Page 41 of Bailey-Rose: The Complete Duet

“Then why are you treating me like we did something wrong? You didn’t say shit to Ulysses when he had her screaming on the bathroom counter, why now?” Warrick challenged.

Gulping like a fish out of water, Gareth attempted to answer the question but couldn’t seem to find the answer.

“Stop it,” I snapped, drawing their attention. “Warrick was nothing but a gentleman and knew exactly what I needed to hear and feel to keep from spiraling. Randall threw some of my biggest fears in my face when he told me the woman he was banging was a hooker. Since he couldn’t have sex with me the way he wanted, he found it with other women he paid, or at least that’s his story. None of that matters, though, because I wanted… no begged for everything that happened between Warrick and me.”

Gareth looked guilty as hell while rubbing the back of his neck, unsure whether to meet my gaze or not. “Being Alphas makes you overprotective, quick to leap to conclusions or fix problems, but I don’t ever want you accusing each other of something so awful as taking advantage of me. Gareth, do you truly believe that Warrick wouldn’t do everything possible to keep me safe while I was with him today?”

“Of course, I don’t believe that,” he admitted, shoulders slumping. “I’m upset because I wasn’t there to protect you, and something bad happened. Fuck, every time I think I have a handle on this issue, shit like this comes up, throwing it in my face.”

Now I was totally confused.

When Gareth met my gaze, I could see the pain in his eyes. “I had a little sister, she died, and it’s my fault.”

Callie’s face flashed before my eyes the moment I brought her up. Her head of wild curls always looked like a rat’s nest, no matter how our mother tried to tame it. We had matching gray-blue eyes and a thirst for adventure that ultimately took her life.

I couldn’t look at Bailey if I was going to make it through this story. No one but our immediate family knew what really happened and how I wasn’t there to keep her safe. My mother always tells me she doesn’t blame me, but I know it’s not true. Every time she looks at me, I see the pain it causes, so I’ve distanced myself from my parents. I still worked for the family business, but my department rarely ever needed to interact with the corporate office or the CEO. Hell, I’ve barely been back to the ranch unless it was work-related.

“Callie was ten and hell on wheels,” I shared, smiling as I remembered her facing down an ornery bull that wouldn’t leave the holding pen. She feared nothing, and I admired that about her. “She was barely big enough to help us on the ranch, but damn, if she wasn’t determined. One Christmas, one of my fathers finally got her a 4-wheeler that was small enough for her to handle. I still remember the squeals of joy when she took off the blindfold and saw it sitting in the garage. She wasn’t allowed to use it without one of us there to make sure she didn’t flip the damn thing or get tossed off. I raced around the ranch with her, almost getting frostbite, but it was worth it to still have that memory.”

The warmth of that memory helped me to continue. It was as if my little sister was here, helping me to share my pain.

“My two older brothers are about ten years older than me and sixteen years older than Callie. They didn’t want anything to do with her, finding her bothersome to their adult lives. Our dads worked in the city all week and came home on the weekends. This left me and Mom to look after Callie, which was a full-time job most days,” I explained, needing them to understand how important Callie was to me. “She was my shadow, always following me around the ranch, helping me with chores. We even did our homework together in the evenings so I could help her with her math. The girl had a brilliant mind, but damn, when it came to numbers, she was hopeless.”

I chuckled, rubbing my forehead, trying to keep from letting my emotions get the best of me. Thankfully, no one tried to interrupt me or ask questions. That would have been my undoing, but they just let me struggle my way through this.

“It was spring, and the cows were starting to have their calves so I was helping the ranch hands keep watch when I wasn’t in school. Callie found a new trail she wanted to explore on her 4-wheeler, but I couldn’t go with her, not to mention it had been a super rainy season, and the ground was a sloppy mess. There had been plenty of instances of the bordering dirt caving in down by the river. We kept the cattle close instead of letting them wander the grazing fields as it was too risky, and lost cattle meant money taken out of our workers’ pockets.

