Brand Me (Imagine Ink Book 2) (23 page)

That was the real kick in the pants; he had inadvertently poked at the scars Richard had given her, and after he’d made her trust he was nothing like his
not-
brother. Tori was the absolute best thing to ever happen to him, hands down, and he stomped on what they had and scraped it off his shoe like discarded gum.

As much as he wanted to blame everything on the shit that had happened to him, he couldn’t. He would not be one of those people who went through life doing whatever the Hell they wanted, treating people anyway that suited them, then play the victim card.
Oops, sorry, but I can’t help myself, I suffered through shit.
Nope, he would not be like that, besides, he couldn’t if he tried.

Michael was loath to admit it, but there was a part of him last night that recognized it was Tori and not Wendy, a very small and mute part, but still it counted. It was like his mind needed to handle it in the way it did so he could move on. Sadly, it kind of worked. He had exorcised a demon and reconciled the fact that just because he could have physically stopped Wendy, mentally, he couldn’t have, and in his book, that was still an assault.

He had repeatedly said no, and even if in the eyes of the law it was not, it was to him and he would deal accordingly. And if she was pregnant and it was his child, he would cross that bridge when he came to it. If the law couldn’t punish her, the chance of him getting full custody wasn’t very good without a way to prove her unfit. Another thing to reconcile, seeing his attacker every other week as they traded their kid back and forth like goods.

When he got back to his cabin, he started making himself something to eat. He didn’t have much of an appetite, but he had to fuel his body. However, without Tori, nothing in life had flavor, not even food. She was his spice, his hot sauce, and without her, it was bland city.

Stirring the small steaming pot, he let his mind wander back to children. First, to the one’s he saw Tori corralling by the beach in his dreams, then to the one he might share with a woman he couldn’t stand the sight of. Once again, his mind went to how he could love a child from her, then he heard Tori’s voice saying, “…don’t pay interest in worry by borrowing trouble,” when she was recounting her e-mail. She was right, or more accurately, her mother was right. He decided to heed the elder Ms. Reid’s advice and not borrow trouble; so instead, he returned his attention to the stove.

Then, he heard the snowmobile. He moved to the door and flung it open so he could watch her approach, to see his future coming back to him, his home, but he was devastated to see her turn and head down the trail toward town and away from him.

He closed the door and stared at the food he couldn’t eat; he couldn’t stomach a single bite. The best thing in his life just rode away and all he had was some clothing that still had her scent clinging to them, some vivid memories of what was and what could have been, and two words on a piece of paper.

I Care
.

Michael curled up with her champagne camisole and the precious piece of paper and cried. Tears for so many things, tears a long time coming, but noticeably, none of the tears were for himself this time. They were for everyone else, but mostly, they were for her—the woman he never thought he needed, never knew he wanted yet meant everything to him in such a short period of time.

After a while, he remembered his personal Wi-Fi.
Why did I not think of it before?
He could have given her peace of mind ages ago by giving her a connection to her family and info on Walker and Erika…if the damn thing worked out here, anyway.

God, I’m such an idiot
. Just add that to the growing list of ways he’d failed her. At the rate he was going, he would need to start volumes to record all his dick moves. After wiping his eyes on her cami and pausing to inhale the sweet vanilla mint smell of her skin, he grabbed his laptop and set it on the table. He dug through his bags to locate the dongle, which took twenty fucking minutes.

He plugged it in and waited until a thrill ran through him when a single crappy bar of Internet service appeared. Immediately locating the yellow pages for Walton County, he found the number he was looking for. Using an Internet call service, he prayed the connection held out long enough. He took a deep breath, and waited for an answer.

“Imagine Ink, you got Big Dax here, tell me where you want it.”

Taken aback by the gruff voice and the strange hello, it took Michael a minute to collect himself.

“I’m looking for Walker Reid?”

“Business or personal?”

“Um, personal, is he available?”

“He’s a little tied up at the moment, maybe you can give me the highlights and we can take it from there? Deal? So, how do you know my man, Walker?”

Um, okay, curiouser and curiouser. Did he just take a trip down the rabbit hole or was he getting pulled into tattoo parlor therapy? Does everyone my woman knows try to fix people?

“Okay, my name is Michael Brande and I’m…a friend of Tori’s. I was hoping to catch up with her brother before she got home. If he’s too busy right now, can you find out a good time to call him back? I really need to talk to him and I’m not in a cell area right now, so I don’t have the option of getting a call back.”

