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Turning, Bryn pinned Hammer with a fierce stare. “Just what the devil do you think you’re trying to prove, mister? You think breaking the hearts of your loved ones is going to make it all right, do you? Ha!”
Suddenly, Liam zipped his stare just above Hammer’s shoulder. “What the… Mum?”
Bryn’s mouth twitched as she gave him a knowing nod. “See her now, too, do you?”
“See who?” Raine? Hammer zipped his stare all over the garage but couldn’t find her. He sure as hell didn’t want her to see him coming apart like this. “What’s going on?”
Liam ignored him. “No, but I can bloody well feel her.”
“Who?” Hammer darted a glance over his shoulder to the spot where Liam and Bryn had fixed their gazes. He didn’t see a damn thing.
“Juliet,” Liam murmured.
Suddenly, Hammer couldn’t breathe. “What?”
“She’s standing right next to you, Macen,” Bryn added softly. “And she’s bloody well furious. The woman is yelling her head off at you.”
His shoulders slumped. “I’m sure. No doubt she’s been pissed at me for years.”
“No.” Bryn shook her head. “You’ve convinced yourself you failed her and stayed neck deep in guilt. She doesn’t blame you. She’s spitting the dummy because you’re thinking about throwing away your life. She’s screaming at you to stop.”
Hammer scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to wrap his head around the fact that Bryn was supposedly seeing his dead wife in the damn garage at three in the morning. Jesus, he hadn’t foreseen this at all when he’d come downstairs.
Of course, Bryn was a crafty woman. Maybe she’d invented Juliet’s “visit” to help him release his guilt and persuade him to stay.
“You don’t have to fabricate a reason to make me reconsider.” Hammer sighed heavily.
“Ye of so little faith.” Bryn clucked. “Remember your wedding night? You were in such a rush to get into bed with her that you broke your little toe on the bedframe?”
“How—” He blinked. Bryn had no way of knowing that. He’d never even told Liam that story.
“Juliet told me,” Bryn explained. “She wants you to know she’s here.”
Hammer stood stock-still, stunned. His late wife really had come from the other side with some fucking message for him?
“Yes. She’s insisting that you’ll not make the same mistake she did.” Bryn crossed her arms stubbornly.
“It wasn’t her mistake. I drove her to suicide,” Hammer argued. “This is different.”
Bryn poked him in the chest. “Dead is dead.” She paused as if letting her words soak into Hammer’s brain. “She wants me to tell you she’s sorry for hurting you deeply and never telling you the truth.”
“About what? The baby?”
“All the secrets she hid from you.” Bryn shook her head. “So many of them. Juliet has refused to move on all these years because she wants to set things right with you.”
“I’m the one who pushed her past her limits. Kept driving her to the edge over and over, until she finally fell.”
“No.” Bryn cupped his hands in hers. “Let her go, Macen. You’ve both feasted on each other’s misery long enough. Her death was never your fault. Juliet had her own problems. She suffered from depression and schizophrenia before she met you. She never told you or confessed that she’d tried to kill herself twice as a teenager. She was ashamed and didn’t want to drive you away.”
Hammer’s heart stopped. “She’d attempted suicide before?”
“Yes. She kept that to herself, along with the prescriptions she took to regulate the chemicals in her brain. But when she found out she was pregnant, she stopped taking everything because of the risk to the baby.”
“What?” Hammer tried to wrap his head around that. “Why didn’t she ever tell me?”
“Oh, because she was sick. Without the medicine, she struggled to discern real from imaginary.” Bryn’s expression begged him to understand.
“She could have told me about the baby. Or did she think that was imaginary, as well?” Hammer railed.
“She’s crying.” Bryn frowned.
“I feel her, mate,” Liam added. “She’s devastated she hurt you so much.”
“I carried all this fucking guilt for nine goddamn years. Shut out my best friend so I wouldn’t have to…” Hammer paused and grabbed the tire iron off the floor.
Liam wrenched it out of his hand again and pinned him with a narrow-eyed stare. “I know why you shied away from me, Macen. But we’ve not had too much trouble making up for lost time, now, have we? Isn’t the best life we’ve ever imagined right in front of us?”
Hammer turned Liam’s words over in his head. Sorrow, regret, so much fucking sadness—they all strangled him, choking away his veneer.
He wrapped Liam in a hug. “Christ, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“I know. We’re fine, you and I.” He slapped Macen’s back. “Does Juliet have anything else to say, Mum?”
“She has a message for you, as well, son.” Bryn’s eyes softened. “She’s also apologizing to you. None of this was your fault. She lied to you, too. The baby was Hammer’s, love.”
