Текст книги "Fable of Happiness book three"

Автор книги: Pepper winters

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THIS WASN’T THE HOMECOMING I’d envisioned.

I’d pictured happy hugs, a few relieved tears, and a couple of tasteless jokes about my affinity to disappear because rocks were more important than my brother. Instead, I had one man doing his best not to come across as threatening even though he looked like a bear standing in the corner with long hair and a scruffy beard, and another who looked as if he was two seconds away from grabbing a knife and stabbing that bear in the heart.

Belting my robe tight so I didn’t flash inappropriate leg or cleavage, I made my way to my couch and sat down. My eyes scanned my cute little house, noticing that it was spotless. All the mess of last night was gone. The only thing out of place was the pillow beside me, hinting Kas had slept here last night. Oh, and of course, the shattered TV and a couple of framed prints Katie had given me—thanks to their early morning fight.

I grabbed the pillow and placed it over my legs.

It was still warm from Kas’s head.

Had he slept okay...before Josh woke him?

I should’ve offered him an alternative to the couch. But then again, I had no other options, seeing as I only owned one bed, and the other bedrooms were extensions of my work and exercise regime.

“Come here, both of you.” I patted the couch and pointed at the opposite chair that matched my ivory suite.

Kas moved first, eager to repair the situation, not because he felt bad for my brother but because he loved me and wanted to fix this to make my life easier.

I gave him a smile for that. I would’ve given him a kiss too, but Josh hadn’t taken his eyes off me since I’d entered the living room.

Kas sat beside me, his fingers seeking mine and curling tight. The spark between us hadn’t faded in the weeks we’d grown closer; if anything, it’d increased until it hummed and throbbed instead of just crackled with power.

There were layers between us now.

Layers of heart connection as well as lust. Foundations of friendship instead of the hollowness of strangers.

“If this is the friend you mentioned on the phone, Gemstone, then you and I need to have a serious chat.” Joshua reluctantly left the kitchen and went to sit in the chair opposite the couch. “Did you seriously drag a rabid stray back from the national park with you? Is he even housebroken?”

“Stop that.” My tone went sharp. “I know you’re angry and pissed, but it doesn’t give you the right to be cruel.”

“Not being cruel. Just stating the obvious. Did you lose your shaving kit in the woods, buddy?” Josh wrinkled his nose, peering closer at Kas. “Is that a leaf in your hair?”

“Enough.” I tensed. “I’m in charge, and I say that’s enough.”

“Fine.” Josh crossed his arms. “Explain away. I’m all ears.”

The vibe between us prickled with tension and violence. A faint bruise had already appeared on Josh’s clean-shaven jaw, and my poor TV looked as if it’d been a murder victim. A random frown appeared before I could stop it. Would Kas insist on paying me back for that? Did he have any concept of money? Did he know the difference between two hundred dollars and two thousand? What would he try to do to repay a three-thousand-dollar flat screen?

“You okay?” Kas asked softly, squeezing my hand.

I nodded and tore my eyes off the broken TV, focusing on my suspiciously glaring brother. I hadn’t exactly rehearsed this. I’d thought we wouldn’t catch up with my mom or brother until tonight or tomorrow. I understood why Joshua had let himself in to visit early, but he’d caused a complication I wasn’t sure how to get out of.

I inhaled hard, glowering at Josh. “First off, you know I don’t like you barging in before nine o’clock. Just because you’re a morning lark or whatever they’re called doesn’t mean I am.”

Josh crossed his arms. “It’s past ten.”

“Wow, is it?” My eyes searched for my tablet on the coffee table, but Kas must’ve put it away when he’d cleaned. I didn’t have clocks or watches, so I’d have to take my brother’s word for it.

“Thank you, by the way.” I squeezed Kas’s hand. “For cleaning up after my brother made such a mess.”

“I made a mess?” Josh pointed at himself, his dark blond hair shivering with his speed. “What did I do?”