“Then one Saturday rolled around, and the weather had been decent for a few days but not enough for the ground to firm up. That didn’t stop Callie from begging me nonstop to go with her so she could explore. Our mom had gone into the city that weekend to join my fathers. It was our parents’ anniversary, and they wanted to spoil my mother. I was in charge of Callie with the help of Mrs. Cook, the elderly neighbor who kept an eye on the two of us if our parents were gone or out for the night. The day had been like any other but for two cows going down struggling with birthing twins. You guys probably don’t know this, but it’s not uncommon for twins to happen. But it is odd that both went into distressed labor at the same time.” Pausing, I took a shaky breath knowing what came next.

I’d only ever told this story twice before…

Once to my parents.

Second to the police.

Now I was telling my pack, exposing who I was and how I failed the one person I was supposed to protect. Tears burned in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I’d already spent years of my life mourning my sister in private moments, but I couldn’t bring myself to let my pack see just how weak I was.

“We were light on help that weekend. A big cattle sale was going on, and they were auctioning off cattle we couldn’t butcher. Our brand never sells meat that’s been given antibiotics or growth hormones. Yet cattle get sick, so we care for them as any rancher would then sell them off to recoup something from them. Even at the age of sixteen, I was trained as well as any ranch hand, so they came to find me. It was all hands on deck. If we couldn’t help these cows, then we could lose the mother and the babies, which would be a major blow. As we worked for hours, an awful storm rolled in out of the blue, rained buckets… even hailed some.

“We managed to save all four calves and the mothers, but when I returned to the house, I found Mrs. Cook asleep in the armchair and no sign of Callie. My heart sank, and I knew… I knew what she’d done. Running to the shed we kept the 4-wheelers in, I saw hers was missing, so I hopped on mine and started looking for my baby sister. Two hours later, I found her at the bottom of a steep ravine where the ground gave out under her 4-wheeler and rolled all the way down the hill. She was still trapped under it, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t bring her back.” With those final words, I couldn’t hold back the sob that tore out of me as the memory of that moment felt as fresh as the day it happened.

Then I was wrapped in the warm, comforting scent of summer roses. My mother and Callie loved to put freshly-cut roses on the dinner table for as long as they bloomed. It’s how I knew it was finally summer, school would be over, and the fun would start. After Callie died, there were no more roses. Yet it seemed the universe decided I was going to be blessed with an Omega who reminded me of my baby sister in all the best ways.

Shifting so Bailey could stand between my legs, I rested my head on her chest, listening to her heart. She claimed it’s broken and fragile, but to me, it’s fucking perfect because it is still beating in her chest, proving this woman I was head over heels for was very much alive. There was nothing more important to me than keeping her that way. I wouldn’t fail Bailey-Rose the way I’d failed Callie on that fateful day. The others might think of me as an ass or overprotective, but I knew what it felt like to fail and lose someone you love forever.

“Gareth, I’m so sorry,” Bailey-Rose whispered, pressing kisses to my head. “I know how hard it is to lose someone you love. The pain never really goes away. When the tiniest moment can bring back all that loss and sorrow, making it feel as fresh as the day it happened. So please don’t hide how you feel or try to brush it off until you can deal with it in private. Let me share that moment with you so you’re not alone in this pain. Those feelings can become so overwhelming, and if you don’t let them have their moment, it will crush you. Will you trust me to be there for you, Gareth?”

Her question was so simple and yet at the same time terrifying. How can I burden her with my pain when she has her own to deal with?

“I can try,” I answered honestly, pulling back to see her face. “You have so many things to worry about… how can I ask you to take on my issues?”

The tender smile on her lips and the way that dual-colored gaze cut through me had me taking a sharp breath.

“That’s the thing… you aren’t asking me to do this, I’m offering,” Bailey-Rose countered. “Think of it this way… I’ll share some of my struggles with you to free up room for me to take some off your plate. Then we each have less of our own but feel that we’re helping each other.”

“Deal! But I can’t promise I won’t still react if I feel you’re in danger,” I warned.

She shrugged. “It takes time to retrain your brain in how it responds to things. Nothing changes overnight, and I know I’m not going to do well giving up some control over things either. Yet if we are patient and understanding with each other, soon this will become the new normal.”