do was get back to Jocelyn and double-check, triple-check that she was okay, but Finn had a firm grip on my shoulder and there were too many people around for me to make a scene. So I let him lead me by the balls toward our other brother, Galen.
“What the hell is this?” I shrugged Finn off. “An intervention?”
“No, dumbass.” Finn smacked the back of my head, and I glared at him. “Maybell Ketner is giving you the hard stank-eye right now, and I know much his highness hates making public scenes, so I’m doing you a solid by acting like we’ve got important magic stuff going on and can’t be interrupted.”
Huh. Finn was so good at his lovable Labrador shtick that I sometimes forgot he possessed an actual brain under all that tail-wagging. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He patted my back, a little harder than necessary. “But now that the three of us are here, we probably should do some important magic stuff.”
“How so?” I asked. “We can’t do shit without our women.”
“Oh. Our women, now.” Finn waggled his brows. Never give a bone to a Labrador, they don’t know when to let that shit go. “Since when did Jocelyn become yours?”
Galen took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. “Considering that he managed to float her out of the hotel without dry humping her in the air, I’d say it was sometime between the point of being locked in and when they jumped off the balcony.”
Finn shook his head. “So literal.”
I rubbed my hands over my face. I loved my brothers, but they tested the fuck out of me on the daily. “Anyway. There’s a lot you don’t know about Jocelyn. A lot of shit that went down that I should’ve seen and didn’t.”
Guilt crawled into my gut again, but I tamped it down. I didn’t want to associate feeling like shit with Jocelyn anymore. She’d been my bright spot, my light in the dark, for far longer than she’d ever been the source of my pain. We’d paid enough for the things we should’ve said or done. And we were so much more together in the present than we’d ever been apart in the past.
I filled Finn and Galen in on as much as I could that was my story to tell without betraying the things Jocelyn had said to me in confidence. A tricky line to walk, but neither of my brothers were idiots. We all grew up with demons and understood how to read between lines.
That was what made the fact that I hadn’t seen what was going on with Kyle and Jocelyn all the more painful. And I couldn’t do a damned thing about it because he was already dead.
“You know…” Finn scratched his jaw. “I always did like that Jocelyn.”
I snorted. “Bullshit.” But I appreciated his easy acceptance all the same.
Galen looked a little more concerned, but his trust was always harder earned. “Why didn’t she tell you all this right away? Something isn’t adding up for me.”
“Some stuff isn’t mine to tell.” I left it at that, even though I had a gut feeling there was more to the story than Jocelyn was telling me. But we weren’t there yet. There was a lot of hurt and mistrust between us that we still needed to work through. Baby steps.
“Just…” Galen pinched his lips together. “This is your thing, and I’m not going to be a dick about it, but just keep in mind the time crunch we’re on.”
I understood. Baby steps, but at an accelerated pace. Jocelyn understood that too, which was why we needed to start practicing our magic again now that we could touch without tearing into each other like feral animals. Once we got a full handle on our powers, then we could figure out what part we needed to play. We were the last piece of the puzzle and didn’t have the same luxury of time to get our shit together that the others had gotten.
Our own damn fault. But still. It didn’t make me any less resentful. I wanted more time with her, to get to know her as we were now. Without fear and pressure and the land breaking away beneath our feet. I wanted to tell her I loved her, that I never stopped, and have her know it had nothing to do with our magic or saving the island.
But that wasn’t time we’d get to have. Thanks to this curse, we had a handful of days before every business on this island was swept out to sea. A week, at best, before we lost the homes, forest, and everything else. So we needed to concentrate on using our magic and let the rest sit until we won… If we won.
“Let’s head back to my cabin,” Galen said. “I saw our women”—he gave me a pointed look—“headed that way. Kenna would know to get Jocelyn away from Maybell before she could make a scene.”
Kenna and Galen’s cabin would give us plenty of privacy. I had no doubt the Lathams would all be making their way to Brooke’s cabin soon enough, then it would one big happy family. All twelve descendants together. A chance for us to fire off various forms of magic as we guessed our way through a handful of ancient clues that might or might not help us stop this curse.
At the outskirts of the crowd, Wes directed those still lingering around to head into the residential area near the town hall. He told them to pack into any homes that were available and to stay away from the forest. When a few people shouted about protection from the curse, Wes and Donovan made it clear that everyone would be safer if they stayed away from us. Those who still tried to argue caught one look from Cole and promptly shut their mouths.
I chuckled. Even though I was still mad at the fucker, I couldn’t help but respect the way he commanded a room. While he wasn’t nearly the prick everyone assumed, he still had the kind of presence that no one wanted to test.
As the crowd shuffled toward the residential area farther inland and firmly intact, Maybell Ketner began to make a beeline for me. Finn was faster though. He led us into the sea of moving bodies, attempting to lose us in the bobbing heads of the residents.
But we stuck out like sore thumbs. Power radiated off us in ways that set us apart from everyone else. Even when we couldn’t access our magic, the people around us could still feel it. They separated themselves from us like sheep hovering at the edges of an electric fence.
