Page 38 of Hot Shot
“Branton. Wake up. You have to wake up.” My voice is a little above normal volume, my words stiff with command. “Wake. Up. Now.”
“She doesn’t belong to me anymore.” His murmured words have my heart sinking, my lungs squeezing.
“Oh, Bran.” I press a kiss to his skin. “I’m so sorry. So so sorry.”
“I have to let her go.”
My heart breaks for this man. I can’t imagine, don’t want to imagine, the agony of losing a child. Not in the circumstances Bran lost Laura. It was a tragedy and the fact it might have been avoided if he’d done anything different must weigh on him heavily.
It weighs on me and I’ve only just learned of what really happened.
What must it be like for him to live with that level of pain for years? Hell. Hehasn’tbeen living.
Has barely accepted my appearance in his hidey-hole. I thought the last couple of days have been better. He seems lighter somehow. I don’t know if what I’m doing, pushing him to reclaim his life is the right thing. Maybe I should leave him be, let him find his way back on his own.
Except… I can’t leave him like this. Now that I know what he’s going through, what he’s been through, I can’t walk away.
Not like I did before.
And if I’d known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have walked then either. I would have continued to call him, send him messages. More than the ones I did send. On his birthday. At Christmas.
Smoothing my hands over his head, I urge him to roll over. He’s still asleep, muttering about letting Laura go, that he shouldn’t have kept her this long, and I ache because I don’t know what to do. How to help him.
Do I wake him up?
Do I leave him be now he’s not calling out and thrashing around?
Do I curl up beside him and offer comfort, warmth, my presence, as reassurance he isn’t alone?
With a sigh that seems to come from his toes, Bran rolls away, twists around, and reaches for a pillow. Pulling it beneath his head, he lets out another big breath and relaxes.
I watch him for a few minutes. Watch for signs the nightmare is back. Watch to see if his breathing is even. Watch because he’s changed so much and yet he’s still the same.
The same man I fell in love with. He’s just laced with scars, hidden beneath barriers of his own making. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to weather this with him.
I want to be.
I want to have a chance at the future we once talked about.
I want…
I want Branton Lattimer to be mine.
Branton
I’m on the lake.
But it’s different this time.
The trees are closer; stripped of leaves, they reach up to the sky with branches like bony hands, skeletal fingers grasping at the gray clouds hanging low above them.
It’s not the lake. It’s the pond.
I can hear blades slicing, grinding, racing. All sounds from my childhood.
The sky above me rumbles and a little girl giggles.
Laura?
