Until We Fly (The Beautifully Broken) (26 page)

Her voice drifts off and she stares out the window, lost in her memories. 

“But you… you can leave now,” I point out.

She nods.  “I can.  I can do anything I’d like… because Maxwell will go to prison.  I’ve already called my attorney.  I’ll be divorcing him immediately. All will be well, Nora.  Finally.”

I feel Brand staring at me, and I look up, into the ocean blue eyes that I love.

All will be well.

Chapter Thirty-One

Nora

I cling to Brand, my arms wrapped around his strong waist as we fly down the highway that hugs the lake, on the back of his grandfather’s Triumph.

The wind whips my hair behind me and carries the scent of the lake, of the water and the sun, of Brand.  And there’s no place I’d rather be. 

“You ready to stop for lunch?” Brand calls back to me. 

“Sure,” I answer in his ear. 

He pulls to the side, to the little lookout I’d brought him to so many weeks ago, back when he was still limping, back before he was really mine. 

We crawl off the bike, take off our helmets, and he digs out sandwiches from a pouch on the back. 

As we eat at the picnic table, I prop my legs on his lap and he stares at me thoughtfully, the corners of his eyes turning up. 

“Tell me again what you said to Maxwell yesterday,” he tells me.  “When he called you from the jail and asked you to show leniency, to intervene on his behalf with the prosecutor?”

I inhale, exhale, then smile.  Because it had felt really damn good.

“I told him that prison is waiting for him.  And that I’ve heard prison life is hard for pansy-asses like him, so it’s a good thing he’s a Greene.  He can
do what it takes.”

Brand smiles, a smile full of pride and humor and sadness. 

“You’re badass,” he tells me with pride.  “Remind me never, ever to fuck with you.”

“Don’t you forget it,” I answer, putting all thoughts of Maxwell and William Greene out of my head.  I’m only focusing on the future now. 

“What will you do with your parent’s house?  I mean, now that everything is over.”

He shrugs. “I think I’ll just sell the land.  I don’t want it.”

I can understand why.  In the weeks since he signed over everything to his mother, she hasn’t bothered to contact him. 

“What about you?” Brand asks softly, reaching up with a large hand to tuck my windblown hair behind my ear. 

“Your mother will get everything at Greene Corp.  She said she’s going to divide it between you and Nate… you’ll be rich, Nora. In your own right.  Not working for your father, not under anyone’s thumb.  You can do anything you want.”

I nod slowly, staring out at the lake.  “I know. It’s a crazy feeling.  For as long as I remember, I’ve been told what I want:  to grow up, be a good Greene and head up the legal team for the company.  But now, I can figure out what
I
want to do. I can use my degree, or use Maxwell’s money to get another degree so that I can do something I actually want to do. Or we can travel the world. The possibilities are endless.”

I turn back to look at him and he stares down at me, his expression thoughtful.

I focus on the cleft in his chin. That lovely, adorable, sexy cleft.  I reach up and place my thumb in it, where it fits perfectly.

“We fit,” I tell him. He rolls his eyes and captures my hand in his. 

“In more ways than one,” he answers.  I blush at that connotation, when I remember how well he’d fit inside of me last night, as we’d rocked together, over and over and over. 

We fit.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you looked in the box,” I tell him suddenly, because the guilt comes back again.  It’s been two weeks, and I still feel awful that I left him, that I made him feel
not good enough
, when he’s better than anyone I know.

He shrugs.  “It’s ok.  I’m ok.  Really.”

I reach into the pocket of his jacket, where I know I’ll find the lock.  He’s been keeping it there for weeks.  I pull it out and stare at it, as I turn it over and over in my hands.

“I’m glad he finally admitted his own guilt,” I say simply.  “You deserve that.”

Brand shrugs again, his eyes guarded as he looks out across the water.  “I think I can honestly finally say that I don’t care.  I
am
free.  I’ll always miss my sister, but her death wasn’t my fault.  I know that now.”

“I’m glad you see that,” I tell him.  And I mean it.  I’m so freaking glad.  I know what it’s like to carry guilt for something you can’t control.  I don’t want that for Brand.  

