The collision was inevitable.
Things between Isaiah and me had been left unsettled for far too long.
A blind rage had sent me storming out of the house, and hours later as I sat behind the wheel of my truck, it hadn’t eased in the slightest.
My brother was supposed to get five years. Five. Years. I’d accepted his sentence. I’d accepted that five years of his life would be payment for taking the life of my baby. He’d lose five years for taking Shannon away from her family and friends.
Five years. Not three. He owed me two more years.
After the accident, Isaiah had been taken to the hospital too. While I’d been holding my daughter’s lifeless body, while Shannon’s parents had cried over her corpse, he’d been getting treated for some minor cuts and scrapes.
Then he’d been arrested.
Isaiah had sat in a jail cell as I’d arranged a funeral with Shannon’s mom and dad. My mother had pleaded with me to visit him, but I’d refused.
He needs to talk to you, Kaine.
It was an accident. He was barely over the legal limit.
He’s devastated.
I’d finally heard enough and left. I’d shut out the world, but not so completely that I hadn’t kept tabs on his case. Isaiah had pleaded guilty and been sentenced to three to five years in the state penitentiary.
How did a murderer get away with just the minimum sentence? Isaiah owed me two more years, and if the government wasn’t going to collect his punishment, then I would.
My foot pressed harder into the gas pedal. I was doing my best to stay close to the speed limit because I didn’t need a cop stopping me right now, not while I was this angry. But the miles were rolling by too slowly.
I wanted my retribution, then I wanted to forget I even had a brother.
Piper would be worried. I should have stopped an hour ago and called her from a pay phone, but I’d kept my eyes on the pavement and my truck roaring down the interstate to Bozeman.
An exit came up on my right, then flew past. It was better that I take care of this on my own. Piper didn’t need the stress, and until I confronted my brother and collected retribution, this anger would always loom over us.
I wanted her to marry me, but what the hell kind of husband would I make? I’d scared her today. I’d scared the Kendrick kids.
“Fuck.” I pounded my fist on the dash.
This had to stop. I had to end this. I couldn’t feel this way around Piper or my boys. They didn’t need to see their dad go fucking crazy over a phone call.
Today, I was ending this. And then I’d leave it all behind and never look back.
When I’d called Mom earlier, she’d been driving to pick up Isaiah. She’d claimed that his early release was a surprise to us all, but I didn’t know if I believed her anymore.
Ironically, the state penitentiary was between Lark Cove and Bozeman, in a town called Deer Lodge, along the interstate. When I’d driven past Deer Lodge before, I’d smiled to myself, knowing that Isaiah was behind the tall gates and barbed wire fences. This time as I drove by, I gripped the wheel harder, letting my teeth grind together.
My boot pressed the pedal faster. The speed limit was shattered now, so my only hope was not crossing paths with a cop. Mom had Isaiah with her and they were likely heading home. They were probably just an hour ahead of me, maybe less.
The afternoon light was already fading by the time I reached the Bozeman city limits. It wasn’t even four o’clock yet, but the sun was on its winter descent. Navigating the town streets didn’t take long, even though they were covered in patches of ice and snow. When I pulled up to Mom’s, two sets of footprints led up the snow-covered sidewalk toward her front door.
I threw open the door to my truck and stepped outside, ice crunching underneath my boot. The chill from the air did nothing to cool my blood—it had been boiling for hours, simmering for years.
The moment I rounded the hood, the front door to the house flew open. Mom rushed outside, pulling her sweater over her chest. Her dark hair was pulled back, the gray strands by her temples showing.
Before the car accident, she hadn’t had any gray hair. Her face hadn’t had as many lines around her mouth or wrinkles in her forehead.
“Kaine, calm down.” She raised her hands, but I didn’t stop as I marched for the house, plowing right past her on the sidewalk.
“Is he in there?” I jerked my chin to the house.
“We just got home,” she said, following on my heels. “He just got out of prison. Let him be. You two can have it out at a different time.”
“Let him be?” I turned and glared down at her. “Let him be? I’m not going to feel sorry for the bastard for being in prison. He deserved to be locked away. He should still be locked away for another two fucking years!” My voice boomed across the frozen yard.
“Kaine—”
“Damn you for choosing him,” I spat. “Damn you.”
“He’s my son.”
“So am I.”
A tear dripped down her cheek and she wiped it away. “You’ll understand when you’re a parent.”
“I was a parent. Until he took her away from me.”
Her face paled and another tear fell. I ignored it and spun back around for the door.
Isaiah was standing behind the screen, staring outside.
Mom gripped my elbow, trying to hold me back, but I easily shook her loose.
“Still hiding?” I called out.
