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Braydon chimed in and said, “Just give us a moment to settle ourselves from the ride, Mum. We’ll be back down in a little bit and I promise we’ll explain everything.”
He took Sam’s elbow and gave Colin a pointed look before they left. Colin and his mother stood stock-still and watched them go.
As he heard Braydon’s bedroom door close he turned to his mum and said, “I’m going to change. I’ll be back down in a bit.”
Sam saton Braydon’s bed and watched him pace as they each waited. The sound of Colin’s footsteps followed. The opening and slamming of his bedroom door was the only warning they had before he marched into Braydon’s bedroom through the connecting bathroom and crashed the door into the wall. She tried not to cringe at the look of disdain he shot her. She knew he would be upset.
“Somebody better start talking,” he growled. She’d never seen him like this. He seemed so different, harder.
“Col—” Braydon began, but Colin cut him off.
“Why are you even here, Braydon? This has nothing to do with you.”
Braydon stiffened. “Oh, okay,” he snapped sarcastically. “I’ll just head back downstairs then and tell Mum you’ve got everything under control. Don’t be a bloody moron! And if it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t be here. It wasn’t easy convincing her to come, you ingrate.”
Colin shot her a look that was so severe she had to look away. “You kept this from me on purpose.”
“I thought you joined the church. How was I supposed to know you didn’t? It wasn’t like you left Saint Peter’s and came knocking on my door.”
“How could you keep this from me?”he roared and Braydon hissed his name in warning.
“What was I supposed to do, Colin? You didn’t ask for this.”
“What if I had taken my vows like I was supposed to in August? I would have been honor bound to the church and…you would have let me swear my life away without ever knowing I had a child?” he sounded so wounded her eyes glazed with unshed tears.
“You didn’t want this. You made it perfectly clear what you wanted and never was it me, let alone a child.”
She didn’t see the point in explaining that she hadn’t discovered her circumstances until October. She deserved every scornful word he could throw at her. How had she ever convinced herself it was okay to keep this from him?
“You have no idea what I want,” he whispered. “I never would have thought you capable of keeping such a thing from me.”
Tears blurred her vision and the fact that he made no move to comfort her only made her pain multiply.
A few moments of silence passed and then he announced, “I have to get out of here.”
“Where are you going?” she cried.
“I don’t know, but while you’ve had months to adjust to this news, it’s still brand new to me. I can’t be around you right now.”
The agony his words caused was worse than anything she’d ever experienced or imagined. He stormed out of the bedroom and a moment later she heard his heavy footsteps tromping down the stairs. She looked up at Braydon with watery eyes and fell completely apart.
All her strength abandoned her as he took her in his arms and held her as she sobbed.
Kelly was nearly runover when Colin stormed out of the house. Apparently he was in another stormy mood.
“Whoa, what’s up with you?”
“Out of my fuckin’ way, Kelly,” he growled, and Kelly would have normally let him take his brooding arse elsewhere, but this was not the typical bad mood Colin had adopted since summer. This was something serious. He grabbed Colin’s arm and jerked him to a stop.
His brother smacked his grip away and pushed him.“I said back off!”
“Whoa, Col, it’s me. What’s going on?”
Colin’s shoulders began to quake as he pulled in a hard breath. When he looked back at Kelly his eyes transformed from angry pits of deceit to broken windows of his soul. His mouth trembled and pressed together, but it was not enough to hold back his tears. For the first time in his life, Kelly saw his older brother fall apart.
“She lied to me,” he rasped and Kelly did the only thing he could think of and pulled Colin into his arms.
“Hey, hey, hey. Who lied to you?” He squeezed him fiercely as his brother struggled to stifle and swallow his building sobs.
