And Then You Kiss (Crested Butte Cowboys Series Book 3) (24 page)

“I can come by later if you want, if you’re not too tired. We can talk about gettin’ you up and runnin’.”

“That would be perfect. Hey, by the way, have you seen Bree? I’ve been tryin’ to get in touch with her and she’s got her phone off.”

Lyric didn’t know what to say. Telling Blythe she saw Bree storm out of the parking lot, meant she had to tell her that she was with Jace, and the reason she stormed off, and gosh…all of this was making her head hurt. She decided it would be easier to fib.

“Nope, haven’t talked to her.” That was the truth at least, they hadn’t really talked. As long as she was at it, what would one more hurt.

“How ’bout you? You seen Jace?”

“No…”

“No, what?”

“I asked Tucker about him and he growled at me. Then he wouldn’t tell me why. He’s sleeping now,” she whispered the last part.

“Why’d you ask her if she’d seen me?”

“Figured it was the best way to find out what Tucker told her.”

“What did she say about Bree?”

“That she hadn’t been able to reach her. Said her phone was off.”

“So you told her you hadn’t seen her?”

“No, I told her I hadn’t talked to her.”

“Lyric!”

“What was I supposed to say? That yeah, I saw her for ’bout thirty seconds before she ran out of a restaurant after seein’ you with a broken nose?”

“Okay, I get your point.”

“Yep, writin’ a book. That’s the only thing that’s keepin’ me sane dealin’ with all of you. I got enough trouble on my hands with my own twin.”

“You have a twin?”

“Yeah, and if any of you could pull your heads outa your asses long enough to ask anybody else about their lives, you mighta known that.”

“I’m sorry. There’s been a lot goin’ on.”

“Well there’s been a lot goin’ on with me too. And I’m ’bout smooth out done with it all.”

“Smooth out what?”

“Nothin’. It’s somethin’ Bullet says all the time.”

“Bullet is your twin?”

“You catch on faster than Bree, at least I can say that much.”

He doubted it, because he had no idea what Lyric was talking about. He could tell she was mad though, and he’d never seen her mad. At least he didn’t think he had. Maybe he had seen her mad and wasn’t paying attention.

***

Bree drove straight to the cemetery at the Air Force Academy. She needed to be with Zack, to talk to him. She was so lost without him. Before he died, her life had been full. So full, she hadn’t had time to finish school. She knew what she was going to do the next day when she woke up, and the day after that too. Her life was mapped out for her.

Now, her life had disintegrated into nothing. She had nothing. She had no reason to get up the next day. She’d been telling herself that her sister needed her, but it was clear that now she didn’t.

Blythe had left the hospital and no one thought it was important to let Bree know. What was she even doing here? Maybe it was time to start her life over somewhere else. She didn’t know what answers she thought she’d find sitting next to Zack’s grave, but she wasn’t finding any.

She pulled out her phone to check the time and realized she hadn’t turned it back on after the movie.

When she did, there were eight messages and more texts. By the time she listened to the last one that came in, she realized people cared more about her than she thought. Her mother sounded frantic with worry about her. Bree would call her back first.

The other message that struck her was one from Jace. He’d called her a few minutes after she stormed out of the restaurant, and in his message, he told her he had to see her. There were things he needed to explain to her, and whether she believe him or not, they had nothing to do with her sister.

As much as it shouldn’t be, that was the message that mattered the most to her.

Bree called her mother, and told her she’d be over later sometime, and asked her to let Blythe know she was sorry they’d missed each other.

“Are you okay?” her mother asked.

“I’m lost Mom, trying to find my way.”

“We’re here if you need us baby.”

“I know. And thanks. I’ll see you soon. There’s another call I have to make first.”

Bree ran her fingers over the lettering on Zack’s tombstone as she waited for Jace to answer his phone.

“You’re ’bout drivin’ me crazy,” Lyric said to Jace. She’d taken him back to the house in Palmer Lake, where he hoped to find Bree. She wasn’t there, but Jace refused to leave until one of two things happened. Either she came home, or she called him. Otherwise, he was staying put.

