Theirs (8 page)

Chapter Seven

Rusty tensed as Alex got closer. Dressed in dark blue scrubs, she still looked amazing to him.
He did
notice
,
however, that she looked tired. Perhaps they should have given her time to get used to seeing them again, but he had never been accused of being a patient man.

Seeing her the night before had only reaffirmed his decision to come here.
The last
eight
years had been torture. There were so many times when
he
had been tempted to drive to her home, toss her over his shoulder caveman style and drag her back home kicking and screaming if necessary
. Once
,
he
drove the six hours just to catch a glimpse of her.
He’d waited outside the hospital she worked. It was stalkerish and crazy but seeing her for that brief couple of minutes as she’d walked to her car had been worth it. It had taken a considerable amount of willpower not to get out of his vehicle and throw himself at her mercy, beg her to come back to them. But he realized it would ruin the plans he and Cash had in the works. Just knowing that she was doing well had sustained him through the next few years as he and Cash set about their plan to win her back the proper way.

Alex’s express
ion
seemed wary as she approached them
.
It was clear she wasn’t happy to see them and he couldn’t exactly blame them. From her perspective they had ignored her existence for the past eight years which was certainly not the case.
“How long have you been waiting out here?”

Rusty put his hands behind his back to keep himself from pulling her into his arms. “About twenty minutes. We figured you’d be getting home around this time
.”

She raised a brow. “So you’re stalking me now?”

“Not exactly. Are you going to let us in?”

Alex shrugged. “
Do I have much of a choice?”

“Not unless you’d like your neighbor to call the police on us for loitering. You wouldn’t do that to us would you?” Rusty teased.

“As tempting as that sounds, I’d rather not get the police involved. Look, I know you guys are here to talk or whatever, but I’m very tired and not in the mood for a long visit, so if you could just make this stop a short one, I’d appreciate it.”

Rusty could tell that Alex didn’t plan on making it easy for them but he was up for the challenge.
“
In that case, we’ll just keep coming back until you fully understand our intentions.”

Cash moved in between them
as if to diffuse the situation
.
He held up two large brown paper bags.
“We b
r
ought dinner.”

“I’m not that hungry
,
but thanks anyway. Come on in.”

He and Cash followed Alex as she led
them
to her apartment. Rusty couldn’t help but
watch
the generous swell of her ass as her hips swayed from side to side
.
His dick jumped to attention. Alex had put on a few pounds these last few years but they suited her, making her already abundant curves even more inviting.
The sudden urge to sample those curves was a temptation he was trying awful hard to resist.
He had barely
slept
last night as thoughts of burying himself between her sil
ky thighs again kept him awake. Rusty had a feeling he was in for another sleepless night.

Once they stepped into her apartment
,
Alex threw her keys on the table and kicked
off her shoes
. “Why don’t you two take a seat at the dining table and I’ll get some plates and utensils.”

Rusty settled into a chair across from his brother. “Well
,
at least
,
she didn’t tell us to leave. We’re making progress.”

Cash nodded slowly but Rusty could practically see the cogs turning in his brother’s head. That wasn’t always a good thing.

“What? Every time I see that look in your eyes, you usually say something you know I won’t like.”

Cash raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m not sure I like what I’m about to say either, but maybe we’re going about this the wrong way. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to convince her to come back to Bradfordville.”

Rusty shrugged.
“
I thought we agreed to just take.”

“That’s called kidnapping, a felony offense in all fifty states.”

“But she belongs to us. The spark is still there. You felt it and I damn sure know she did too.”

“
Sure the feelings are still there obviously, but it’s going to take a lot of convincing Alex to act on them.”

As much as his brother made sense Rusty wasn’t ready to admit he was right. “We can convince her when we get back to Bradfordville.”

“And
have her hate us more than she already thinks she does? No. We made the mistake of rushing things before. This time
,
we
’
re going to do things right.”

“So what do you propose we do?”

“We’ll give her the time she needs.”

“That could take weeks, months or maybe even years. We have responsibilities back home. And Miss Ida Mae is an old lady. It’s not like she’ll be around forever.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, but as for the factory, we’ll just have to commute. We can come on the weekends if we have to.”

The raw ache of disappointment ate at Rusty’s soul. It had been his sole intention of not leaving here without Alex but Cash’s words held merit. It wasn’t about what he wanted. They had to consider Alex’s needs. She would be the one who would have to pack up a life she’d made for herself in the past eight years and leave her job and her friends behind. These weren’t things they had considered when they decided to come see her. Impatience
had gotten them all in a jam the first time and it had nearl
y destroyed them the second
. There wouldn’t be a third.

Rusty didn’t get a chance to respond to his brother because
Alex returned
with an armful of items
. She
placed some cups, eating utensils and soda on the table before taking a seat.
“
Looks like an awful lot
of food
for just the two of you
.”

Cash grabbed one of the bags
and removed the
containers
from it
.
“Are you sure you don’
t want anything?
We got all your favorites.
Sesame chicken
, sweet and sour spare ribs
, shrimp fried rice
and
hot wings.”

Her eyes widened as she stared at buffet laid out in front of her. “There’s no way I could eat all of that
,
even if I did have much of an appetite.”

Rusty pushed a pizza box her way and opened it. “We also got you this.”

