Beautiful Sacrifice (Maddox Brothers #3) Read online

  The phone buzzed on the surface of the nightstand, and I found myself scrambling to pick it up, giggling.

  Can’t sleep. Wishing I were still in the Springs.

  I fought the urge to hold the phone to my chest. Watching Gunnar and Kirby’s lovers’ spat, followed by three glasses of wine in less than twenty minutes, made me feel oddly sentimental.

  I can’t either. Gunnar just left.

  And Kirby?

  Yes. They had a fight.

  Young love.

  I guess.

  Don’t be such a hard-ass. It happens.

  To whom?

  My brother Travis. He fell pretty hard last year. Now he’s married before he’s legal to drink.

  How old is he?

  Twenty.

  So he was married at nineteen? Weird.

  Not really. They’re good together.

  Oh, so you approve?

  If they love each other, sure.

  How do you know you love someone at nineteen?

  You’ll meet them next week. You’ll see.

  It’s a date.

  ;)

  I put away the phone and finished off my glass, feeling everything slowing down. Even my eyes were blinking slower. I stretched out my legs, letting the sheets glide over the tender parts of my skin. I glanced at the phone, grinned, and reached over. I tapped it a few times and held it away from me, waiting until a long tone filled the room.

  “You’re still up?” Taylor asked, his voice sounding tired but not sleepy.

  “This phone buzzes every time you text me, and I’m lying here, naked, in bed,” I said, hearing my words slur. “I have this urge to put it between my legs and hope you text me again.” I knew how completely inappropriate I sounded, but I didn’t give a single fuck.

  For a full ten seconds … there was silence.

  “You don’t think it’ll work?” I asked, impatient for a response.

  “Are you drunk?”

  I pressed my lips together, attempting but failing to stifle a laugh. “Kirby might have brought a bottle of wine.”

  “I thought you didn’t drink.”

  “I don’t, but I’m alone, so why not?”

  “Oh, so you don’t drink in public.”

  “Or in private—if anyone is around.”

  “I’m conflicted,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s tempting to let this play out. Then again, I know you’ll hate yourself—and quite possibly me—tomorrow.”

  “I miss you already,” I said, the smile vanishing from my face. “I tried not to like you.”

  “I knew it,” he said, amused. He sighed. “I was a goner on day one. You’re fucking mean, and it makes me absolutely crazy. But in a good way.”

  “I’m mean?” I asked, feeling tears burning my eyes.

  “Yes, but … shit. You’re a sad drunk, aren’t you? You shouldn’t drink alone.”

  “I’m missing it, all of it,” I said softly, touching my fingers to my mouth.

  “Missing what?” he asked. “You know, my dad was messed up for a lot of years. He’s made up for it. Sometimes, you have to forgive your parents. They don’t have it figured out all the time either.”

  I shook my head, unable to answer.

  “Falyn, go to sleep, babe. It’s only going to get worse.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My dad was a sad drunk, too.”

  I nodded even though he couldn’t see me.

  “Keep the phone to your ear. Lie down, and close your eyes. I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”

  “Okay,” I said, obeying.

  He didn’t speak again, but I could hear him breathing. I struggled to hang on to consciousness, if only to know how long he would stay, but it didn’t take long for the heavy fuzzy feeling to pull me beneath the surface.

  A terrible hangover, Don’s funeral, and the countdown to Eakins made the week one of the worst I’d had in a while. Taylor’s intermittent texts were always a welcome highlight and helped me pass the time until the night before our flight, but the time in between was agony. He hadn’t even mentioned my totally inappropriate late-night conversation, which I appreciated.

  The night before our flight to Chicago, I found myself full of nervous energy. Taylor would be picking me up at five thirty a.m. to take me to the airport for our eight o’clock flight.

  For the first time in five years, I wished my closet had more of a variety of clothes to choose from. I folded my favorite jeans and set them atop the rest of my things. As a freshman in college, even a weekend trip had called for at least a large rolling suitcase and a carry-on. Now, my things barely filled the rolling carry-on duffel I’d borrowed from Chuck.

  Standing over the packed bag, I wrung my hands together, wondering how on earth I was going to fall asleep. It was already eleven o’clock. If I didn’t go to sleep right then, I might as well just stay up.

  I frowned. Exhaustion did not fit into my fantasy of how the weekend would go.

  Someone knocked on the door, and I jumped.

  “It’s me,” a deep voice said from the hall.

  I rushed to the door and jerked it open.

  Taylor was standing there with a wide grin on his face and a full backpack hanging from his shoulders. “I just figured I’d crash here. Is that all right?”

  I threw my arms around him. Time reversed to the last moment we had been together, almost directly below where we now stood. Standing on my tiptoes and squeezing him a bit too tightly made everything a thousand times better. It was as if the last wretched week hadn’t happened.

  When we parted, he scanned me from head to toe. “I didn’t anticipate you wearing that.”

  I looked down at the thin white tank top I was wearing, barely long enough to cover my navy panties. I tugged it down. “I was just getting ready to go to bed.”

  “Awesome. I’m bushed,” he said, tossing his backpack to the floor. He closed the door behind him.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this for me. You don’t know what this means.”

