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Chapter 18
Molly
Ifelt my entire blood supply drain from my face as his words pierced my heart. “I’m sorry. Can you repeat yourself?” I know he didn’t just say he knew about my dead brother. I had carefully kept that information to myself, and only a select few had that knowledge, but they would never betray my confidence. He took another shaky breath before continuing.
“I know this is hard for you to talk about. That’s why I haven’t brought it until now. I just didn’t want there to be any secrets between us, Buttercup. I’m falling in love with you, and unless I misread the situation, I think you feel the same way.”
My heart was racing at this newfound information, and my breathing became erratic. I wasn’t ready to have this conversation, not like this, but he was right. I was irrevocably in love with this sexy man who had swept me off my feet, never to hit the floor again.
I opened my mouth to respond, but he held a finger up and pressed it to my trembling lips. “Molly, do you want to know how I know about Michael? How I know you’ve spent the last two decades mourning your other half? How your parents had to bury a part of themselves?” His midnight eyes met mine, and I expected him to look away, to not be able to look at me, but he didn’t break his stare. God, to see the anguish on his face gutted me. “Please, let me finish.” His voice was barely a whisper. “I didn’t know you were the sister of the kid who died those years ago. Not at first, anyway.”
My hand flew to my mouth, and I choked back a gasp. Hearing this felt surreal, and I didn’t know if I’d survive the memory. He lifted his chin and continued. “My family lived on Mackinac Island at the time your family would vacation there. I saw you two that day playing by the frozen bay.” I couldn’t wrap my head around what he was saying. It made no sense.
“How?”
“Our house was on the same street as the boat launch. I watched you from our front steps.” His words held an apology that confused me. I did the math in my head. I knew he was thirty-eight, so he would have been eighteen then, just a kid himself.
“I don’t understand. How do you know what happened?” He reached for my hands, and I allowed the connection. His face took on an ashen pallor, and I closed my eyes against his unspoken words. Please, God, no. Don’t let it be true.
“Molly, baby, what do you remember about the accident?” His words sucker-punched me.
I worked so hard the last two decades to distance myself from the horrible events of that day, and now he wanted me to relive them. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, not for anyone, even him. “I can’t do this, Courtland. Please don’t make me go back there.”
“Buttercup, I’m sorry. I just need to know.” His eyes were pleading, begging me for something I didn’t think I could give him. Dragging in a low breath, surprised I hadn’t reached for my inhaler, I gathered my resolve.
“It was warmer that year than in past years. We were always together, Michael and me. I was born a few minutes after, so I always considered him my big brother. Our parents warned us to be extra careful that day, as parts of the bay were weakened by the unusually warm spring rains. We never strayed from the boundaries our father had set up. He didn’t do anything wrong that day.” I cast my eyes downward, not daring contact with him, and drew in another ragged breath before continuing, afraid if I allowed myself to stop, I would completely break.
“I remember laughing about something, and then I heard the crack. It was like distant thunder at first, and I wasn’t sure I had even heard it, but then another boomed in front of me. Before I could react, the ice opened up.” I blew out a breath I had been holding. “I tried to run but didn’t get far when I was thrown into a major asthmatic event. From then on, everything became blurred. I thought I glimpsed a figure running beside me toward the water, but then I collapsed.
“When I woke, I was on a gurney in the back of an ambulance, my brother lay on one next to me. He was unconscious, his face ashen, and there were wires and tubes coming from every direction around him. There was an oxygen mask covering my mouth, and when I reached to remove it, the paramedic told me to leave it in place until we arrived at the emergency room. As much as I wanted to talk, to ask if he’d be okay, I was terrified that my brother would never wake up. The ride to the hospital seemed to take forever. When the back doors opened, Michael’s stretcher was the first to unload. After a few minutes of uncertainty, two medics slid mine out of the ambulance, and I was wheeled through the sliding doors into a curtained bay.
“I’ll never forget the smell of antiseptic and alcohol mixed with the pungent odor of death and despair. My eyes searched the room, looking for my parents, who I heard the nurse say had been notified. No one would tell me anything about Michael’s condition, even though I begged relentlessly for information, seeking some type of hope. The nurse started IV fluids and pushed a sedative into my system. Before long, I couldn’t hold my eyelids open and fell back into darkness.” It was as though the floodgates had opened up, and nothing could hold the water back as the words kept flowing. Afraid if I stopped, I would be consumed, I kept on speaking through trembling lips and cloudy vision.
