Brant's Return

I leaned in and kissed her once on the lips, but chastely. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“You should get out of those wet clothes too. You’re getting me wet again.”

I followed her glance to the tarp and cringed. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

I stood. “I’ll just step over here and get these off. I think if we hang them up, they’ll be at least mostly dry by morning.”

I grabbed another tarp, stepping out of the firelight and quickly discarding my wet shoes and clothes, wrapping the tarp around my waist and rejoining Isabelle. Her eyes lingered on my chest for a moment, and though it was dim, I could see the flush on her cheeks. I cleared my throat, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable, seeking to distract with conversation. There was nothing much I could do about my state of undress if we were going to dry out our clothes.

I needed my hands free to hang our stuff. I started moving the available furniture closer to the fire, draping our clothes on it. I swallowed as my eyes snagged on Isabelle’s bra, the knowledge that she was mostly bare under the tarp causing my body to infuse with heat that had nothing to do with the blaze jumping and crackling in the fireplace. I cleared my throat, tamping down my own internal flames. “That’s how you first came here then? The equestrian therapy program?”

Isabelle smiled, staring into the flames again. “Yes. My grief counselor suggested it when I had trouble even speaking about what happened. It’d been six months since . . . it’d been six months, and those horses, they were the first things that really made me feel alive, you know? Maybe they reminded me a bit of home . . . maybe they just spoke to my heart in a way nothing else had for a long time . . . I don’t know exactly.”

Clothes hung, I sat on a crate next to her. “What about your family, Belle? Surely they took you back after that.”

She paused for a moment. “I didn’t ask them to. They warned me about marrying Ethan. They said I’d come to regret it, that a marriage built on sin was bound to be punished by the devil.” Pain flitted across her face, and I wanted to throttle someone, but I wasn’t sure who. She swallowed before meeting my eyes. “Some days I think maybe they were right.”

“They weren’t right. No one deserves what happened to you, certainly not an innocent child.”

She took a deep, shuddery breath, but nodded. “In any case, I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t bear . . . I couldn’t bear to hear that what happened to Elise was my doing.” She took in a sharp breath. “Couldn’t bear to feel their judgment.”

“So you dealt with it all alone? Something so horrific?”

“Didn’t you as well?”

I stared into her eyes and then away, running my fingers through my now-dry hair. “It isn’t the same. I . . . grieved my mother, was angry at . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t know. Everyone, I guess. But still, what happened to you . . .”

Belle gave a small smile. “We’re not comparing traumas, Brant. All I’m saying is that we both found our own coping mechanisms because we had to.”

“I guess.” I felt uncomfortable talking about what happened to me in any sort of reference to what happened to her. I had come to Graystone Hill with a suitcase full of pain and anger—not that it didn’t still exist, not that I’d unpacked it—but now . . . now what? What did I feel? I was suddenly confused. I rubbed at my temples. In any case, none of this was about me.

“So how did you remember so much about this place?” Belle asked. “The matches, the tarps.”

I smiled, pushing away the doubts pinging through my mind. Those were for another day, perhaps.

“This here used to be my love shack.”

She laughed and the sound caused a rolling sensation in my chest as if my heart had lifted and then settled back into place. “Oh God,” she groaned. “Do I even want to know?”

I laughed, picking up the poker and stoking the fire a bit. “Well, more accurately, it was my would-be love shack. I had big plans for me, those tarps, and Hadley DeGraw.”

She laughed again. “Didn’t end well?”

I sighed. “Sadly, no. I only got to second base underneath the football stands before she cheated on me with Kent Baker.”

She gave a mock wince. “Ouch. That hurts.”

“It did. But that summer I saved up and my dad helped me buy my first car.” I was quiet for a moment remembering the day we’d gone to pick it up. I’d been so damn excited . . . “Anyway, after acquiring a love machine, I no longer had the need for this old place. The rest is history.”

Her lips twitched as she nodded. “Too bad. The romantic potential is seriously off the charts.”

I laughed, raising my eyebrows. “It wasn’t exactly romance I was looking for.”

She rolled her eyes, but it was accompanied by a soft laugh. And sitting there, watching her smile after sharing her desolation, her slim form clearly defined beneath the linen she had tightened around her, the fire warming the room and creating moving shadows all around us, I thought maybe this place did have romantic potential. Or maybe it was just Isabelle who carried light within her. Magic. I cleared my throat, slightly uncomfortable with my own wandering thoughts. “Yeah.” I sighed. “Hadley really missed out.”

“Poor girl. No way Kent Baker offered her anything better.” I knew she was kidding back with me, though her expression remained serious as her gaze focused on the shifting flames once again. “I know this is the old bourbon distillery run by your grandfather, but was it operational at some point when you were a kid?”