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Cole needed to pry West’s clenched hands from a steering wheel that had long since been detached from the car. The guy needed to forgive himself; that partly came from Cole’s forgiveness too. “You have to stop this,” Cole said. “It’s over. Let it go.” West’s need for control had made him a wrecking ball that took everyone down in his path. “Let Eva go.”
West laughed again. Ominously. “You’ll never understand how it really is.” He took a deep breath, lowering his voice. “I did it for our family.”
“Excuse me?” Cole asked.
West shrugged, hiding behind that familiar shield of sarcasm again. Cole supposed it was easier than appearing to be weak. West had been hiding his hardships for so long, but then again, he’d always put so much weight on being powerful.
“You know how Nash and Porter were in trouble,” West said. “Eva was the only one who could help us. She had that earring that we planted in Lacy Lynch’s car.That’show we ruined the guy… before he could ruin us.”
Cole groaned at the dangerous plan, and then again, at how West had manipulated Eva. “You didn’t think that she’d help you without you playing with her emotions? She’s a real person. She has a heart of gold; not that I agree with what any of you did—it was stupid, but… she’d have doneanythingto help you… whether you pretended to like her or not.”
“Whoa, who said anything about pretending?” West asked. He’d put on a new mask of mockery that further shielded his vulnerability from earlier. “Eva’s smoking hot. Having her hanging all over me has its benefits. I really enjoy feeling those eager lips under mine… don’t you? Oh, I’m sure you do. She doesn’t hold back.”
Red hot anger blinded his vision, but somehow Cole saw well enough to punch his brother squarely between the eyes.
“No! No!” Eva screamed above the stairs. He heard her boots scuttle over the dusty steps as she ran back down to them in that pretty little dress.
Cole wasn’t sure who she was coming to rescue.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Stop!” Eva cried out. “Stop fighting!”
Like an idiotic drama queen, she’d run to Cole’s pickup to have a good cry, and then when the men took too long to come back, she’d begun to worry. Eva had returned only to overhear that West had gone for her because he didn’t think that she’d help him otherwise.
Had he never really loved her then?
Her cheeks burned. He’d used her. At the very least, he should at leastlikeher as a friend after she’d helped him out, but nobody talked about their friends the way West just did about her.
She felt sick. Barely able to see in the darkness below, she saw that Colecouldseeand very well. He was letting his brother have it, but West was like a cornered animal, snapping and flailing, and he didn’t give Cole the upper hand for long. West had been in his share of fights these last few months, and they must’ve been vicious by how practiced and desperate he’d become.
Eva wasn’t sure what West was fighting for, except his wounded pride. He definitely didn’t care about her.
West grabbed his brother around the neck and ran his fist into his jaw. Cole’s fingers grappled at West’s shoulder to break his hold on him.
“You won’t have her,” West hissed.
“Don’t push me, West,” Cole grunted out.
Cole was definitely holding back because if he wanted to, that strong cowboy could flatten his older brother into the ground in a second.
“We’re over, West,” Eva shouted. “Just stop it!”
West threw a knee into Cole, who crashed back against the goat stall. It splintered into a million pieces. “Cole!” Eva ran to him.
West grabbed her arm. “Not so fast, hon.”
Cole growled out, kicking the shards of railing out of his way while he tried to get to his feet.
“Hear me out.” West’s eyes burned into hers. “I’m not letting you drag anyone else down. You made that video your daddy saw. Now we face the consequences. You and I… we follow through.”
“I dragged you down?” In an instant, she realized the truth. West despised her. He wasn’t fighting Cole to keep her in his life; he was fighting to keep heroutof Cole’s. “I might not be perfect,” she choked out, “but at least I never pretended how I felt for you.Imeant everything I did and said.”
“Then why did you mess around with my brother?”
“I…”love him.That didn’t sound like someone who was very dedicated. She gulped. Was West right? Would she drag Cole down?
“We understand each other,” he said. “We’re practically the same person.”
