“Come on down when you’re ready, Joey,” Garret said, turning to his brother again. With his attention diverted, Michelle felt like she could finally breathe again. “We need to kick some grass on the field this year. Now that you’re home, we can’t lose. Don’t let me down. You can’t stay inside forever, bro.”
“Be there in a minute,” Joseph said, not all together very convincingly. “Go ahead and I’ll catch up.”
Still, that seemed to pacify Garret. He shot a quick goodbye to Michelle and then ran back out of the room. As soon as he was gone, she sunk into the bookshelf, pressing a hand to her chest.
Her reaction had been more than disappointing. Somewhere deep inside, she had hoped she possessed some kind of super strength of character. The kind that would allow her to hold her own when Garret came into the room. Instead, she’d wilted like a flower in the August heat. Pathetic.
“Well, that was interesting.” Joseph shot her an amused look.
“What do you mean?”
She smoothed a hand over her hair, feeling the tender spot where she’d bruised herself. Hiding was obviously too hazardous. Already, two of them had head injuries.
“I mean, it’s pretty clear to anyone with a pair of eyes.” He crossed his arms tightly across his chest and grimaced. “You’ve still got a thing for Garret.”
Michelle stammered a reply, her heart racing. She’d vowed to never tell anyone her secret, let alone Garret Smith’s older brother. But now the truth was out.
She’d never felt so sick.
Chapter Two
Joseph watched Michelle’s face morph between a shade of red and then purple as she tried to respond to his accusation. Her reaction said enough. It was clear that her school-aged crush had never gone away. It was really too bad. He had always thought she was too smart for the likes of his younger and wilder brother.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” She turned her face away, her jaw tensing.
Michelle still looked very much the same as he remembered. Slender build, with a heart-shaped face and long neck. She’d grown her golden blonde hair a bit longer, softening the ends with lazy curls. Her eyes were still the same piercing, sky-blue that took your breath away.
The only difference
he could see were the absence of braces. Now, when she smiled, she flashed two rows of perfectly straight, white teeth. Her fashion sense might have also improved. Gone were the plain t-shirts and athletic shorts that she seemed to live in during high school. She now wore a soft pink sweater that highlighted the peach tones of her skin and a tight pair of jeans with black ankle boots. She looked like a confident women with the world at her feet. Not at all like the foolish girls who his brother usually went after. Poor girl didn’t stand a chance.
“Right. See you later.” He spun on his heels and made a move toward the exit. The study was getting a little too crowded for his liking. A choking noise from behind made him freeze.
“You’re not going to say anything to anyone, are you?”
His fists clenched at his side and his back stiffened. He wasn’t sure why he was reacting so strongly to this newest revelation. Trivial things like this hadn’t mattered much to him in the army when he was out with his troops. Out there, the only things he had to worry about were real life-or-death situations. Not silly drama.
But maybe that was why he was having such a hard time readjusting to the civilian world. Life back at home in Blessings seemed untouched and pure, as if war and death wasn’t raging on the other side of the world. It was a strange sensation.
In the army, he’d felt like a hero. There was always a mission. Something worth fighting for. But here, he had nothing. And that nothingness had turned him into something of a recluse. A recluse who hid in his family’s study while old friends and families drank cider outside and gave thanksgiving around a warm fire.
He turned back to Michelle to say something snippy, but one look at her face made his frustration melt. Shame shone clearly in her desperate expression. She wrung her hands and bit her lower lip, wincing when their eyes met.
“No, I won’t say anything.” He sighed and closed his eyes for a brief moment. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Her cheeks turned bright red. With a nervous flutter of her hand, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s not really a secret. I’ve had a crush on him since we were little kids. I told him how I felt during our graduation party five years ago, but he didn’t seem to care. Hooked up with Leslie Brown that same night. I think she dumped him the next week.”
Joseph shook his head. Typical Garret. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my brother, but he’s oblivious. I dated Leslie before him and tried to warn him off, but he never listens. I think he has a deep-seeded need to repeat all of my mistakes.”
His little brother was always tumbling after him, trying to outdo him. Wearing the same clothes. Playing the same sports. Hanging with the same crowd of friends. Dating the same girls. It was like a weird sort of competition. He’d even made up his mind to follow him into the military.
All it took was two weeks of leave and an impromptu version of boot camp for Joseph to change Garret’s mind. That was never going to be the life for his little brother. He was better off going to Kansas State University for accounting. At least he had a solid future now.
“That’s okay.” Michelle gave him a half-hearted smile and leaned on the edge of his father’s desk. “Maybe he’ll forget that I was so pathetic. It’s kind of turned into one of those memories that I can’t seem to scrub from my mind. You know, the ones that flash in front of your eyes just as you’re trying to drift off to sleep?”
His shoulders relaxed and he found himself taking a step toward her. “Yeah, I get those sometimes. They make it impossible to fall asleep.”
“How long do you think it takes to forget?”