The Bachelor Auction(62)
The day of the fight.
“But I don’t want to!” Brock had yelled. “You can’t make us move to California! I belong here!”
His father sighed. “Brock, it’s my responsibility to keep my word to your grandfather and he needs someone in the LA office.”
“Fine.” Brock crossed his arms, “Then you go! I’m staying here!” He threw the stuffed dog his father had given him back into his face. “No!” He stomped his foot. “I won’t go. I hate you! I hate you!”
His parents died the very next day.
He fell to his knees amidst the broken picture frames that had joined the smashed perfume bottles on the floor and didn’t even care that shards of glass were piercing his skin. He welcomed the pain.
The ghosts were free.
And they were relentless.
His parents were gone.
All he had was his grandfather
And his brothers.
Life would be so much easier if there was a map to get through it, but when he wasn’t given one, he’d followed the only family he had left.
And was led to this place.
A crossroads.
He knelt amidst the broken glass and memories for the next hour, feeling guilty as hell, and sad.
Because that was the thing about death.
It haunted the living.
Until they mourned it.
And the more it was ignored.
The bigger it grew.
Until survival was damn near impossible.
It loomed over Brock’s body like a vicious storm, and he didn’t have a damn clue how to get over it.
Which was why he said the yes.
His yes’s were because of this stupid stuffed animal.
And the picture.
He held onto them for dear life and stared.
An hour later, he realized that Jane had returned, and put a blanket over his shoulders.
When he finally acknowledged her, she handed him a mug of something and lifted a shoulder. “I made it a double.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“No, I’m really, really sorry.”
“I know.” Her smile wasn’t present—her strength, however, she wore like a beautiful suit of shiny armor.
“It’s not you.”
“Drink the whisky, Brock.”
He sighed and took the mug. “Yes, ma’am.”
The grandfather clock chimed from downstairs as if to remind them that time wasn’t exactly in their favor. They shared a look as Jane reached across the space between them and gave him her hand.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jane’s hands were still shaking long after she’d left the room and gone back to his. She was insane.
She’d just lost her virginity to a man who already had part of her heart, and he’d just yelled at her and had had what seemed to be an emotional breakdown over a dresser drawer.
The pain obviously had to do with his parents. She wasn’t sure if she should push him and get him to open up again or if she should just leave him. One of her major personality flaws was a need to make everything better, everyone happy, even if it was at her own expense.
She’d already showered and was limping around trying to find her cleaning bucket, to no avail, when she felt warm hands brace her shoulders.
Jumping a foot, she nearly fell against the wall before turning around and facing Brock.
The lines on his face seemed more pronounced. He’d never appeared old to her, but in that moment he seemed…haunted.
“Jane, I’m so sorry,” he said again, hanging his head.
She shrugged. “We all have our things, right?”
His expression didn’t change. Instead he just stared at her, as if she was a complicated math problem, or a Rubik’s Cube. His frown deepened. “Jane, it’s more than that, it’s—”
“Death,” she whispered hoarsely, looking down at her shoes.
Brock nodded silently, his chin dipping toward his chest before he exhaled and reached for her hand. “Come on.”
She let him pull her away from her work because being with him, being there for him, this complicated man, was the most important thing she could think of doing.
He wrapped an arm around her and helped her walk toward the end of the hall until they came to the master suite.
“My parents’ room.”
She gasped. “I’m staying in your parents’ old room?”
His nod was jerky as his eyes roamed from left to right, as if it was too painful for him to look at any one thing for too long.
He’d cleaned up the glass on the floor but the plaid shirts remained, along with the stuffed dog.
She hobbled over to the dog and picked it up, holding it close to her chest.
“One of my dad’s last gifts.”
“I wouldn’t take you as a stuffed animal kind of guy,” she said with a bit of humor, squeezing the dog against her chest.