Brian had half expected her to resist the gesture, and he was surprised by the willingness with which her body melted into his. She clung to him with ferocious desperation, her tears soaking the front of his shirt as she sobbed uncontrollably against his chest. It was plain to see that this was about much more than just some stupid gossip, but he didn't need to know the details: Whatever her burdens may be, the weight had obviously become too much to bear, and she was broken.
Broken, he echoed silently. Unfortunately, it was a feeling he knew far too well. He waited patiently, his fingertips absently tracing the length of her spine, until her weeping subsided to heavy shuddering breaths, which gradually tapered down to modest sniffles.
He sensed in her a sudden unease, felt the tension wash over her body as she realized what was happening between them. She discreetly wiped her nose on the back of her hand and stepped back from his embrace, purposely avoiding his eyes.
"Feel better?" he asked.
"Not really," she sniffed, too embarrassed to look at him.
He slid a finger under her chin and tilted her face up to his, cupping her cheek as he wiped away the last of her tears with his thumb. Her skin was impossibly soft against his calloused palm, and his hand lingered a bit longer than necessary as he looked into her eyes, all red-rimmed and puffy from crying. Whatever make-up she had been wearing was long gone, the tip of her nose glowed bright pink, and she looked...
Stunning, Brian realized, with no shortage of awe.
Beneath all of her pompous ideals and prickly armor, Stormy Daigle had a simple, raw sort of beauty that was actually rather enchanting. Who would've thought? She stared up at him with wide eyes, her lips parted into a perfect pink bow. His fingertips grazed lightly over the line of her jaw as he withdrew his hand, and a tiny jolt of electricity sparked beneath his skin. It lasted only a fraction of a second, and he could have convinced himself that he had imagined it, but the small gasp of air that escaped her lips told him that she felt it, too. She looked away first.
"I'm sorry," she said, venturing a weak smile but still avoiding his eyes. "I must have PMS or something."
"Don't do that," Brian said.
"Do what?"
"Degrade yourself that way," he answered. "It's okay to have feelings, you know, and you don't have to be sorry about it. Everybody has a bad day now and then."
"Day?" Stormy scoffed. "Try week. Month, year... lifetime. Take your pick."
"Well now you're just being dramatic," he kidded, offering her a sympathetic smile.
"Am I?" was her quick retort, her head snapping around to face him. "Am I being dramatic, or am I simply being truthful? I mean, look at me—I've accomplished nothing in the past ten years of my existence! I'm all alone, and I'm a mess! My whole frigging life is a mess!" She folded her arms across her middle and sank back against the counter in defeat.
"Your life is not a mess," he insisted patiently. "And you're not alone—I'm here, and there's Amy, and your father..."
"Amy hates me," she cut in.
"Amy doesn't hate you," he sighed, rolling his eyes.
Why is there always so much drama between women? he wondered.
"She's just...concerned," he continued. "She doesn't want to see you get hurt again. She'll come around, eventually."
Stormy shrugged. "Maybe. But you and Amy have your own lives to worry about. And as for my father, well, he's never really been 'here'. I swear, sometimes it's like we're complete strangers."
"Well, maybe it's time that you got to know him," Brian suggested. "Cut him some slack, he might surprise you."
"Nothing he does would surprise me," Stormy snorted, rolling her eyes.
"Oh, my God! Are you always so damn obstinate?!" Brian burst out, although he was smiling when he said it. "Could you work with me here, just a little bit? I'm trying to help!"
Stormy covered her face with her hands, and then slid them down just far enough to peer out sheepishly over the tops of her fingertips.
"You're right," she chuckled apologetically. "I'm sorry, and I appreciate you for trying. I just—" She broke off for a moment, and then shrugged indifferently. "Maybe it's too late for me. Maybe I'm beyond help."
"Nobody is beyond help," he insisted, more firmly than he had intended. The sharpness in his voice registered on her face, and he softened his tone before continuing. "And, as long as you're breathing, it's never too late."
