“I can’t make him come to my bed, Brock,” she sighed wearily. “And I’ll be damned if I’ll try.”
“Heather…”
“Brock, enough.” The lengthening shadow of Sam’s broad form entered the stable entrance.
Heather’s head whipped to the side, her eyes widening at the hard, cold edge to Sam’s voice. Brock whipped around, his body suddenly defensive, prepared.
“Sam.” Brock shook his head again.
“I don’t need your protection any more than I need Cade’s.” Sam’s voice was low, thick, with a white-hot throb of rage. “Nor do I need you pimping for me.”
Heather winced. “Takes a whore for a pimp to work, Sam. You’re not just insulting your brother here.”
His gaze speared toward her, and though she couldn’t see his eyes for the piercing sunlight behind him, she could feel the intensity in them. For a moment she regretted drawing his attention to her.
“Get serious,” he growled, though the restraint in his voice caused her to wince.
“We’re worried, Sam…” Brock began.
“Brock, let it rest…” Heather interrupted him, knowing he would try to smooth the event over, to ease Sam’s anger.
“Goddammit, I’m not a f**king bone for you two to fight over,” he snarled, moving into the barn. “What do you want, Brock? A nice little joke, how about another prank? Let’s pretend the world is fine when we f**king know better.”
Throttled rage, agony, need. They all reflected in his voice. Heather’s heart broke as she watched him and as she glanced at Brock, she knew his was as well. Sam’s expression was dark, his face lined with both his fury and his pain. And Heather had a terrible, wrenching feeling that when it all spewed to the
surface, none of them would be left unscathed.
Brock raked his fingers through his hair as he glanced at her. Heather could only shake her head. She wasn’t about to help him. Sooner or later they would have to realize that Sam no longer needed their protection, all he needed was their support.
“I’ll leave you two alone.” She headed for the entrance.
“Fuck that. Who do you think I came back for?” Sam caught her arm as she made to move past him.
“You, Heather, not my interfering brother.”
“Sam.” Brock stepped forward as though in protection.
Heather watched as Sam’s head whipped around, his expression harsh, defined by the years of pain they had all suffered.
“You’re upset. You should calm down…”
The smile that crossed Sam’s face did little to still the nervous tremor that fluttered through Heather’s body.
“Do you think I would hurt her, Brock?” His voice was silky smooth, but they all heard the undercurrent that ripped beneath it. He was pushing his brother, and Heather wondered why.
“Would you, Sam?” Brock asked him quietly.
Sam shook his head. As Heather watched, the anger drained away and bleak sadness replaced it. She could see the sense of betrayal in his expression, his knowledge that for some reason, he wasn’t trusted.
“I’ve never put so much as a bruise on Marly and Sarah, Brock. Never. Why the hell would you think I would hurt Heather?”
Chapter Seventeen
“Fuck.” Brock’s face twisted with his own pain, the curse slipping past his lips with a tone laced heavily with self-disgust. “Hell, Sam, I know you won’t hurt her physically. It’s not her body I’m worried about.
Dammit, you shouldn’t make her cry either. That’s just as bad.”
Sam watched his brother, seeing the truth, the fact that Brock knew he would never truly hurt Heather.
For a moment, everything in his body had twisted in agony, and he smelled the blood, the death, and he wondered… He shook his head, trying to shake away the dark pain along with it. The women were all that mattered. Their laughter, their happiness. Their happiness fed Cade’s and Brock’s, and in a way, his own. Their tears made the demons rise, snapping with hungry jaws and rapacious teeth in the form of
nightmares that none of them could escape.
He drew in a deep breath, ignoring Heather’s incredulous expression at Brock’s explanation. She didn’t understand, and he wondered how Marly and Sarah could.
“Sarah’s looking for you,” Sam finally sighed, weary to the bone, filled with such a mix of emotions that making heads or tails of them was impossible right now.
His twin shifted, glancing at Heather as though trying to convey a message. Pacify Sam. Protect Sam. He knew it by heart, and it grated at his pride now, as it never had before.
“Go, Brock,” he bit out. “Don’t piss me off any more than I am already. Please.”
Brock cursed. A mumbled sound, all the more violent for the fact that it was so quiet. He stalked from the barn, much as Sam knew he had done himself earlier, leaving him alone with Heather.
He turned to her, watching her quietly as she stood beneath his narrowed stare. She gazed back at him directly, never flinching. Her green eyes were dark with sadness…sadness for him. He breathed in roughly. As much as he wanted her laughter and her happiness, he’d be damned if it wouldn’t make him feel like a fraud right now.
Cade and Brock needed it. To see Sarah and Marly truly happy made them happy. It lifted their hearts, and in some degree eased the shadows that haunted their gazes. For Sam, he had eased his demons in the happiness of his brothers, and for a very brief time had thought he could reach for his own with this woman.
“Have they always been so overprotective?” she finally asked him quietly, tucking her hands nervously into her back pockets.
The shirt stretched across the full mounds of her br**sts, making his hands itch to touch them. The hard-on he had had earlier hadn’t even had time to abate when he’d heard Brock was headed for the stables and he had to go back. Now, it pounded beneath his jeans with an imperative demand that made him damned near crazy.
“Yeah,” he finally answered her, fighting for control.
“Hard to deal with, isn’t it?” She tilted her head watching him, trying to understand him.
Damn her, he didn’t want or need her understanding.
“Are you coming back to the house?” he finally asked, ignoring her question.
She leaned back against the frame of a stall, regarding him with that look. The one that said she knew, that she cared. Damn her to hell, he didn’t want this.