Page 23 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)

Josie

I drive in silence, tears welling in my eyes despite my refusal to let them fall. In my periphery, I glance over at my sister, who sits quietly in the passenger seat, her dazed eyes toward the window.

Three days ago, Norah showed up at my door. I didn’t know why, but now I do. She was trying to seek a safe space away from her life in New York, but in less than seventy-two hours, a shitstorm of epic proportions has managed to follow her all the way to Red Bridge.

She was engaged, and a week prior to her landing on my doorstep, she left her fiancé at the altar.

It’s a fucking tragedy that we know as much about each other’s lives as complete strangers.

I glimpse over at her again, and she anxiously digs her teeth into her bottom lip.

She’s a mess. Distraught. Confused. Scared. And all of it’s valid.

This morning, her ex-fiancé, Thomas Conrad Michael King III, boldly showed up at my coffee shop while Norah was the only one there, to accost her.

He threatened her both mentally and physically, and it makes my soul shudder at the thought of what she went through during her relationship with that man.

It’s always worse behind closed doors. Always.

And I can’t believe my very own baby sister found herself trapped inside.

Hell, it took Bennett Bishop stepping in to stop her violent ex from dragging her to his car. And even his intervention didn’t end it. Eventually, Sheriff Pete had to get involved too.

The streetlights down Main Street glimmer, but all I can see is the vision of her scared face when I got back to the CAFFEINE this morning—and the gush of white milk mixing with blood all over the floor.

Of her shaky, ashen face as they put Thomas in the back of the police car.

Of her uncertainty as Pete explained her options for pressing charges when we were at the police station this afternoon.

Of how scared that motherfucker made her.

God, what has become of us?

The history between Norah and me is…rocky at best. It’s been five years without speaking, and I convinced myself I was doing what was right.

Five years of telling myself things to make myself feel better and to excuse away the duty I had as an older sister to get in the middle of a situation that was largely bad for me.

I can’t save her. She’s happy. Our mother favors her enough to keep her safe.

She doesn’t want my help and doesn’t value me as a sister either.

Five years of poison from our mother, seeping into Norah’s every innocent crevice, uninhibited by any other family who cared.

I convinced myself I was doing the right thing with hollow arguments out of my own necessity, and now, because of my selfishness, my twenty-six-year-old sister has been through more in a quarter of her life than any woman should ever have to go through.

I want to reach out and take her hand—to provide some sort of solace—but the fact is, there’s not much comfort to be had when the man you were supposed to marry puts his hands on you in anger, threatens your very existence, and does it with the support of your own mother.

That’s right. Our mother is the one who told Norah’s ex where she was.

The neon sign on The Country Club shines through the windshield as I make the final turn on our way out of downtown, and I swallow thickly around memories of Clay and me that never seem to go away. Of gentle touches and genuine affection—of a life of mostly perfect moments outside of tragedy.

A complete dichotomy to Norah’s relationship with her ex, and still, it wasn’t meant to be.

“Pull over,” Norah says suddenly, startling me. “I want to go inside.”

I grip the wheel tighter and keep my foot steady on the pedal, just like I always do when I’m driving by Clay’s bar to keep myself from stopping. I don’t hesitate. I don’t consider. I just drive.

“Josie. Please pull over,” Norah pleads, turning in her seat to face me and reaching out to grab the elbow of my right arm. “I need to talk to Bennett. Apologize. Thank him. Something.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” My voice sounds brittle even to my own ears.

“What? Why not?” Her questions are desperate and confused, and I can’t blame her.

She doesn’t know all the details of Clay and me—hell, I don’t even know if she ever knew we were together.

According to what she told me the other day, Eleanor had her believing I opened the coffee shop before Grandma died and that I was living on my own in some apartment above the shop.

I was loose and of poor character and might even be doing drugs.

Evidently, keeping me out of the picture was most easily done with lies.

My grip tightens on the steering wheel as I try to keep my eyes on the road and off visions of the past, but Norah is insistent. “Josie, I got that man arrested today. I really need to go in there and talk to him. It’s the right thing to do.”

Thomas King wasn’t the only one who got put in cuffs today. Ben did too. All in the name of standing up for my sister.

I sigh, asking myself how many more mistakes I’m willing to make before I do what’s right.

I’m sure I’ll have more moments of weakness, but right now, sitting next to my sister with a mark on her arm from a man I can’t help but think I could have prevented her from getting involved with if I’d just reached out after Grandma Rose’s funeral, I have no choice but to stop being selfish.

I execute a U-turn easily in the wide-open street and swing into the packed parking lot. I move quickly to shut off the car and hop out before I have a chance to back out.

“Come on,” I snip through the open window on my door when Norah doesn’t follow my lead to hustle the fuck up. “Let’s make this quick.”

I don’t have the bandwidth to be gentler—though I wish desperately that I did—and I turn and head for the bar with nothing more than a hope and a wish that she’s not far behind me.

The Hill Country Hot Wings, a local bluegrass band from just outside of Molene, are playing on the small stage in the corner, and the room is teeming with bodies. People dance and chat and play pool in the far corner, and my heart feels like it’ll explode if I don’t manage a breath soon.