Isaiah dropped his shoulders and pushed through the door. He walked slowly down the stairs, then met me on the sidewalk. His chin rested on his chest, his eyes aimed to our feet.
“Look at me,” I ordered, my fists clenching.
He lifted his eyes, and I staggered back an inch. Because the man in front of me was not my brother.
This was not the carefree, fun-loving young man who’d come into my shop and keep me company while I worked. This wasn’t the cocky, charismatic man who’d charm all the ladies whenever we were out for beers at a local bar. This wasn’t the boy who’d come home from school each day with a new joke for the dinner table.
This was not my brother.
This was a shrunken version of the boy I’d tried to raise into a good man.
Isaiah’s frame, which had always been leaner than my own, had withered. His jeans, probably the ones he’d worn to prison, now hung from his hips. His black Nike hoodie was baggier on his shoulders than it had been when I’d given it to him as a birthday present five years ago. He’d worn it so often back then that the color had faded to a dark gray.
His hands were shoved in his jeans pockets, and his shoulders were hitched up to his ears. His hair, which he’d always worn longer to be like mine, was now sheared short. Behind his ear, a black tattoo trailed down his neck.
But it was his eyes that had changed the most. They were dead. Completely void of anything but pain and loneliness.
My hands unfisted. One lifted toward his shoulder, ready to set it there before assuring him he’d be all right. Habit screamed for me to comfort him. But I dropped my hand back to my side.
He’s a killer.
I wouldn’t let his starved frame or hollowed cheeks make me forget who he really was.
He was a killer.
“You took my daughter. You owe me two more years for the ones she never got to live.”
Isaiah nodded, tears welling in his eyes.
Those tears made me hate him even more.
In a flash, I raised my fist and plowed it into his face. I felt a bone in his nose crack under my knuckles before I heard it.
“Kaine!” Mom screamed and tried to push past me to Isaiah.
“Shit,” he cursed as his hands went to his nose to catch the blood. He shuffled a few steps backward.
“Fuck you.” I closed in on him again, unwilling to let him escape. He’d earned that punch. And the one I threw next that sent him onto his ass.
I bent down and gripped the collar of his sweatshirt and hauled him up to his feet. With one hand, I held him up while the other pummeled into his cheek.
“Kaine! Stop!” Mom cried. “Please, stop!”
She pulled at my elbow again, jerking as hard as she could. But I was solid and unmoving. The rage I’d had for so long was loose, thirsty for more blood.
I shrugged Mom off, blocking her with my back, then hit Isaiah again. He stumbled on the icy ground, his arms flailing sideways to get his balance. But with my grip on his sweatshirt, he couldn’t fall.
His nose was bleeding, and I’d opened up his cheek. An eyebrow was split in two and the blood was seeping into his eye. But he didn’t make a move to fight back. He just looked at me with more of those fucking tears.
He looked at me and begged me to keep hitting.
I raised my fist again, ready to punish him over and over again until I didn’t have to see the pain in his eyes. Until some of the pain in my heart ebbed. But before I could drive my knuckles into his skin, a sound broke through the blood rushing in my ears.
“Kaine.” It wasn’t Mom’s voice.
I lowered my fist, glancing over my shoulder.
And there it was. The calm.
Piper stepped closer and slid her hand up my arm, pulling it down and away from Isaiah’s face. “Let him go.”
The grip I had on Isaiah’s sweatshirt released immediately.
He fell to his knees, and Mom rushed past me to kneel at his side.
Piper held my gaze and inched even closer to my side. Her touch extinguished the bloodlust I’d felt just seconds ago. And with it gone, all that was left was pain.
Agonizing, brutal, crippling pain.
I hadn’t just lost Shannon and the baby when they’d died. I’d lost my brother too. I’d lost my best friend and the person I’d loved second only to our mother.
I’d lost them all.
“Fuck.” I ran a hand through my hair as tears welled in my eyes. I gripped the strands hard, hoping the sting would keep the tears at bay. “I fucking hate this.”
Three years of pain slammed into my chest like a sledgehammer and the tears wouldn’t stop. I blinked furiously, willing them away, but the moment Piper wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed her body into mine, I lost it.
She rested her cheek against my heart, and I collapsed onto her. With the babies between us, I clung to her like a drowning man did a buoy.
“Piper.” My voice cracked.
“I know,” she whispered, her arms gripping me tighter.
The tears flowed off my face and into her hair. A sob wracked my chest, shaking us both. And she just held on tighter.
I wanted to have my baby girl back. I wanted Shannon to be alive, living a happy life. I wanted to hate Isaiah for taking them both. But the hate, it just wasn’t there. The rage was gone. With Piper in my arms, all I felt was the immense sadness I’d buried for so long.
So I cried.
And cried.