“Well, Michael Brande, friend of Tori’s, Walker isn’t here right now, he just brought his wife and baby home from the hospital, but I wouldn’t expect you to know that since Tori is out in the middle of nowhere right now and if you’re out of cell range, I’m suspecting you are too, am I right?”

What the fuck?
As weird as it was, or maybe Michael just needed a sympathetic ear, he wanted to talk to Big Dax. In their conversations about back home and family and friends, Tori had painted Big Dax as some sort of larger-than-life lumberjack Viking-looking dude, with a keen sense of people and a heart as big as Texas.

“Um, yeah. I’m in the middle of nowhere, but Tori left earlier, she’s flying back late tonight. She just got a partial e-mail from her brother, but it was actually from January. She knows there was some sort of accident and that Walker and Erika are together and have a baby girl, but that’s the extent of it. That’s all the communication she’s had from home.”

A low whistle preceded Dax’s next chilling statement. “She doesn’t know the half of it. Melanie and Erika were in one Hell of a wreck. By the time Walker found them over at a hospital in Holmes country, Erika was in bad shape and Melanie was already gone. Luckily, Erika’s on the mend, and little Willow is just too adorable for words. Now Walker has his girls home, finally.”

Michael’s chest constricted at what Tori would come home to. “Melanie’s dead?” he breathed.

“Yeah, the good news is it was instantaneous, she didn’t suffer. Had you ever met Melanie?” Michael suspected that Dax already knew the answer, it was obvious in his voice. He seemed to know a lot—a very wise-sounding man, one of those people who could see things that others overlooked, or in this case, hear things. It seems Tori was correct when she claimed Big Dax was very attuned to people on an unseen level.

“No, I only just met Tori here in Tennessee, well not exactly, I met her on the flight out here and we happened to be staying at the same place.”

When he paused to take a breath, Dax jumped in to fill the silence. “Same place, huh, so tell me, what has you urgently reaching out to her brother. Don’t tell me you aren’t desperate, because I can hear it. So, spill, I’m a decent listener without a client in the chair right now. Lay it on me.”

“Well, I guess the cliff notes are she was dating my married brother, who as it turns out, isn’t my brother at all, which was news to me. Also, he is very much married, which was news to her. He tried to kill her and destroy me, so we commiserated together for weeks while snowed-in. Until I turned into an even bigger ass than him and hurt her feelings pretty bad. I just wanted to make sure someone she cares about, who cares about her, is there to meet her when she arrives. She’s going to need a shoulder to cry on. She’s been through a whole Hell of a lot these past few months, and now it seems like she has a lot more waiting for her. I knew Walker probably wouldn’t be able to be there with what happened and all, but I was hoping he could get Melanie to do it. Now, well, now that’s not a possibility, I don’t know who to call. Poor Tori, after everything she’s already been through, that I put her through, she won’t even have her friend to lean on.”

Michael knew his voice was on the rise, but he was losing his shit. Big Dax kept quiet and just let him work through it.

“Could you do it? I know she adores you. Or, could you call her parents, her mom, that’s who she needs, her mom. If you give me her number, I’ll make the call if my connection holds out.” Michael could barely keep up with the words and thoughts rapid-firing from his mouth, so he didn’t expect Dax to be able to, but he obviously did.

“So, tell me, Michael Brande, friend of Tori, do you love her? I take that back, that’s not a real question, the real question is what are you willing to do to prove it?”

That’s twice now someone has asked him that. Too stunned to answer, Michael just made a series of incoherent sputters.

“Don’t worry, Michael, I will see to it her mother and myself are at the airport waiting for her. Don’t worry about what is going on with the Reid clan, we’ll take care of Tori and ease her through this. We’ll even shelter her from Richard and everything else that we can while she heals, but we can’t keep her isolated from
everything
, you dig?”

If Michael wasn’t mistaken, there was censure and warning in the other man’s voice. “We can’t protect her from things outside our little circle. So, when she picks up the papers, and she will, we can’t armor her from the pain and hurt that will bring her. We won’t even be able to pick up her pieces and put ‘em back together, only you can do that if you’re willing to.”

“I don’t…”

“Sea oats and waves.” Dax was kind of talking to himself about something, and then turned his conversation back to Michael. “Did you know that sea oats prevent erosion? Those tiny wispy stalks are pretty freaking amazing. Alone, they can’t really do anything spectacular other than shake and bend in the harsh sea air, but together, two becomes many. And in bunches, they can literally hold back the destruction of an ocean. How awesome is that? I think you need a new table.”

“What?” Michael was so fucking confused, this man was talking in tongues or something.

