She Loves Me (Harmony Pointe #3) - Melissa Foster Page 0,128

to wrench free.

“Your nieces don’t even know you,” Harley ground out through gritted teeth. “You’ll never change, and I’m not letting you hurt them ever again.”

“Always the fucking hero,” Marshall accused.

“I never wanted to be a hero, you asshole. I’ve spent my life cleaning up your messes, trying to minimize the damage you left behind. How many times did I cover for your lame ass? Drive a fucking hour and a half from the city to pick up your drunk ass? I finished the boat for Piper because you were too busy screwing up to do it yourself. I should have ratted you out.” A painful realization slammed into him. He’d enabled Marshall’s behavior as much as his parents had. Holy shit.

Marshall pushed back against Harley’s chest. “You loved being the hero.”

“Wrong. I loved you, and that was a big mistake.”

Marshall scoffed, thrashing from side to side, trying to break free. “You loved making that fucking boat for her.”

“Don’t you ever talk about Piper.” He tightened his arm around Marshall’s neck. “You were never good enough for her.”

Marshall clawed at Harley’s forearm, throwing himself forward and back, making strangled noises, but Harley was blinded with fury, his brother’s sounds drowned out by the blood thundering in his ears. Marshall’s arm stretched shakily out to his side, and his index finger straightened. His second finger followed, creating a trembling peace sign, kicking Harley’s brain into firing again as memories rolled in and he recognized the signal for surrender they’d used as kids. Marshall’s third finger rose, his hand shaking so hard, his fingers blurred together. Harley released him, backing away in a state of panic. Marshall bent forward, coughing and gasping for air.

Harley ground out, “Fuck.”

“I coulda had you.” Marshall was bent over, his back to Harley, both palms flat on the floor. His head hung between his shoulders, his body heaving as he noisily dragged air into his lungs.

“Asshole.” Harley coughed out a laugh. “You and what army?”

“I didn’t come here for this shit.”

Harley used his heels to push back against the wall and tipped his face up. “Why are you here, Marshall?”

Marshall turned haunted eyes in Harley’s direction. His face was a mask of pain. He held up his left hand, showing Harley a gold wedding band. “To make sure my wife’s death wasn’t for nothing.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

MARSHALL HAD GOTTEN married and had never told them? His wife had died? Harley couldn’t process the information. He didn’t even know where to begin. The ghosts in his brother’s eyes rose to the surface. Harley knew about the hope-sucking anguish of grief from losing their father, but he couldn’t imagine the magnitude of despair if something ever happened to Piper. The thought of his brother actually loving a woman enough to marry her, and then losing her, brought Harley’s walls crashing down. “You’re married?”

“Widowed.”

Marshall’s eye was already turning purple from their fight, but Harley knew that pain was nothing compared to what his brother had already endured. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

Marshall dragged himself over to the wall beside Harley. “After what I just told you, that’s the part you zeroed in on? You’re losing your hero touch, bro.”

He swallowed hard, trying to assemble his fractured thoughts. “I’m beyond sorry for your loss. I’m just trying to process everything. It’s a lot to take in.”

“Tell me about it.” Marshall sighed. “Losing Annie fucked me up. Not that I wasn’t already messed up, but we were good for a while. Better than good.”

Despite everything that had gone down between them, Harley was glad to hear that his brother had been good for a while. “Where have you been all this time? When did you meet her? Annie? What happened?”

“Life, man. Life happened. After I left school, I headed out to California with a buddy of mine and worked as a firefighter. With training and the right connections, we made it to a hotshot crew.” Hotshots were elite teams of wildland firefighters. They were fearless, highly skilled hand crews trained to battle all phases of the most serious wildland fires in the nation.

“That’s impressive. Dangerous, but you always wanted to be a smoke jumper.”

“Yeah, I blew that when I didn’t finish school. But I loved my job. It was good for me, you know? No chance to get bored, worked with a great group of guys. That’s when I met Annie. I was coming out of a bar with my buddies and she was just standing there looking up at the stars, like an