“You left my place looking like a herd of wild boars were living in it while I was gone.”

“You weren’t gone,” Josh snapped. “You were missing. I was trying to find clues. The police came. The local neighborhood watch snooped around. The mess was a combined effort.”

I flinched. “I owe you another apology for vanishing, but you owe me one for not putting my things away.”

“Sue me if I was panic rushing.” His eyes filled with hurt. “Are you seriously going to give me the third degree for trying to find you after the past few weeks of hell?” His lips twisted as if holding back emotion. “I thought you were dead, Gemstone. I would’ve burned this place to the ground if it gave me a clue to where you’d gone.”

Oh, God.

Leaping to my feet and tossing the pillow to the floor, I closed the small distance between us and bent to give him a hug. Kas didn’t move from his place on the couch, and Josh stiffened before relaxing. He hugged me so hard, I choked.

He dragged me into his lap, shuddering with relief. “God, it’s good to touch you. To know you’re real. That you’re home.”

I struggled for air, even while comforting him.

Kas moved, shifting just enough to let me know he’d seen. He was watching, and he may or may not retaliate if my safety was in danger.

Pulling away, I kissed my brother on the cheek. “I’m very sorry for making you worry. But like I said on the phone, I’m back now, and everything is fine.”

“I don’t think you said that.” Josh cleared his throat and sat back, letting me go. His glossy eyes followed me as I returned to my place next to Kas. “You were more interested in talking about a pet squirrel.”

“Josh...” I pointed at his face, deciding to ignore that last bit and reply to his previous sentence. “Well, if I didn’t say that, it’s still true.” I waved a hand, my mind racing for ways to explain Kas’s place in my life and to truly apologize to my brother. The second part of that plan might have to wait a few days, but for now, I worried about how to make the two most important men in my life co-exist.

I ran fingers under my eyes, trying to figure it out.

I should’ve come up with a lie before this, but with the long drive yesterday, the exhausted sleep, and the rude awakening, I hadn’t been able to form one.

“So...” Josh turned his attention to Kas. “Just who the hell are you then?”

“I’m...eh—” Kas turned to me, looking for guidance. I’d told him to hide the truth, but after what’d just happened...Josh wouldn’t buy that Kas was just a hiker in the woods who’d shacked up with me. There were too many holes in that story. Why hadn’t I left the valley sooner? Why was Kas not relaxed in company?

Ugh...the truth.

It had to be the truth because I didn’t have the mental faculty right now to fib successfully.

Taking a big breath, I looked at Josh and spilled everything as fast as I could. “I went looking for that boulder—as you know. I got lost. I found an abandoned mansion tucked in a valley. It intrigued me enough to go and investigate. I found Kas inside. And he...well, he wasn’t exactly happy that I’d trespassed.” I sped up, rushing past punctuation and pauses, racing to get it done, lying where I could so Josh didn’t kill Kas immediately. “Kas had been alone for eleven years, you see, and having company was a bit much for him, so he kept me for a few days while he acclimated, but then he released me, and he apologized, and we talked about me going home, but then...um, my Jeep had a dead battery, and my PLB wasn’t working, and, eh, a bunch of other stuff happened, which meant Kas got hurt, and I had no choice but to stay and look after him.”

Kas sat frozen beside me.

Josh’s mouth fell wide before he laughed out loud. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that load of crap?”

I sat taller. “Why? What’s wrong with it? It’s the truth. Mainly.”

He shook his head and held up his hand. “Right now, I can’t even address the fact that he stole you. That he imprisoned you.” His eyes shot daggers at Kas.

“That’s not exactly what I said.”

“It’s what happened, though, right?” He locked his attention on me. “Reading between the lines and all that. He had to have trapped you to release you. God, Gem. How could you let him do such a thing?”

It wasn’t like I had a choice at the time.

Stiffening, I muttered, “It’s in the past. Let’s talk about something else.”

He huffed harshly. “Fine, I’ll come back to that because if I talk about it right now, I might go rent a gun and unload a few bullets into this asshole.”

