Bad Boy Brody(71)

Jen took one.

I could only stare at the last one.

Okay.

There’d been terror and panic in the beginning.

Yes. Brody was a big deal. I knew that. And I was missing him at that moment so much, but in the end, none of this mattered. The movie people, the press, those assholes with the cameras—they’d come back. The movie would get done. And they’d leave after that.

There’d be pictures of me, but eventually, it would all die down.

My life wasn’t that world.

It was here. It was with Shiloh.

No matter what anyone said, they could not trap me.

Finn had been watching me. “What are you thinking, Morgan?”

Abby moved to my side. “Are you okay?”

None of this mattered to me.

I looked up. “I own the land the herd runs on, right?”

Slowly, Finn nodded. “Yeah.”

“Then why should I care about any of this?” I could hide from anyone.

“Morgan, I don’t think you’re understanding what we’re saying.”

I held up a hand, stopping my brother. “No. I get it. I do. They want to take pictures of me. Right?”

“Well, that, and . . .” He shared looks with the other two, and his eyebrows pinching together. He tugged at his collar, looking back to me. “They want to know you.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“Why do they care?”

“Because you’re . . .” His lips pressed together as he chose his words carefully. “Jen? I’m shit at explaining this stuff.”

Jen stepped forward. She stared at me steadily and put it bluntly, “You defy people’s expectations of life just by you being who you are. They want to know what it’s like to be so in tune with a mustang that she turns at the slightest touch from you. They want to know how you got Brody to fall in love with you and what it’s like to be in bed with him. They want to daydream about you and use the idea of you to escape their lives. That’s why people are going to go crazy over you, and if you give them what they want . . . if you let them in, there will be a time when they turn on you. My advice—”

“Jen.” Finn stepped next to her.

“—run.”

“Jen!”

She turned on my brother, raising her chin in defiance. “I’ve been in that world enough. They’ll destroy her. Brody knows how to handle them. She doesn’t.”

“Stop, Jen.” He dropped his voice low.

“I’m supposed to hide?”

They turned to me again.

I lifted a shoulder. “You guys are acting as if that’s a novelty to me. It isn’t.” I cracked a half-grin. “Trust me, I have no problem hiding.”

A tear fell from one of Abby’s eyes. Her lip began to tremble. “But don’t hide from us. That’s what we want. You’re here. You’re in the house again.” She stepped close, her hand trailing down my arm to hold mine. “Please don’t go.”

I squeezed her hand. She was as much a sister to me as Shiloh. I moved close and rested my forehead against hers.

Her eyes drifted shut. Her shoulders slumped. “That’s all we want.”

I lifted my head back.

Finn was smiling as he reached for me. “We just don’t want to lose you. We don’t want them to chase you away. That’s all.”

I went into his arms, and he hugged me tight. I hugged him back, but I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. They wanted promises I didn’t know I could keep.

Jen coughed. “Now, on to more important matters.” She held up a bottle. “Like drinking. I don’t know about you guys, but I could down two of these myself.”

A few more bottles were brought out, and we moved our small group to the back patio for the rest of the night. I sipped a glass of wine. Jen and Abby both had four. Finn had a bottle just himself, which he told me was only two glasses.

I laughed. I smiled. I heard how Finn and Jen first started dating, how she thought he was a pansy-ass at first, and how he hit on her the entire night until she finally began laughing with him. I heard about their whirlwind romance and then how he proposed to her.

Abby, who had been mostly quiet, perked up as soon as we started talking about the wedding. I saw the wistfulness in her eyes when they talked about loving each other, about the wedding, and their hopes for a future.

Yes. The whole night felt alien to me, as if I had on someone else’s skin or had stepped into someone else’s world, but it was a good world.

At least for the night.





Brody



Two months of meetings, negotiations, and planning passed.

Not all of it was for Unbroke. Some of those meetings were for the next superhero franchise of movies. They had promised me a role, and the good word from Shanna sealed it. I had gotten the part, and they didn’t care about the leaked stories about Morgan or about my relationship with Morgan. They weren’t told how I fought against the director and some of the producers. That wasn’t the type of publicity Shanna wanted—it was too messy.

We were also sent new scheduling contracts to finish the shooting for Unbroke, and I’d gone home to start packing.

My television was on, but I heard my door buzzer over the din of the talking heads.