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“I’m confused,” she admits it quietly, like she’s afraid to speak.

Her hands are still pressed into my chest, burning into my flesh.

Like all the other times she’s touched me, I’ll bear the invisible scars of these burns too. The imprint of her touch is everlasting, even though I once tried desperately to cover them with the stain of another.

It didn’t take long to realize that the touch of this woman, the memory of her, wasn’t something that could ever be covered or replaced.

Still, I know she needs time to battle the war inside her mind, the one that rages inside her heart.

Doug said it plainly enough, and those words will stay with me. Faye is going to struggle with the idea of allowing herself to love me, Tate, and me again.

And I’m going to need to work on accepting what my big brother clearly accepted, himself. That she’ll always hold him in her heart. She’ll always love him. And I’ll always share her with him.

I bend to lift the bag of steaks I dropped. “I brought steak.”

Her brows furrow as she blinks between me and the bag. She’s flushed and lovely as she gives her head a small shake, like she doesn’t know how she got to where she is. And then she straightens.

“I—um—I’ll make a salad.”

She takes a bite of her steak and moans. I can’t lie and say my cock isn’t hard as fuck behind my jeans. I’ve sported a semi since I kissed her, the taste of her lingering on my tongue. Teasing and taunting.

She takes another bite, and I take a swig of my beer.

Yeah, Faye had beer in her fridge tonight. I’m fully aware she bought it for me. And that feels good. Really good.

Watching her feels better, though.

The patio table is mostly shaded by the flowering tree that stands proud and tall, as it stood when I was a kid. Currently, it’s buzzing with springtime bees, a constant and low hum that rockets me back to childhood. It’s funny where life takes us.

The longer I’m home, the more I’m realizing there’s beauty buried deep beneath the pain of life. Like a secret we need to live to uncover. A sting we need to know in order to understand the grace of pleasure and peace.

Through the thick of the tree, a ray of sun haloes her in light. I swallow the burn in my throat, because—if she knew how she affected me even now after everything that stands between us—she’d hold the power to be my ultimate destruction.

Fuck, she already holds that power.

I’m already on my knees for her, at the mercy of her.

I think I’ve always been at her mercy. From the very first moment I dared a glance into those sticky honey-brown eyes.

She lifts her bubbly rosé and takes a sip. Her eyes slam into mine and crap, I can’t breathe.

“How did you know Mabel wakes in the night?”

“What?” I croak.

“Earlier today, when you spoke of club heaven…” Her smile is as soft as it is pained. I honestly don’t know where club heaven came from. Tate, maybe? “How did you know that Tate used to wake with her? That he’d carry her to the window and look at the stars and moon with her to calm her back into sleep?” She frowns. “That we called what she did howling at the moon?”

I don’t want to lie to her. But I’m not ready to tell her about Tate’s letter.

I’m not ready to tell her that he knew he was sick before he died. That he was dying before he died.

How can I admit he wrote me a letter giving me permission to love his family and our woman—without admitting that he knew what was coming?

Thankfully, I don’t have to lie to her. She slumps back in her chair, her eyes stuck on me. “I should have known he wrote to you.” Wait, what? “I have a whole box of letters from Tate to you going all the way back to—” She pauses. Her eyes shift to the side. “To the beginning. I just didn’t realize he’d sent any.”

I swallow down the burn in my throat.

He wrote me letters? She has a whole box?