“You promised S—”
“Don’t.”
Luke cuts Seth off with a stop-right-there hand, his voice deadly serious. He closes his eyes. Her name has always been his undoing, his crutch, even when she was alive. He can’t have that. Not today.
He hasn’t cried in months, and he ain’t looking to start now.
Luke’s Adam’s apple bobs tightly and it’s all he can do not to choke on the brick in his throat, to force the next words from his mouth. “Don’t. Do not bring her up.”
A muscle jumps in Seth’s jaw as he stares down his brother. Then, his blue eyes shining, he looks away to compose himself.
The emotion has them both in a stranglehold.
Seeing his own pain reflected in Seth’s eyes, Luke’s reminded how much his brother loved Sal. She meant the world to Seth. They were best friends. Confidantes. Together, the two of them drove Luke fucking nuts.
The silence trails on long, uncomfortable, until Seth clears his throat, deciding to fill the silence with the obvious. “You heard we’re leavin’. Today.”
Luke heard alright. Mort, his ex-manager, called last night. Jace, his best friend and ex-bandmate, this morning. Trying to talk him into getting the Brothers Kincaid back into the music business. A revival of sorts, they called it. A way to get his mind off the last year.
Luke nods. “Yeah, I heard.”
It hits him then—sudden and strangling. The fear of losing someone else, his brother, his best friend, has his chest in a vise.
“You ain’t flyin’, are you?”
The question rolls off his lips, cool, collected, when really all Luke wants to do is grab Seth by the collar and keep him home. Safe.
“No,” Seth says in a low voice like he knows where Luke’s mind has gone. “Mort ain’t that dumb. We got a big-ass bus.”
“Good.” The words relax Luke. Calm the raging seas inside him. “Where’s Mort sendin’ you this time?”
Seth’s eyes widen and something like guilt flickers over his face.
Luke frowns. “What?”
“You didn’t know?” Seth’s ashen. “Shit, man. I thought Jace told you.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “We’re goin’ to Florida.”
Christ. Why does it have to be fucking Florida?
Bile rises in Luke’s throat, and his stomach twists. His fists, already clenched, curl even tighter. Once again, Luke’s mind mad-dog grabs onto the night of the crash. The night he lost everything.
The night he lost Sal.
The trip to Florida was meant to take her mind off things. The Alabama fiasco. The car accident. The miscarriage.
All of it—every shit-awful thing that had happened to Sal—Luke had wanted to take away.
And he had tried.
Luke had chartered a private plane and planned a beach vacation. Canceled every longstanding gig Mort had lined up. Sue me, he had told Mort. Sal’s more important. It was supposed to be a weekend full of sand and sun and the one thing Sal loved the most—the water. He wanted to get her on that beach, her sunglasses on, a book in her hand, sipping something strong to kill the pain of the past few months. It was what she needed.
It was what Luke needed too.
He’d do anything it took to make Sal smile. To earn her trust again. To bring the woman he loved back to him.
Only he never got the chance.
The plane went down during its descent into Florida. Luke woke in a hospital bed, the sound of Sal’s scream echoing in his ears. His family, his friends, his bandmates, worried over him, but he had barely a scratch, only a fractured clavicle.