“You can leave if you want to.”

“And then what? I live here, remember? Although lately it hasn’t felt much like I do.”

“I’m sorry. Do your thing. Pretend I’m not here. In fact, if you want me to wait somewhere else, say the word and I’ll go wherever you point me.”

“Nah, you’re fine. But would you please sit down?”

Jace almost dropped his phone when it rang, it startled him.

“Hi,” he answered, knowing it was Bree.

“Hi.” Her voice sounded cold, remote.

“Where are you?”

“I’m with Zack, I needed somebody to talk to.”

It took him a minute to figure out what she was talking about. He realized she must be at the cemetery.

“Bree, I need to talk to you, and it’s important. Can we please meet somewhere?”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m at your house. Lyric brought me back here. My truck was nearby.”

“I can come home, I guess.”

Jace looked over at Lyric, who could obviously hear what Bree was saying. She nodded her head.

“Okay. I’ll wait here for you then.”

“Jace—”

“What is it?”

“I told you before, if you’re only going to tell me that you’re in love with Blythe, I know you are, and I don’t need to hear you say it.”

“This has nothing to do with Blythe, except that it has something to do with Tucker. Otherwise, that’s the only connection.”

Jace was still pacing when he saw Bree’s car pull into the driveway. Even though it would be the second time he told this story today, he didn’t feel as though telling it again would be any easier.

He had a glass of wine waiting on the counter for her. He hoped she didn’t think he was being to forward or familiar by doing that. He knew by the time he got through his story, she’d want a glass.

“Hi,” she said when she walked in the back door. She looked as though she had been crying. Now he wasn’t sure this was the best time to tell her this story. But after tomorrow, he wouldn’t be around anymore and that was something he had to tell her too.

“Should we go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, if that’s what you’d like to do.”

She sighed heavily. “Jace, is it what you’d like to do?”

“Uh yeah. Let’s go sit.”

She was back to bitchy Bree, and that was okay. He was starting to recognize the kinds of things that sent her in that direction. He was making her uncomfortable, and he was in her space. She had every right to be bitchy.

“What did you want to tell me?”

“It’s about Tucker, but it’s also about me.”

“Jace, I already told you—”

“It isn’t about Blythe, so settle down and let me talk.” He could almost see the steam coming out of her ears when he told her to settle down.

She sat down on the couch in the living room, and he sat next to her.

“When Tucker and I were in high school, no it was before that, a long time before that.”

She folded her arms in front of her.

“When we were in
elementary
school, we met a little girl named Rosa.”

The story he told her was much the same as the one Tucker told Blythe, although Jace had no way of knowing that.

“When we got into high school, Rosa and I started talking to each other more. Sometimes she’d call me after she’d been out with Tucker. At first we were just friends, but the more we talked, the more she confided in me.”

Bree turned so her back was up against the arm of the couch and brought her knees up.

“Tucker wasn’t exactly pressuring her into having sex with him, and the truth was, it bothered her. She thought he wasn’t interested in her that way. I was quick to reassure he that he was.” Jace laughed nervously.

“Go on.” Bree’s face was getting tighter and tighter the longer he talked. She looked as though she was giving herself a headache.

“We spent a lot of time talking about sex, which was strange at first, but then it seemed like no big deal. She had a lot of questions, and I certainly had the answers.

“In the beginning it seemed like she wanted to be ready, when Tucker was. But after a while, I stopped thinking about her with Tucker, not that I ever
thought
about it, ya know, but I started thinking about her with me.”

Jace took a deep breath. “One night she suggested we meet. I don’t have any idea where Tucker was, maybe hangin’ with his buddies. Anyway, she asked if instead of talking on the phone, we talk in person. I knew it wasn’t a good idea, but I did it anyway.”

She asked him to pick her up at a friend’s house, so no one saw him or his car at her house, especially her parents.

“She was pretty aggressive. I mean, we didn’t have sex that night, but we got pretty close to it.”

