“Fuck.” Duke cradled his head in his hands. “I never would have hurt you.”
“She asked you to leave,” Henry said.
“This isn’t over.” Duke pointed at the two of us. “Next time, don’t hide behind my sister, you asshole.”
“Come on, honey.” Sariah finally decided to help diffuse the situation. She linked her arm with my brother’s and tugged him back toward the drive.
“We need to get some ice on that.” Henry pulled back enough to smooth the hair away from my forehead. “If he ever touches you again like that, I’ll kill him.”
“It won’t come to that. I’ll talk to him and work it out. You’ve got to tell me what happened between the two of you, though. Why is he so mad at you?”
Henry shook his head. “He found out I had feelings for you. Senior year of high school, I was going to ask you to the Valentine’s Day dance.”
“What?” My heart melted. I hadn’t gone to any of the dances during high school. The only person I’d ever wanted to go with was Henry, and I never suspected he had the kind of feelings for me that I had for him. “Why didn’t you?”
Henry shook his head. “I figured the decent thing to do would be to ask him for permission. He was like a brother to me back then. I wasn’t going to go behind his back, and I was done trying to pretend I wasn’t completely in love with you.”
“What happened?”
“I told him I wanted to ask you to the dance. He flipped out. Told me I’d betrayed him and if I ever thought of touching you, he’d kick my ass.”
A sob threatened to work its way up my throat as I thought about what could have been, what my brother’s anger had stolen from me. “Duke can be pretty scary when he’s mad.”
“I wasn’t going to let that stop me. He was a good friend, but what I felt for you was bigger than that. I knew it then, Devyn. You were meant to be mine. So the next day I drove over to your place with a bouquet of red roses, ready to ask you to the dance.”
“What are you talking about?” Heat prickled my cheeks. I was so angry with my brother. “Where was I? I never saw you.”
“You weren’t home, but Duke was. He told me you deserved better. That he wasn’t going to let me drag you down. Then he kicked the shit out of me. I didn’t fight back, because I realized he was right. I thought love would be enough, but he made me realize I had nothing to offer you. That’s when I knew if I wanted to be enough for you, I needed to create the kind of future you deserved.”
My heart twisted. “I loved you, too. You didn’t need to do anything else to deserve me. Why didn’t you talk to me?”
Henry shook his head. “I figured if I got through college and found a good job, I could come back for you. Then I fucked up and found out I was a dad. I couldn’t saddle you with that. Everything Duke said about me was true.”
“No.” I put my hand on his cheek. “Don’t ever think that about yourself. Love means accepting a person for who they are. I loved you, Henry. I love you still.”
“That’s why I’m not walking away this time. I’ve worked hard and I’m in a position now to be able to give you the future Duke never thought I could.”
“I’m not walking away this time, either. He’ll come around or he’ll lose us both.” I gave myself over to Henry’s kiss, happy he’d finally shared what had gone down between him and my brother and driven him away back then. Now I just needed to figure out a way to get them both to leave the past behind them.
10
HENRY
It took every bit of willpower I possessed to leave Devyn and head back to Dallas. I didn’t want to go. All I could think about was finding a way to get back to her as quickly as possible. Within forty-eight hours, I’d updated my resume and reached out to a few contacts to see if there were any job opportunities near Broken Bend. Even getting closer to Austin would be okay.
We’d made plans for Graham and me to head back down to Broken Bend over the weekend. So when I walked into work on Thursday morning, all I could think about was surviving the next two days.
“Maxwell, in my office.” My boss caught me as I entered the building.
“Let me set my stuff down first.” I headed toward my desk, but he stopped me.
“It’s better if you keep it with you.”
I followed him into his corner office and sat down while he shut the door behind me. “What’s up?”
“You asked me about using company resources for a charity project.” He sat down behind his desk and clasped his hands together. The smirk under his scraggly mustache told me he was enjoying this.
“That’s right.” My jaw clenched. I knew what was coming. I’d been caught.