“No. I don’t. How could I, when you don’t tell me anything anymore?” Jace sounded pissed. Nate didn’t blame him. “All I know is you still carry around a misplaced case of survivor’s guilt. I know you think you should have died out there with those other men. That you don’t deserve the breath in your lungs. And I know that if you do this, you’re going to come back in a fucking box, just like Dad.” There was genuine torment in his brother’s eyes.
Nate grabbed the dog tags around his neck to feel the cold metal bite into his palm. He gritted his teeth. “You don’t understand…I have to do this.”
“You’re damn right, I don’t understand. Why would you risk your life again like this?”
“Because I’m fucking dying inside! I can’t keep slinging drinks at the bar and pretending that I’m fine. I can’t bury the guilt anymore. And I can’t keep pissing away this second chance at a life that I got and seven other men didn’t.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop the porch from spinning around him. Fuck, that Jack was hitting him hard. But even the liquor flowing through him didn’t help with the pain. It was too sharp. Etched into his heart. He didn’t even remember what it felt like to live without that pain anymore.
“Damn it, Nate. Why didn’t you talk to me? Let me help.”
“Because you can’t fix this,” he said. “I know it’s in the past, and I know I can’t change what happened. But I have a chance to get it right this time. If I don’t do this… Fuck, man. I want to get better. I’m trying to get better. I don’t want this shit to own me for the rest of my life. I can’t live like that. If I go back…maybe it will be what I need to heal.”
Jace pushed up from the rocking chair and paced across the deck, bracing his hands on the rail. “How do you know doing this won’t just make it worse?”
“I don’t,” Nate said.
Jace stared silently into the night, watching people walk in and out of the party. Nate didn’t say anything, either. What was there to say? He’d made his decision.
Had it been the right one? He didn’t know anymore. He hadn’t made a right decision in so long, he wouldn’t know one if it bit him in the ass.
“You’re going to be an uncle,” Jace finally said.
Nate’s gaze snapped up and shock nearly stole his voice. “What?”
Jace turned around and gave him a strained smile. “Hayden’s pregnant. Three months along. We weren’t planning it…but then again, I guess we weren’t really trying that hard to prevent it.”
Nate felt a rush of joy through his heart. He stood and grabbed his brother by the shoulders, reeling him in for a hug. “I don’t know if I should be hugging you or punching you in the face for knocking up the girl who’s been like a little sister to me for most of my life.”
Jace laughed, finally relaxing. “Let’s go with the first one.”
“Congratulations, man. You’re going to make a great dad.”
Jace looked uncertain. “You think?”
“I know.”
“I’m going to need you around, brother,” he said. “You’re my family, Nate. You and Hayden and this baby. That’s it. Don’t you dare put me through another death. Don’t rob my kid of an uncle, when he’s already been robbed of two grandparents.”
Raw emotions clawed at Nate’s throat, and his eyes burned. Jace was right. He didn’t deserve to bury a brother. And that was exactly what was going to happen if Nate didn’t get his shit together. He could deny it until he was blue in the face, but it was true.
“I won’t,” he said. And this time, he meant it. He had too much to live for.
Jace nodded, and some of the tension rolled away from his shoulders. His gaze moved to two women walking across the grass toward the party. Lilly and Hayden.
The corner of Jace’s lips lifted in a crooked smile. “Looks like our girls are done with their impromptu bachelorette party.”
“You should get back to your beautiful bride,” Nate said, and grabbed onto the porch railing for balance, fighting the urge to go inside and climb the stairs right up to Lilly’s bed to wait for her. If he were honest, that was the only place he wanted to be right now. The thought of curling up in cold, strange sheets, alone, after this hellish day, made his stomach churn. He’d spent the entire day pushing her way, trying to put some distance between them before he crushed them both. He’d seen the confusion and hurt in her eyes when he’d walked away from her tonight. Was he actually going to be able to walk away from her forever?
“What about Lilly?”
“What about her?”
Jace laughed. “Don’t bullshit me. You care about her.”
Yeah. He did.
Nate more than cared. He fucking loved her.
He stumbled back as the realization rolled over him like a ton of bricks.
He loved her.
And he couldn’t imagine a life going forward that didn’t include Lilly Grayson in it.
Nate knew he wasn’t perfect, but he wanted to be a better man for her. The kind of man she deserved. For the first time in his life, he actually felt like that was possible.
He was still leaving. There was no going back on that, but if he explained, maybe she’d wait for him. Be there when he came home, ready to give them a real shot.
He shook his head, trying to dislodge the hope he was feeling from taking root. It was no use. Why would she want to? Not after the way he’d treated her.
“It doesn’t matter if I do care about her,” he said. “I’m no good for her.”
“You know… Nobody is asking you to forget your past, bro.” Jace grasped Nate’s shoulder and gently squeezed. “We’re just asking you to give yourself a chance for a happy future. To let yourself heal instead of drowning in guilt. Whether you want to believe it or not, you deserve happiness. You deserve Lilly.”
