Page 53 of Rockland

“Tell me—what was it?” she asks.

“You, my darling cousin.”

Her brow knits in distress. “Me? What have I done? What have I said?”

Despite my stress, I smile. “Look at yourself.”

She looks down, inspecting her outfit. “What? Have I spilled something on my dress? Was my button undone?”

I sigh. “No. I think it was the length of your legs.”

She looks at me as if I have just arrived on this planet. She never did know how beautiful she was. Neither did I. She was always my baby cousin—five years younger than me. Brett had already moved out of the house when my aunt had her. It wasn’t until we were older, when my friends started noticing her, that I realized. And now she has the admiration of the single men in the Brotherhood. I’m practically beating them off with a stick. She says, “How could my legs possibly offend a woman I’ve never met?”

I place my hand on her shoulder. “Adrianna, I think Tess might have seen us talking and laughing and thought we were… together.”

Her face forms a mask of horror. “Ew! Gross! Rocky didn’t you ever tell her of your favorite cousin?”

I rub the back of my neck. Confession time. “Come to think of it, no, I didn’t.”

Her face pinches. Shit. Now she’s going hold a grudge about that.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that when I’m with Tess, we don’t talk much about the past⁠—”

“You speak only of your love? You don’t have a few minutes to mention me?” Her hands are on her hips and she’s getting that look she used to get when she would chase me around the yard, threatening to pummel me with her tiny fists.

“I apologize. Truly I do. The next time she wakes, I’ll introduce you,” I say.

“You do that, Rockland Bachman.” She turns on her heel and whisks off. I know she’d give me more hell if I wasn’t in as much pain as I am.

I watch her leave—catch a few of the younger men watching her leave as well but with a very different look in their eyes than my own—and chuckle.

It’s true. No one makes me laugh as Adrianna does. But that’s what comes with growing up together. It makes you lifelong best friends. And Tess makes me laugh in a unique way. A sometimes maddening, sometimes heartwarming, but always an I want to throw you on the bed and ravage you kind of way.

And I don’t know how I will get through the next hours, days while she recovers.

How could she think I was with another woman after reading the note that I’d left her?

The words come to my mind now, as they did when I was writing them.

My dearest Tess,

It is with great sorrow in my heart that I leave you today.

These past few weeks with you have been the very best of my life.

The only time I feel completely myself, content, happy, is when I’m with you.

It has been my honor to care for you in your time of need.

The family needs me and I have to return to the Parish.

But if you are ever ready, or wanting to begin a life with me, you need only say the word.

I’ll be waiting.

Forever if it takes that long.

All my love,