Her green eyes stared back at him, and he noticed for the first time the tiny flecks of gold that formed a shimmery ring just outside the pupil. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, until he finally turned away.
"Again, Confucius, very profound," she kidded dryly. "But that's easy for you to say, Mister Perfect."
"Mister Perfect?" he repeated indignantly.
With both his parents dead and his ex-girlfriend's betrayal being paraded under his nose on a regular basis, his life was hardly perfect, and the implication that it was rankled him for some reason. Stormy seemed to take note.
"What I mean," she elaborated, choosing her words carefully. "Is that you've never done anything wrong. You said so yourself—you're exactly where you're supposed to be, doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. You've never screwed up, you've never messed anything up, and everybody likes you!"
Brian could only gape back at her, incredulous.
Does she honestly believe that she's the only person to ever make a mistake, or fall off track? he wondered. And does she really believe that there's no coming back from that--no reprieve, no forgiveness? She turned to look at him just then, and he could see the answer to that question in her eyes. Yes, she does.
"C'mon," he said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her toward the door. "You leave me no choice."
No words were spoken as he dragged her outside, across the porch and down over the steps. He cut right at the bottom, crossing swiftly over the grass and stopping at the far corner of the house, where the porch ended. Brian released her wrist from his grasp and smoothed his hand along the wooden railing.
"I rebuilt this porch," he said. "About five or six years ago..."
"Is that so?" Stormy asked, surprised but obviously unsure as to where he was going with it. "Impressive. I've never been particularly handy with a hammer, myself."
"Yep, and I redid that flower bed over there, too," Brian said, not responding to her attempt at humor. "Come here, I'll show you something else." He turned the corner of the house and headed across the lawn with Stormy close behind. He came to a stop beside the huge oak tree that stood in the side yard and reached out to run his hand over a significant area of deeply scarred bark, scarcely visible now in the gathering dusk.
"I did this, too," Brian said, his manner somber. Stormy seemed to realize that he wasn't expecting a response, and he was grateful for her silence as he gathered his thoughts. He could feel her eyes intently searching his face as she waited for him to continue, and, after a long pause, he did.
"I had kind of a rough time of it after my dad died, what with school and the farm and the medical bills and all," Brian said, staring into the distance. "It was just too much at once, plus that was right around the time when all the bullshit with Tammy was going down, and I just kind of came unglued, I guess."
He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. Stormy stayed silent as she fell in beside him, not touching, but still close enough that he could feel the heat from her skin dissipating into the cool evening air.
"Things were pretty dicey for a while, there. I was drinking way too much way too often, and just generally being an asshole," Brian continued. "My sister and Ray and a lot of other people tried to help, but I just didn't want to hear it. People were a lot more tolerant than I deserved, and they all said that they understood what I was going through, but I knew that they didn't, you know?"
Stormy looked up at him with rapt attention, obviously shocked by his revelation. He stared down at the ground, still embarrassed by his past behavior, even though everyone else had long forgiven him.
"So how'd you get through it?" she prompted softly. "What happened?"
"Your dad happened," he said, and seeing her confused expression, he dove in to the details. "Okay, so here I am one night,—plastered out of my mind, of course—driving home after doing God-knows-what with God-knows-who, in God-knows-where. Mind you, this is all second-hand, because I don't remember any of it. So anyhow, I end up going off the road right over there, flying across the lawn and taking out half of the front porch and the flower bed before side-swiping this tree right here. Totaled my dad's old truck."
"Oh my word, Brian," Stormy breathed. "You're lucky you weren't killed!"
"Even luckier that I didn't kill someone else," Brian added solemnly.
"That too," Stormy agreed softly. "So what happened next?"
"Truthfully, I have no idea," he admitted. "The next thing I remember is waking up on a piss-stained mattress in a jail cell, with six stitches in my head and a jackhammer pounding in my skull."
He leaned forward and pointed out a faint scar that lay mostly hidden behind his left eyebrow.
Stormy's eyes flew open wide. "My dad had you arrested?!"
