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“Watch your mouth,” he snaps.
“Why is that always the first damn question women get asked when they have a problem? No, I’m not pregnant. I didn’t want to go to college. Leaving home was the only alternative they gave.”
“The Malloys I knew would never kick their child out.”
“They aren’t the Malloys you knew,” I hiss.
I’ve seen the pictures from my early childhood and the ones from Vaughn’s life before. My parents were happy people. They smiled, and we took vacations. Emmett was in so many of them. He looked like the second Malloy son.
“But you wouldn’t know that, would you?” I continue. “With Vaughn gone, you couldn’t be bothered to ever come back to Broken Bow.”
I don’t actually know if he ever returned. I recall him from the funeral. Seeing him standing in the distance is a core memory of mine, but I know his family moved shortly after that. Seb’s family now lives in his old house.
“School is important, Devyn,” he says rather than giving any more attention to my accusation. “Vaughn wouldn’t like you—”
“Don’t,” I snap. “You don’t get to speak of him.”
Pain flashes in his eyes, but he doesn’t argue.
I instantly regret yelling at him. Vaughn was so important to so many people that he left a crater in many lives when he died, the biggest hole of all right in the very center of my house. My parents were never the same. My life changed that day. I didn’t get the loving home that Vaughn grew up in. I was left with the shells of two loving parents, people who no longer had the ability to love. It’s as if it drained out of them and seeped into the ground he was buried in.
I swallow against the guilt I feel. My memories of Vaughn are very few. His death happened so long ago that they seem more like stories told to me by someone else, as if the memories never belonged to me, but something I imagined as someone else spoke.
The same goes for Emmett. He and Vaughn were attached at the hip, closer than I imagine a set of twins would be.
“You need to go home,” he says. “Running away isn’t the answer.”
“I didn’t run away.” My irritation with the man is growing by the minute. “You were a Marine. Marines are known for their honor, and I need you to honor your promise to me.” I hold the ratty journal up.
He doesn’t bother to look down at the damn thing.
“I expect you to follow through.”
My mind races to the possibility of him actually doing it. Hell, I’d probably back out before it could happen, but what if it does? My gaze drops to his strong hands. The clench and release of his fingers make me think of them on my skin, garnering another wave of anxiousness and something I can only identify as anticipation.
“I will not marry you.” He says the words slowly as if he thinks I’m having a hard time understanding. “For all you know, I could already be married.”
I huff a humorless laugh. “If that were the case, I’d expect your wife would be in here with you. Besides, I checked your social media, and it says you’re single.”
“Because everything you find on the internet has to be true?”
My pulse pounds as I consider that I’ve made a huge mistake. The guy is smoking hot. It wouldn’t be completely unreasonable that he’s already been snatched up.
Embarrassment heats my cheeks as I search his eyes for answers before they drop to his left hand.
“No ring.”
“Doesn’t mean anything. Lots of men don’t wear wedding rings.”
“I think any woman who married you would require it. She’d want everyone to know you’re off the market.”
He shifts on his feet, looking a little uncomfortable.
“Vaughn would want—”
“Vaughn thought we were idiots every time we signed one of those pages in your journal. We wanted you out of our hair.”
My chin trembles. The things I can recall from my childhood before Vaughn died was a smiling brother who involved me as much as he could given our age differences. Maybe those memories are something I created in my head, making that time with him seem perfect because I lost him. It wouldn’t be the first time someone forgot all the bad in favor of the good. It happens every day.
I blink against the threat of tears. I was an idiot for coming here. If my parents don’t care about me, if my best friend is too busy living her new life to even stick around long enough to watch the bus leave the parking lot, why did I ever think this man would give a shit?
“We probably had girls coming over and—”
I tear my eyes away from him, and he stops speaking, knowing he got his point across.
I know how I’d react if I had a younger sibling trying to get in my business and followed me around all the time, but being told you were seen as nothing more than an annoying brat still has a certain kind of sting to it.