They started to make arrangements to see each other more often and each time they did, they went a little further. And when they weren’t together, they still talked. Rosa told him she felt as though she could talk to him in a way she’d never felt comfortable talking to Tucker.

“My ego got the best of me, that’s for sure. Tuck and I competed over everything. We were always trying to outdo each other. Skiing, riding—everything. She said all the right stuff, that I excited her more than he did, that I was easier to talk to, that I understood her better than he did. And I ate it up, every word.

“When we started our senior year of high school, I started pressuring her to break up with Tucker. I never realized Tucker was as serious about her as he was, especially since she told me their relationship wasn’t physical.”

Bree got up to get another glass of wine. Jace followed and pulled another beer out for himself.

“Want something stronger?” she asked him.

He wasn’t sure if she was serious, or being bitchy Bree when she said it. “No thanks. Beer’s good.”

When she went back into the living room he followed. He thought she might sit in one of the chairs, but she didn’t. She sat back on the couch where she’d been before. This time she covered herself with the throw that had draped over the back of the couch.

“Are you cold? Do you want me to light a fire or anything?”

“A fire would be nice. Thanks.”

“So where was I?” he asked after the fire was lit.

“Senior year.”

“Yeah, anyway, I wanted her to break up with Tuck. I figured after some time had passed, I’d tell him I was interested in her, and then she and I would start seeing each other in public.”

The more Jace pressured her, the more anxious she became about it. She told him she was afraid Tucker would be angry. He kept telling her he thought she was wrong, but the truth was, she hadn’t been telling him the truth about what was happening between her and Tuck.

“It got to the point where I was the one who was angry. I started asking her if she was sleeping with both me and my brother, which she insisted she wasn’t.

“What she didn’t tell me was that Tuck had started talking about the two of them getting married. It wasn’t until I overheard Tuck talking to our dad about it the night before Thanksgiving that I realized how serious he was.

“I called Rosa while Tuck was still talking to my parents and I gotta tell you, I was pissed. She kept saying she was afraid to tell him. In hindsight, I should have told him myself.”

“In hindsight maybe you shouldn’t have gotten involved with your brother’s girlfriend.”

“In hindsight I should become a monk or somethin’,” he laughed, Bree didn’t.

“Anyway, Tucker was spending Thanksgiving with her family, which was another thing I was mad as hell about.”

Rosa called him after Tucker left their house, and told him how upset he’d been after talking with her father. She begged Jace to meet her. It hadn’t been easy to come up with a reason he had to leave on Thanksgiving, but he’d managed it. There was a creek that ran behind her house and they’d been meeting there when the weather was nice enough. It was warm for Thanksgiving, so that’s what they did.

“It took her quite a while to talk down my mad. And even then, I felt as though Rosa was playin’ us. I had pretty much decided to end things with her myself, and I guess she sensed it, because she started begging me not to break up with her, tellin’ me how much she loved me, all that. I was walkin’ her up to the house and she wrapped herself around me. She was kissin’ me like her life depended on it when we saw somebody drive up to the house. We were far enough away that whoever it was couldn’t see us, but she was quick to realize it was Tucker’s truck.

“She went running up to him, begging him to listen to her. My heart was breakin’, I gotta tell you. When I heard her scream for him to wait, and then she got in his truck, I realized she loved him all along, and that she’d been lying to me. And maybe it was worse than that. Maybe she didn’t love either one of us.”

Bree was still huddled under the blanket, but her face had softened. It didn’t seem as though she was as mad at him as she had been during most of the story.

“Tucker told me bits and pieces about what he remembered of the accident. He also told me that she’d been trying to tell him that she was in love with someone else.

“That near broke my heart. That she’d been trying to tell him. The other thing he said, was that she hadn’t told him who it was when he lost control of the truck and it rolled. She was killed on impact, and Tuck was in pretty bad shape.”

Jace was visibly trying to wipe away his tears. Bree reached out from under the blanket and put her hand on his arm. It made him want to cry more.