That didn’t stop Maybell from zeroing in on us like a heat-seeking missile. Christ. I was not in the mood for this shit right now.
She hustled around the crowd, stopping in front of me with her hands on her hips. I couldn’t dodge her without making it worse. The soft brown of her eyes had hardened to chips of flat, unforgiving earth. The muscles in my back wrapped around my spine the way they used to when my mom would take me in for my long overdue shots.
“Rafe, what the hell were you thinking?” She kept her voice low, but her venomous hiss drew the attention of a few passersby. Exactly what I didn’t want.
Taking her arm, I steered her toward the woods. Dark, curling smoke leaked out of the trees, pooling at our feet. She shuddered, but as Galen approached, the smoke slithered back into the underbrush. I held up a hand to keep him at a distance. Once he saw the threat was out of the way, he gave me a short nod and caught up with Finn.
I turned back to Maybell, frustration and guilt clawing at my insides. Did I even know how to feel anything else these days? She’d been like a mother to me and she was only lashing out because she was hurt. But it still pissed me off.
I kept my gaze level and my voice even. “I know you’re not going to suggest I should’ve left Jocelyn in her room while the hotel was crumbling, right?”
She chewed on her bottom lip as if that was exactly what she’d been about to suggest. “I don’t like the way she was looking at you.”
The idiot schoolboy in me, who’d had a painful crush on the girl who had always seemed so far out of reach, wanted to ask how Jocelyn had looked at me. But that wasn’t a card I needed to show Kyle’s mom, of all people. “You see what you want to see.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Rafe Wilder. You’re practically one of my own. She was looking at you like she always used to when she was with Kyle. Like she thought she could have her cake and eat it too.” She sniffed. “I thought you were smarter than this. I thought you saw the snake under that pretty face.”
She continued to go off about what a viper and a traitor Jocelyn was, but my mind was reeling. Unable to stand the poison she was hurling a second longer, I laid my hands on her shoulders to still her ranting. “What do you mean, how she looked at me when she was with Kyle? She didn’t look at me back then.”
Not as anything more than a friend. I’d barely been able to string two words together around her until she was fully off-limits. It took that many years for my tongue to stop tying itself into knots. We became close while she was with Kyle, but he’d always been the common denominator in our relationship. If he hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t have noticed me at all.
Maybell gave me a pitying look. “For such a handsome boy, you sure were short-sighted about the way the girls would look at you.”
I huffed. Short-sighted my ass.
I knew how girls in school looked at me, but I wasn’t talking about the ones who looked at me like I was a snack. A fun little sweetly-flavored thing they could treat themselves to before they dated a respectable guy they could bring home for dinner. Finn didn’t mind being a snack. He spread his Fruit Roll-Up all over town before he hooked up with Thora, and after she left, but I wasn’t built like him. I didn’t like being used in that way.
“It doesn’t matter now.” Maybell waved her hand. “That’s all done and over. But what I’m worried about is you. Don’t let her sink her claws into you. I couldn’t stand it if she used you the same way she used and discarded Kyle. If something happened to you—”
“Stop.” My voice came out a little more forceful than I’d intended, but my patience was running thin and I needed to know what the hell she was talking about. “Jocelyn never wanted me like that. She still doesn’t. If she’s looking at me any sort of way it’s because of this magic we’ve got running through us that has a side effect neither one of us can help.”
“Oh, I know all about the side effect. Betsy Newcomb won’t stop going on and on about how indecent the whole thing is, but it’s not like you asked for that particular affliction.” She paused, her eyes narrowing on me. “You keep saying Jocelyn wasn’t looking at you a certain way, but you haven’t said anything about how you were looking at her.”
My mouth went dry. Definitely not a conversation I wanted to have with Kyle’s mom. Especially because I hadn’t gotten around to having it with Jocelyn yet before everything went to hell. “I’m not doing this right now. I love you, Maybell, but you’ve got to let this vendetta go. There are things you don’t know, things I’m not at liberty to talk about, but Jocelyn is my partner.” I took a deep breath. “And after we’re finished with this curse, she’s going to be a part of my life. I’m sorry if that hurts you.”
Even if I’d gotten Jocelyn’s permission to talk about what Kyle had done to her, I don’t think I could’ve done it. Maybell’s son was gone. What good would that do? It would only cause more hurt and she was hurt enough, and there was no reason for her to know. She was never going to forgive Jocelyn, and Jocelyn didn’t need her to.
Maybell put her hand over her mouth, her eyes filling with tears as she backed away. “No. Not you too. Please, Rafe. Don’t let her take you from me too.”
“She’s not taking anything from you.” I squeezed Maybell’s arm, but she’d already stopped hearing me. “I’m still here for you. I’m still going to take care of you.”
“Not with her at your side.” Maybell’s lips stiffened. “I won’t stand for it. I won’t be cordial to the woman who caused my son’s death.”
“Kyle caused his own death by being a drunken idiot who never should’ve gotten behind the wheel of a car.” My gut clenched painfully as she gasped and stumbled back like I’d slapped her, but it was the damn truth, and it was past time for her to face that much at least. “He could’ve hurt a lot more people than himself that day.”
