Erin Kern - Along Came Trouble

RJ pushed away from the wall, set his cup down, and took a step toward Brody. Fury simmered just beneath the surface of his blue eyes. “It’s none of my business who you fuck. But I care when that woman has you so distracted that you couldn’t do the one thing I asked you to do.”

RJ’s harshly spoken words sent Brody’s blood to a low boil. Yeah, RJ was pissed. And, yes, he was worried sick about his sister and was probably just as exhausted as Brody was. But he was inappropriate, and Brody wasn’t going to stand for it.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were blaming me for Courtney’s accident,” he said through gritted teeth.

“If she’d been working tonight, instead of driving around, she wouldn’t be in the hospital fighting for her life.” RJ tossed out his accusation through tight lips. Brody stared down his younger brother and tried not taking the words personally. “And then you had to bring Miss Victoria’s Secret Model here, as if it weren’t bad enough that you were at home getting yourself laid while my sister was having her head bashed in.”

“You were right before. Who I’m fucking isn’t any of your business. And even if it were, I’d tell you that Elisa doesn’t have me distracted because she’s not important enough to distract me. The only reason why she’s here was because she insisted on coming, and I wanted to get here as quickly as possible instead of arguing with her.”

Damn his little brother for making him say these things. His own words made his heart twist with brutal pain in his chest. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.” He slammed the cup of coffee so hard on the counter that some of the black liquid sloshed over the edge and burned his hand. The pain didn’t matter to him. His adrenaline was pumping too hard from fatigue, stress, and uncertainty from too many variables in his life.

“Wait,” RJ said in a tired voice just as Brody turned to leave the room.

Brody turned around and pinned him with a glare. He was going to tell his brother to fuck off, but something stopped him. RJ had turned to lean against the counter. His head hung down as though defeat and exhaustion had finally taken over. Hell, he was just worried about his sister and had succumbed to a weak moment by taking his fear out on Brody. Too many times in the past had Brody fallen prey to that very thing, so he knew how his brother felt. RJ was coping with this situation the only way he knew how: by looking for someone to blame. It just so happened that Brody had placed himself in the line of fire. He couldn’t fault RJ for that.

“I’m sorry,” RJ said in a gruff voice. “I can tell you like her a lot and she seems like a great woman. Only someone who was committed to you would accompany you to a hospital to wait for hours in the middle of the night.” He lifted his head and looked at Brody. “I shouldn’t have said those things. None of this is your fault.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. We all say things we don’t mean.” Except they were partially true. To a certain extent, Elisa had been distracting him. But it had been a distraction he’d needed, a way to take his mind off work troubles and worry over his son. And now Courtney.

“This woman is the real thing, isn’t she?” RJ asked.

Brody understood what RJ was trying to do: to make up for the things he’d just said. But Brody still didn’t want to talk specifics about Elisa. Not until he was able to figure some things out. “Yeah, she is. She’s not unimportant. I care about her.”

RJ pushed away from the counter. “It’s more than that. You’re in love with her. You just can’t admit it.”

“And you would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” he countered, because he didn’t need RJ reading him that deeply at seven in the morning.

RJ lifted his chin, as though challenging Brody to say more. And then RJ might put his fist in his brother’s face. “Don’t go there,” he said in a low voice.

“Just saying. You’re in as much denial as I am, my friend.” Then he turned around and left RJ to contemplate those words. Because his little brother, only separated by a year, needed a swift kick in the ass as much as Brody did.

He strolled back into the waiting room to find Elisa, because he’d had enough of this tiptoeing-around-his-feelings bullshit. Time to bring it all out in the open to see if Elisa could really handle it. Martin had finally returned, and Noah had gone to take his turn with Courtney. Avery was reading a book to Lily, and Rebecca had just stood from her chair and was walking toward him.

He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Where’s Elisa?”

Rebecca’s brows pulled together in confusion. “Weren’t you just with her?”

What the hell? “No, why?”

“She said she was going to get some coffee, then she never came back. I figured she was with you.”

Brody released her arm, and the young woman walked away. If ever two people needed to sort their shit out, it was her and RJ. But Brody couldn’t worry about that right now. He walked back to the hallway, looked left, then right. All he saw was Rebecca’s backside as she walked toward the snack room and a nurse disappearing around a corner.

Where could Elisa have gone?

AT SEVEN FORTY-FIVE IN THE morning, nothing looked as inviting or heavenly as her bed. Elisa crawled into the cool sheets without bothering to change, pulled the covers over her head, and willed herself to sleep. A major obstruction in her quest for sweet dreams was Brody and the fact that his scent was all over her sheets and her clothes. Hell, she could still smell him in her hair.

Brody’s statement had been like a poisonous knife right through her heart. Since then, the toxins had been working their way through her body, paralyzing her with disbelief, shock, and heartache. She’d been unable to think of anything else, other than getting as far away from him as possible. The nurse at the front desk had looked at Elisa with pity when she, with tears rolling down her cheeks, had all but begged to use the phone. Then she’d called the only cab company within a ten-mile radius.

This was just a temporary solution. Brody would eventually come knocking on her door, wanting to know why she’d bolted. Maybe then she’d have the strength to face him. Right now, all she wanted to do was drift into nothingness and drown herself in senseless dreams.

Instead of going to sleep, a fresh wave of tears hit her, as though her mind was punishing her for stupidly falling in love with him. How could she have been so wrong about him? How could she have allowed her heart to get trampled again?

It’s not like she hadn’t experienced heartbreak before. But, even then, her breakup with Micah had been like eating cheesecake compared to this. Micah hadn’t looked at her the way Brody did. He hadn’t stared down into her soul and stolen her heart like Brody had.

She hiccupped and wiped her tears on the sheets. When she pressed her nose to the fabric, she got another whiff of Brody, and an instant image came to mind. Brody’s wet, slick body in her shower, towering over her as he backed her against the tiled wall. Brody in her bed, his finely toned, muscled body stretched out across her sheets, with a little smirk on his face while he waited for her to devour him. And, finally, Brody telling her he’d accompany her to Brinkley’s appointment, holding her tight and telling her everything would be okay.

She’d never fallen so fast and so hard for someone before, and the aftermath was more than she could take. Her insides felt like they’d been ripped out.

Unable to sleep, she picked up her cell phone and dialed Marcello. Miraculously, he answered.

“ Olá ,” he greeted in a rushed voice.