“I could hear muffled voices when my eyes started adjusting to the harsh light in the room. I must have been taken to an actual room because where there was once a curtain enclosing the area, a door now stood closed to the outside world. Blinking back the glare, I watched as my parents jumped to my side, eyes wide and swollen. My mom’s face was tear streaked and her hands shook as she wrapped her arms around my neck and sobbed uncontrollably against my shoulder. Squeezing my eyes shut, I relaxed into her embrace, and when I opened them, my dad was sitting, his head braced in his hands, his shoulders shook with overwhelming emotion.
“My throat was raw and scratchy when I spoke. I asked my parents where Michael was and if he was awake yet. I’ll never forget the sounds that came from my mother’s body. They were animalistic and didn’t even sound human. The guttural moans and groans still haunt my dreams. My dad squeezed her arm, holding back his own sob, and left to get the doctor. Only seconds passed before a white-coated man entered the room, followed by my grief-stricken parents.
“My mom and dad stood on opposite sides of the bed, each holding my hand but not meeting my gaze. When my mom shook her head and an audible gasp escaped her mouth, I knew. My brother was gone. I was administered another sedative when I became hysterical from the news. I was thrown into another major asthma attack and kept overnight for observation. My parents told me a stranger tried to reach Michael, but by the time he was pulled from the subarctic waters, his body temperature had fallen to fatal levels, and he never recovered.”
When I chanced a glance his way, Courtland was rigid, and his face was damp from remnants of tears he’d shed. His hair was disheveled, and his eyes were dim. “I’ve spent the last twenty years trying to heal from this tragedy. I was going to tell you, but there never seemed to be a right time. When you came into Jackson’s bar with your brothers that night, and I found out you and Ben were twins, it knocked the breath out of me. I thought I was handling the memories well, but everything came flooding to the surface again. That accounted for my mega meltdown in the ladies’ room.”
He cleared his throat, and I stopped talking, sensing he wanted to speak. “God, I’m so sorry, Molly. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but there’s something you need to know.” His navy eyes were brimming with unshed tears. “I was there that day. I watched the two of you. I, too, heard the ice break. It was me. I was the stranger who pulled Michael from the water. It was me who tried and failed to save your brother.” He held a hand up to quiet me when I tried to interrupt, running a shaky hand through his dark waves.
“Please, let me finish. I’ve carried the guilt with me for two decades—guilt that I hesitated before acting, that I couldn’t save him. I never knew who you were. Your family left after that, and the hospital wouldn’t give me any information since I wasn’t related. The local newspaper only reported the incident but didn’t name your family when the story broke.” He collapsed onto the couch where I was still frozen in place. It was as though I were having an out-of-body experience. I heard his words, but they were shrouded in fog. It was him. When did he find out who I was? Had he known all this time? Questions I needed to ask but couldn’t form the words.
After a few quiet moments, I looked at him, and when I spoke, I didn’t recognize my own voice. I had to remove any emotion I felt and move beyond the feelings I had for this gorgeous man. I needed to understand. When did he find out who I was, and why was he holding on to this information? “How long?” My voice broke as I tried to make sense of everything. “How long have you known who I was?”
Leaning back into the cushion of the couch my eyes narrowed on his, and I caught the tick in his jaw before he spoke. “When you were in the hospital after the accident, Knight told me. He wanted to make sure I was careful with you and your emotions. He said you told Tess, and she had told him. He was worried about me hurting you.”
I suddenly saw red, and my breath hitched at his admission. “Six weeks. You’ve known for six fucking weeks, and you didn’t think it was worthy of a conversation. That I didn’t deserve to know that you were the last person to see my brother in this life.”
“Molly, Buttercup.”
“Oh no,” I raged, digging a finger into his hard chest as I screamed my fury to the heavens. “Never call me that again. Do you hear me? You left me in the hospital, you bastard.”
Pacing around my small living area, I wanted to break something. I wanted to hurt him like he had hurt me. “You knew and what? You suddenly developed a case of conscience. You could have talked to me. You could have explained, and I would have understood.”
“Molly, please, baby.” His fractured words rolled off me in waves of agony. He made a move to touch me, but I batted his hand away as I grabbed my purse in search of my inhaler. In my haste, I spilled the contents on the floor and found myself on my knees, grappling to locate my life preserver. The heaving of my chest became more acute before the third puff started to clear my airway.
