Page 3 of Rocky Mountain Devil

Laurel glanced both directions before grabbing Rafe by the hand and pulling him after her into one of the side rooms off the main hall.

Looking at her still made him think of angels, only now they’d gotten into trouble too many times over the years at school for him to believe angelic looks always meant well-behaved.

She closed the door before taking a deep breath. “Gabe is leaving.”

He stared at her. “What?”

“I heard him. I snuck up because it looked as if something interesting was happening. He was talking to one of your cousins, and I heard him. He’s leaving, Rafe. And he isn’t going to tell you, so you need to talk to him before he goes. Or you’ll be sad, and so will he.”

Gabe wouldn’t leave. Not while everyone was crying over Mike.

But it was true. As soon as the whole, horrible graveyard visit was over, Gabe offered to drive him back to the church. Rafe waited for him to speak, but they sat in silence the entire trip. Gabe parked back at the church, took a deep breath, and then let it out without mentioning a thing.

Only when he glanced over briefly, the expression on his brother’s face told Rafe that Laurel was right.

“You’re leaving me,” he accused.

Gabe jerked in surprise. “Where’d you hear—?”

“I don’t want you to go,” Rafe interrupted.

His brother gripped the steering wheel tightly as he stared out the window into the sad, grey sky. “I don’t want to go either, bucko, but I have to.”

“You’re a grown up. You can do whatever you want.”

Gabe turned a sorrow-filled face toward him. “Sometimes what we want to do and what we need to do are two different things.”

“Will you ever come back?” Rafe got out before his throat closed up completely.

“Maybe,” Gabe offered. He wrapped a hand around the back of Rafe’s neck and made Rafe look him in the eye. “I’m not leaving because of anything you’ve done—don’t youeverthink that. You’re one hell of a great brother, and I know you’re gonna miss me. I’m going to miss you too, but right now, this is what I’ve got to do.”

Sadness welled up past his breaking point, and Rafe escaped from the truck, dashing across the churchyard. He didn’t know what he was running from, just that he needed to get away.

He ended up standing in the backyard of Laurel’s house, leaning against the massive apple tree in the back corner. He put his face against the cool bark and let the rough texture dig into his cheek as he stood there, confused and hurt.

He was going to lose both his brothers, and it wasn’t fair.

Soft fingers brushed his, but he didn’t move. Just let Laurel lean her head against his back as she slipped her arms around him and hugged him tight.

She didn’t say anything. Only stood there crying quietly with him, and for him, and it was exactly what he needed. She’d known that. Somehow, she’d known, exactly like a friend should.

September, study hall, eight years ago

“Get out. Seriously?”

Rafe dragged a finger over his chest in the shape of an X before motioning for her to be quiet. “You’re going to get us detention first week of school, Sitko,” he whispered.

“It’s my turn. Last year it was your fault,” she muttered back, glancing at the teacher’s aide pacing the library where the eighth-grade class was supposed to be filling in their homework agendas for the next month.

He and Laurel had their class calendars open on the tabletop, and their notebooks out, but they were more interested in discussing his date from the previous night.

Which might have seemed a strange topic, but not for them. They shared about everything. Ever since kindergarten they’d been thick as thieves, and people rarely blinked at seeing them wandering the school halls together.

No one taunted, either—there wasn’t any use. Rafe would have fought the teasers, but Laurel simply raised a brow in the most haughty way the first time any newcomers tried to poke fun at them.

“Why on earth should we care what you think?” she’d ask in all seriousness.

There’d never been a good answer to that one, so Rafe had grown accustomed to the fact his best friend at school was a girl.