Alex
licked her lips when she eyed what was inside. “Pineapple and ham pizza with extra onions.
I haven’t had one of these in ages.
You remembered?”

Rusty grinned. “How could we forget? You could eat an entire large by yourself but
afterward
, your breath could melt metal.”

Alex
laughed
. “It was almost as bad as when you’d
eat those gross garlic knots. Those things were pungent. You’d eat so many you could have killed a vampire.”

“I know. I kept a supply handy
to keep Tabitha away
.” The second
Rusty
said it, he wish
ed
he hadn’t.
It killed the silent truce they had seemed to form.
“Uh, well, if you’re not going to eat anything, I think I’ll have these wings.”

“It’s okay.
I’m not going to fall to pieces because you me
ntioned her name. You know what
?
I think I’ll
have something to eat
after
all
.
” She
grabbed
a slice of pizza and took a bite.

The three of them ate in an
awkward silence until Rusty couldn’t take it anymore. He pushed his plate aside. “We need to talk.”

Alex
slouched in her chair with a sigh
. “Then talk.”

“We want you to come back home with us,” Rusty stated plainly seeing no point in beating around the bush.

“I am home.”

Rusty crossed his arms against his chest and narrowed his eyes.
“Are you saying that because you really mean it or because you’re scared to give you
r
heart to us again?”

She held up her hands. “
Whoa
,
there boy. You’re getting way ahead of yourself. First of all, I haven’t heard a peep out of either of your for eight years and then out of the blue I get these letter from your and you act like I’m supposed to drop everything because the might
y
Bradford men snapped their fingers. It doesn’t work like that.”

Cash shook his head. “It’s not like that at all. Rusty jumped the gun a bit but yes, the end game is for you to come home with us. But we’re willing to give you all the time you need to make a decision, just know that we’re not going to disappear from your life again.”

“Oh? Is that the case? It seems like it’s been pretty easy to stay missing from my life before now. What if I’ve moved on with my life and no longer want anything to do with either of you? Have you two considered that.”

Cash smirked. “Maybe that would have crossed my mind if you didn’t respond to my kiss the way you did. The magic was still there whether you care to admit it or not. You belong to us, always have and always will.”

Alex stood up abruptly. “You don’t own me and
it’s
might
y
damn presumptuous of you to think I want to rekindle something that
only existed in my head.
I gave you my heart,
body
,
and soul and you gleefully used me I didn’t
hear a word from either of you
when I was kicked out of my grandmother’s house. I was scared and on my own but you two weren’t there when I needed you.” A tear ran down his face and Rusty wanted to go to her then but he doubted she would accept his comfort.

Rusty pushed his chair out and stood up as well. He walked as close to Alex as she would allow. “We’re sorry for what happen. We had no idea our mother would do that to you. By the time we found out what had happened we had a bit of our own crisis to deal with. We’d gone to your grandmother figuring she would know where you were. We
told her to give you a message and she said she would.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “
Well
,
obviously she didn’t. I’m sure you already know that we haven’t spoken since the day she kicked me out.’

“We know that now but that doesn’t change the here and now,” Cash pointed out. “Maybe we handled things incorrectly by sending those letters instead of getting in contact with your directly, but I’m not imagining the way you tremble when we look at your or the way your gaze strays to our lips like you want to kiss us. Besides, would you still be so upset if you didn’t have any feelings for us?”

Alex opened her mouth but no words came out. She flared her nostrils before turning her back on them. “Of course I’ll always care about the two of you to some extent but this thing can’t happen again.

Rusty laughed without humor. “If you’re saying this because you don’t have feelings for us then I call bullshit. You’ve always been a horrible liar Alex.”

“I’m saying it because Bradfordville hasn’t been my home for a long time. I don’t ever think it was.
You two want me to go back to a place that made me extremely unhappy toward the end. You don’t know what it was like for me there. People looked down on me because they didn’t think I had the right to associate with the Bradford
s. I heard whispers
of ‘who does she think she is?’ What made living in that town was my friendship with you guys and I thought what we had was special but it was turned into something tawdry. Even if I did go back, how do you expect me to function around people who will never believe I’m good enough?”

Rusty
had never looked at it from her perspective but wasn’t going to allow a few small-minded people stand in the way of their happiness
.
“Screw those people Alex. They wouldn’t dare say anything to our faces.”

She finally turned to face them again. Her eyes were red and he wasn’t sure if it was be
cause
she was tired or from
crying
“Of cou
rse they wouldn’t say anything
to the golden boys, but they’d have plenty to say to me.
Do you know what it’s like to be called a whore to you face? To be spat at and treated like you’re a leper? Those last few days in town for me were a complete nightmare. It was like I had a huge scarlet A on my chest. And for some
reason
,
you two were nowhere in sight.
I tried to call you but I got no response. I didn’t dare go to your house because your mother probably would have had me arrested for trespassing and then my shame would have been complete.”

“We had no idea what our mother planned. If you’ll remember, it happened the weekend Rusty went for a visit to his college campus. I took him. Our mother probably planned it that way so we’d be out of the way,” Cash countered.

“But you had phones.”

Rusty began to pace the room. Something didn’t quite click. If she’d called them, why didn’t they receive her
calls?
“You’re right. I’m not sure wha
t happened but I know if we had
received any calls from
you
,
we
would have come back home right away. You’ve got to know that’s true.”

“Do I?
”