Page 14 of Every Sunset
“Then you don’t know me well enough,” he laughed dryly. “Let’s get your hands dressed. I’ll put some small dressings on the deepest cuts, but they’re gonna need changing daily. I’ll come to the guest house each day to take care of it,” he told me.
“See. An asshole would never do that,” I pointed out with a watery smile.
“Everything okay in here?” Logan strode in through the sliding glass doors off to the side, Max right behind him.
“Have you been crying?” Max asked as he looked to me with utter horror. I saw his eyes dart to Maddox as his face filled with anger, and knew I had to do something.
“I’m good, honey. I just got a little emotional because I’m so tired. Maddox took care of me,” I tried to assure him. I saw Logan looking from me to his brother too with suspicion.
“Madd?” Logan spoke up.
“Like Anna said, we’re good. Chill the fuck out and get grilling. Steaks won’t cook themselves, Anna and Max are staying for dinner.” Maddox bit back.
I looked to him with confusion. I hadn’t agreed to stay for dinner, had I?
“It’s just dinner, Anna. Stay and get to know us, okay?” he uttered to me so quiet I was sure I was the only one who could hear him. I knew I should deny him, say no, and get Max home and away from these guys before they discovered too much about us, but I couldn’t. I didn’t fully understand how or why, but I felt safer when I was with these two virtual strangers, and I didn’t feel strong enough to walk away from the comfort of that safety just yet.
“You sure you’re okay, mom?” Max asked as he appeared at my side.
“Yes. I’m sure. You were right though, I over did it today. I’ll listen next time, I promise,” I assured him.
“Yeah right,” he laughed. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”
The remainder of the evening was actually pretty good. Logan grilled steaks and Maddox made a salad and potato salad to go with them. I had a couple of glasses of wine as I sat out on their patio watching Logan and Maddox toss a football around with Max after we ate. My emotional meltdown had left me raw, but strangely, being there with Logan, Maddox, and my son seemed to make me able to relax in a way I hadn’t since before everything happened. Seeing my son stress-free and smiling definitely helped. He didn’t seem so on guard all of the time when we were with these two guys and he needed that as much as I needed to see it.
We didn’t even get back to our place until almost nine that night, and by then I was dead on my feet. I don’t even remember lying in my bed, or falling asleep, but for the first time in weeks, I actually did drift off without the usual fight with my ownsubconscious, and without the nightmarish memories that now lived within it.
CHAPTER 7
LOGAN
“Are you gonna tell me what happened with Anna earlier?” I asked. I had been holding my tongue, hoping my brother would tell me himself. I hadn’t wanted to break the spell of the great evening we’d had. Maddox had been so much more like the man I knew him to truly be as he stayed for dinner, and formed a friendship I never expected to see with Anna, and more shockingly with Max. We had played football together, my brother, Max, and I. How long had it been since I saw my brother do something so normal and relaxed? How long had it been since I had seen him smile the way he had when Anna said something funny? Too fucking long was the answer to every one of those questions.
“I pushed her. Asked her who she was running from,” Maddox told me as he continued to load up the dishwasher.
“Fuck Maddox! What were you thinking? We’re lucky she didn’t just run,” I growled as I looked through the kitchen window and out to the guest house with worry. Would they run now, with the darkness for cover?
“She considered it, but I told her she was safe here. She won’t run again,” he told me confidently.
“Did she tell you anything we can use to keep them safe?” I pushed, desperate to know what Anna and Max were facing. I could tell myself all I liked that I had a duty of care because I was their landlord and they lived on our property, but the truth was that it was so much more than that. I was falling for Anna in a way I had never fallen for any woman before. A part of me felt the need to make sure she was safe and cared for.
“Not really. Just that no one would be coming looking for them. Whoever he was, I’m pretty sure he’s either dead or behind bars,” Madd told me.
“Then why was she crying?”
“She just….broke, I guess? I was just asking about Max. I told her he seemed mature for his age and she fell apart. I swear I wasn’t an asshole. I held her and she sank into me. I think she needed it, to just let out whatever she was dealing with and know she wasn’t alone.” He had paused in his task of loading dirty plates and was just staring into space as he sometimes did. I hated the pain I saw on his face.
“You’re not alone either, Madd. I’m right here and I always fucking will be. You can talk to me if you need to,” I told him. It was the same thing I had been telling him since he left the hospital a year earlier, but he’d never been receptive to it before, always just telling me to fuck off, or pushing me away in some other way.
“I know,” he said this time, as he met my eyes and gave me a single nod. To anyone else it might have felt like a brush off, but to me, after the last year of him shoving me away time and again, those words meant a fuck of a lot. “We need to keep an eye on them,” he went on, changing the subject as he nodded through the window toward the guest house. “Something bad happenedto them and neither of them are as good as they’re pretending to be.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “Anna had a kidney transplant last year. She told me earlier. I asked Max about it while we were moving the groceries and he told me he’s worried she’s not taking care of herself enough ever since. He mentioned that she’s barely sleeping.”
“I’ll do some research and we’ll keep an eye on her. Maybe we should invite them over here more often,” he suggested.
“That mean you’re gonna be around more to keep an eye on Anna?”
“Don’t fucking start with me, Logan,” he said flatly, turning back to the dishwasher and resuming stacking it. “I told Anna I’d be here for her – that we both would. I want to keep that promise, but don’t think for one second them being here and me caring is some miracle cure to all my problems.”
