stu’s ear.

Now I had an idea what that might’ve been about.

“No.”

“Brand, why not? They’ve been worried sick about Dixon.”

He looked away. “I know. Don’t you think I know that?”

“Then why?”

“Dixon begged me not to. I owed him.”

“And now? Do you know where he is now?”

“No. He says he’s sober, but he called me this mornin’, and he said he needs time. He needs to be alone. I don’t know where he is now. All he said was California. I asked if he needed money or a car. He said no, and he hung up.”

I flopped on my ass and leaned back against the couch. Minutes passed in silence as I thought through all the ways this information could play out in Brand’s life. In Abey’s. But then I said, “Brand, you have to tell them.”

“Don’t you get it? I can’t. I can’t betray Dixon like that. It’s the only thing he asked of me. I can’t go back on my word. Not with him.”

“And if he gets hurt, or God forbid, he dies, what then? What will you tell them?”

“Even if they knew, what could they do? They can’t make him stay sober. Merv can’t mother addiction away.”

“No,” I said. “You’re right. Dixon has to come to terms with his addiction on his own, but…”

“But what?”

“I just know that if it were Aubrey and one of her boys was in trouble, she’d want to know he was still alive.

If it were you, if you were the addict, Merv would want to know if you were still in this world, still breathin’.

Even if she couldn’t help you, if she didn’t know where you were, don’t you think she deserves to know that her son’s heart still beats? ”

He looked at me. He didn’t speak.

“Please don’t ever ask me to hurt you like that again,” I said. “A little pain is sexy, for the sake of sex and arousal, but not because you believe you deserve to have pain inflicted on you to make up for your perceived sins.

“They’re not sins, Brand. They might be mistakes. I’m not you. I can’t judge ’cause I haven’t lived through what you have. But please . If you want someone to hurt you, that’s what therapists are for. Or dominatrixes.

“I’m neither. I’m a cop. If you want my help, ask me to help you find Dixon. Ask me to hold you. But don’t you dare ever ask me to hit you like that again.”

He reached for me and pulled me close, wrapping his arms around me and tucking his face against my shoulder. “You’d do that for me?” he asked quietly, like he couldn’t believe I’d offered.

“Of course I will. I love you. There probably isn’t much I wouldn’t do for you, but if I help you look, you have to promise me you’ll tell your family.”

“I will. I promise.”

“I don’t like to fly,” I said as Brand buckled my seatbelt on a small Gulfstream his friend from Montana loaned him for our flight to Redding, California. He tightened the strap across my lap and let his hand linger over my thigh.

“Why not?”

“Dunno. I just never have. This is a fancy plane, but on commercial flights, I’m always so uncomfortable.

I think it’s ’cause I know everyone can see the back of my head over the seat.

And it’s that feelin’, you know? That out-of-control thing that makes you panic when the plane lifts off the ground. ”

“Are you afraid of heights?”

“No,” I said. “I’m afraid of crashin’ to my death in a heap of flamin’ metal.”

Brand seemed nervous, but I doubted it had anything to do with a fear of hurtling toward the earth from forty-thousand feet in the air.

I tried to distract him while we waited for final checks to be completed and takeoff. “Tell me again what she said when you spoke to the director of the rehab center.”

“Not a lot. She said she couldn’t give out any information, HIPAA and all that.” He shook his head. “I tried to lie, told her Merv was facin’ a health crisis, and that she and Dixon were close so he needed to know. I guess that’s not totally a lie, but she wouldn’t budge.”

“Brand, I know what findin’ Dixon means to you, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up.

If someone doesn’t want to be found, sometimes they can’t be.

I don’t have any sway in California, not unless we call in other authorities, which would mean gettin’ Abey and probably Sheriff Michaels involved. ”

“No,” he said. “We’re doin’ this my way.”

“Your way?”

He looked me dead in the eye and said, “ My way. Money talks, Roxanne. I’m not proud of it, but I contacted Billie Cade last night and had her do a little diggin’ on the rehab center’s director, Julie Buckley.

She’s a single mom, and she’s in the middle of a nasty custody case with her ex-husband. She’s up to her ears in debt.”

“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that to me.”

“Fine.” He straightened and settled back against his seat. “I’m not askin’ for your approval. I just want your support.” But he lifted my hand and pressed his lips to my knuckles, rolling his head to look at me. “And your love. Can you forgive me my methods?”

“Ask me tomorrow. But you know money doesn’t guarantee this woman will betray her clients’ privacy and break the law?”

“I have to try , Roxanne. I can’t keep livin’ with this secret. It’s tearin’ me apart inside.”

“I know.” I kissed the back of his hand, too, rubbing my lips over his skin, and laced my fingers around his. “So, say we do find your brother. What then?”

He sighed a long, pained release of breath and faced forward. “I don’t know.”

A woman who didn’t look much older than a high-school graduate walked out of the airplane’s cockpit, patting her red hair neatly into its ponytail, and she smiled widely as she approached us.

She laid her hand over the seatback in front of me and leaned forward.

“We’ll be taking off in a few minutes. Please let me know if I can get you anything. ”

“Whiskey,” Brand and I replied at the same time, and I added, “the cheaper, the better.”