  “You’ve said that a lot this week, but you’ve yet to tell me why,” he said, slipping his arms out from his jacket. He took off his ball cap and tossed it onto the counter.

  “I’m working it out in my head. I’m not really sure how I’m going to pull it off.”

  “I’m not going to ask, but I have no idea how to prepare.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  He cocked his head. “Whatever it is, Falyn, I want to be with you.”

  “You will be.”

  “If you say so,” he said, sounding frustrated.

  I couldn’t blame him for being unhappy. He was doing me a huge favor while being left in the dark about what exactly it was. I hadn’t said it out loud for more than five years, and being this close, I was afraid that if I did, I would jinx it.

  We both looked around, a sudden awkwardness invading the room.

  “Do you … want some sheets for the couch?” I asked.

  “I have a choice? Then you take the couch.”

  I smacked him on the arm and then shifted nervously. “It’s got that, um”—I pointed, my finger making small circles—“that broken bar thing. It’s a bitch to sleep on.”

  He raised an eyebrow, three lines deepening across his forehead. “I remember. So, I guess this means we’re having a slumber party.” He began walking toward my bedroom.

  “Taylor?”

  “Seriously, Ivy League, just tell me where to go. I’m fucking tired, and we’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

  I held out my hands and then let them fall back to my thighs. “Okay then. The bed. But that’s not an invitation for anything else.”

  Passing him, I switched off the light and pulled back the covers. I crawled into bed, watching his bulky frame fill the doorway. He eyed me as I settled against the mattress, and then he crossed the room, standing next to the bed while he kicked off his Nikes and pulled his T-shirt over his head. His muscles stretched and strained whil
e he unbuckled his brown leather belt and unbuttoned his jeans, and then he pushed them down over his backside and thighs, letting them drop to the floor.

  As hard as I tried to seem unimpressed, Taylor was fully aware of the masterpiece that was his body. After all, he was the one who would spend hours in the gym each week to perfect it. Regardless, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of staring. My facial expressions, my breathing, and my every movement were all at the forefront of my mind. I was wary of the rising level of lust I felt for the mostly naked man in front of me.

  The tattoos on his arms extended over the hard slopes of his pec muscles, displaying thick black tribal art, flames, and a skull, all amazingly detailed with beautiful shading.

  Not that I was looking.

  Stop staring, Falyn.

  Down to his gray boxer briefs, Taylor crawled into bed next to me. I turned away from him, feeling my cheeks heat to a bright pink. Without apology, he wrapped me in his arms and pulled me closer to him, my back warming instantly against his skin.

  “I wish I could have gone with you to Don’s funeral. I know it sucked.”

  “It was awful,” I whispered. “I haven’t cried that hard in a long time. I can’t imagine how his family must have felt.”

  “You were family, too. You were the highlight of his day. You seem to be that for a lot of people.”

  “I’m glad you weren’t there. I went through at least one box of tissues. It wasn’t pretty.”

  He hugged me to him. “It gets easier, but it never goes away. It changes you forever.”

  “You’ve lost someone?” I asked.

  “Let’s go to sleep. I don’t want to get into it tonight.” He relaxed his grip, bent his arm under his head for extra support, and kept his other arm draped over my middle.

  I rested my arm on his, lacing my fingers between his. He squeezed and then took a deep breath.

  “Falyn?” he whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “I know this weekend is important for you. But when we get back, I just want you to know that I don’t want to be friends anymore.”

  My muscles tensed. “Like, you don’t ever want to see me again? Or you want to be more than friends?”

  “Considering I nearly went crazy from being away from you for less than a week … I think you know what I mean.”

  Relief washed over me. For the tiny moment that losing him was a possibility, my world had stopped for the second time in my life. Well-thought-out steps had been taken to keep myself from feeling that way, yet there I was, vulnerable.

  “You did?” I asked.

  “It was ridiculous.”

  “Is that a condition?”

  “No. It’s a non-promise.” He leaned up, kissed my bare shoulder, and then lay down, melting into the mattress.

  I had never slept in the same bed with someone before, not even as a child with my parents. Somehow, lying next to Taylor was the most normal thing in the world, as if it had always been and always would be.

  “Good night,” I whispered.

  But he was already asleep.

  “I got it,” Taylor said, pulling my carry-on off the conveyor belt.

  We had overslept and were running a little late, trying to get through security before they began boarding our flight.

  I hopped on one foot to slip on a sandal and then dropped my other shoe on the floor, sliding the strap between my first and second toe and then pulling the back over my heel. Shoes and clothes from the thrift store were always wonderfully worn in. It wasn’t the first time I appreciated not having to use the buckle on my three-seasons-old, half-size-too-big Steve Madden sandals.

  Even though Taylor was in a rush to get to the gate, he watched me, a patient smile on his face.

  “Ready?” he asked, holding out his hand.

  I grabbed it. “Yes and no and yes. Stop asking me that. I’m trying to stay calm.”

  “Haven’t you flown before?” he asked as we walked.

  I shot him a look. “I’ve flown all over the world. My parents loved to travel.”

  “Oh, yeah? Like where?”

