LUST: A Bad Boy and Amish Girl Romance (The Brody Bunch Book 2) (18 page)

“Guess that’s why we fight like demons,” Reid said, a weak attempt at humor in a truly abysmal situation. But it was true. What we’d done out there… we were warriors, but we’d never fought like that before. Never so hard. Never so determinedly. Never together.

Then again, before now… we’d never really had anything worth fighting for.

I
felt
like I was going to throw up.

I’d seen Ash go after guys before. He was a bouncer, after all. Part of what he did required a bit of necessary force. But what I’d witnessed out here, today… that would stay with me forever as one of the most horrifying scenes I’d been a party to. The look on Ash’s face when he’d told that man he’d kill him—it would be seared into the back of my eyelids forever. I was sure of it.

I flinched when he stormed up to me, obviously not completely free of that anger. “What the fuck, Hannah?” he hissed into my ear. It might as well have been a stage whisper. I could tell everyone heard it. Hell, the goons still recovering from their beat-down some distance away, trying to heft their broken teacup of a leader up into their arms, probably picked up on it.

“I don’t know, okay?” I told him, still shivering so hard I couldn’t get my teeth to unclench. “I don’t fucking know…”

The look Ash gave me was hard. I knew he wanted to say more, but Beth was right here, and it seemed cruel to just drop it on her after what had happened. She was traumatized enough as it was. I wanted to get her inside, sit her down with some hot chocolate, and go into it after she’d had a moment or two to recover.

But then Sarah was pulling away from us, looking so pale I was sure she would pass out. “I can’t,” she murmured, absently touching her throat as though she hadn’t meant to say the words out loud. As if the tremor in her voice repulsed and surprised her. “I can’t right now.”

I reached out to stop her, but it was too late. She was running headlong into the woods, the same way she’d gone before with Beth. My stomach turned. What the hell was she thinking?

“I got her,” Reid said, rushing past me to chase her down. He crashed through the underbrush none too gracefully in close pursuit. His head start and the look of grim determination on his face were all that kept me from going after her myself.

“Hannah,” Ash said, reminding me there were other matters to attend to. He flicked his eyes in Beth’s direction, lips thinning. When I didn’t respond, he added, “You need to talk to her.”

“Can’t we just…” I started, but Ash shook his head. I slumped. No, I knew he was right. It had to be now. I just wished, so very badly, that I could spare her…

She was standing a little closer to the tree line now, staring in the direction Sarah had disappeared. Her nails were in her mouth, teeth dug into them, and I could see even from a distance that she’d bit them to the quick. There was nothing left of them, and a thin crescent of blood was starting to drip into her cuticles. I motioned to Wyatt to stay back. This wasn’t going to be pretty, and as much as I wanted to pass the buck, I knew I had to be the one to tell her. I was the one who’d gotten her into this mess, after all.

I walked up behind her, laid my hand on hers, and pushed it way from her mouth. “Beth… how are you holdin’ up?”

She didn’t even meet my gaze. “Sarah was going to tell me something in the woods,” she said to me in Dutch. “She was so angry. Do you know what it was?”

Out of sheer cowardice, it took me a few moments to answer. When she turned to me, those beautiful blue eyes so full of fear, it just made me feel worse.

“Yes,” I told her, granting her the comfort of our mother tongue. I’d grown to hate the language—it was just a reminder of all the awful things I’d been through, all the trauma I’d tried to leave behind—but I knew for her it meant something different. It made her feel at home in a place that had never been safe for me, but obviously had been for her.

That should have granted me some kind of solace, the knowledge that Beth could look favorably upon the village because she’d never gone through what I did, but right then, all it really did was twist a knife in my gut. I knew her innocence would make what I was about to say next even more unbelievable. My worst fears were about to come to life, and I was going to have to relive that night my own mother hadn’t believed all over again.

“Well?” she said when I failed to elaborate. “What was it? I assume it was some lie you told, or some truth you hid from us. Like those men…” She gestured vaguely in the direction they’d limped away to. “One of them knew you, Hannah. And I could see by the look in your eyes that you knew him. What in God’s name is going on?!”

I wanted so badly to tell her. I wanted to confess everything in that moment, regardless of who else might hear us. I knew Beth needed the truth from me, just as I knew now for certain that having kept it from her for so long was a sin.

