Damned and Desirable (Eternally Yours Book 2) (2 page)

Pushing back the sting of Callum’s rejection, I advanced upon him, dropping my voice to a low whisper. “What are you saying?”

He looked down, staring at the scuffs on his weatherworn boots. “Brothers do not betray each other.”

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. Was my brother speaking of the foreman position?

“Callum,” I said with a plea in my voice as I held out my hands. “I refused the job.”

When he lifted his gaze to mine, my heart stopped at the desolation in his watery eyes. I had seen it before, reflecting back at me in the looking glass many times after the loss of our parents and the woman I’d loved.

Callum’s voice shook as he spoke. “I do not deserve to call you brother. I do not deserve to live.” He covered his face with his hands, sobbing.

Rarely had I seen my brother cry, and never with such ferocity. My heart sank to my gut. Whatever had brought on his melancholy was dire indeed.

My limbs went numb and my insides churned with apprehension as I sank back into my seat and gaped up at him. What had he done to warrant such self-loathing?

“Do not say such things,” I said on a breathy whisper, though some part of me feared his admission might ring true.

He swiped the bottle off the table, tipped back his head, and took several long gulps, as if he was quenching his thirst with a canteen of water after a long day at the docks.

I stood, preparing to snatch the drink from him when he slammed the bottle on the table with a loud clank.

He let out a long belch, then stumbled back, leaning against the wall for support. Thunderclouds darkened his eyes as he fixed me with a pointed stare. “I laid with your wife.”

I gaped at him, my mouth drying up faster than Texas soil during a summer drought. “W-What?”

Callum’s features hardened to stone. “I called on you Sunday, but Katherine said you were volunteering for the church.” He paused, his gaze wavering slightly, then he spit out the words as if he’d swallowed a mouthful of venom. “She seduced me, and I laid with her.” He slumped down the wall, the last of his vitality drained with his confession.

A low grumble sounded from somewhere deep within me. I stormed up to my brother, grasping him by the collar and jerking him upright. “You lie.”

“Open your eyes!” Callum screamed in my face, the sting of his words a thousand times more devastating than the slap of his stale breath. “Do you know how many men have tossed up her skirts? She’s a fucking whore! And she made me betray my brother!”

I knocked him out cold in one bone-jarring crunch, shaking off the pain that lanced my fingers as he slid down the wall to the floor without another sound. My throbbing knuckles were already swelling. I’d always teased my brother that he was a hardheaded lout. Now I knew it to be true.

Ignoring the rustling of feet and the growing murmurs behind me, I pulled my cap out of my pocket, shoving it on my head before storming out the door. I cared not for my brother’s broken bones or the pain in my hand. Heck, I cared even less for my shattered marriage. I was starting to see my life was nothing more than a pile of rubble, destroyed by the maelstrom of lust, greed, and death, and unless the vortex stopped spinning, I’d soon find myself buried beneath the destruction, too.

I barely remembered my long walk home. Any other man would have thought of little else save confronting his wife for her treachery and seeking vengeance against every man who’d touched her. Any other man except me. All I thought about was the gentle lilt of Marie’s voice, sweet smile, and bright green eyes.

Dearest Marie, God was so cruel to take you from me.

Had my true love lived, we would have made a happy home and peaceful life together. Marie would never have seduced my brother. She would have been by my side last Sunday, volunteering at the church, for it was she who’d put the fear of God in my soul. It was her lilting voice in the Sunday choir that had first led me to the church’s door. Sadly, her gentle, caring nature had resulted in her demise. Just a few short weeks after bringing food and clothing to the sick and needy, she’d succumbed to yellow fever. It was on Marie’s deathbed I had made her two promises: I’d continue volunteering for the church, and I’d look after her younger sister.

The charity work had been easy. Though I still carried a seed of resentment toward God deep in my soul, I’d managed to lock that seed away as I buried myself in helping those less fortunate. Looking after Marie’s younger sister had proven to be a far more difficult task. I had hoped that by marrying Katherine, I could tame her wild streak. If anything, she only rebelled more, all the while demanding I purchase her fine clothes and fancy teas. Though I had started to lose hope Katherine would become more like her sister, I was completely blindsided by Callum’s confession. My wife was more than stubborn, more than wild. She was a whore. She had broken her sacred marriage vows. How could I keep my promise to Marie now?

The tempest of emotions swirling in my mind came to a thunderous halt when I saw a man standing on my modest front porch. My wife leaned inside the doorway, twirling a lock of golden hair around her finger and flashing a coy smile as the man bowed and tipped his bowler hat. He was thanking her for her services, no doubt. How could I have been so blind?

Katherine supposedly taught piano lessons during the day, but I knew this man dressed in a tailored black suit had come for lessons of another sort. I raced across the street, dodging carts and ignoring irate drivers, before I reached our narrow two-story home. I took the porch steps two at a time, hearing my wife’s gasp as her visitor spun around.

I recognized the lean, red-faced man with the bushy moustache as Dr. Straw, the local snake oil salesman who’d pawned himself off as a man of medical science. Dr. Straw’s slender hands were always perfectly smooth, as if he’d never lifted a bag of grain or a hammer in his life. I never trusted a man who didn’t have the strength or skill to put in an honest day’s labor, and my instincts had proved right with Dr. Straw. His hat sat askew his nearly balding head, and his tie was crooked. Katherine must have earned herself a pair of silk stockings this afternoon.