“His name is Kas, and you’re not shooting anyone,” I snipped.

Josh glowered at me. “I’m not buying your story because it’s ridiculous.”

I frowned. “What’s ridiculous?”

“Well, for starters, you always unhook your battery so it doesn’t die—that was one of the very first things you learned when you started going off track. And that locator beacon? It was pretty much indestructible. The shopkeeper said it could withstand a tumble off a cliff and still work.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what happened. I don’t care if you believe it.” I crossed my arms. Hoping that he wouldn’t ask for details because, in my current annoyed state, I might just tell him every bit of the condemning truth. I might reveal the faint bruises around my neck were from Kas’s fingers and point at the fresh scar I’d left behind on Kas’s forehead from hitting him in the face with a shovel.

To an outsider, our tale would sound preposterous and require serious psychiatric help. But I knew what I felt, and I knew Kas felt it too, so no one else mattered because we’d survived and grown and were together, for better or for worse.

Josh looked back and forth between us, his temper darkening his handsomely boyish face. “Has he got something over you, Gem? Is that why you’re protecting a man who locked you up like a dog and stopped you from coming home to us?”

Kas tensed, but I squeezed his hand and raised my chin. This was my fight, not his. “I wasn’t able to come home, brother, not because of Kas holding me but because of what I did. I was the reason Kas had an accident. He fell off a cliff—” I gulped, remembering that day. The way his eyes locked with mine and filled with absolute acceptance. He’d fallen into death and hadn’t even cried out.

My heart squeezed. “I was the reason he fell.” I gave Kas a sad shrug, hoping he knew just how sorry I was for causing him to trip into the sky.

He raised our joined hands and kissed the back of my knuckles.

Unlike that day when he’d almost died, his eyes were no longer accepting of death. They sparkled with ebony fire and a conviction that he would heal, he would be happy, and he would love me until the end.

I lost myself in his stare, amazed that the ghosts inside him were finally starting to fade, slowly and reluctantly...thanks to our connection.

Josh coughed as if he choked on a bone, shattering the moment. “You expect me to believe that you were, what? Giving him climbing lessons? That he fell while you were teaching him to climb a cliff, and you felt so responsible—toward a man who’d imprisoned you—that you turned your back on your panicked family to play nursemaid in the goddamn jungle?”

He soared to his feet, pacing on the other side of the coffee table, stepping over the TV glass with his sneakers. “Come on, Gem. The sister I know is smarter than that. There’s no way she’d forsake those she loved and not find a way to contact them.” He slammed to a stop, a horrified look on his face. “Unless...you’re not the sister I know. Unless he did something to you. Did he hurt you? Did he scramble up your mind?” He leaned over the coffee table with murder in his stare. “Get away from him, Gem. I’ll help you. I’ll save you from whatever mess you’ve got yourself into.”

Kas sucked in a breath, and all the energy in the room went to crackle around him, filling with possessiveness and protection.

How much more could Kas take before he snapped?

Not wanting to test his limit, I shot to my feet as well, matching Josh’s angry stance. “I’m still the same sister you know and love. I’m telling you the truth, Joshua. Kas had been alone for a very long time. He didn’t have the same happy upbringing as us, so I forgave him for his inability to accept my company at the beginning. He fell off the cliff, not because I was teaching him, but because I pushed him. For every time he’s hurt me, I’ve hurt him right back, so don’t you dare think I’m in some sort of strife and need your help. I don’t. I know my place, Josh, and it’s right here. Beside this man. I made the choice to care for him when he didn’t wake up. His concussion kept him semi-coherent for almost two weeks. And when he did become conscious, he wasn’t able to be left alone.”

