Page 51 of Midnight Between Us (The Timberbridge Brothers #4)

Chapter Forty-Six

Simone

Spending time with my girls helped. A little.

Enough to pretend I was okay, to smile when someone poured another margarita and asked if I was over it yet.

It’s as if Heartbreak has a stopwatch. As if abandonment is something you can sleep off with the right number of throw pillows and tequila shots.

It’s not until after dinner that I’m sober and ready to come back to deal with the aftermath of him.

He probably read all the letters by now.

There wasn’t any heart-wrenching ones after the one where I gave birth to Lyndon.

Everything else is just milestones and baby pictures.

When the adoption was finalized, I stopped writing because I didn’t need his memory anymore.

I had had enough therapy to continue with different coping mechanisms.

When I step through the front door, the illusion shatters. Though the place is quiet, it’s not silent, exactly. More like it’s off. It’s eerie. It’s that sort of silence that coils low in your stomach. Like something pressed pause mid-thought and forgot to hit play again because of a tragedy.

Like a held breath. Like the universe is bracing for something.

It’s not that Keir makes a lot of noise. He doesn’t. He’s soft-footed, brooding, always drifting from room to room like he was waiting for something to happen. You can feel his presence even when he’s not near and right now . . . I feel nothing.

Now it’s just . . . air.

Not empty. Just still. Like the world hit pause. Like the seconds are waiting for me to catch up to something I haven’t seen yet.

My stomach twists because I know it. He’s gone.

I don’t know how I know it, but I do. The way someone knows when a door has closed behind them, even if they didn’t hear the latch.

And of course—of course—it hits me all at once: the agents weren’t here either. None of them.

Did something happen?

I fumble for my phone, fingers clumsy, breath stalling in my throat as I pace the living room. They’re always here. Subtle, but visible. One parked outside. One pretending to scroll through a tablet in the kitchen. One somehow making a black hoodie look menacing from the hallway.

Gone.

Fucking gone.

Panic flares in my chest, hot and rising fast, and I try to swallow it down, but it scorches on the way up. What if someone found them? What if they found him?

What if they found us?

What if . . .

“Shit.” The word slips out, useless and hollow.

I press my hand to the doorframe and try to breathe. Try to stay rational. This could be nothing. They could’ve moved locations. Maybe Finnegan finally remembered he runs an actual fortified facility at Heartwood Lake, one that’s not half an hour from the nearest nosy neighbor.

But it doesn’t feel like nothing.

It feels like the start of something, something I might not be able to stop.

My first call is to Finnegan.

“It’s Sunday, Simone. I swear, any other day, I’m okay with people calling me but it’s family time,” he growls.

“He’s gone.” I breathe out, trying not to panic, but it’s impossible. “The agents?—”

“Atlas didn’t tell you?” he interrupts, voice flat. “We’re relocating him. Something about not getting enough help and needing space from you.”

My pulse skips. “Space from me?”

“I don’t know,” he mutters, already sounding bored with the conversation. “Maybe I got it wrong. I wasn’t exactly listening.”

Of course, he wasn’t.

I’m already moving, walking through the house like I’ll find something out of place—like something isn’t already completely off. My footsteps are too loud, and my breath is uneven. The air in here feels wrong like it’s been held too long.

My fingers trail over the back of the couch, across the table where Keir used to leave his tea half-drunk. There’s nothing. Not even a mug.

Until I see it, on the chair in the library. It’s a piece of paper, folded perfectly, sitting dead center on the seat cushion as if someone wanted it to be found but not noticed right away.

I stop breathing. It has a single word printed at the top in block letters.

SIMS.

I pick it up like it might burn, unfold it, and read it once.

Then again.

Then, a third time, slower.

Sims:

Thank you for saving me when you could have just let me bleed inside the trunk.

Thank you for not giving up on me since I woke up and for . . . still being here even when it hurts too fucking much.

Thank you for the truth. For the letters. For not pretending it didn’t break you.

I’m going to get help. Not just to be a better man for Lyndon or for you.

For myself.

I’ll reach out when I feel like I become the version of myself I deserve.

–Keir T.

He’s gone, but at least this time, there’s a goodbye. Well, there’s no goodbye, but I feel like it’s between those lines. I hope he does get help. I’m glad he finally wants to become something more than the wreckage he’s carried.

“I’ve been asking you to take him, and you ignored me,” I say out loud, not sure if Finnegan is still there. “Why now?”

“Honestly, I was going to say fuck you. But Lyn was here and . . . I did it for him.” He clears his throat. “You’re still on assignment.”

“I know.”

“If you need anything, let me know. It’s not a prison.”

“I know. Thank you for . . . go back to your family dinner.” I hang up, then fold the note and slip it into my back pocket. I don’t need to keep it somewhere special. The words are already branded behind my eyes.

I go to the kitchen and make tea.

I sit on the back porch, knees curled to my chest, staring out at the tree line.

I think of Lyndon. I wonder if he’s ever felt like part of himself was missing.

If he’s ever been told that missing doesn’t mean broken, just waiting to be filled in with something tangible.

I know he’s had a better life than Keir and I did, but sometimes I’m afraid that we fucked him up just by existing.

Sure, I’m in therapy and I try to use reason, but there’s always that fucked up part of your being that doesn’t let you be one hundred percent okay. It takes you to the past and the things you never liked about yourself.

I close my eyes. Let the silence settle over me.

It’s different this time.

Not suffocating.

Not accusing.

It lets me think.

About the letters I wrote. About the girl I used to be. About the way grief twists into shame when you carry it too long without saying it out loud.

I wasn’t just angry at Keir.

I was angry at Nina, my grandparents, and myself.

Mostly at myself for loving someone who didn’t stay.

For believing that love could survive in a town like this. I know better now. So much better.