Bad Boy Brody(10)

Not that I was bitter. I wasn’t. Peter Kellerman always scared me, but he took my siblings away. That’d been the one thing I was angry with him about.

I recognized the look in Matthew’s gaze. Ownership.

It reminded me of how my stepfather looked at my mother.

He took another step toward me, and I jumped back, hitting the railing. “Don’t.” I spoke quickly because he was right—if he pushed, I would run. It was how I was.

His head fell back, and he cursed again under his breath. “You’re still like a wild animal.” He looked out over the fields, over where I could hear the river trickling and where I could already smell the dew forming on the grass. I could hear the horses on the field across from us, on the other side of the river, but I also knew he couldn’t see or feel or hear any of those things.

He just saw darkness because the sun had yet to crest the horizon.

I almost felt sorry for him.

I was a wild animal, yes. I could live out there with them, but I was also human. I would always come back. This was my mother’s home. Normally, I felt her when I came back, but I couldn’t feel her right then, and I didn’t like it.

I looked back inside the house. “There are so many people here.”

He nodded, his hand going into his pocket. “We changed the ending.”

It was an abrupt change of topic, but I went with it.

I frowned. “You did?”

“Yeah.” There was a glass of champagne on the table. He picked it up, tipping his head back to take a swallow. “The studio that invested with us thought a happily ever after ending would do better in theaters. Also . . .” His eyes narrowed, lingering on me. “You aren’t in the movie.”

I fell silent.

“Dad went to great lengths to hide you so no one knows about you. We thought about writing you in, but there would have been questions. A mysterious Kellerman daughter, even through marriage, who lives alone, and that’s if she’s even in the house?” He laughed to himself. “There’d be a media storm around you.” He waved a hand around the place. “No one knows about you, well, except maybe one.”

“Finn’s fiancée?”

He did a double take. “How do you know about her?”

“Voices travel.” I touched my ear. “I have good hearing.”

He grunted. “I suppose so. She’s coming later, if you want to meet her.” His mouth flattened again. “Are you going to see Finn and Abby too? And not where”—he gestured back inside the house—“you see them, but they don’t see you. I know Abby would love to hug you.”

I heard the sadness again from him. I knew it was from him, that he wanted to hug me and couldn’t. Maybe I should? But the thought of feeling his arms circle me, of being crushed to him, made me want to recoil. No. I couldn’t. He wanted more than a hug. I could feel it from him.

I chose my words carefully, deciding on, “It’d be nice to talk to her too.”

He laughed again. “Could you do me a favor? If you have any pull with that stallion, can you keep the herd from the humans?” Another drip of bitterness. “Your herd almost took out the star of the movie.”

They weren’t my herd. It wasn’t like that.

“Star?” That was who that guy was?

“Yep. A goddamn A-list star. We got him because he needs a good movie for his public image. Couldn’t afford him otherwise.” He glanced over again. “He’s playing Peter. The script is mostly the love story that Peter and Karen had, the good parts, anyway. He’s playing the side of Peter we all wanted to have growing up.”

The fairy tale.

Matthew downed the rest of his champagne and picked up the bottle to pour himself some more. I finally felt a small ease in the air from him. “The script is getting award buzz already.”

He was using words I didn’t understand, so I only nodded. I didn’t want to tell him that. I didn’t need to remind him how different I was from the rest of them, from him.

Shiloh neighed again, this time the sound was closer. She was coming to look for me.

“Shit.” Matthew glared in the direction the sound came from. “You gotta go to her. I can’t have a feral horse walking around on our property. We could get sued if she hurt anyone.”

I threw him a look but started from the patio. “She wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“She wouldn’t hurt you, but she’d run someone over if she felt threatened, so yeah, she would.”

Another whinny. She was growing more anxious.

I avoided the last few steps and jumped over the barrier. I glanced back. Matthew was watching me from above, and I ignored the anger he didn’t know he was broadcasting. “I’ll come back.”

Immediately, the anger waned, but only a bit.

He held up his glass. “Be safe, Morgan.”

I began running, moving soundlessly over the rocks. I was to the barn when I heard him add under his breath, “I love you.”

I paused for just a second before I grabbed the post and launched myself over the fence.

He never knew how much I could hear.

Shiloh was waiting for me. There were two fence lines. She’d come all the way up to the end of the first field. It was the closest she’d ever been to the main house, and at the sight of me, she began moving around. Restless.