My voice cracked, but I plowed on. “I’ll never be able to apologize enough for the stress and pain I put you and Mom through, but if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I couldn’t leave him, Josh, and I had no way to tell you where I was. Without a vehicle, I was stuck because I refused to have his death on my hands, and he would’ve died if I’d come home.” I tapped myself over my heart, imploring Josh to accept the truth. “He would’ve died and...I couldn’t let that happen because I love—”

Kas suddenly shot to his feet, placing himself a foot away from me. His hands spread with his palms up as if he offered a sacrifice. His long hair cascaded over his shoulders, and his beard looked so rugged and unruly compared to my clean-shaven brother.

“Kas...what are you doing?” I blinked, unsettled by him standing while I’d been so impassioned in my speech.

“I’m giving him what he needs to know.” He bowed his head toward Josh. He looked both subservient and masterful. A warrior laying down his sword while still holding his dagger. Locking eyes with my brother, he said clearly and curtly, “I was the reason her Jeep wouldn’t work. I was the reason the locator beacon didn’t send a signal.”

“Ha! I knew it!” Josh shoved a finger at Kas. “You motherfucker!”

“I threw her keys into the forest and smashed her beacon,” Kas said. “I did what was needed so she couldn’t leave me.”

“You absolute bastard!” Josh went to attack Kas, his fists ready to fly.

I leaped in the middle of them, bringing my arms up like a wall. “Stop it!”

Kas stayed behind me, but he didn’t stop talking. “What she says is the truth, but what she isn’t saying is...I wasn’t human when she first found me. I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to her, but I’m also not righteous enough to say I wouldn’t do it all over again because...she gave me back my life. She gave me back the will to live. No...” He paused and shook his head, making me look over my shoulder. His face twisted with regret but also gratefulness. “That would imply that I had a life before her. And I didn’t. I was a slave. My body was not my own. My soul was bought and paid for. My pain was their toy, and I lived in hell from the moment they snatched me from a world I no longer remember, hiding me away in a place no one could find.”

Kas came to my side. He didn’t touch me, but the heat coming off him made my heart flip and skin tingle. “I love your sister, Joshua Ashford. I love her with everything that I am because she made me everything that I am. I know I’m not worthy. I know I’m not the man you’d pick for her. I’m penniless. I’m homeless. I’m healing from a lifetime of shit that I can never properly explain, but what I can give her is my heart. She has it until her last breath and beyond. She’ll have it even if she decides she no longer wants me.”

Tears trickled down my cheeks as Kas shrugged. “So, say what you want to me. Hit me if you need to. I get your desire to protect her because she’s your family. I would do the same for mine. But afterward, you will accept me because I will never stop loving her. And if she loves me back the way I hope she does, then there’s nothing you can do to stop the inevitable.”

Josh swallowed hard, his anger making his cheeks red. “What’s inevitable?”

Kas let out a caustic laugh, shaking his head as if the epiphany surprised even him. “You’ve just shown me what I need to do. I felt it before in the hallway just now. A shift inside me. An acceptance and submission that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to handle.”

“And what’s that?” Josh sneered.

“I love your sister,” Kas murmured.

“You already said that.” Josh crossed his arms.

“I love her past myself, past my nightmares, past every shit I’ve lived through. I love her.”

“Geez, get to the point!”

Kas glanced at me, puffing out his chest as if the words in his head were terrifyingly new but perfectly right. “I love you, Gem. I’ve told you that before. But what I didn’t tell you is how I felt a few minutes ago. Standing in your corridor, I was so afraid I’d done something to fuck this up before we even had a chance to be happy, and it showed me just how deep those feelings go.”

He took my hand, his fingers trembling. “I want you forever, Gem. I don’t need to live another day in this new world or meet a thousand other people to know that I’ve found where I belong. Who I belong to.” His turbulent gaze searched mine, making my heart beat painfully quick.

