Page 10 of Winter Memories

“You saw her,” he mumbles and rests his elbows on his knees and leans forward, “didn’t you?”

“You knew she was home?” Rage fills me and my legs twitch with the need to launch myself at my younger brother. If he knew she was back in Wintervale, why the fuck didn’t he tell me? Warn me?

Being blindsided by her presence was not on my fucking bucket list. But I was. I didn’t handle it well.

Noel holds his hands up in surrender. His tone is full of apologies and sincerity, “I’m sorry, Fletch. I hadn’t seen her or anything, but I heard a few whispers in town that she was back.” He watches me warily. “You did see her?”

I slump back against the couch and scrub my hand down my face. “Yeah,” I grunt, “I saw her.”

Silence stretches between us as I play seeing Eden over my mind. Again. As if I haven’t gone over it about a million times already. Fuck, I can still practically smell her. She always loved this shampoo and body wash shit that smelled like apples and cinnamon. She smelled just how I remember she always did.

She’s always smelled like home.

“Fuck, brother,” Noel groans, “I can’t take it anymore. Spill,” he demands in a way that harkens back to his military training.

I smirk at him because that shit doesn’t work on me. Older brothers are immune to the demands of their younger brothers. All in the name of self-preservation and decades of ingrained pecking order.

He’s practically bouncing in his seat, the anticipation riding him hard the longer I don’t answer. I blow out a hard breath. It feels like I went into the gym we put into the basement and have gone a few rounds with my brothers.

But I didn’t spar with my brothers. Just my past and all the memories a single woman can conjure up.

“She looks,” I stare down at the floor and shake my head slowly, “fucking good.” When I look up at Noel, his face is a mask of concern which I feel down to my damn toes. I whisper, “Gorgeous.”

“I know breaking up with her was hard. I’m sorry I wasn’t around a lot during that time since I enlisted right after I graduated. Mom and Dad would give me updates and I know you struggled with that shit,” he grimaces, his words filled with sincerity.

“It wasn’t your job to stick around here and take care of my ass,” I insist. “You don’t owe me an apology.”

“But you’ve always been there for me, Fletch, and when you needed someone at your back, someone who wasn’t Mom, Dad, or Hux, I up and left.”

I can see the regret in my brother’s eyes and that shit doesn’t work for me at all.

“You needed to go and live your life, Noel. Make your own choices and follow your own path,” I grunt.

“And what about your path?” There’s a challenge in his eyes, one I’m not sure I like or am ready to rise to.

Not yet at least.

Not when seeing Eden is so raw.

I shrug one shoulder and try to force my voice to remain neutral and casual. “Limitless was always my path.”

“No,” Noel’s voice is firm, “you might have accepted it as your destiny, your burden, but it didn’t have to be your path.”

“Yes,” my jaw clenches and I barely get the word past my teeth, “it did. You know how long Limitless has been in the family. It’s always been passed down to the first-born son to run. That’s how it is.”

Noel grunts and there is a big heaping pile of disagreement in the sound. But I’m not going to budge on this. I’m very fuckingaware I could have made a different decision, but part of me didn’t want to. I really thought, at least at first, Eden would spread her wings and eventually find her way back home.

And, I guess, she did. It just took 13 fucking years; a whole lot longer than I thought it would take.

“Look,” I sigh, “I thought about running after Eden a lot, especially those first few years. I missed her.” I rub my chest where it always seems to ache whenever I think about the girl I lost. Except now it feels a little different.

Maybe it’s because I got a glimpse of the woman she grew into today. The memory is so damn fresh in my mind. I feel like my nerves are exposed and far too fucking raw.

“Why didn’t you?” Noel’s voice is small, like he’s almost afraid to ask.

“Limitless.”

“Fuck,” he groans and drops his chin to his chest. “I should have never joined up. I should have seen that you were willing to give up your own dreams, and your fucking soul mate, just to be what our parents expected you to be.”

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