Songbird(12)

He glanced down at Emily to see her eyelashes flutter and finally come to rest on the dark smudges beneath her eyes. She looked beautiful and delicate, so very fragile that he was afraid to touch her for fear she’d shatter.

Carefully shifting his weight so as not to disturb her, he moved further down the bed and put his arm over her waist. She responded to his touch by snuggling into him, her cheek nuzzling his chest. Her head bumped his chin as she sought to get closer, and finally she tucked herself into the curve of his body like a cat seeking warmth.

He held her like that for the longest time, listening to the soft sounds of her distress even as she slept. He caressed and held her, offering her comfort the only way he knew how. By being here.

When finally she quieted, he melted into the bed in exhaustion. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been through the entire ordeal or how tightly he was wound.

Her even breathing whispered across his chest, and he touched her cheek to find that while it was still damp, there were no new tears. Maybe she’d finally cried herself out.

He rested there for a while, enjoying the feel of her in his arms. Oh, he’d held her plenty of times over the years, but never this way. He’d never wanted her to guess the extent of his feelings, and then when she’d married Sean, he’d stopped touching her at all beyond a casual kiss on the cheek the few times they’d seen each other.

Where was Greer? It wasn’t like him to bolt. He was the levelheaded one in the Donovan family. Taggert and Sean were the two short fuses, quick to blow and quick to get over it. Greer…he liked to brood. Which was probably what he was doing now.

Taggert sighed and eased away from Emily. She didn’t even flinch when he got up. He tiptoed across the floor and let himself out of her bedroom to go in search of Greer.

***

Greer shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at his brother’s grave. He hadn’t been out to visit in a while. Maybe he’d been as much in denial as Emily had. Seeing her shattered and scattered to the wind brought back the grief he’d tried to bury. Now it felt like a festering wound about to open.

It had always been the four of them. Looking back, he couldn’t even see when it had started to unravel. He hadn’t opened his eyes to the possibility of Emily marrying, wanting a family. A career. Somehow he’d just taken for granted that she’d always be here, a part of his life, not changing.

He shook his head at his stupidity. If only he could have that day back again. If he’d only had some warning, some idea of what Emily was thinking—feeling.

After he and Taggert had sent her away… He flinched and tightened his lips in a line. Sent away implied some calm, civilized action. They’d rejected her, and she’d fled in tears. The next thing he knew, Sean and Emily had eloped and she’d signed a recording contract that would take her away from Montana—and him and Taggert.

Where had it all gone so terribly wrong?

“You don’t come out here often.”

Greer turned to see his brother standing a few feet away, his gaze resting on Sean’s grave.

“How would you know?”

“Because I do come out here,” Taggert said. “Usually once a day.”

“This is such a mess. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to get beyond my own anger and grief to help Emily with hers.”

“I miss him. I miss them both,” Taggert said as he moved closer to Greer.

“They should have been able to feel like they could come home. We took that away from them. I thought by ignoring the issue, it would go away.”

Taggert remained silent, his lips pinched.

“The four of us were family,” Greer said painfully. “Sean accepted… He accepted what you and I didn’t. That Emily loved us. We failed her, and now to find out she blames herself for Sean’s death. It’s more than I can stand, Tagg. I’ve got to find out why, even if it makes her face everything that hurts her the most. She can’t go on like this, carrying so much guilt that she buckles under the weight. None of us can. We’ve got to face this…what’s between us and what was. Nothing can ever be right again until Sean is laid to rest.”

“I know,” Taggert said quietly. He turned to look at Greer and then back again at the grave. “What do we do?”

Greer blew out his breath and tugged one of his hands free of his pocket. “I know you think I’m a cold son of a bitch.”

Taggert made a sound of surprise.

“I mean with Emily. I let you comfort her. I made her some soup then split.”

Taggert raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement but didn’t say anything as he stared back at his brother.

“You know what I regret?” Greer looked down at one scuffed boot for a moment before he refocused on the hillside, looking beyond the neat graves to the mountains in the distance. “That day that Emily came to see us. I could tell she was upset about something. But all I wanted to do was take her in my arms, haul her up to my bedroom and make love to her. I felt like a first-class jerk. She was young. I’d sworn to never act on my feelings beyond friendship. I had this idea that I was being noble and self-sacrificing.” He snorted. “What a crock of bullshit. I gave her that pompous speech about how she was mistaking friendship for something else and then I proceeded to really patronize her by saying I’d always love her but she was too mixed-up about her feelings to possibly know her mind.”