Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100202 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
A smile tugged at Reed’s mouth. “Why do I have the feeling that you’re not offering me an apology?”
“Because I’m not.” I shrugged. “Can you honestly tell me that you thought a family dinner would be the best place for us to spend a little quality time together, knowing we haven’t made it through a full conversation in about fifteen years?”
Reed clenched his jaw, and his gaze jumped from tree to tree as he thought. “I knew it was a risk. My hope just outweighed my logic.”
“That will get you every time.” We made it to the end of the path, and it opened up to the slope. We were fifty feet or so from the original lift, but skiers almost never took this path, and a small rise in the landscape along the lift hid most of the tourists from our line of sight, leaving our view as pristine as it got down to the lodge, if we ignored the skiers riding the lift. “I am sorry I ruined dinner, though. If I’d realized just how close I was to that breaking point I never would have gone.”
“But I wanted you there.” Reed turned to face me. “I don’t want whatever this rift is between us to get even wider. Maybe it’s being back here, or even just being in that house, but I’d like my brother back.”
I ripped my hand over my hair, wishing I’d brought my hat. “I know that has to be incredibly hard to say, Reed, but a few words aren’t going to change the last fifteen years.”
“I know that.” A cloud of steam rose as he sighed. “I thought about what you said. It’s pretty much all I’ve thought about since Thanksgiving.”
“Me too.” I shoved my free hand in my pocket and concentrated on the motion of the lift.
“I am so very sorry for leaving you guys to fend for yourselves,” he said softly. “I knew how bad it was. Not the part about Crew wanting to drop out of high school, but the rest of it…I had a good idea.”
I looked his way and waited, knowing that couldn’t be all of it.
“It just hurt so damn much to be here. Mom was gone, and everything was fucked-up, and the way people looked at me—at us?” He shook his head. “At college, I was Reed Madigan, but I wasn’t Reed Madigan.”
“I get that. It’s the same way I felt going through basic.”
“I still can’t believe you joined the damn army,” he muttered.
“I always liked those seconds when you drop in and then hit the jump, the cliff, the freefall. That moment when it’s just you and gravity, there’s nothing like it. The army offered me flight school for free, a chance to serve something greater than myself, and got me the hell out of here. I have no regrets.”
“It took me a while to realize you were staying for Crew,” Reed admitted. “I just thought you didn’t know what to do with your life after graduation so you were hanging here. I didn’t want to pressure you about college.”
“And once you did figure it out?”
Reed looked away. “It was right around when he graduated, and you left for the army the next week. Wasn’t much I could do at that point.” He kicked at the snow. “Fucking lame, I know.”
I laughed. “That’s a word for it.” The snow glittered in the sunlight, and when I looked down the slope, my stomach didn’t drop. My blood didn’t boil. I no longer felt the need to salt the earth. “Bottom line is that we were kids.” Thank you, Callie.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.” I took another drink, the coffee going down easier now that it had chilled some. “We all were. As much as I resent the hell out of you for having a life and getting to experience everything I wanted, I can’t blame you for going.”
“You never would have gone.” He shifted his weight. “You didn’t go.”
“You and I aren’t the same,” I said as gently as I could. “Mom was my favorite person on this earth, even if I wasn’t hers.”
“She loved—”
“Yeah, I know. She loved me. She loved all of us. She was the most incredible mother I’ve seen and, honestly, Callie’s the only woman I’ve ever seen give her a run for her money. But you and I both know Crew was Mom’s baby.”
Reed huffed a laugh. “Yeah, he could pretty much do no wrong.”
“Right. So how was I supposed to leave him, knowing she was watching me? Knowing she’d asked me to get him through school?” I shook my head. “I didn’t just stay because Dad was an alcoholic, self-absorbed asshole, or even because Crew needed someone to keep his ass in line. I stayed for her.” I swallowed the boulder in my throat. “And that decision is on me, Reed. Not you. No matter how much solace I’ve taken in blaming you, it was my choice. No one tied me to a tree. I shackled myself.” It had taken Callie’s comments about choosing Sutton for me to really see it.