Page 133 of Jensen

Kinda reminds me of somebody else.

My mind goes back to that day in the diner, when Brothers told me what Miss Holly was to him, that he didn’t know anything about me when he took me on. For the first time, I see the entire situation in perspective. It’s painful to admit it, but Brothers was more right than he was wrong.

He didn’t do this to me. He was just there for the aftermath. Holly saw me, her son’s best friend, a vulnerable kid on the cusp of adulthood. There were some weeks when I practically lived at her house, playing video games and loitering on the porch with Kyle. She knew her house was a haven, a place where I could get a meal and some stability.

And she still chose me.

She could have walked away, never told Brothers about me, never fucked me on that kitchen floor.

But she didn’t.

All these years, I hated Brothers so badly, I wanted to hit him. Now, standing outside the remains of Cherry’s trailer, I’m starting to realize Brothers Boyd was a convenient stand-in for my rage. Holly was a woman, and I was never going to show her my anger.

But Brothers, he can take that punch.

He has taken that punch.

I close my eyes, lifting my face up to the sky. All the times Brothers made a snarky remark about Holly being in my room filter through my mind. He was constantly telling me to break it off with her, even going so far as threatening to fire her once if I didn’t.

My chest hurts.

In his own clumsy way, he was trying to protect me.

Brothers is guilty of getting me involved in the seedy underbelly of the city and what that did to Cherry and Kyle, but he never groomed me. I think, looking back, that it killed him to see he’d accidentally had a hand in what Holly did. Sometimes, I forget Brothers was pretty young too. All of fifteen years younger than Holly…and yet, he understood the situation better than I ever did.

My fist tightens on the truck keys.

Hindsight is twenty-twenty. I wish a lot of things had gone down differently. I wish I’d begged Cherry not to kick me out. I wish I’d told her everything the day Holly fucked me in the kitchen, and let her protect me.

But my head was so messed up, I couldn’t see anything clearly.

That’s what Holly did to me.

I can’t go back and change what happened, but I can do something right here and now, for Della and her boy.

I leave the yard without going into the trailer. In the truck, I’m the emptiest inside I’ve been in a long time. I’m turning over the last nineteen years and how I’ve tried to fill it with everything to fix what happened. Sex, fighting, booze—the macho shit, as Jack would say. Then, Della walked in. She touched a nerve so deep, it gave me the courage to come back home and face my past.

It’s going to give me the courage to save her. I’ll make the Caudills pay for what they did to Cherry and Kyle and Della. I’ll set myself free and end this cold war. When it’s all done, I’ll take her and Landis back to Montana, and I’ll never look back.

If I want this woman, I have to fight our demons and win. Absently, I crack my knuckles.

Fighting.

That’s something I can do.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

DELLA

Leland is busy all day Sunday and into Monday afternoon. I spend most of it in the house with Landis. I’ve never felt a mix of dread and relief like this before. Every few seconds, I hug Landis just to feel his little arms around me and remember he’s there. Then, I remember I’m back in this house, and Leland’s foreboding steps could appear at any minute.

It’s torture.

I lay on the couch in the nursery and listen while Landis chatters. It hurts my heart how much he looks like his father, but it helps that he doesn’t act anything like him. I think he’s getting Kayleigh’s personality. That puts a smile on my face.

I feed Landis in the nursery. Then, while Georgie is putting him to bed, I steal down to the kitchen to find some wine to help my nerves. There are a couple bottles leftover from dinner the night before. I pop a cork at the same moment as the back door clicks.

I whirl, heartbeat rising.