It’s been five years since I set foot in this damn bar, and still, it feels like no time has passed at all. The brick walls, the hardwood floors, and the mahogany bar—they’re all the same.

And that’s the problem.

Norah pushes through the door and stops beside me, and I cross my arms over my chest to stop myself from exploding all over the place. I don’t look around or focus on the faces I know I’ll recognize. I can’t.

The pain deep inside me is a ticking time bomb just waiting to detonate.

“I found him,” Norah says, grabbing my elbow and pulling at me to go with her. “He’s at the bar.”

My feet are rooted to the spot. “I’ll wait here for you.”

“You don’t want to—”

“Just go, Norah. I’ll wait here.”

Norah pushes through the crowd, and I scoot back to lean against the wall. This section has a bit of a shadow, and I’m hoping desperately it’ll absorb me right into a black hole.

If I’m honest, I thought I’d be past all this by now. Sure, I thought it’d be a part of me, that I’d think of Clay and me from time to time and get a hit of happy memories, but I didn’t dare dream that I would still mourn what I lost and wish for what we never had.

But every day, I do.

Five years and it all still consumes me.

I wish so fucking badly he would move on to someone else, but I also know it would quite literally kill me if I had to see him happy with another woman…

I barely have time to finish the thought before I spot the very reason for my pain. Clay heads toward me, a mask of determination on his handsome face. It’s amazing how much it reminds me of the way he used to charge the door anytime I arrived, for entirely different reasons.

“Hey, Jose.”

I lock myself down immediately, spinning away and trying to look beyond him to watch my sister’s interaction with Bennett. “I’m only here for Norah.”

“Yeah, Ben told me what happened,” he says, and I hate the way his voice reminds me of cozy blankets and warm embraces. “I guess your mom is still up to all her old bullshit and building an army to help her.”

The last thing I want to do is have a heart-to-heart about old times with my ex-husband. I don’t even want to be civil—it hurts too much. “Clay, stop.”

“What, Josie? I can’t even express sympathy for your sister getting yanked around by a scumbag? You really hate me that much?”

“Clay, I said stop,” I urge. “We don’t need to get into any of this. As soon as Norah’s done talking to Bennett, I’m leaving.”

“Maybe you don’t need to get into this , sweetheart, but I really, really do.

It’s been five fucking years, and I still don’t know what happened,” he counters, and the determination is still there inside the warm depths of his brown eyes that are directed right at me.

“I want to know why you gave up on us. I deserve to know, Josie. I fucking deserve to know.”

My skin crawls with memories of the accident and the bleeding and the pain. God, there was so much pain. I feel sick to my stomach, and I swear, if I don’t get out of here soon, I’m going to coat the floor with my vomit.

Clay is in my face, not aggressively, but just there .

Right there, his brown eyes staring into the depths of my soul.

I can smell his familiar scent, the one I would practically get high off when we were together.

I can feel the warmth of his skin, and I hate how my heart wants to remind me of what it feels like to have that warmth wrapped around my body.

It’s all too much. Way too much.

I shove around him and trudge frantically through the crowd toward the bar. I know people recognize me enough to be surprised to see me in here, but I can’t think of anything but getting to Norah and dragging her out of here as quickly as humanly possible.

She’s still mid-conversation when I get to her, but I grab her shoulder anyway and grip tight.

“Norah, we need to go,” I order impatiently. “Now.”

I know Clay won’t be far behind, but I take a deep breath and try to steady myself against my panic.

I still consider Ben a dear friend, even if the rift between Clay and me has forced us apart for a lot of recent years.

“By the way, Bennett, I really appreciate what you did for my sister today. Thank you.” Hurried, I don’t wait for an acknowledgment or an answer, instead turning to Norah and demanding some urgency once again. “Let’s get out of here.”

“C’mon, Josie,” Clay pleads again, reaching out to touch my arm as he arrives, but I pull it away. “Just talk to me for a minute.”

“No,” I refute.

“You’re in my bar, babe,” he comments with a little smile. “And you never come into my bar.”

“I’m only here because of my sister. Not you.”

“Are you sure about that?” Clay challenges, putting his hands on his hips and throwing history in my face once again. “If I recall, you said you’d never step foot in this bar again. Not for any fucking reason.”

“Sometimes we have to make exceptions and do things we absolutely don’t want to do because it’s for the people we love,” I say, willing myself to keep it together, even though the feeling of being so brutal is nearly debilitating.

Avoidance is so much easier. The last thing I want to inspire is hope.

I did what I did all those years ago for him, and I’m doing what I’m doing now for Norah. That has to be the end of it.

The scrutiny of Clay’s beautiful eyes is almost too much to bear.

“Let’s go, Norah,” I say again, but this time, I don’t wait for acquiescence before pulling her along with me. My legs churn as I charge to the exit door, the humid evening air of summer a beacon of solace.

I run from everything I don’t want to face, and I run knowing I need to.

When it comes to Clay Harris and me, history cannot repeat itself.