Page 81 of Sterling Touch
“Cortland.” I cross my arms, displeasure in my tone; like he should have knownI’dbe here, and he shouldn’t be.
Cort rubs his thumb and forefinger across his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose for a second before sharply lifting his head and staring back at me.
“Vale.” He steps toward me, and I’d take a step back, but I don’t have anywhere to go. The wrong footing and I’ll be sliding down the embankment into the shallow waters below.
Instead, I hold my ground.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
I could ask the same of him, but I don’t. Even way back when, I’d been open to forgiveness. I’d been willing to make amends. Back then, I’d asked Cort how he was, knowing about his recent injury, hearing about his impending divorce. He’d been hurting, and he hadn’t even had to tell me. I felt it in the way he spoke. Seductive and sad. Maybe even shock and spite. If he taunted me, I’d turn tail and run away.
Only, I’ve never been afraid of Cortland Haven.
And now, I don’t answer him.
Instead, I turn my back and stare out at the water falling from a higher elevation. Mystery surrounds this place. Rumors as well. Some say you can see the face of a maiden in the water.Others mention a couple hidden behind the falls. Destined lovers, unnecessarily killed by a perceived enemy; each other’s family. VeryRomeo and Juliet.
Knox once told me if you drink the water from the Falls, your true love will be revealed. He’d also told me how he had sex on the higher ground near the river’s edge and almost gotten eaten alive by bugs. The story was probably supposed to be a precautionary tale. It failed. I’d had sex here once. With the man behind me.
His presence is suddenly closer to me. His breath against the side of my throat. I close my eyes.
“Vale,” he whispers.
The last time we were here, he cried in the space between my neck and shoulder. He was so broken, and all I wanted to do was fix him. Hold him together. Promise him things would get better.
Instead, he walked away and never looked back. And I hate how I’ve come to realize I might have always been waiting for him to return. To me. To us.
Shaking my head, I straighten my shoulders and force my eyes to stay aimed at the water rushing over the rocky edge above and plummeting to the shallower river below. If ever there was a metaphor for love?—
“I didn’t want to marry her,” he begins behind me, as if picking up where he left off last week. “I didn’t love her, but it felt like the right thing to do after so many wrongs.”
I close my eyes to the devastation. Stone’s girlfriend and his best friend cheated on Stone with each other.
A man who was prepared to propose to his girl.
A man who desperately needed his friend. His brother from another.
Yet, the three of them were irreparably torn apart through a poor decision and reckless hearts.
They fucked up—Bailey and Cort—and in their wake wasmy twenty-two-year-old brother, saddled with six younger siblings when he needed them most.
“The marriage was shit from the start,” Cort continues.
I never liked Bailey, but my brother loved her and later admitted he never could have asked her to join him on the path he took. Guardian to siblings. Giving up a career. Changing the course of his life.
“Things were . . . volatile between us. Hostile.” His voice trembles, anxious and hesitant, while I’m suddenly holding my breath as if sensing the worst is still to come. Wanting him to continue but also wanting him to stop.
My eyes stay pinned to the opposite side of the river.
Cort exhales behind me. “You mentioned touch aversion.” He pauses a beat. “Bailey is the reason.”
I feel the hard pinch of my brows. The confusion at his admission.
“She wasn’t loving or nurturing. No compassion. No comfort. She preferred . . . submission. Abuse, actually.”
I spin to face him. My mouth falling open with a thousand questions, and yet, none tumble off my tongue
“She’d scream and yell. Insult.” He closes his eyes a brief second. “Throw punches.”