But Beth, ever curious, was not content to let me gather the right words. Holding my gaze steady, she asked me, “What was Sarah going to tell me, sister? What was she going to say that you ran after her like that, so desperate to silence her?”

I took a deep breath. It was like trying to get air underwater. “It was a misunderstanding…”

Beth closed her eyes. “God…” My stomach plummeted to my feet. The look on her face… it was like her heart was breaking. The second I saw it, mine began to break too. “You just… can’t stop, can you? You can’t stop keeping things from us. You always did that, even back at the village. The year before you left, you had almost completely shut me and Sarah out.”

She might as well have slapped me across my face. She was talking about the year my abuse started. She was talking about all the shameful things I’d endured, the ones I’d never been able to tell
anyone
except our mother about. And all this time, she thought I was hiding something else. She thought I was keeping secrets for the fun of it, closing her out of my life because I wanted to. I turned away from her, dizzy with the revelation, and Beth grabbed my arm hard, yanking me back to face her.

“No!” she shouted at me in English. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to run away from me again!”

I shook my head at her, pleading with my eyes. “You don’t understand. I’m not—”

Beth let me go, practically shoving me away from her. “Stop treating me like a child, Hannah! I’m a woman now! In the eyes of the church, and in the eyes of God!” So, she’d slept with Wyatt. And she thought that made her an adult now. Some bitter tendril climbed up my ribs, compelling me to spit at her that letting a guy fuck you doesn’t make you anything other than
fucked,
but I kept quiet. Now was not the time for my spite. Not when I’d hurt Beth so very badly. “Tell me the truth. I deserve it. I deserve to know what made my sister cry, what she almost got us kidnapped for!”

“She was going to tell you about the bet!” I snapped at her, fists clenched, tears veiling my eyes. Beth stopped immediately and for a moment, silence overwhelmed us. I knew I couldn’t leave it there, though, and at breakneck pace, I began to confess.

“I knew, if you came here to see me, you would be in danger. I didn’t know for sure that Father would send men after you, but I suspected it in my heart. And I knew the English world would be so foreign to you and Sarah. I knew you’d need protection from the worst elements of it. And… and I knew that you might need a reason to stay with me, when Rumspringa was over.” My chest felt tight. I took a shallow breath and finished, “So I… I told Ash I needed his help. I needed him and his brothers to look after you. And then I pushed you and Sarah into Wyatt’s and Reid’s arms, and I’m sorry, because I didn’t know Ash had made a stupid bet with them to convince them to help.”

Beth was trembling just as badly as I was. There was a darkness behind her eyes that told me she knew the answer to the next question she asked, even though she couldn’t stop herself from asking it. “What was the bet about?”

I covered my mouth to stifle a sob. “Please… don’t make me say it.”

“Hannah…” she whispered. “Please. I have to know.”

I closed my eyes. I couldn’t bear to look at her as I said the words I knew would shatter her whole world. “It was about yours and Sarah’s virginity, Beth. They made a bet about which one of them would get to bed one of us first.”

I felt, rather than saw, Beth look away from me. Her stare had been so hot, so palpable, that when she turned it on Wyatt I felt the air around me cool. I opened my eyes again and looked in his direction. He shifted his weight, his lips parted, but before he could speak Beth had made up her mind that she wasn’t going to let him.

“Goddamn you,” she said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Goddamn
all
of you.”

And then she took off in the direction of my apartment. I didn’t even try to go after her. I knew there was no point. She was hurt, and angry, and I’d betrayed her. I was relieved when Wyatt passed me and murmured, “I’ll go.”

“Thank you,” I said. But it didn’t make anything better.

Ash was looking at me. I regarded him coolly, daring him to come at me again like he had a few moments before—to blame
me
for all of this when it was him and his asinine bet that had ruined everything for everyone. But the look in his eyes was softer now, and I could see clearly what a mess he really was. His knuckles were all open wounds, his lip had been split right down the middle, and there was a bruise on his cheek that rivaled the one Reid has sustained to his jaw the night of the carnival.

I softened a little too, then, realizing how far he’d gone for us. For me.

Ash approached, sparing a glance over his shoulder at where my father’s men had once stood. They were gone now—they must have limped off as Beth and I argued—and this seemed to grant him as much relief as it did me. But before either of us could say anything, Reid and Sarah were exiting the trees. And they were holding hands.

