One to Chase (One to Hold 7)

“I’m saying it’s easy for you to believe in true love and happily ever after.” He reaches for my arm, but I shove his hand away. “Don’t you dare judge me because I can’t.”

“Why can’t you?” His gaze is intense, moving from eye to eye. “What do you know?”

My throat aches, and a desert is in my mouth. “The truth,” I manage. “I’ve always known the truth.”

Stuart’s hands grip the tops of both my shoulders. “How long have you known?” My brow lines, and he gives me a little shake. “When did you find out?”

In that moment, everything changes. “You knew?” Is it possible I’m not alone?

He fixes me in his intense gaze a few moments longer. Then, as if making a decision, he releases the truth. “Dad wasn’t just a hardass. He was a bastard who cheated on our mother for years.”

Tears seem to fly out of my eyes. My center collapses, and I nearly fall forward. Stuart holds me up against the wall. “I caught him with Linda Harwood on our balcony Christmas eve. He said it was a mistake, made me swear I wouldn’t tell Mother.”

Those words almost break me. The tears won’t stop as the horrible images filter through my memory.

My brother keeps going. “Some years later he was in the Blackwell’s master bath with Pamela. I’m pretty confident he never stopped cheating.”

“Let me go, Stuart.” He does. His hands drop, but I don’t run. My shoulders curl together as my insides collapse, as I roll to my side against the wall.

Digging in his pocket, he hands me a handkerchief. I bury my face in cedar-scented cotton, clutching my elbows to my chest. I wait, listening to my heart. Has it run away again? Is this the end for me? For a moment, I feel nothing. My emotions are quiet. I brace for the signal, the raging push of rejection to rise in my stomach, the need to run harder and farther. Australia...

A knot of pain moves in my throat, but it doesn’t happen. All I think is Marcus. I need Marcus. I need him to hold me.

He’s still in my heart. It hasn’t pushed him out.

“When did you know?” My brother doesn’t seem to notice, or at least he doesn’t understand my inner turmoil.

I think of that gross, life-altering day so long ago. “Fourteen,” I answer. “I was fourteen.”

“Then it was Linda.” His voice is flat, matter of fact. “I’m pretty sure theirs lasted the longest.”

A shudder crosses my shoulders. “How can you be so removed? Don’t you care?”

“Of course, I care,” he growls. “Why do you think I devoted myself to something honorable? Something I could control.”

Until Mariska...

My mind goes back to that day, my father standing over me, eyes blazing. “You will not tell your mother,” he ordered. I hadn’t said I’d tell her, but he could see it in my young eyes, and he crushed the idea as surely as he crushed me. “You will not break her heart and destroy our home.”

Destroy our home. He put all the responsibility on my fourteen year-old shoulders. Back then I was a child. I didn’t understand what he did, and I wasn’t strong enough to fight him.

“I believed him,” I say, even though I’m sure Stuart won’t understand my meaning. “I believed if I said anything, I’d break our mother’s heart.”

Strong arms surround me, and for the first time in... Ever? My oldest brother holds me. I’m clutched so tightly against his chest, I almost can’t breathe. He hugs me, and I feel the slightest tremor move through him.

We share the pain of the horrible secret we each carried for so long alone. The thing I want to apologize to our beautiful mother for so much. I betrayed her with my fear.

“It was not our fault.” His voice is husky. “The only thing we did wrong was believe him.”

With those words, the fist inside me opens. “Oh, Stuart.” I feel my body melt into him. I feel the wall of stone I’ve constructed around my heart start to crumble. “If only I knew. If only I knew you knew.”

A large hand moves slowly up and down my back. Never in my life has my oldest brother been so comforting. All I’ve ever known is the wall he built up, the one he used to push us all away. The same wall I carried inside me. He expressed his hurt differently, but we were both running from the betrayal planted so deep by one of the two people we should’ve been able to trust.

A few moments pass. My breathing calms, and I feel him pulling back. Arms relax, we step apart from each other. I touch under my eyes with his handkerchief before handing it back to him.

“Thank you,” I say quietly.

He pats my shoulder and stands a little straighter, always the good Marine. “I guess this explains a few things.”