“I can’t believe the words coming out of your mouth right now. He never would’ve drunk like that and driven around like a madman if he hadn’t just been left at the altar.” Anger and betrayal flashed in her eyes. What the fuck was I doing? I’d never meant to draw this kind of line in the sand. “She already got to you. I knew it would happen the second I heard that Wes had locked you in her room, but I’d hoped Kyle’s memory would’ve meant more to you.”
“I don’t want to pick sides.” I lowered my gaze, physically unable to stomach the hate I saw in her expression. Fuck. It was never supposed to be like this. “Please don’t force my hand on this. You’re not going to like what I’ll say.”
“You’d pick her, wouldn’t you?” The tremor in her voice had me lifting my head. Jocelyn wouldn’t back down from her choices. She’d face them with her head held high, and so would I. Maybell nodded sadly. “You already did. You picked her over Kyle’s memory.”
“I can’t be indebted to him anymore.” The words tasted like soot on my tongue. “And I can’t keep blaming Jocelyn for a tragedy that was never her fault.”
“So that’s it then.” She shrugged in resignation. “Just like that, you’ve tossed your second family on the rocks for a pretty face.”
“I haven’t tossed you on the rocks. I’m still here if you need me.”
Maybell let out a short, derisive laugh. “But only if I’ll accept her.”
“I’m not asking you to accept Jocelyn. She wouldn’t ask that of you either. But if you want me to continue to be in your life like I have been, you have to accept that she’s important to me and she’s going to continue to be a priority.”
She jutted her chin out. “I can’t do that. I won’t do that to Kyle.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Chest aching, I wrapped her up in a hug both of us understood was a goodbye. “Take care of yourself, Maybell. I love you like my own mother. Always have and always will.”
And with that, I walked away from the woman who had given me a second family when I’d come to the island with none.
I made the trek to Kenna and Galen’s cabin alone, hoping the curse would make a play for me. Smoke leaked out of the trees and hovered at the edge of the retaining wall, but it didn’t come any closer than that. Unfortunately.
There was a lot of shit rolling around inside my head and I was begging for a fight. I supposed I could’ve tried to beat the shit out of Galen again, but the dude was surprisingly agile. He’d just end up kicking my ass.
With nowhere to put this excess energy, I did what I did best. Turned all that sickly rage and poison I was carrying around in on myself.
Would it have been that fucking hard to lie to Maybell? But even as I thought that, I knew I’d only be prolonging the inevitable. Because I had no intention of letting Jocelyn go again. She didn’t trust me, and there were things she was holding back that didn’t let me fully trust her, but I wanted to. Fuck me. I wanted to trust her so bad.
And as much as I understood that we had larger things at stake, I couldn’t stop myself from turning over what Maybell had said about the way Jocelyn used to look at me. I dug through my brain, picking apart all my memories. Through those painful and awkward days of being so overwhelmed by Jocelyn’s light and laughter and gorgeous eyes that my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth every time she talked to me.
And how, after a while, she just stopped bothering to try.
Until she started dating Kyle. Once I was no longer in danger of confessing my feelings and falling at her feet like a pathetic sap, then I could talk to her, no problem. But that ended up backfiring like a motherfucker.
Because once I learned who she was beneath that gorgeous surface, I was fucking cooked. Done for. There was never going to be anyone for me other than my best friend’s girl.
And that made me lower than dirt.
I didn’t deserve the name Rafe. He was a thief and a pirate, sure. But he’d also been loyal to his friends, selfless to those in need, and good to his woman. I wasn’t any of those things.
As I made my way up the walk, laughter from the backyard floated on the air. I could make out everyone’s voices, including Jocelyn’s light and airy voice. There was a note of joy in her chatter. Something I hadn’t heard in far too long. Not since long before she’d ever been maneuvered into marrying Kyle.
Once again, that old familiar ache in my chest began to throb.
Was this how it always should’ve been? Did fate slam us together long before that earthquake erupted and we’d just been too in our shit to notice? What the fuck did that say about me as a person? That I let fear and obligation keep me from the one person who needed me most? How could she ever forgive me for abandoning her after Kyle died?
How could I forgive myself?
I rounded the cottage and stopped short at the sight in front of me. My brothers sat around a fire with Kenna, Thora, and Jocelyn. And they all looked so right, so perfect together. Once again, the thought that it should’ve always been like this invaded my mind.
As Jocelyn swung her endless strawberry locks over her shoulder, she caught my eye and gave me a soft smile. One I didn’t deserve, but that made me feel whole and alive like I hadn’t in over four years. Like I hadn’t since the night of that accidental kiss.
Without letting myself overthink it, I approached her with a fire burning through my blood. She must’ve seen something in my expression because her lips parted and she stood to face me. Goddamn, she was beautiful. Wrapping my arms around her waist, I did what I should’ve done years ago. Tugged her against me and kissed the hell out of her.
On purpose, no magic involved.
