“Baby, you know we’re inevitable,” Matthew drawled, and when Skyler tried to pull away, Matthew just tugged him closer. “We’ve been in love since we were just teenagers. I was too stupid to know what I had back then, but I know now.”
“Let go of me,” Skyler growled, and that was when people jumped into the situation. Everyone had been frozen in place, just sort of watching as this scene played out, but when Skyler made it very clear that he wasn’t interested, suddenly the room was a flurry of activity.
Funny how he had assumed that all of these people didn’t care about him. Not that they didn’t like him, but more like they didn’t notice him either way. In just a split second, they showed him otherwise. He was pulled out of Matthew’s arm, away from his loathsome embrace, and Matthew was bustled off toward the door.
“It’s Skyler’s choice!” Matthew was, unbelievably, still protesting. At that moment, Skyler actually felt sorry for the man. He was so lost in his one-man self-admiration club that he didn’t even know reality anymore.
“Yes, it’s my choice,” Skyler replied, standing with the group of people who had become his family. He hadn’t been born here, nor raised, but this was his home. He hadn’t fully realized it until he saw how this family closed ranks around him.
“And I would never, in a million years, if you were the last man on the planet, choose you.” Skyler turned away from Matthew, who was being held by Malcolm on one side and Logan on the other. They dwarfed him utterly, and he looked small and pathetic and forlorn between them. “Hannah, you’re welcome to stay for a visit, if you want.”
But it was his sister’s choice. She would have to pick for herself on this one. She’d come with Matthew, and if she felt like she had to take his side, Skyler wouldn’t stop her. But it would answer some questions that he had about his sister, no matter which way it went.
There was a long pause, and then Hannah gave a soft sigh.
“I’d like to stay,” she replied, and Skyler smiled. At that moment, she had slipped completely free of Matthew’s toxic influence, a process that had probably started back when she’d called off their wedding.
“Hannah,” Matthew whispered, and Skyler met Matthew’s eyes again and nodded a little. He thought maybe, just maybe, Matthew was starting to get it.
But really, it wasn’t his problem whether Matthew did or not. And that was an incredibly liberating experience.
“It’s been a while since we talked, Skyler,” Kyle said suddenly, and there was a look in his best friend’s dark eyes that made Skyler think that the sharply intelligent man had noticed something just now that he hadn’t before. Which meant, Skyler thought, that he was in trouble. He’d never been able to keep things from Kyle before, and he’d been, in a way, lucky that Kyle had been so busy with his own thing these days. “I think it’s time that we do so.”
“Now?” Skyler asked, resigned. He knew very well that Kyle tended to get what he wanted, and it didn’t actually surprise him at all when Kyle nodded.
“Now is good for me,” he agreed, and Skyler followed him off to be interrogated. Skyler knew that Kyle would have it all out of him soon enough, but luckily, he also knew that his best friend could be trusted with anything.
Or was he just desperate for someone to talk to?
Twenty Four
Craig
Given his promise, there was really nowhere to go other than home.
Once he was there, the buzz was impossible to miss. Skyler had kicked Matthew out. The details were a bit fuzzy on that but, according to his source—a very excited Mary Anne—Skyler had been uncompromising.
And then, of course, Derrick and Logan were getting married, which was a surprise to no one. It actually made complete sense because of the situation with their father. It would be good to have one more son settled, Craig knew.
Too bad that Craig himself was a lost cause. But maybe he should go to his father and tell him that he’d decided to rejoin the military, that he could have a career that he was married to, even if he wouldn’t have love.
Because the truth was, he was in love, and no matter how upset he’d been, he didn’t see himself giving anyone else a chance, not for a while, anyway. It wouldn’t really be fair to anyone else that he tried with. And those were the conclusions that he had come to on his long, aimless drive.
Conclusions that were, it had to be said, now under assault by Mary Anne’s disclosure.
Skyler had kicked Matthew out. That one fact kept nagging at him, as well as the fact that he also kept hearing Wyatt’s voice in his head.
Skyler loves you, you fucking idiot …
It seemed too good to be true. But why else would Skyler have kicked Matthew out? Those were hardly the actions of a man who would kiss another man.
Mary Anne, having given her recitation, smiled and patted him on the shoulder, then left to say that she had to do her homework. There was a sort of energy to her, restless and expectant that Craig didn’t know how to interpret.
Of course, there was grief about his father, they were all feeling that, but there was a sort of aura building, like the utter calm before a storm. When the sky was heavy and the color of a bruise overhead, but it hadn’t started to rain. Not yet.
He probably imagined it. But his mind was still whirling as he made his way out of the house. He had thought he would just drop into bed and try to get some sleep. He had even thought that he might bring a bottle of whiskey right along with him, although he had seen too many veterans devolve into alcoholism not to know that that would be walking a dangerous path.
He didn’t do it, anyway. Instead, he found himself walking toward the barn. It was stupid. He didn’t believe in fate. But it really did feel like something was calling him to the barn, to drop a saddle onto his favorite mare’s broad back, to mount up.