  “Not Eakins.”

  He grimaced. “I’m trying to respect your privacy, but I’m getting more and more nervous about walking into this blind.”

  “For someone so nervous, you sure fell asleep fast.”

  He squeezed my hand. “You’re comfortable.”

  “Sleeping with you wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be.”

  He made a face. “Can’t say I’ve ever heard that from a woman before.”

  I looked up at the four large screens secured to the ceiling. The flights were listed by city, alphabetically, with the corresponding gate number.

  I pointed to the first screen. “Gate six. They’re boarding now.”

  “Shit! Let’s go!”

  Taylor and I ran, heaving by the time we reached our gate. There was still a long line, but we were both so happy to have made it that we didn’t care.

  “Damn,” Taylor said. “I’m glad this is a small airport. If we were in Denver, we would have been screwed.”

  After making it down the jetway and all the way back to row twenty, Taylor shoved our carry-ons into the overhead bin and collapsed next to me.

  “Fucking hell, Ivy League,” he said. “You stress me out.”

  “Which one of us overslept?”

  “That would be me.”

  “Okay then.” I let my head relax back and closed my eyes.

  A warm hand slid under mine, and our fingers interlaced.

  “Falyn?” Taylor whispered.

  “Not yet,” I said, looking over at him.

  He was leaning his head back, too, his face turned toward me. “You had another nightmare last night.”

  “I did? Is that why you overslept?”

  “What happened to you … was it bad?”

  “It was.”

  He grimaced. “Is going back going to hurt you?”

  “Yes.”

  He breathed out a puff of air and looked forward. “Then why are we going?”

  “Because it has to hurt before it can get better.”

  He looked back at me, his eyes falling to my lips. “I don’t want you to hurt.”

  “I know,” I said, squeezing his hand. “But you’ll be with me, right?”

  “For as long as you’ll let me.”

  He let his head fall back against the seat. He was fidgeting. “I talked to Tyler. He said you were a fantastic kisser.”

  “Oh, yeah?” A smug grin curved my lips. “How did that go over?”

  “I punched him again.”

  “Do you ever argue without your fists?”

  “Not really. I …” He looked at my mouth again. “I can’t figure out why I can’t stop thinking about you. From the moment I looked up from my menu at the Bucksaw, everything has been different.”

  “I’ve gathered that Maddox boys just aren’t told no very often. You love the challenge. Even Tyler admitted to it.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s more than that. I saw something in your eyes, something familiar.”

  “Loss,” I said simply.

  Taylor blinked, and I turned away from him, pretending to pay attention to the flight attendants’ safety instructions.

  He shook his head, confused. “What makes you say that?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He sighed. “I guess I can’t expect you to tell me your shit when I haven’t told you mine.”

  The captain came over the PA system and instructed the flight attendants to prepare for takeoff. Taylor tightened his seat belt and squeezed my hand.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I said.

  “I know,” he replied. “But I want you to trust me. So, I’m going to trust you.”

  I swallowed down the absolute dread threatening to strangle me. There was no telling what he was about to say.

  “My little brother Travis is in deep shit,” he spoke close to my ear, whispering as softly
as he could while still being heard over the noise of the plane. “He was involved in a fire a few months ago.”

  The plane surged forward, and the entire fuselage rattled until the front wheels left the ground. The wings shifted, and we drifted right, the blinding morning sun shining through our window. Taylor closed the shade and then looked to me for a reaction.

  “Is he with the Forest Service, too?” I asked.

  Taylor shook his head. “He’s a college kid. My brothers and I used to fight all the time—with the locals and later with the college kids who would come to our parties and start fights. One night, Tyler beat this freshman, Adam’s, ass at a frat party, and Adam approached him later about taking bets. From there, they started these floating underground fight rings at Eastern.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  Taylor breathed out a laugh, amused. “Yes, very. But Adam organized the fights well. No one would know about them until an hour before the fight, sometimes less. We made a lot of money, and we never got caught. Our younger brother Trent fought a few times when he was a freshman, too, but our baby brother, Travis, was the rock star. He was unbeatable. Never lost a fight.”

  “He sounds lovely.”

  Taylor lifted his chin, his expression one of pride. “He’s a badass.”

  “Is he okay?” I asked.

  His smug smile vanished. “The fights were held in the basements of campus buildings where a lot of kids would be crammed underground. Adam set up a spring break fight. It was the last fight of the year. Travis was set to make a shit-ton of money. Something happened. A fire broke out. A lot of kids didn’t make it out. Adam was arrested. I think Travis is being investigated.”

  “Why?” I asked, dubious.

  “I have reason to believe they sent someone here to get information from me, but I can’t confirm—at least, not yet. I know they think Travis had something to do with it.”

  “Who’s they?” I asked.

  He stared at the floor. “I’m not sure. The local police. Maybe the FBI.”

  “Did he?” I asked. “Have something to do with it?”

  He shifted nervously. “He was getting married that night. In Vegas.”

  “So, that’s why there’ll be another wedding. Because they eloped.”

  Taylor nodded, watching me for a moment. “What if I asked you to come with me? To their vow renewal?”