“Never mind, you’ll understand soon enough, or maybe you won’t. Anyhow, time for talking to me is over, it’s time for action. Either you bring your ass back to Florida and you grovel at Torionna’s feet, beg her forgiveness, and become the glue she needs to hold her pieces together, or you, Michael Illanipi Brande, go ahead and marry your fiancée Tonya Beverly Richmond in a lavish country club ceremony this spring and never darken Tori’s doorstep ever again.”

The call abruptly ended and Michael just sat there staring at the computer, digesting the strangest conversation he’d had in pretty much forever. It finally hit him…
that bitch
. Tonya had really done it; she printed their announcement in the papers—papers Tori would read, and he wouldn’t be there to explain or comfort. Shit, he was causing her pain, even from a distance.

He threw the laptop against the wall and it smashed into the stone face of the fireplace. That was his only connection to the outside world. To Tori.
Fuck.
There wasn’t another living soul up here at this time of year; he’d already checked, twice. No other cabin had a functioning vehicle other than a boat, which couldn’t do shit for him but take him around a slushy lake.

Since Tori took the snowmobile, and John wasn’t due for a month, Michael was stuck—stuck in this Hell knowing Tori would be facing major heartache, some because of him, and he couldn’t do a damn thing to explain or ease the sting.

Once again, he’d let her down. It seemed to be his milieu lately. He didn’t even have to lift a finger to do so. Apparently, it fucking came naturally. Michael vowed he’d find a way to make it up to her. He didn’t have a clue how to make that happen, but he would die trying. Because he realized, life without her meant nothing; Hell, it wouldn’t even be living.

He would get healthy, he’d make it up to her, and he’d break this fucking cycle he created. That was a fucking promise.

A
fter some raging
, and running, and thinking, and more anger, Michael finally made it to the bathhouse sometime well after dark. The dilemma of how to get out of this place was the one thing he didn’t have an answer to. Well, not the one thing, but no solutions at all came to mind. It was too far to hike down the mountain in this weather; he had the same chance of twisting an ankle and freezing to death as he did making it to town.

He could have called someone if he hadn’t destroyed his only possible means of communication.
Fuck, why am I such a moron?

At least Tori wouldn’t be alone when she arrived home, he’d seen to that. He enjoyed a small degree of comfort from knowing that. She would’ve landed hours ago, he thought, as the hot water beat down upon his achy body. Tori was with family and friends; he trusted Big Dax at his word. Tori had spoken a bit about Big Dax, and all the people back home, so he had no reason to believe he’d flake on her. She would know about Melanie by now and would be bawling her eyes out, probably thinking of punishing herself by giving up on her and Melanie’s dream.

She’d probably already held her niece, and hugged her other best friend, and cried, and more than likely slugged her brother for being an ass, but leapt into his arms anyway and gushed about how happy she was for them.
I bet she’s already rolled in the yard with her beloved Sixx and Mars.

Michael could picture it all as if he was there. With all the things going on around her, even the good, there would be a dull, haunted look in Tori’s beautiful eyes. He wondered who would be the first to notice, and if they would ask her about it. Would they assume it was just all the stuff she missed there or would someone wrap her up tight and just hold her until she wanted to share? Michael couldn’t reconcile the fact that person wouldn’t be him.

His next thought sent chills racing down his spine and ice coursing through his bloodstream as he toweled off and dressed. When would she see the paper? Would she know it was the last attempt of a desperate woman or would she believe he’d lied to her? Surely, after everything he’d told her, she would know Tonya was a nut job. But maybe not, maybe with all the shit he’d already heaped on her, she wouldn’t even question it. Maybe she would simply accept it as another shovel-full. That thought physical pained him.

Michael was pulled from his musings by a rumble. He finished dressing haphazardly, slipped into his shoes without socks, and burst out of the bathhouse. Fuck, he couldn’t see anything but lights. He didn’t have a clue who it was, but to be honest, he didn’t give a rat’s ass. It was already decided he would walk away from here, let Richard or the charity have it, whoever had claim now. He didn’t care. He would jump in that vehicle with whomever it was—even Wendy or the devil himself—and get back to Tori and shield her from at least a little, if he could.

When the lights neared his cabin, he realized it was a Bobcat pulling a snowmobile.
John.
John must be coming back for me knowing I’ll be an emotional wreck
. God, he loved that man like the brother he never truly had. Sprinting through the snow, Michael was waving frantically and calling to his friend.

Michael launched himself at the slightly-older man, letting the emotional floodgates open, and John said nothing, just let Michael get it out of his system. Finally, Michael pulled away, “Boy, am I glad to see you.”

