I know what she’s looking at.
I cover the distance between us, and she looks up when I approach. Her eyes squint at me. “Why are you shirtless?”
I look down at the shirt crumpled in my hands. “Oh. It’s hot. I went for a run.”
Her eyes linger on my chest, and if the situation had been any different, I would have puffed up my chest. However, my eyes go to the gravestone she had been staring at not minutes ago.
The grief never truly goes away. Losing someone you grew up with, who protected you, who was your shield against theworld, is a blow one never recovers from. I still feel my brother’s absence in so many aspects of my life.
Miranda follows my gaze. “Gabriel was your brother?”
I nod, trying to find my voice. “We used to play by this tree when we were kids. This used to be my family home before our parents died and Coach took us in. The land was sold off, but I bought it back.”
“How did he die?”
I’m silent, crouching down and looking at his headstone, wiping some dirt from it. “He killed himself.”
Miranda sucks in a breath. “Grayson, I am so sorry.” Her voice has gone quiet. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I would never have come back here if I’d known.”
“It’s okay,” I rasp out. “It’s okay, Miranda.”
The wind moves through the pines behind us. My eyes stay on the stone as I recall how I dug the grave with my own hands all through the night.
“How long ago was it?” she asks softly.
“Four years now. His mat—wife passed away in an accident, and he wasn’t coping well. I didn’t think he would—” I take a shuddering breath, and I can feel her body tense beside me. “I was crashing at his place, and he sent me home. Said he wanted a break from me. His friend found him the next morning.”
Miranda kneels and wraps her arms around me. “I’m sorry, Grayson. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
The sudden gentleness is so out of character for her that it has me curling my hand around her arm. “I—I rarely talk about Gabriel. When our parents died, he swore he would never leave my side. It was foolish, a child’s promise, but I guess a part of me always believed it.”
Miranda sighs. “When my mom was sick, I was sure she would never die. Even at the worst of it all, I just refused to believe there would be a day when she wouldn’t be in my life. Buta year has passed. The grief doesn’t disappear, but you have no choice but to keep moving forward.”
Her words make me look at her. Her arms are around my neck, her cheek against my shoulder. “How did you do it? With everything you were going through, how did you not just give up?”
Her eyes get a distant look. “My mom asked me not to give up. There were times when I wanted to. There have been times I’ve been dangerously close to it.”
Something cold moves through my chest. My wolf goes still, then alert, snarling at the idea of her being lost to me before I’d even found her, and for a second, I can’t trust my voice.
She lets a sigh slip through, oblivious. “I get tired of everything sometimes. I just want to hide from the world.”
My hand tightens around her arm. “Even now? With me and Ethan?”
Her lips part, a complicated emotion entering her eyes, and she looks away, her voice quiet as she says, “Not so much now.”
We sit like that in silence, my heart soaring a little to know that our presence makes her feel safe and secure.
“Do you like my home?” I suddenly find myself asking.
“It’s nice. I already told you—”
“But is it to your liking, your taste?”
Miranda lets out a small laugh. “Why does my taste matter?”
Her laughter fades when she meets my gaze. “It matters, Miranda. Can you see yourself living here?”
She swallows. “I like the isolation, the proximity to the forest. I like your grounds. I like the quiet here. So yes. Maybe I could.”