I snuggle into his side, absorbing his warmth, soaking him in. 

“Tell me about her.”

“About Alison?” 

I nod. 

“Well, she was only four.  But she was bubbly and happy all the time.  She followed me everywhere.  And being the six year-old boy that I was, I’m sure I wasn’t always the most patient with her, but I did love her. I’ll always miss the sister she would’ve become and I’ll always wonder who she would’ve been.”

My belly tightens, because of all of it… because Alison deserved to grow up and because Brand deserved to have a sister who was his best friend, someone to talk to about girls and confide in and torment and tease. 

He didn’t get that. 

But he did get me.  It’s not the same, I know.  But I’ll be his best friend, and his confidante, and I’ll never leave him again. 

Brand takes the lock from my hands and stands up.  He gazes out at the lake, and I see where he’s staring.  From here, there is a perfect view of the buoy, the fucking weathered buoy that has taunted him most of his life. 

With perfectly strong steps, Brand strides down the path to the beach, stopping when his toes hit the water.  With one quick movement, he hurls the lock out over the lake.  With laser precision, it hits the bell on the buoy before it bounces into the water and immediately sinks below the surface.

For a moment, the sound of the bell echoes down the beach, haunting and eerie. 

Brand climbs the hill and stands in front of me, a strange grin on his face. 

“I rang the fucking bell.”

I smile and shake my head.

“Yeah, you did.”

And all of a sudden, the air around us is lighter and I know why. 

Because it’s gone. 

All of it… the guilt, the hate, the bitterness… all of it is gone.

I press myself into Brand’s arms, enjoying the way they wrap around me and hold me close, the way all is right in the world when I’m here, the way he loves me. 

The way he’s mine. 

I stand on a wall to protect what is mine. 

I’m his and he’s mine. 

It’s the way it’s meant to be. 

We’ll protect each other forever, for the rest of our lives. 

No matter what. 

***

Brand

Nora and I ride the old Triumph for hours, and I enjoy everything about it.  I enjoy knowing that my grandpa had once ridden this very bike.  I enjoy the way Nora wraps herself around me, trusting me to keep her safe.  I enjoy the wind and the sun and the sky that is so vast and huge and everywhere. 

We ride for hours until we finally ride home, to Gabe’s little cottage.  As we get ready for bed, I look at Nora.  

She stands in front of the window, bathed in the silvery light of the moon, and I know that she’s everything I’ll ever want.  She’s more than I ever knew I deserved and then some. 

She’s beautiful.

And she’s mine. 

Looking up, she catches me looking at her and smiles. 

“What?”

I shake my head as I turn back the covers of the bed.

“Nothing.”

We climb into bed, tumbling into each other’s arms, the way we have for weeks, as if turning to each other in the dark will keep all of the ugliness away.  Because you know what? 

It does. It really does. 

Nora strokes my face, letting her fingers slide down my cheek, until her fingertip presses into the cleft on my chin. 

We fit, Brand.

“We’ve got to get back to reality,” she tells me regretfully.  “I’ve got to get to know Julian as my father.  You’ve got to figure out what to do with your parents’ house, then we’ve got to decide where to live.”

I stare at her in the dark. 

“We should probably decide where to live first, before we do anything else.”

She smirks.  “Smart ass.  Fine. Where do you want to live?”

I’m quiet for a minute as I ponder that and for the life of me, I don’t care. 

“I don’t care where we live,” I tell her honestly.  “I just want you with me.  We can live in California by the ocean, we can live in the countryside in France, we can live in the city in Chicago or New York… it doesn’t matter.  I just want you with me.”

Nora stares up at me, her full lip quivering. 

“Agreed,” she answers softly. “You’re home to me, Brand.”

A lump forms in my throat, and I try to swallow around it, as I think of every fucking thing that has happened over the past couple of years.  

 “It’s funny how things work out,” I muse aloud.  “Two years ago, I thought my world was ending, that nothing would be ok again.  But everything happens for a reason. All of those twisted paths in my life led me to where I’m meant to be…. which is right here.”

“With me,” Nora sighs happily, squirming closer. 

“Yeah,” I agree. “With you.”

