The Heathen (Preacher Brothers 2)

He’d leave us for her.

I slammed my hand on the steering wheel, feeling like I had no control, like I’d never be able to have order once more. I’d lived my life protecting them, watching over them, and cleaning up their messes. But they were grown now, living their own lives. Maybe I just needed to take a step back, reevaluate everything.

Find myself.

And so I had. I did.

I was going to go to the cabin, isolate myself there, make sure I was calm and level-headed, know my next step before I went back there. I wouldn’t abandon them. I’d never leave my brothers. They were everything I had. The only thing I had.

The rain pelted the car and road, my tires barely catching the asphalt when I took a sharp turn.

I took another turn then straightened out the car, my tires squealing on the wet pavement. I tightened my hold on the steering wheel, my emotions turbulent, consuming. I’d never been able to handle them when they did make an appearance, although I could hide them pretty fucking well.

I played that shit off like I was dead inside, and I supposed I was. But seeing Dom happy had a spark of something growing in me. His happiness made me fucking… happy.

Pretending I didn’t have a care in the world, didn’t give a shit about much of anything, was how I survived, how I kept everyone at arm’s length. It’s why I’d never been with a woman, had never claimed one as my own. I could’ve laughed at that fucking revelation.

Here I was, a thief, someone who’d gotten into plenty of fights, and had put plenty of men in the hospital. Hell, at one point I even thought I’d killed someone. I wasn’t a good man, never saw myself having a happily ever after. And if people thought I was fucking women and tossing them away, then I let them think that. What I wouldn’t let them know, what I wouldn’t admit, was the truth.

That I was a virgin, because I was afraid to get close to anybody, that I was afraid I’d hurt them, because I was so fucking messed up in the head. I’d given enough agony in my fucking life to last me an eternity. And so when I saw Dom happy, willing to give up anything and everything to be with Amelia, I didn’t know how to react, how to feel. And something in me had just snapped. Something in me had risen up violently, and I wanted to extinguish the threat.

And that was wrong of me. It was wrong of me to try to take something away from my brother that he held so dear, to take away that happiness he deserved tenfold.

I took another turn, my car skidding to the side before I was able to right it. The rain was coming down even harder, even more violent.

I should have turned the car around, should have apologized to my brothers for all the shit I put them through, not just because of the situation but in general. I knew I was a hard-ass, a bastard and asshole at the best of times. I was horrible at showing how I cared for them. The way I showed I loved them was beating the shit out of somebody who’d talked bad about them and picking up extra work when we were on a job, hell, giving them more of my cut and not telling them about it.

They were my baby brothers, and I’d do anything for them, but I couldn’t keep them under my wing forever.

I took another turn, should’ve slowed down. In fact, I should’ve just pulled off to the side of the road and waited the storm out. But my mind was racing, my thoughts cloudy. And I took the next turn way too fucking fast, my car hydroplaning, everything moving in slow motion. I tried to get the steering wheel corrected, tried to straighten out the car. But everything was spinning, the vehicle turning around and around before slamming into a tree and rolling into a ditch.

And right before my head smacked against the steering wheel, right before I knew what was going to happen, I thought about how I should’ve fucking turned around.

Chapter Two

Kimber

I was exhausted after working a double shift, and coupled with the shitty weather right now, I was really regretting even leaving the hospital. I should’ve just crashed in one of the staff rooms, face-planted on one of the crappy cots, and slept for the next twelve hours.

But I couldn’t stand one more minute in that place, and it had nothing to do with taking care of patients, and everything to do with the stressed atmosphere and bitchy attitudes of everyone around me.

Or maybe I was just too wound up from the two pots of coffee I’d ingested over the last twenty-four hours.