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Break in two and fall away.
Maybe he’d sensed it tremble in the sticky summer air. Or maybe it was just that he hadn’t been able to get in touch with Brianna before he’d left for work. Maybe it’d all been a premonition as he came up around the bend and his headlights caught the glint of something shiny just off the side of the road.
Apprehension climbed through his cells as he slowed, and he squinted as he peered out the windshield. His stomach bottomed out when he realized it was a car that had skidded while going around the corner and had taken a nosedive into the ditch.
A white car that looked really fucking familiar.
He whipped his SUV off to the side of the road, tossing on his hazards as he jumped out. He went running that way, boots pounding the pavement.
“Brianna?” His shout reverberated around him, terror staking him through. “Brianna!”
He choked over his relief when she came stumbling out from the high grasses that grew along the road, though it was short-lived when he realized she wasn’t limping because she was injured but because she was trashed.
Anger climbed up from the place he’d tried to keep buried for the last two years. He hurried toward her, anyway, taking her by the shoulders to hold her up, eyes racing to take her in. “Are you hurt?”
Laughter rolled out of her.
Delirious.
Maniacal.
“Aren’t we all, Ezra? Hurt? Isn’t that what this life is?”
He tightened his hold on her like it might stand a chance of penetrating. Making contact with the places in her mind she wouldn’t let him reach. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
She laughed again and jerked herself out of his hold. She stumbled to the side before she spun in a circle and lifted her arms over her head. “It does. It does.”
She looked back at him.
“You could have killed someone, Brianna. You could have killed yourself.” Fury and frustration bled from his mouth.
At least he’d long since stopped allowing her to be alone with the kids. Making more of those excuses to his mother as to why they needed to stay over there while he was away at work. Brianna had gone back to school, Ezra had told her. Night school.
Her mother had been proud, excited for Brianna that she was furthering herself.
How fucking desperately he wished it were true.
Brianna’s laughter hitched on a sob, and she staggered back his way, clinging to him. “You have to help me, Ezra. You have to stop them. I tried to help. I tried.”
“What are you talking about, Brianna?”
“Don’t you see them? They’re all around. They can see me. They’re going to find me.” Her words grew more agitated with each one she released.
Ezra scanned the area. The only movement was the high grasses blowing in the breeze. “There’s no one out there, Brianna. No one.”
She was so close to him, so close that he could smell her. And Ezra could smell him. He might not have known where she’d been, but he knew exactly what she had been doing.
He ground his back teeth in an attempt to keep his cool.
Part of him wanted to demand to know who it was. Did it matter though? Ezra hadn’t touched her in months, and the whole time, he’d known, deep down, that it was already over for them, although he felt the fullness of that truth then.
A severing.
A detachment.
And it felt like floating free.
Still, he would stand by her, get her help.
For her sake. For the sake of their children. Because he did care about her. Wanted her safe and whole and healthy.
“I’ve got to call out a tow truck, then I’m taking you to the ER in Poplar.”
Her nails scraped at his chest. “No, Ezra. No.”
“You need help, Brianna, and I’m finished covering for you.”
“I told you I’m fine.” She shrieked it.
“Yeah, and I told you the next time this happened I was leaving, and I was taking the kids with me.”
And he’d meant it.
FORTY-SEVEN
SAVANNAH
Warmth covered me whole, skimming across my flesh and sinking beneath to saturate every cell. Contentment and satisfaction and a pulsing of new hope filled me as I watched Ezra through the morning light that filtered in through the window.
My nails lightly scratched at the prickly stubble that coated his jaw, and he softly traced his thumb over the cap of my shoulder where we lay in silence staring at each other.
Soaking up the perfect moment of when we’d woken at the same time.
Our legs tangled and our hearts slowed in the type of peace I had never felt before.
I was scared of it and desperate for it in equal measure.
The faintest smile dusted his lips. “And here I thought I was the one who was supposed to be spoiling you.” His voice was gravelly with sleep. He shifted and brought his palm to my cheek, his thumb caressing beneath my eye. “Then I wake up with you like this, and I feel like a king.”