“Before we fall, we fly, Brand,” she reminds me softly, tracing the tattoo on my forearm.  “Your gran was right.”

“She was right about a lot of things,” I answer, as I flip her over and hover above her.  Nora raises an eyebrow. 

“Such as?”

“Well, you’ve got to take life by the balls and shake it as hard as you can.”

She giggles and leans up to kiss my neck.  “Your gran said that?”

I nod.  “Yeah.  You’d like her.”

“We need to go visit.” 

“Yeah,” I agree.  “We do.  She’d like you, too.”

“What else was she right about?”

I stare into Nora’s eyes, long and hard. “Well, she was right about one other thing.   The best things in life are worth fighting for.”

Nora sighs a shaky sigh and puts her head against my chest, closing her eyes. 

After a minute, she opens them again.

“I can still hear your heart.”

I smile in the night. 

“I should hope so.  It’s yours.”

Nora grabs my face and pulls it to hers, kissing me as soundly as I’ve ever been kissed, soft then hard, then harder. 

Her hand trails over my chest, over my hips, down to where I’m hard for her. 

“Make me yours, Brand,” she breathes. 

I smile. 

“Gladly.”

Epilogue

One Year Later

Brand

Gabe meets us at the door of the nursing home, his face drawn and grim.

“Dude, I’m sorry we had to call you home from your honeymoon.  We all knew it was coming, but…”

I shake my head and clasp his hand tightly. 

“It’s okay.  I would’ve been pissed if you hadn’t called.”

Nora walks beside me, her slender hand on my back.  When we’d gotten the call, she hadn’t even hesitated, she’d just started packing our bags. 

“We have to go, Brand,” she’d said.

I’ve never loved her more. 

We flew nonstop through the night, and when we landed, we found out, with relief, that we weren’t too late.  Gran was still holding on. 

“She’s waiting to talk to you,” Gabe tells me as we walk down the halls.  It smells like medicine here.  And Ben Gay.  And quilts. 

I nod.  “It doesn’t surprise me.  Gran has always done things her way. She’ll die her way, too.”

“Hell yeah, she will,” Gabe agrees.

I’m surprised at the knot that is still in my throat.  I haven’t been able to swallow it, not since we got the call and jumped on the plane.  The very idea that the world is going to lose such an amazing person is sobering. 

I take a deep breath as I face her closed door, as I stare at her nameplate. 

Helen Vincent.

There’s no use putting it off.  It won’t change a thing.  She’s going to die whether I’m at her side, or not. 

But I need to be there, like she’s been for me all of these years. 

We step into her room and find Jacey sitting next to the bed, holding Gran’s wrinkled hand.  Gran’s eyes are closed, but when she hears my voice, she opens them and smiles tiredly up at me. 

“It took you long enough,” she complains good-naturedly and everyone laughs.  They laugh through their tears because it’s very, very evident that this strong woman has grown weak.  Her body is limp, her smile is tired.

It won’t be long. 

A chill runs down my spine as I sit on the bed and pick up the hand that Jacey had just put down.   Gran has been well loved.  I know that.  And I know its time.  She’s ready to rest.   

“You know me,” I finally answer.  “I’m always running late.”

“Not for long,” Gran tells me, her little hand squeezing mine.  “You’ve got a wife now to keep you in line.”

She closes her eyes again, and I watch the rise and fall of her chest beneath the sheets.  She’s so small, so frail. It’s hard to believe that I once thought of her as big.  She’s child-sized now. 

Jacey catches my gaze from across the room. 

It won’t be long
, she mouths.  I nod. I know.  Jacey looks as tired as Gabe, as though they haven’t slept in days.

Behind her, Dominic sleeps in the chair by the window, here to share this moment with Jacey, to support her.  Just like Nora is here for me.

Everything is how it should be.

“Where’s Maddy?” I ask Gabe.  He nods his head toward the door. 

“She took Eli outside to run some energy off. She’ll be back shortly.”

Gran opens her eyes at that. “That boy looks just like you, Gabriel,” she croaks.  “He’ll be twice as ornery, too, if God believes in payback.”

Gabe smiles and holds a cup of water to her mouth, pushing the straw between her lips.