“After Tucker recovered, things got worse.”

Jace told her that Tucker was hell-bent on finding who the other guy was, and that everyone believed if he found him, he’d kill him. He’d never seen Tucker act that way, and worse, he could feel the rage inside of his brother. There was sadness too, they were both feeling it, but Tucker didn’t know how much of the sadness was Jace’s.

“I never told anyone it was me. No one. Until today, I never told anyone any of it.”

“I’m the first person you told this story?”

“No, I gotta be honest. You’re not.”

“Did you tell Blythe?”

“God no. It wouldn’t be my place to tell Blythe.”

He told her that when he woke up before dawn, he could feel Tucker’s anguish, and that was why he got up and left. He told her about meeting up with Tucker at the scene of his accident, the one with Blythe, and how the pieces fell into place.

“Tucker realized it was me that night. And that’s why I look the way I do. I tried to get him to stop and talk to me, but he wasn’t havin’ any part of it. I guess beatin’ the shit outa me was more what he was after.”

“Can you blame him?”

“No. Can’t say I do.”

“Now what?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know what’s goin’ on with him and Blythe. I don’t know if he’ll ever want to talk to me again. I don’t know anythin’ about anythin’.”

“And you told me because you want me to find out for you.”

The expression on Jace’s face changed so drastically, so quickly, it startled her.

“No, that isn’t why I told you. Jesus Bree. You know, I already think I’m the worst guy in the world. I don’t need you or anybody else rubbin’ my nose in it, or makin’ it worse. You think the only reason I told you this story was so you could get information for me?”

“Well why did you tell me?”

“Fuck…I don’t know. I had to, that’s all I know. Somethin’ inside me was sayin’ that I had to be the one to tell you. ’Cause even if you don’t believe me, your opinion means somethin’ to me.”

“Who was the other person?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said that I wasn’t the first person you told this story to today. Who was?”

“Lyric.”

“Ah. I see.”

“Now what does that mean?”

“But you don’t want either of us to talk to Blythe, or Tucker, right?”

“So that’s what we’re back to, you thinkin’ the worst possible thing you can about me. That I spilled my guts to you so you’d help me with my brother…or your sister.”

“You have to admit it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“No, I don’t have to admit that. Not at all. I told you because I care what you think.”

“And you care what Lyric thinks too?”

“Not in the same way, no.”

“Then why did you tell her?”

“Because I was scared. Okay? I’ve never told anyone this Bree. No one. I carried this secret around with me for the last seven years. And when Tuck was so messed up over Blythe and disappeared, I knew I had to step in and take care of her, because I owed him. I owe him everything.”

“And because you love her.”

“I don’t know that I do. As long as I’m tellin’ the truth about everything. That’s the truth about Blythe. I don’t know that I love her. And you wanna know why not?”

“I’m afraid to ask,” she smirked.

“Oh you think this is funny now, is that it?”

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s funny. Go on.”

“Forget it.”

“No, I want to hear this. Why don’t you think you’re in love with my sister anymore?”

“Because of you.”

She gasped. “Jace, if I’ve led you to believe—”

“Believe that you have any feelings for me other than hatred? Nah, you haven’t Bree. You’ve made your feelings clear, especially in the last few minutes.”

He stood up.

“Where are you going? Do you want another beer?”

“No thanks. It’s time for me to go. It was important to me to tell you my tragic story, and now that I have, there isn’t any reason for me to stay.”

“Wait. Listen, I’m sorry. It’s a lot to take in. You can’t blame me for wondering about your motives.”

“That’s it.” Jace turned and walked out through the kitchen. Bree heard the back door slam behind him.

***

Blythe was stroking Tucker’s hair when he woke up. They were facing each other, so close, she could feel his breath on her face.

“Guess I nodded off.”

“You were exhausted.”

“Is everything okay Blythe?”

“Everything’s okay with me, but Tucker, I have to ask. What happened with you and Jace today?”

“It was him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was the other man. Rosa was in love with Jace.”

“No!”