Braydon(22)

No. Definitely not that.

“Just call me when he gets here,” Jessie stated. “I’m going home, so I won’t be far.”

Currently, Jessie was living in Travis’s house because Travis had since moved in with Kylie and Gage, the three of them living in wedded bliss together. When Travis had moved out, he had offered Jessie his house so that she would be closer to her sister.

Jessie hadn’t argued. At the time she’d been without a home, staying in a hotel because she had grown quite fond of Coyote Ridge and hadn’t been ready to leave. And now she was working for her sister, helping Kylie run her thriving home restoration business, and she loved her job. Spending time with Kylie every day was easier than she’d ever thought it would be. They even had an office now, which Jessie spent most of her time in, thanks to that surprise Christmas gift that Travis and Gage had given Kylie.

Not wanting to hash it out with Brendon, she turned toward the door.

“Don’t walk away, Jessie,” Brendon rumbled.

That had her spinning on her boot heel as she turned to face him. “Walk away? Is that what you think I’m doing?”

“It’s what you did the moment Braydon left.”

“Bullshit!” she yelled. “Braydon walked away. You walked away, Brendon. Not me.” She circled her hands to reflect the two of them. “I took it to mean it was over. And you know what? I’m good with that. I just want Braydon to be okay. I don’t want to come between the two of you, and if you think Braydon loves me, then I really do need to get going.”

Because she desperately needed time to think about what that meant.

“You’re gonna run from him, too?”

“Too?” Jessie’s face heated with her anger. “I’m not running from anyone. I know when I’m not wanted. I get it. You found someone else . . .”

Jessie bit her tongue and closed her mouth, but not before Brendon’s eyes flared.

“What are you talking about?”

Not wanting to fight, Jessie turned to go again, but this time Brendon placed his hand on her arm. It was a gentle touch. Just enough to stop her from walking away, but she flinched nonetheless.

“Whoa,” Brendon said softly, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m not gonna hurt you, Jess.”

“I know that,” she snapped back. She didn’t want any apologies, didn’t need his sympathy. She didn’t want anyone’s sympathy.

She just wanted . . .

Jessie didn’t even know what she wanted. She certainly knew what she didn’t want.

Jessie wasn’t ready for the relationship between the three of them to end, because the twins had given her something to look forward to, but she knew it was inevitable. All good things came to an end. But, if nothing else, she wanted to be friends. These men were important to her. She cared about them. And more importantly, they were Travis’s brothers, which meant that because Kylie was married to Travis, they would be a part of Jessie’s life whether she wanted them to be or not.

Brendon urged her to turn around by lightly pulling her, his hand even gentler than before. When she did, she looked up into a face that was so familiar, even if it didn’t belong to the man she’d spent too many nights dreaming about, although it was disturbingly similar. “Just stay, Jess. Let’s wait for him together.”

The urge to tell him no was so strong, but then Brendon placed his hand on her cheek and she had to fight back the tears. For months, she’d wondered what had happened between them. Tried to figure out why Brendon would turn his back on her the same way Braydon had.

All of a sudden, here they were, staring at one another, and she saw something she’d never seen before. Usually, when she met Brendon’s gaze she saw lust and passion. Those emotions were absent, and in their place . . . Jessie swore she saw something akin to worry. Fear.

Yeah, she knew that when Braydon left, Brendon had been hurt. She didn’t blame him. The twins were inseparable, yet she’d come along and look what happened.

Unable to find the energy to argue, Jessie nodded her head and shrugged out from beneath Brendon’s touch.

She would stay.

But for how long, she didn’t know.





chapter FIVE

With the radio blaring and his windows down, Braydon pulled onto the dirt road that wound through his parents’ land, the same one that would ultimately lead back to his house. The drive from Devil’s Bend had taken a lot less time than he’d thought, and certainly not enough for him to prepare for being back home.

Now that he was here, he wished it was as simple as keeping his foot on the gas and steering the winding road until he reached his own driveway. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy. In order for him to get home, he had to pass his parents’ sprawling ranch house first, not to mention several of his brothers’ houses.

He wasn’t worried about his brothers. Not yet anyway.

No, right now, his focus was on his parents. Avoiding them after being gone so long would be one hell of a way to kick-start what he anticipated was going to be a really shitty day. In order to start off on the right foot, hopefully tempting karma to work in his favor, he opted to stop there first. If his mother saw his truck pass by without him stopping, his father would light into his ass as soon as the opportunity arose. It wasn’t like he drove a discreet Walker Demo truck like Ethan. No, his big-ass black four-door Chevy with the six-inch lift, blue flames, and chrome exhaust pipes was conspicuous at best. Which meant his parents would see him from ten miles away. Knowing his dad, a fly-by without stopping would garner an immediate ass-chewing. So, essentially, Braydon was just trying to save face.