Sarah glanced around, obviously looking for Beth and Wyatt. “What’s going on?” she asked me.

I said nothing for a moment, just regarding how tightly Sarah held Reid’s hand. Her grip was strong while his was comforting. Gentle. I allowed myself the very briefest of smiles. At least they had made it out okay—so far. I just wished I could say the same for me and Ash… and for Wyatt and Beth.

“The guys dragged their leader off,” I told her, “and Beth and Wyatt are in the apartment, I think. She’s… she’s upset, Sarah. We all are.” I closed my eyes again, taking a deep breath to calm my palpitating heart. “We’re all shaken up.”

“I don’t blame you,” Reid said. When I opened my eyes again, I saw him squeeze Sarah’s hand. “And that’s why I think I should take Sarah back to my apartment for a while. If those assholes come back, splitting up will make you and your sisters harder to find.”

I sighed. “To be honest with you both… I don’t think they’ll be back.” Sarah looked at me expectantly, and I avoided her gaze, instead focusing on chewing the inside of my cheek. “I know those guys,” I admitted. “Sort of. They were sent by our father, Sarah. They were meant to bring you and Beth home. That asshole leading the charge was the same dickhead Father sent after me when I ran away from home. I barely got away. Guess he brought friends this time.” I shook my head and studied the clouds—anything not to have to look yet another sister in the eye as they realized I’d been withholding information from them all this time.
Vital
information.

“They always think it’ll be so easy,” I murmured, recalling how deftly I’d evaded them during my own Rumspringa. “But now they know it’s not, and the last thing Father needs is to draw attention to his little community. I’m pretty sure that’s the last we’ll see of them. And the last we’ll hear of Father, too.”

“Wait—Father sent them?” Sarah whispered. “How does he even know men like that? They weren’t Amish, were they?” I looked at her then, though she cut me off before I could provide her with any answers. “Wh-why would he have sent them to grab us? And… and does this mean we can’t go home again? Answer me, sister. Please!”

“I can’t,” I said solemnly. “Not right now, okay? But I promise, Sarah, someday—soon, I hope—I’ll explain everything to you. Why those men were here. What they had to do with Father. Why I can never go home.” I glanced at Ash and saw nothing in his eyes but empathy. It gave me the strength to continue on. “Just… not today. Okay? Today, you just need to trust me. Even if I don’t deserve it.” Again, for what seemed like the umpteenth time in the past few days, my eyes were filling with tears. “There’s nothing I have done in my whole life that hasn’t been about protecting you, and that’s not about to change now.”

As if he’d been holding back the urge this entire time, Ash wrapped his arms around my shoulders, drawing me close and kissing my hair. I pressed my face to his chest for a minute, wiping my eyes on his dirty, bloodstained shirt. It felt like I was losing my family all over again. The second time hurt so much worse.

“You should go with Reid, anyway,” Ash said, locking his arms around me and refusing to let go. “Just in case. We’ll go talk to Beth and make sure she’s okay. For now, let’s play it safe and make sure that if those assholes
do
come back, we don’t make it easy for them. Sound good?”

Reid nodded. He looked at Sarah. “You on board, darlin’?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded at him. “I’m in. Let’s go.”

And though I wanted to lay into Reid something fierce for what he’d done to her earlier today, I found I no longer had the strength to. Maybe it was no longer my business, either. Their argument was over. Sarah had obviously forgiven him his flaws. I might have to, as well. After all, if today had taught me anything, it was that none of us were anywhere near perfect.

I handed Sarah the keys to my car. “Go get your stuff,” I said, and added nothing more. For her part, she only nodded and did as she was told. When she and Reid were out of earshot, I looked up at Ash and said, “It was my job to protect them. And I feel like I failed.”

“It was my job to protect you, and I feel the same way,” he said, cupping my face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I never even asked…”

“Am I okay?” I laughed, but it was not a happy sound. “No. I’m really not. I tried so hard to be the big sister they deserved, to be the one who saved them from what I went through, but… I just made everything worse. For them. For your brothers. For you.”

Ash frowned at me, hard. “You did not make my life worse. Okay? You understand me, Hannah? For all that’s happened, and whatever happens next… I’m happy I met you. I’m happy I agreed to watch out for you and your sisters. And I’m happy I fucked you silly in that bathroom stall.”