Page 101 of The Moment They Can't Forget

“Don’t be an asshole, Sawyer,” Zoe hissed. “It was just a kiss.”

“That was not a first kiss.” The eldest Duke scowled. “Get in the car.”

“Don’t speak to her like that!” JD said. “She’s your sister. Have some respect for the fact she can make her own choices.”

“He’s your friend, Sawyer. You trust him. Don’t be an idiot about this,” Zoe said.

“He was my friend,” Sawyer growled at his sister. “You said there was nothing between you.” He was looking at JD now. “Told me to my face you wouldn’t mess with my little sister, and the entire time you were lying.”

“Oh, right, like you would have listened had I said otherwise? So I’m good enough to be your friend but not kiss your sister?” He could feel his anger climbing.

“Fuck you.” Sawyer ran at him, tackling him around the middle. They both traveled backward and hit a wall hard.

“Stop!”

They ignored Zoe’s shriek and started swinging.

“You went after my sister!” Sawyer roared. “You, who sleeps around, wanted to add her to your list! I’m going to kill you, Hopper!”

“It meant nothing,” Zoe cried. “We just had some fun.”

JD wasn’t sure what hurt more—his jaw where Sawyer just landed a right hook, Zoe’s words that it meant nothing, or Sawyer’s belief that he was deliberately messing with Zoe, that she was just another woman in his bed.

“You and your brothers need to let your sister make her own choices!” he said, following it up with a punch to Sawyer’s left eye. “Your sister is a grown-assed woman! It’s all right you and your brothers sleep around and have relationships, but not her! This is not the 1930s.”

“You were my friend!” Sawyer now had him in a headlock. “My family has a pact! Fuck you, city boy!”

JD punched him hard in the stomach, and the breath wheezed from Sawyer’s lungs.

“Why are they doing that?”

“I don’t know, but it’s just like my home.”

The words penetrated JD’s head, and he shoved Sawyer hard, sending him backward. He then glanced to where Zoe stood, looking devastated and angry, with Ally and Vi, who both looked upset and confused.

“You have fighting at home?” Ally asked Vi. The girl nodded.

“Well, hell,” Sawyer muttered. His eye was swelling, and his knuckles bleeding. “Get in the car,” he said to Zoe and Ally, his voice hard. “Now.”

“I’m not taking orders from you.” Zoe folded her arms. JD saw the tears in her eyes.

Her brother moved in close enough so he was inches from her face. “We have the pact, and you just broke it, and the first time had to be with my friend. The only fucking one I’ve ever had that meant anything.”

JD looked at Zoe as the color leeched from her face at her brother’s words. She then just placed a hand on her niece’s shoulder and walked out of the stable and, he had a feeling, his life. The pain in his jaw then was nothing compared to the pain that gripped his heart.

“I trusted you, and you lied to me.” Sawyer jabbed a finger at him. “Stay away from my sister, and stay the fuck away from me.” He then turned and stormed away, also likely out of his life.

“You need some ice,” Vi said after they’d gone. “Come to the tack room.” She walked away, and he followed because he had no idea what else he was supposed to do. He’d just lost a friend and the woman that meant more to him than any woman before her.

His face and ribs hurt, but that was nothing like the pain filling his chest.

“Sit.” Vi waved him to a seat. She then opened the fridge and the small freezer compartment. Taking out the ice packs he stored in there in case animals needed treatment, she handed one to him.

JD felt some relief as he pressed it to his jaw, but his heart still ached, and he guessed it would for a long time.

He heard the pop of a soda can, and then Vi handed that to him too.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, Vi.” He drank deep.

---