Brant's Return

Brant’s hands stilled and then came away from my shoulders. He took a seat in his chair again, scooting it closer. “Belle, we’re here to enjoy New York, not make it into Kentucky.” His eyes moved over my face, concern in his expression. “Sweetheart, I know you’re homesick, but you have to give it a chance if you’re truly going to love it here and look forward to coming back. It took me some time too, but I promise you, this will feel like a second home before you know it.”

I nodded and when he put his hand on my cheek, I leaned in to his touch. “I know.” He smiled, sitting back. I knocked on the table, seemingly made out of the same mysterious material as so many other pieces in this apartment. “What is this?”

Brant raised a brow. “Is that a trick question? It’s a table.”

“No, I mean, what material is it made from?”

He frowned, looking down at it. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“You bought a table and you don’t even know what it’s made from?”

He reclined in his chair, regarding me with amusement and concern, as if he thought I might be slightly crazy. “A designer picked it out. I just went with it.”

“Huh,” I said, running my hand over the table. It belonged to him, but he hadn’t chosen it. A designer had picked it out. It struck me that New York felt like being one step removed from . . . everything.

That night I dreamed of Elise. She was just beyond the fog, calling for me, and I reached for her, swatting desperately at the swirling white, but she only seemed to fade farther away, out of my reach. I woke up with tears on my cheeks and a choked sob on my lips, reaching for the tiny person who was no longer there. Too far away. You’re too far away. My heart felt crushed beneath the weight of the love that now had nowhere to go.

Brant gathered me to him, whispering words of comfort as my tears dried and the feeling of the dream faded. His heart beat against my own, his skin both smooth and rough. I pressed against him, needing him to fill the emptiness that seemed to be growing within me. “I want you,” I said, just as I had that night he first made love to me in the old distillery. He worshipped my body slowly, and I closed my eyes, pretending we were there, under a dusty paint tarp in an abandoned building rather than the luxurious king-sized bed made up with silken sheets.

Afterward, I lay in his arms, replete, our skin still dewy, our heartbeats slowing. I turned into his chest, breathing him in, clinging to him as though he were my shelter in a storm. “I love you,” I murmured, because I did, and I couldn’t hold the words back any longer. I loved him.

His heartbeat sped up beneath my palm, though everything else seemed to still. I held my breath for a beat . . . two and then released it on a loud exhale. His hand resumed the slow stroking movement up and down my arm from a moment before, and he leaned his head down and kissed my temple. A lump formed in my throat and my heart thudded dully in my chest. “Belle . . . I . . .”

I shook my head against his chest. “No, Brant, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot—”

“Christ. I don’t even think I’m capable of love.”

I tilted my head back, looking at him. The expression on his face was so . . . tormented. “Everyone’s capable of love.”

He sat up, turning and swinging his legs off the bed, hanging his head. I propped myself up on my hand, looking at his hunched-over form, the beautifully muscled expanse of his back. I’d done this to myself. Again. Another man who couldn’t love me. How many could I wrack up in one lifetime? Ethan had never promised me love, and neither had Brant. Oh, Isabelle, you fool. Brant turned toward me, the gray city lights seeping around the edges of the blinds highlighting his beauty. He was so handsome I almost didn’t want to look at him. Ever since that day I’d been injured in the yard, I’d felt him pull away, distance himself emotionally. It was slight, so slight, and yet I’d seen the wariness in his gaze sometimes when I caught him staring at me. Now, now it would be worse, wouldn’t it? It wasn’t that he couldn’t love me, it was that he didn’t want to. And that made it all the worse.

“I’m sorry, Belle.” He looked at me, beseeching. “I want us. I love what we have together, and you’ll always have me . . . I’ll take care of you. I’ll protect you with everything in me.”

I suddenly felt so weary, so tired, but angry too. I didn’t only want to be protected. I wanted to be loved. And Brant was not o

nly denying me his love, but denying himself love as well.

“Brant, you think you can’t love because you’re afraid of losing. You’re afraid to experience the deep pain you felt when you lost your mother.”

“Don’t, Belle.” His voice was low and held a warning I didn’t heed.

I moved forward, grasping his arms, the arms that had held me so lovingly only moments before. He would love me with his body but nothing more? No, I wanted his heart, his soul.

“You have to face it, Brant. There, here, somewhere. You can’t ignore it and expect it to go away.”

“It’s worked just fine for me all these years, Belle. Don’t tell me what I need to face and what I don’t.”

“You need to hear it. Oh Brant, I know it hurts.” I squeezed his arms more tightly, but he didn’t seem to notice. “I know. I know. I had to acknowledge my true feelings about Ethan before I could find peace. I don’t know what’s locked inside your heart, but you have to face it. It will be hard, but it will be worth it, I promise.”

He made a strange choking sound in his throat, and it bolstered my courage, made me believe I might be getting through to him.

“Let it out,” I beseeched. “I’ll help you. I can protect you too, maybe not with my strength, but with my love. You have to, Brant, because someday when you have children, you’ll have to face the fear of—"

“Children?”

I let go of his arms. “What? Don’t you want children someday?”

“Children,” he repeated again as if the word didn’t make sense to him.