Healing Beau (The Brothers of Beauford Bend Book 6) (10 page)

But, still. She was going to the pharmacy before Beau woke—just in case.

She couldn’t undo the lie she’d told, but she could make it true for the future. There would be no way to explain to Beau why all of a sudden she wanted to use condoms after she’d implied she was on the pill and they had established there was no risk of disease. But she could get some of those sponges—and some spermicide, too, just for good measure.

Just in case.

After waking to find Christian gone, Beau realized he’d left his Christmas presents at Beauford Bend, which probably made him seem like an ungrateful ass. He ought to go get them. He waited for the sense of dread to settle in at the thought of going home.

But it didn’t. Interesting. Maybe he’d give it a try.

Ten minutes later, he stepped through the backdoor into chaos. Gwen and Emory had pulled everything out of the kitchen cabinets, and Sammy was on a ladder washing the shelves. Ah, yes. Some things never changed. Around the Bend always shut down the week between Christmas and New Year’s, but it wasn’t a time for fun. That’s when they cleaned out, reorganized, inventoried.

Emory was looking at a bag of some kind. “Expiration date, February 12. Toss or keep?”

Gwen ran her finger down her clipboard and made a notation. “Keep. The Taylor party is January 15.”

“Looks familiar,” Beau said.

Everyone looked his way. “Hey, Beau.” Emory went back to her sorting.

“I think there are still some biscuits and sausages on the buffet in the family room,” Gwen said. “But you’ll have to warm them yourself. Emory, how much bittersweet chocolate have you got over there?”

“I’m good.” Amazed and relieved at not being fawned over, Beau walked out of the kitchen. No one even cared why he was here, where he was going, or if he was going to stay. It felt good.

Ah, there was his stuff. Someone had stacked it neatly under the Christmas tree.

“Beau.”

Holy hell. He hadn’t figured on Jackson being here.

“I need to talk to you. In fact, I was about to head over to Firefly Hall.”

Even better. “Aren’t you supposed to be writing a song or something?” Beau bent and started picking up his stuff.

“With what I’ve got on my mind, the one I’d write wouldn’t be pretty.”

Damn. He should have known it was too good to last.

Beau turned to face his brother. “And by the way you’re looking at me, I guess it’s got something to do with me.”

Jackson bit his bottom lip. “Let’s go the music room. This is a conversation we don’t want the women to hear.”

Nothing to do but follow him. “Now.” Seated on one of the big leather sofas, Jackson leaned his elbows on his knees and steepled his fingers.

“Now, what?” Beau let himself down on the sofa facing Jackson.

“I’ll get right to the point. Are you in love with Christian? Or at least on the way there? Please tell me you are.”

The universe as he knew it exploded. “In love with Christian? Of course I’m not in love with Christian.” Or anyone else. Being in love led to marriage and family. That was never going to happen. He couldn’t be trusted with a family.

“Then you’d better stop sleeping with her, and you’d better do it now. I mean it, Beau. You have no idea what kind of hell you are fixing to stir up around here, and no small part of it is going to impact me.”

Beau felt breathless, weightless. A different man would have wondered if a different woman had told what had gone on between them, but he and Christian weren’t different people. She had not told anyone and never would.

“You don’t know—”

“Save it, Beau.” Jackson narrowed his eyes at him. “I do know. I saw you yesterday. When you went back to Firefly Hall before lunch you were skittish and miserable. I doubted you’d even come back. But there you were—late, wearing different clothes, and drunk on satisfied serenity. I’ve seen that look; I’ve seen it in the mirror. So don’t bother denying it.”

And gentlemen did not kiss and tell; he would never admit it. “None of that means anything.”

Jackson shook his head. “All of a sudden, you and Christian were looking at and touching each other in ways that people who have not had sex do not. I know what I’m talking about. I have made a considerable living understanding human nature and putting it in a song.”

Beau set his jaw, crossed his arms across his chest, and said nothing.