Finally, after there were no more tears left, I pulled myself together and let Piper go. I ran my hands over her hair, smoothing it down as I inspected her from head to toe.
“What are you doing here?”
She shrugged, swiping away a tear of her own. “I followed you when you left. I was worried.”
“How did you find me?”
“Logan helped. His other assistant, Sean, got your mom’s address for me. I guessed you’d come here and, well . . . I got lucky.”
I frowned at the idea of Piper behind a wheel, especially on a long drive through icy roads. “I’m sorry. I lost it and I shouldn’t have. I’m sor—”
She put a finger to my lips. “It’s okay.”
“Are you?”
“I’m fine. We’re fine.” She rubbed her belly, then looked past me to where Mom and Isaiah were standing. Piper smiled, then reached out to shake Mom’s hand. “I’m Piper. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“You too.” Mom took Piper’s hand but kept a wary eye on me. I didn’t miss the way she was shielding Isaiah’s body with her own.
“I know this is a bad time,” Piper said. “But I really, really have to pee. Can I use your bathroom?”
This woman. How could she make me laugh at a time like this? I let out a dry chuckle, then gripped her hand and led her past Mom and Isaiah into the house.
The minute she caught sight of the bathroom, she ran toward it, pulling down her pants without even closing the door. I shook my head, pulling it closed as she moaned a sigh of relief on the other side.
For her to arrive not long after me, it meant she hadn’t stopped along the way either. And she had to have been driving too fast. Normally, I would have scolded her for speeding, but in this case, it might very well have saved my brother’s life.
I stood sentry by the bathroom door, waiting as the toilet flushed and Piper came out.
“Phew.” She sighed. “Much better.”
“Good.” I tugged her into my arms again. “I’m sorry I left like that.”
“I know.” She rested her ear against my chest. These days, with her belly protruding out so far, she stood kind of sideways to hug me.
I wrapped one arm behind her shoulder and let my other hand rest on her stomach. Kick. Please, kick. I needed some kind of reassurance that the boys were okay. That I hadn’t caused them and Piper too much stress.
“Here.” Piper took my hand, sliding over to the far side. And just like that, a small tap hit my palm.
Thank you. “I love you. All three of you.”
“I know that too,” she whispered. “But we can’t stay in this hallway forever. You’ve got to go out there and face him. We have to put the past to rest so you can live for the future.”
“I can’t forgive him.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m just asking you to do whatever you can today to put it behind us.”
I blew out a long breath, then nodded.
Her arms squeezed me tighter before letting go to follow me down the hallway.
In the living room, Isaiah was sitting in a recliner, his head tipped to the ceiling and a rag pressed to his nostrils. Mom came rushing out of the kitchen with a bag of frozen peas for his cheek.
While she fussed over him, I led Piper to the couch to sit. Across from us, a fire was burning in the fireplace, making the room toasty and too hot. But Mom always kept a fire going this time of year, even when the furnace kept the house plenty warm.
Mom shot me a glare as she pressed the bag of vegetables to Isaiah’s face. She could be pissed at me all she wanted, but I refused to feel guilty for kicking his ass. If not for Piper, he would have gotten all that and more.
“I really thought you were going to shoot him.” Mom’s angry voice filled the room.
“What? Shoot—”
My gun. I was still wearing my gun from hiking earlier. No wonder she’d looked so panicked.
“I wish you had,” Isaiah whispered.
The air in the room turned ice-cold.
“Isaiah, don’t say that.” Mom covered her mouth with a hand, sinking down to the ledge of the fireplace. She reached over and covered one of his hands with hers—and the string of prison tattoos running up each of his fingers.
Isaiah slipped his hand free, pulling the bag of peas off his eye before sitting up. The rag to his nose was soaked.
“I broke your nose.”
He nodded. “Yeah. But I learned how to set it back in prison.”
With the rage no longer in control, it was harder not to feel bad for my brother. Just hours ago, I’d wished him two more years in prison. But now that I looked at him—really looked at him—I knew he wouldn’t have survived it.
Had he been tortured by other inmates? Or did the haunted look in his eyes come from torturing himself?
“How long?” I asked. We both knew I was asking about Shannon.
“Since the beginning.” He met my eyes. “I loved her since the beginning. After she moved in, we just hit it off. But with the baby and all that, I didn’t know how you’d react.”
“You should have told me.” It wouldn’t have mattered that they were together. He had to know that I didn’t have feelings like that for Shannon. Didn’t he? I’d told him. Hadn’t I? The only reason we’d been living together was because of the baby.
“We were going to tell you. We were just waiting for the right time.” A tear slid down Isaiah’s face. “I asked her to marry me. That night. She said yes, and I had three beers instead of two to celebrate.”
I closed my eyes, forcing a few breaths.