Chapter Seventeen
Lilly stepped across the threshold of the carriage house behind the inn, thankful for a reprieve from the whirlwind of action that the rehearsal dinner had been. It was past midnight and most of the group had retired to their rooms for the evening, including the bride and groom. As exhausted as she was, Lilly couldn’t find it within herself to go back to the bed-and-breakfast just yet. Not when Nate’s room was right next door to hers.
He’d actually missed the rehearsal dinner. She didn’t even know what to make of that, but it had cemented what she’d already suspected. Something was very wrong.
She cast off the cloud of uncertainty that had been hovering over her the entire night, and pointed her camera at the open slats of the carriage house where stars peeked through the beams. She’d have to come back for more shots in the morning when there was light. She wasn’t sure what kind of shots they would want for the magazine, but it would be a crime not to capture every piece of this breathtaking property.
It didn’t hurt that she’d finally found a place to be alone. She wasn’t sure how much more she could have taken of Hayden planning out their futures—as if Nate had already put a ring on Lilly’s finger. At this point she wasn’t even sure he wanted to speak to her, let alone have a lasting relationship.
She took in the rest of the space through her lens, appreciating the simple beauty of the stacked hay bales and the antique-looking horse carriage. She spotted a ladder that led up to a loft and pulled off her heels to investigate. Draping her camera around her neck, she stepped up onto the ladder, and grabbed on to steady herself. She wasn’t a fan of heights, but her curiosity had won out. She climbed a few more steps and—
“Lilly?”
Her heart suffered a jolt of surprise—and an unbidden prick of hurt—at the sound of Nate’s voice behind her. She turned too fast, and her foot slipped off the narrow rung.
“Oh!”
She grabbed the ladder and felt it tip underneath her.
Oh, crap.
She squeezed her eyes shut and screamed, bracing for impact.
Nate’s outstretched arms caught her and he stumbled backward. It took a moment for her to realize the world had stopped moving. She peeled open her eyes and found him staring down at her. He pushed off the ladder, and it clattered to the ground beside them.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She pulled out of his embrace, the anger that had been building for hours finally snapping free. “You scared the crap out of me.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Sorry.”
She rubbed her ankle where she’d probably have a bruise tomorrow. Great.
“What happened to you tonight?” she demanded. “You just disappeared.”
“I know…” He stopped himself, and sighed. “I know.”
She took a few steps back to put some distance between them, and his gaze followed her movements like that damn lion watching its prey.
“Did you need something?” she asked, rubbing her forehead. “I’m trying to get a game plan together for tomorrow.” She fidgeted and played with the strap of her camera.
His jaw ticked and he took a deep breath, his gaze torn between her and the exit.
“We need to talk,” he said.
Famous last words.
Lilly swallowed the disappointment leaving a nasty taste in her mouth and straightened her spine. She would not cry over this man. She would not waste another second on a man who didn’t want her back.
“If you don’t want me, just say it, already,” she snapped.
He narrowed his gaze on her. “What?”
“That’s what today was about, right?” She laughed bitterly. “The minute we crossed the Vermont state line, you checked out.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, voice low and dangerous.
“I don’t?” she scoffed. “Clearly, you’ve forgotten that we’ve been here before, Nate. The minute things get too deep, you check out. It’s what you do.”
He scowled and strode forward, pushing her back until she landed against a wall. His lips slammed over hers in a possessive, all-consuming kiss that she felt all the way to the tips of her toes. He plunged his fingers into her hair and erased the space between them as he rolled his rock-hard erection against her belly. He broke away from her lips and dropped his forehead to rest against hers. A long breath shuddered out of him.
“Does that feel like I don’t want you, Princess?”
Her eyes fluttered closed and an unwilling moan escaped her lips when he thrust forward, rubbing, teasing her with his hardness, when she wanted it all.
“Nate…wait…”
“Does it feel like I’m checked out now?”
She shook her head, getting lost in the escalating sensations he was creating between her legs every time he ground his cock against her. Oh, God…if he didn’t stop, she was going to come.
“Jesus…you weren’t supposed to be like this,” he ground out between gritted teeth. “It wasn’t supposed to be this hard to—”
Before she could ask him what he was talking about, he grabbed her blouse and jerked it apart. Pearl buttons scattered on the ground and cool air touched her partially exposed chest. He cupped her breasts through the lace of her bra and she arched into his hands. He groaned, and his mouth came down on hers with an urgency that spiked her need to fever pitch.
“You have no idea how much I want you. How fucking addicted I am to you,” he rasped.
She reached up to loop her hands around his neck, hating the way her skirt restricted the movement of his hips. As if he sensed her frustration, he slid his hands up her thighs, pushing it up, forcing the tight fabric to bunch around her hips. Once the barrier was gone, he slammed against her and she cried out, reaching between them to grasp his zipper and slide it down.