“I know you aren’t going to admit it or deny it. That’s fine. But remember this, little brother. You don’t shit where you eat. And if you don’t love that girl, you are creating a shit storm. She’s your oldest friend. Brother or no brother, Emory, Gwen, Abby, and Neyland would crawl over broken glass just for the pleasure of clawing your eyes out. I’ve been on the receiving end of hurting one of their little posse. You do not want to be there.”

“I would never hurt Christian!” He wouldn’t. Would he? “And it has nothing to do with being afraid of Gwen and my sisters-in-law.”

“It might be too late for that. Unless I miss my guess, that girl is in love with you.”

“You miss your guess.” There was no way that could be true.

Jackson closed his eyes and shook his head. “Come on, Beau. She would give you her ice cream cone when y’all were five years old. What’s changed?”

“You’re way off base—and out of line,” Beau said, rising to his feet.

“As you wish.”

The hell of it was Beau was afraid Jackson was right—about everything.

He was halfway back to Firefly Hall before he remembered he’d left his Christmas gifts again.

• • •

On his way to the stairs, if the glow from the gas logs hadn’t caught his eye, Beau would have walked right past where Christian sat in the main parlor of Firefly Hall.

She laid aside her e-reader and smiled up at him. Her smile was like it had always been. Maybe Jackson was wrong. Maybe Christian wasn’t in love with him.

“Hi.” He let himself down in the wing chair opposite her. “Isn’t it a little cold to be sitting in here? Even with the logs on?”

“I’m okay. The guys are here to fix the unit, and if I go upstairs, I’ll just have to be running up and down until they’re done.”

“That’s good.” Leaving her in a warm house would be easier than leaving her in a cold one.

“Did you go over to Beauford Bend?” she asked.

“I did. All of my own accord.”

“I’m glad.”

“Things are better.”

“That’s great, Beau. I told Jackson you needed a little time. I’m glad I was right.”

That was the thing. She was always right.

“I was thinking I should move back, get out of your hair.” The coddling had subsided, and Christian had helped him face the ghosts. Now, maybe he could do it on his own.

“Well.” She laughed that heart-stopping laugh and looked at the floor before bringing her eyes back to his. “You aren’t in my hair, but I’m glad you feel like going back to Beauford Bend. It’s your home.”

Something was off. There was too much distance between them, but it was hard to tell if it was emotional or physical. He could fix the physical. He got up and went to sit beside her.

“If I feel like I can go home, it’s because of you.”

She frowned. “I don’t get your meaning.”

He took her hand like he wanted, and like he knew he shouldn’t. “It’s true. Christmas is hard for me. I needed grounding and you grounded me. You got me through a really rough spot.”

She nodded and smiled brightly. “Then I’m glad. And, Beau, we had a great couple of days, but you know, we probably shouldn’t revisit that.”

A thousand pounds was lifted from his shoulders—and then came crashing down in the form of guilt. She was saving him again.

He laughed, trying to lighten the mood. “But it was great—greatest holiday I’ve ever had.”

She joined in the laughter and squeezed his hand. “That’s the best thing about holidays—you can have a little no-remorse treat. And it was great, but not as great as our friendship, and we would never want to compromise that.”

He pulled his hand away and absentmindedly scratched behind his ear—at least he hoped it looked absentminded.

“I wouldn’t say it was a little treat. It was more like the grand champion of all treats. And, Christian, if not for our friendship, I’d be hauling you up those stairs right now.” He felt hollow as he spoke those words, maybe because he didn’t want to say them, and maybe because it sounded like he was throwing her a bone.

She cocked her head to the side. “And I’d be letting you. But what we’ve always had is more important than a little fun between the sheets.”

Was that all it was to you?
Ridiculous thought. Why should he expect it to mean more to her when that’s all it had been for him?

She went on. “And we’re meant for better things, Beau. We are going to be godparents to each other’s children, and you’re going to be holding my hand—my very old and gnarled hand—when I die. That’s who we are, who we’ve always been. In the scheme of things, we just had a moment.”

A moment? It had felt like more than a moment. But who was he to judge? He was way too screwed up to judge much of anything.

“It could be me,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say.

She looked at him for a long moment. “It could be you? In what way?” Her eyes widened.

“I could be the one who dies first. You could be holding my hand.”