“Aedan,” she said with exasperated breath as she clutched a hand to her throat. “Dr. Straw called to pay for his daughter’s piano lessons.”

I narrowed my eyes as I bore down on him with a scowl. “I didn’t know you had a daughter, Dr. Straw.”

Dr. Straw tugged at his necktie, a bead of sweat dripping down the side of his face. “Actually, she is my niece.” He averted his gaze, looking just beyond my shoulder. “Looks like a break in the weather. All may turn out well yet.”

I stepped closer to him, so close I could smell Katherine’s cloying perfume on his starched collar. “Don’t be so sure of that.”

The doctor adjusted his tie again and cleared his throat before attempting to step past me. “Good day to you.”

I refused to move.

“Aedan,” my wife said in that condescending tone I’d come to loathe. “Let the man pass.”

I backed up and then stepped aside for Dr. Straw. Leaning against the porch post, I stuck out my boot, tripping the doctor as he went by, sending him sprawling down the stairs. I laughed when he landed face-first in the road.

Katherine screamed, racing down the stairs. “Dr. Straw,” she cried as she helped him up, “are you all right?”

The doctor answered with a succinct nod as he brushed sand off his pants. He said nothing else as he turned and quickly hustled down the street.

Hands planted on her hips, Katherine marched back up the stairs, her riotous head of blonde curls bouncing across her back. Her golden hues dazzled while catching the last rays of the evening sun. God, how I had loved her hair. It was so much fairer than her sister’s. Add to that high cheekbones, full, sensual lips, and luminous green eyes, and no wonder so many Galvestonian men were eager to toss up her skirts. Still, I would have gladly traded Katherine’s beauty for Marie’s loyalty and kindness.

I slammed the door after she followed me inside our home. Though I suspected my neighbors already knew of my wife’s indiscretions, I would not confront her outside for all the world to see. Katherine deserved no such discretion, but for the sake of her parents, I choose not to call her out in public.

“Aedan, what’s gotten into you?” She threw her hands in the air, her eyes widening. She took my injured hand, turning it over in her own while examining the cuts and bruises with her gentle, feminine touch. It was the most compassionate thing Katherine had ever done for me. “What happened?”

“I struck Callum.”

She released my hand and stepped away, flinching as if I would strike her next. “Why?”

“You tell me why. Why, Katherine?” I was unable to mask the hurt in my voice. The pain of her deception was too much. “Why would you betray me with my own brother?”

“I betrayed you?” She snapped her head back as if she’d been hit with a verbal slap. “You goddamn hypocrite!” Her voice rose several octaves. “I know why you close your eyes when we make love. It’s my sister’s face you see, not mine.”

Thunderclouds blurred my vision, and I stared down at my pretty wife as if seeing her for the first time. “You would use your jealousy of a ghost as a reason to break our vows?”

“This is your fault for making me your bride and then sticking me in this shack!” She waved wildly around her at the simple furnishings I had paid for with honest, hard labor.

My internal temperature soared along with my ire. “I bust my back to give you fine things. The soles are falling off my boots so that you may have satin drapes and fancy teas.”

She stomped her foot like a petulant child. “I deserve silks! I deserve a grand home on Broadway Avenue. I will never have these things as your wife. Never, unless I earn them myself.”

Her gaze flitted to her new tea set sitting atop our weathered credenza.

For the first time, I got a good look at my home. Katherine said she’d gotten the tea set for a bargain. The brocade sofa I’d feared set me back a month’s wages, but that, too, Katherine said she’d found used for half price. Now I realized her gentlemen callers had paid for this finery.

Flaming pyres of rage shot through my skull as I bore down on her with a roar. “You earned these things as a whore!”

She did not even have the decency to flinch as she stood on her tiptoes and jabbed me in the chest. “And what are you, but a rich man’s dog? At the docks from dawn till dusk, earning barely enough to put food on our table while your employers profit off your blood and sweat.”

I stepped back, feeling as if her censure had shot an arrow of venom straight to my heart. “Who are you, and what has happened to the woman I married?”

She advanced upon me, biting her lower lip and batting thick lashes. Smiling seductively, she smoothed a hand down my chest. “I am that same woman, Aedan, only wiser.”

I shrieked back, sickened by her touch. “You are a damned fool, and so am I.”

Ignoring her cries, I hastened out the door, needing to put some distance between us. Never before had I struck a woman, but I was sorely tempted now to beat my bride within an inch of her life. It would do neither of us any good. My Jezebel was rotten to the core, and no act of heaven or hell would change her. A blustering wind had picked up outside, nearly sweeping the cap off my head. Horses whinnied and dogs howled. I squinted at the darkening horizon. A storm was brewing for sure. If only there was a wind powerful enough to sweep up the pieces of our shattered lives.

Purgatory Level Thirteen

Present Day

Ash MacLeod

I’m a good girl now. I’m a good girl now.

I had to keep repeating my new mantra; otherwise, I might forget it. I’m a good girl who does what she’s told and doesn’t step out of line. A lot of things have changed since my “ghosting incident” on level one, aka Earth, aka the land where weird is actually weird, and people don’t walk around with hammers lodged in their heads and parking meters sticking out of their chests. Did I mention I saw a guy carrying his head the other day? How the hell was he supposed to work his shitty Purgatory job and earn enough credits to get into Heaven when his head kept rolling off his neck? That seriously had to be a distraction.