“I can tell.” John chuckled as he made his way around the Bobcat to untie the snowmobile and drag it up next to the porch. After returning to Michael who maintained his place, he clapped him on the shoulder while retrieving some things from the front seat.

“Not that I’m not flattered to be appreciated, but to what do I owe this pleasure? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see you looking so hopeful, albeit panicked.” John placed his burden under his arm and rubbed and blew on his obviously-frozen hands. “Do you mind if we take this inside? I’m freezing my family jewels off out here.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, come on, I’ll build up the fire and we’ll talk.” Michael placed his hand on John’s shoulder and they made their way inside. “Sit.” Michael made short work of stoking the fire, thanks to building it up before he showered.

“Now, as I was saying, not that I’m not happy to see you, too, I just didn’t expect you to welcome me with open arms.”

Michael faced John with a puzzled expression. “Why?”

“Well, I did just take the woman you love back to Florida and she didn’t seem too pleased with you. Even shared a few details. I can’t say I’m not a little disappointed in your behavior, even if I understand where it came from. So, how are you with everything that went down?” he asked raising an eyebrow, “Really?”

“Not good. Okay, Hell, I don’t know yet. I know that hurting her destroyed me.” Pacing in front of the fire as he spoke, Michael let panic kick in. “I know that by leaving things the way I did and not being completely transparent, I’ve set her up to be blindsided and hurt even worse.” Michael finally stopped his perpetual motion and turned to John with his emotions raw. “I have to make it right, but I don’t even know where to start.”

“Well, I guess you start by assessing what you feel and what you want, then, you read these.” John tossed some papers on the coffee table.

“What are those?” Michael asked as he approached them as if they would bite him.

“Those are some things Tori gave me and asked me to bring them to you when I brought the snowmobile back.”

Michael scooped the precious papers off the scarred wood surface and walked backward until the hollow behind his knees bumped the bed, then sat. There was some legal crap, which he tossed aside in favor of the note addressed to him.

M
ichael wasn’t
sure how long he sat there after reading her letter before John broke through the chatter in his head.

“You all right? That must have been some letter to stun you silent like that. I can’t remember you ever being this speechless.”

“Well, it takes an extraordinary woman to silence me, especially when we’re not even in the same state.” Michael’s smile was sad, but tinted with hope. Tori was basically setting him free, all but telling him not to seek her out until he had his head on right. Even with the
Dear John
overtone, he felt so much love from her words. He wished she had said the actual words, though. They could sustain him, but something about “happily melted” nagged at him.
What the Hell does that mean?

That was going to be the first question he asked her when he showed up on her doorstep begging her to marry him. He had some work to do and it wouldn’t be easy, but what worth having ever was?

Michael jumped off the bed and started packing. “You ready to make the trip back to Florida tonight?” he asked John as he tore through the room like a whirlwind, getting things ready to close the cabin up for a very long time, at least until the charity or Richard claimed it.

“Sure, aren’t you going to read the others?” queried John, indicating the blue wrapped legal papers. Michael snatched them off the quilt as he passed and gave them to John.

“Do you mind, I have too much to do? Where’d they come from anyway?”

“Tori gave them to me, said she found them pinned to the wall with a kitchen knife.”

“Well, they’re probably contact info or transfer instructions for the cabins. Since I’m not staying the required time, and Richard already left,
and
told me about my parents, I guess I’m forfeiting the cabins. But I don’t care, Tori is worth more to me than anything.”

Silence prevailed for several moments before John broke it. “Says here you didn’t have to stay. Once Richard blabbed, the cabins automatically reverted to you. All you need to do is contact this firm here,” John pointed to a section of type, “and the paperwork will be drawn up. Congratulations, you get the money and the girl.”

That bastard lied about me having to stay, why am I not surprised?
“Not the girl just yet, but I will. I’ll prove to her she’s not bad for me in any way. She’s the best thing in my life, and I mean to make it a permanent situation, but first, I need to get home and do some damage control before she refuses to give me that chance.”

“I’m proud of you, Michael. I can already see a change in you from when we spoke. Whatever happened out here worked, and I believe it can only get better. I wish Troy could’ve found the magic you have, maybe he’d still be with us.”

Michael stopped and went to his friend. “In a way he did, he changed my perception. What you told me about him, that’s where the change started, that was the magic I found, John—Troy.”

John appeared too choked up to speak and patted Michael on the shoulder and there was a thank you written across his face. With John’s help, the cabin was locked up tight, his future was bright, and he was heading back home.

In more than one way.