For just a second, all the life went out of her face, but then she laughed. “You wouldn’t do that to me—go first.”

“Christian? Are things going to be awkward with us?”

She shook her head from side to side, but then stopped.

“Truthfully? Probably a little, for a little while—but only that. This time next month, we will have forgotten the whole thing.”

Not likely, at least for him. But Christian looked pretty sure. It seemed unlike her, but what did he know about Christian’s sex life? Maybe she had amazing, miraculous, casual sex all the time and forgot about it. Not that he was judging. Except for the amazing, miraculous part, he’d been doing that since he was fifteen years old.

But one thing was for sure. Jackson was wrong, dead wrong. Christian had no feelings for him, at least none beyond those she’d always had. Was it possible Jackson had told him that to manipulate him into moving back to Beauford Bend?

Maybe I’ll stay at Firefly Hall after all.

Not fair. Jackson might be domineering and interfering, but he was straightforward about it. It would never have occurred to Jackson that he would need to stoop to manipulation. However wrong he might be, Jackson believed what he’d said or he wouldn’t have said it. You’re just looking for an excuse to stay at Firefly Hall.

And that couldn’t happen. Still, it seemed there were things left unsaid—though he had no idea what they were.

Christian looked as if she was going to speak again, but a voice from the back of the house interrupted her.

“Miss Christian? Can you come here a second?”

She stood abruptly. “Don’t worry, Beau. Really. We’re good. Now, you go home and enjoy your family.”

“I’ll see you soon. Maybe we could get some lunch.”

If she heard him, she didn’t reply.

The last thing Christian wanted to do was walk up the steps and enter Nickolai and Noel’s front door—but there was no way around it. They were having a New Year’s Day brunch—their first party in their new house—and death would have been the only excuse good enough to miss it.

She hesitated at the ornate door of the Victorian structure. No doubt Beau was inside, or would be soon. His car wasn’t there, but assorted other Beaufordmobiles were, and he could have come with any of them.

She hadn’t talked to him since the day after Christmas. He’d called a couple of times, but she couldn’t face talking to him. It didn’t make sense to feel ashamed—after all no one knew how stupid she had been, how much she’d hoped that they had been on the cusp of happily ever after. But she
was
ashamed. Not only had she made it appear that she had flings without a second thought, but she also had been stupid enough to hope an empty hope—again. Even as she’d rushed to say they shouldn’t have sex again, she’d fantasized that he would say no, that she had it all wrong, that he would never let her go. But he hadn’t.

And just when she’d thought it couldn’t get any worse he’d said, “It could be me.”

For the barest second, she’d thought this could be that moment—the moment at the end of the romantic comedy when he finally gets it, when he sees that what he wants has been in front of him the whole time, and he says, “It could be me.”
I could be the one for you, for always.

Fade to kiss.

But no. She wasn’t what he’d always wanted or what he would ever want. So she’d said all the right things to save face and make it all right for him.

The one thing she had not been able to do was take his calls. Each time, she sat there frozen, staring at the caller ID. And each time she’d let it go to voicemail. She hadn’t had to find out what she would have done if he had shown up at her door, because that hadn’t happened.

So here she was on Noel’s porch. And that was another thing. Noel had come to see her as soon as she’d gotten back to town after Christmas, so sure that Christian wanted to bare her soul about how she felt about Beau.

And she
had
wanted to the day of the knitting class, but no more. Whether it was true or not, at the time she had thought there was a story in progress. Now the story was over, and it did not have a happy ending. So she’d denied how she felt to Noel, lied through her teeth and claimed that Noel had mistaken her concern over Beau’s well being for something more. Noel might not have believed it, but she’d let it drop, and that’s all Christian cared about.

She might have stood on the porch all day had she not seen Beau drive by and park down the street. No way she was going to look like she was standing out here waiting for him. What she wanted to do was get in, load up her plate, and find a seat so it would seem like she’d been there a while.

Nickolai opened the door and Noel hugged her. “Happy New Year!”

“Welcome to our home, Christian,” Nickolai said. Nickolai had been orphaned at an early age and was so proud of having a house. “Didn’t my Noel do a beautiful job with the decorating?”