Page 29 of Back To Our Beginning

Beau shot him a hard look. “I’ll come over whenever I damn well feel like it.”

At that point, Drake did get up. Beau might be six-foot-two, but my brother topped him by three inches. “Try it, and I’ll have you up on stalking charges so fast, your head will spin. That won’t go over well with your commanding officer, now, will it?”

I saw the look of frustration suffusing Beau’s face.

I pointed at my brother. “Drake, cool it.” Then I turned to Beau. “Don’t listen to him, he’s just being him. I agree, we have more talking we need to do. But we jumped fast, and I just need a couple of days, okay?” I looked into his eyes, aching for him to understand.

“You’re right, honey. Anything you need.”

Beau headed for the door and opened it, then he stopped. He dragged his hand through his hair and gave me a frustrated look. “Just know, Maddie, we’re too important to throw away because of the past. Okay?” This time it was him who was pleading.

I nodded.

Then he left.

When I turned to Drake, he was seated again, but he wasn’t eating. He was studying me.

“Is he right, Mads?”

“I don’t know, Drake. I honestly don’t know.”

Chapter Seven

“You haven’t been looking so good lately,” Kai told me.

“Is it my hair, or is it my nail polish? Oh, let me guess, it’s my make-up.”

My brother chuckled. “Well, at least your sense of humor is still intact. Is it because Maddie hasn’t been around?”

I took a long pull from my water bottle. Kai and I had been running off and on for over two hours. We kept on the trails. That way, he could keep a good pace and the ground was level.

It had taken a while for Kai to open up and tell me the extent of his injuries. Bullet fragments in the upper spine and a prognosis that he’d never walk the same again. But here was my brother. Running. He was one tough son-of-a-bitch.

Right now, we were resting at the base of an old hemlock tree.

“Yeah, it’s Maddie. She’s been keeping me at arm’s length since she found out that I was based in California and was home for months at a time, and still didn’t reach out to her.”

“Ouch. You sure she’s just mad about California? Or is she afraid of something else?”

“I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s California. But hell, maybe you’re right. Maybe it is something else. Shit, now I have to think more. Thanks, Kai,” I said sarcastically.

“You’re welcome.” He bowed his head to me. The little shit. After all, I was born four minutes before him. He should show his elder brother some respect.

“According to Lettie, you two were thick as thieves growing up. Is that true?” Kai asked me.

“Yeah, that’s true. We’ve been friends since kindergarten, up until our senior year.”

Kai gave me a sideways look. “Just friends?”

“I started to get other ideas at the end of our junior year, but Maddie wasn’t thinking that way, so I tamped it down and started dating other girls. Maddie didn’t mind. We stayed best friends.”

Kai grabbed a granola bar out of his pack and offered me half. “That’s hard to believe.”

“How do you think I felt? But that’s how it was. I think it was because I was dealing with my mom, and she was busy protecting her sisters from her mom’s bad choices. Something romantic just wasn’t on her radar.” I ate the granola bar and washed it down with water.

“Huh. Are you thinking about changing that now?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.”