Brant's Return

But what if . . . fuck, maybe my father was right. Isabelle needed more than a house and a job. She needed someone who knew. She needed someone who understood her emotions when a foal went missing, or a mother horse died during labor, or a million other things that might come up during a lifetime that would pierce her heart and cause her more suffering, even if only for an hour or two. Surely the people surrounding her at Graystone Hill knew that she’d been through a harrowing tragedy, if not all the details. Only I knew the details from her perspective. Only I had seen the look in her eyes as she’d recounted that horrific day. Only I had witnessed the way her strength waned and her composure crumbled in the midst of an event that triggered her terrible grief. That in itself was a certain responsibility, wasn’t it? Isabelle had suffered enough in this lifetime. I couldn’t knowingly leave her to fight her future demons on her own. If I could do anything to ensure she didn’t suffer anymore, that’s what I was going to do.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Isabelle

“Hey, Is, come to Patty’s with us tonight. Let us buy you a birthday drink?”

I turned around, putting my hands on my hips. “Eli, how in the world did you know it’s my birthday?”

He winked, brushing his straight brown hair off his forehead. “I have my sources.” He smiled that boyish smile of his, his dimple deepening. “What do you say?”

I smiled but shook my head. “I don’t drink, Eli.”

He leaned his hip against the nearest horse stall. I hung up the bridle I’d just attempted to put on the stallion I was training. He’d been resistant. I’d been quietly persistent, and though I hadn’t bridled him, in the end I thought we’d had a good day. “I’ll buy you a birthday Coke. Come on, we’ll play some pool. It’ll be fun. I promise to have you home early.”

I opened my mouth to say no, but he looked so hopeful, and truth be told, all I would do was sit in the house tonight and stress over what to do with that money I’d found, who to call, where to begin to look for answers for where it came from. I sighed. “Okay, fine.”

Eli grinned. “Don’t sound so miserable. This is a party, not a funeral.”

I mustered a laugh, though the word funeral didn’t do much to move my mind, or heart, away from Ethan and the questions swirling in my brain. “I’m agreeing, as long as you don’t make it a party. And don’t tell anyone it’s my birthday.”

“You’re tough.” He winked. “But I promise. We will not party.” His grin told me he couldn’t be trusted, but I laughed, shooting him a look over my shoulder as I called, “Come pick me up at the house when you’re ready.”

“Will do. Gotta go home and change and then I’ll be back by eight.”

I waved my hand in acknowledgment of what he’d said, and continued up the hill toward the house.

At eight o’clock on the dot, Eli knocked once and then opened the front door, peeking his head in, his eyes lighting up when he saw me buttoning my coat in the foyer. “Hey birthday girl.”

I laughed. “Since when have you ever knocked?”

“I’m being a gentleman.”

“This isn’t a date, Eli.”

His face fell slightly and I felt a pang of guilt, but I also didn’t want to lead him on. I’d only ever had friendly feelings for Eli and I only ever would. But his expression morphed into what looked like a sincere smile as he took me by my arm. “It is a date. A friendly date. I’m taking my friend out for an anti-party birthday celebration.”

I laughed. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

Eli grinned. “It will, birthday girl, it will.”

Patty’s was a casual bar just outside the downtown area. I’d never been inside but had driven past it before, and I knew from listening to the guys at the stable that it was a popular hangout. Eli parked his truck in the back parking lot and we went inside together, the smell of beer and fried food greeting my nose as we walked through the door. A country song played from the old-fashioned jukebox, reducing the chatter and laughter of the decent-sized crowd to a background hum.

Eli took my hand and led me to the rear of the bar where there were two pool tables. Several of the men from Graystone Hill were already standing around one, engaged in a game. They greeted me enthusiastically, a trainer named Joe throwing an arm around my shoulders. “Now how did that fool convince you to come out with us tonight when you’ve always turned me down cold?”

I laughed, nudging him in his side, opening my mouth to respond when Eli cut in, “Because you didn’t even remember her birthday.”

I shot him a glare. “I knew you couldn’t be trusted.”

He grinned and winked. “Not when it comes to birthdays. You deserve to be celebrated, Isabelle.”

I huffed out a breath, but I couldn’t hold on to my ire because Eli was sweet and his heart was in the right place.

“We got a birthday girl in the house?” Joe called out. “This calls for a round of drinks.”

“Just a Coke for me,” I said, and Joe gave me a mock look of horror but didn’t argue, making his way to the bar.

I sat on a stool at a high-top table and watched the game being played, chatting with Eli. I was glad I’d agreed to come. Birthdays and holidays were hard—a reminder of the missing people no longer there to celebrate them. A reminder that I was alone. For the past three years, they’d been days to endure, nothing more. But this year, despite my troubled thoughts about Ethan, I was reminded I had friends, people who cared. And perhaps I deserved one night to be among friends I trusted, to push aside the worries running rampant through my mind, and ignore errant thoughts of Brant that still persisted despite my best efforts. This was good. At the very least, this was a much-needed distraction. Tomorrow I’d call someone and ask for help, advice—direction—in what to do about the money I’d found in that storage unit. Normally, I would have called Aaron. After all, he’d been in business with my husband. But after what Paige had divulged . . . I no longer trusted him as a person. In fact, given what I’d learned about Aaron and the company’s financial struggles, I wondered if the briefcase was related somehow. Was Aaron stealing from the company and had Ethan been trying to protect it? Or was it the other way around? Or perhaps the money was simply a windfall from when the business was in better times, and Ethan was hiding it for an entirely different reason?