Ripping his stare from mine, he looked at Josh again, determination etching his face. “You don’t know me. You don’t like me. You might never accept me. To you, it will seem fast...but to me? I’ve been waiting my entire life for this girl. Every romance book I read, when I had nothing and no one, filled me with jealousy. Every fairy tale that I wasn’t able to have made me desperate to find my own. I think...I think that’s why I never ended it. Why I kept going, even when giving up would’ve been so much easier. I wanted what was promised in those pages. I wanted to feel what they did. To be safe like them. Happy like them. In love like them. And...now? Now that I’ve found my own soul mate...” He looked back at me, sweat dotting his forehead and wildness cloaking his lean shoulders. “I never want to let her go.”

I choked on a swallow.

God.

My entire body melted for his.

I wanted him.

God, I wanted him.

Kas gave me the softest, most loving look as he squeezed my hand. “I want to keep her forever, and in order to do that...I have to marry her. I have to do what those heroes did in all those dusty pages and announce to the world just how much she means to me.” He ran his thumb over my naked ring finger. “I want a symbol between us, Gem, so no one else can question how much you mean to me. How much I’m in awe of you, grateful for you, and completely empty without you.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “The day I’m healthy and happy, Gem. The day I can earn my own money and feel like I’m your equal is the day that you become my family for real. Everything that I am is yours. All the parts that I know and don’t know. All the parts that are good and bad. I don’t know my real name. I have no way of finding who I was born to. But none of that matters because I have you...if you’ll have me.”

My mouth fell wide.

Wait...is this...a proposal?

If so...oh, my God.

I didn’t know what to say.

I couldn’t think.

I glanced from Kas to Josh, tensing for my brother’s reaction. I expected more rage, but his anger had faded, and his eyes had lost their hatred. If anything...he looked as dumbfounded as me.

Josh caught my gaze, and in a heart-clenching moment, he shrugged. His eyes were tight with confusion, hesitation, and sibling protection, but he didn’t forbid me from saying yes. He didn’t leap in my defense against a man who’d drawn my blood but had also gifted me his heart.

We stood in a strange kind of triangle, poised for the biggest answer of my life.

I should probably tell him that we’d discuss this later.

To help him understand that his panic at making me his came from a place of fear instead of sanity. There were so many things to talk about. So many things still to learn about each other.

But...all of them were superficial in the face of what he’d said and how I felt in return.

There was something between us.

Something that couldn’t be explained, rationalized, or stopped.

I’d felt it the moment I first saw him, naked and furious, racing up the stairs to strangle me. And he’d felt it through every fight, every curse, every heartfelt evolution.

So, yes, it was fast.

Yes, it was scary and strange, and I’d most likely be called stupid for falling, but...I’d found my soul mate too.

Kas didn’t say a word as I turned to face him fully.

I reached up to cup his cheek.

Our eyes locked, and that buzz, that energy between us multiplied until it hummed in my blood and buried deep into my bones. It was there to stay. A faint unexplainable, inescapable knowledge that I was his.

A few months ago, marriage would’ve been as unfathomable for him as a wedding for a mountain lion, but now...now it seemed almost necessary.

He hadn’t just asked me to marry him so he could claim every part of me. He did it so he was free to give me every piece of himself in return.

To be bound by paper the way we already were by choice.

I’d saved his life.

There would be plenty more moments where he would need my help.

And I was okay with that.

I was ready for it.

I wanted the good and the bad, the happy and the sad.

I wanted to be beside him every step of the way.

Because I love him unconditionally.

It wasn’t even a question that needed an answer.

We’d already made it.

“Kas, I—”

The front door swung wide, interrupting the fragile, brilliant moment.

My gaze slid from Kas to my mother as she tripped into my house, dropped her handbag by the side table, and sprinted for me.

“Gemma!” Her arms went around Kas and me as tears poured down her face.

My mother hugged me as well as a perfect stranger she’d never met. She clutched Kas close, spilling tears on both of us, and in a crazy moment of symbolism, she proved that Kas did have a family. A legal family. The Ashford family.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I hugged my mom back all while seeking Kas’s messy, miraculous stare.

I smiled.

I nodded.

And I whispered...

“Yes.”

OceanofPDF.com