“Then I killed her.”
“It was an accident,” Mom corrected. “A tragic accident.”
“No, Mom. I killed them.” Isaiah’s shoulders collapsed. “I killed them, and I have to live with that.”
It wasn’t just me who’d lived these last three years in pain and anguish. One stupid mistake had cost us all.
I’d escaped to my mountain and found the beautiful woman at my side. I was getting a second chance to be a father and to live with the love of my life.
But Shannon was gone. Isaiah wouldn’t get a second chance.
No punishment I could ever deliver would be worse than the one he was inflicting upon himself.
As I looked into his eyes, the ones with the same colors as my own and Mom’s, the hatred I had for Isaiah disappeared.
“It was an accident.”
He shook his head. “No. I shouldn’t have had those beers. I wasn’t paying attention. I leaned over to kiss her and the next thing I knew, we were flying. Then they were dead.”
“Isai—”
“I killed them. I killed Shannon. I killed your daughter.” His words physically hurt to hear. “You deserve to hit me as many times as you want. I fucking hate me too.”
Hearing the self-loathing in his voice struck a nerve. The agony on his face was too much to bear. I stood from the couch and crossed the room. Mom shot up too, standing guard, but I sent her a look asking for some trust.
Isaiah watched me with wide eyes as I hauled him out of the recliner by his sweatshirt. And just like Piper had done with me so many times, I hugged him.
I hugged the five-year-old boy who fell off his bike and scraped the shit out of his knee, all because he’d been trying to keep up with me and my friends as we’d peddled around the neighborhood.
I hugged the ten-year-old kid who’d begged me to help him practice fielding grounders before a baseball game.
I hugged my brother, the one who’d always looked at me like I was his Superman.
Isaiah collapsed into my chest, gripping the back of my sweater as he broke down. He cried in my arms, sobbing his apology over and over again.
I clung to him, holding him upright. Because that was my job. I was his big brother. I was supposed to be there for him. Despite everything, the pain and hurt, he needed me.
I’d been so lost these last three years. I realized as I held Isaiah, so much of my floundering was because I’d missed him. I’d missed our family. Me and Mom and Isaiah had always leaned on one another. Without them, I’d just been drifting—until a beautiful woman came into my world and saved it with her magic cake.
I glanced behind me at Piper. She swiped a tear with the back of her hand and wiped her nose dry as she sniffled.
Would things have been different if Isaiah and I had talked years ago? Probably not. After the accident, I’d been in too much pain to listen to anyone. The only thing I could do to keep on living was to block it out. To run and deal with the grief alone. To be numb.
Then Piper had made me feel again.
It took a while for Isaiah to get his emotions under control. Even then, I suspected it was only temporary. For all the pain I felt, it had dulled these last few months. But for Isaiah, it seemed as fresh as it had been the night of the accident.
I let him go and he sank down in the chair. Mom’s hand went right back on top of his, and as I sat by Piper’s side on the couch, I realized why Mom had chosen him.
It wasn’t about choosing at all. It was about loving us both.
Isaiah had made the worst kind of mistake. The type that had forever changed the course of his life.
Maybe Mom had known I’d recover. Maybe she’d known I had the strength to move past it all. Maybe she’d known Isaiah needed all she had to pull through.
Maybe if I let go of my anger toward them, we’d all make it through.
“Breakfast tomorrow? Perkins?” It was Isaiah’s favorite from when we were kids.
Mom nodded. “I’d like that.”
Isaiah looked at me like I’d grown two heads but eventually blinked and nodded too.
“Meet you there at eight.” I stood from the couch again and took Piper’s hand to help her up.
“Nice to meet you both. See you in the morning.” Piper waved good-bye and followed me outside. She’d parked the Tahoe right behind my truck so I led her to the passenger door and helped her inside.
“What about your truck?”
“I’ll get it later. I want to show you something before it gets too dark.”
Once we were both buckled, I drove her across town and right to the cemetery. There was barely enough light left as I led her past snowy graves.
“There.” I pointed to the headstone.
“Oh, Kaine.” Her hand went to her heart. “It’s beautiful. Those angel wings. Thank you for bringing me here.”
“I wanted you to see it. I want you to see everything.”
Piper leaned into my side, wrapping an arm around my back. “I’m glad you brought me here.”
“Me too.” I held her close.
When I’d come here with Mom months ago, I hadn’t been sure if I’d return again. But now, I knew this was it. This was good-bye. Starting now, I was putting all of this pain behind us.
I’d never forget Shannon. I’d never forget the precious baby who I’d laid to rest by her side.
But it was time to stop letting a tragedy run my life. It was time to stop moving backward.
It was time to let the beautiful people in this one grave rest knowing I’d found my peace too.