Brian shook his head. "No, not him," he said. "Somebody must have heard the crash and called it in, and the police came out to investigate."
"And they put you in jail?!" she reiterated, still owl-eyed. Her hand fluttered briefly to her mouth and then fell to her side once again.
"Yep," Brian confirmed, his head bobbing slowly up and down. "Just for the one night, thankfully. Your dad came the next morning and bailed me out."
"Wait, this is my father we're talking about?" Stormy asked doubtfully.
"Surprised?" Brian asked smugly, with his best I-told-you-so tone of voice.
"Only that he didn't kill you right then and there!" Stormy scoffed, and then grew pensive. "That just doesn't sound like him, though. Why'd he do it?"
"I'm not exactly sure," Brian shrugged. "I guess he just understood what I was going through. He knew what it felt like to lose someone—"
He stopped short, having said too much already.
"Because of my mother," Stormy concluded. "Because she died."
Brian tore his gaze from hers and turned away, not trusting himself to respond.
"I guess," he murmured noncommittally.
Damn you, Walter! he cursed silently.
"Still," Stormy said, and Brian was grateful for the topic shift. "I just can't picture him being that... nice."
"Oh, he was definitely not nice," Brian corrected. "The first thing he said to me when they brought him down to the jail cell was 'Rise and shine, Asshole!'"
"Now that I can picture!" Stormy laughed. "So then what?"
"Basically, he explained that he now owned my ass, and would continue to own it until I had repaired or replaced everything that was destroyed, and if I refused the deal, he'd file charges and sue me for damages. So I spent every afternoon here for almost two months, working my tail off while he followed me around busting my balls. Man, that sucked!" Brian groaned, although he smiled fondly at the memory. "But I guess it was what I needed at the time. Your dad was the only person who was straight with me, and he didn't sugar-coat it, either: The words 'dumbass', 'sack of shit', and 'total disgrace' were tossed around quite frequently!"
"Nice, Dad," Stormy muttered under her breath, shaking her head in disbelief.
"Hey, it needed to be said," Brian shrugged. "Whatever works, right?"
"Well, you must have paid your penance in his eyes, because he seems to think highly of you now," she observed.
"I guess you could say we've come to a mutual respect," Brian said. "He hasn't exactly had it easy himself, you know, and he gave me some pretty good advice..."
"Really. Like what?" Stormy was doubtful, yet intrigued.
Dammit! Brian thought, trapped again by his own words. Why couldn't Walter just keep his damn secrets to himself?
"Just guy stuff," he covered. "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."
Stormy shrugged indifferently and pretended to inspect her nails.
"I didn't really want to know, anyway," she said airily.
Brian grinned. "Reverse psychology won't work on me, either," he informed her.
She laughed and gave him a playful shove.
"And you think the gossip about you is bad?" he said, whistling for emphasis. "You have no idea! Holy crap, I was sliced and diced and roasted on an open flame from one end of this town to the other! It took years for people to stop whispering about me behind my back, and they definitely made me earn it..."
"Oh, I'm sure they did!" Stormy agreed wholeheartedly, and then fell silent for a long moment. "So why are you telling me all of this?"
"Well, first, to show you that your father isn't always the ogre that you seem to think he is," Brian answered. "And second, to prove that it's never too late, and that it is possible to fix things, regardless of how badly you've screwed up."
Stormy was silent beside him, but he sensed that his words had registered with her. He started back across the lawn, and she followed close behind. They were just rounding the corner of the house when Lillian's car pulled into the driveway, its headlights sweeping a long arc across the hedges lining the far side of the driveway before coming to rest on the front of the garage. The interior dome light came on as Walter climbed out of the passenger seat, their murmured voices carrying across the night air as they said their goodbyes. Walter started up the walkway as Lillian backed out of the driveway and tapped the horn as she pulled away down the road. Walter startled as he reached the steps and saw Stormy and Brian emerge from the shadows.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" Walter barked, a hand flying to his chest. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack or something?! What the hell are you two doing, lurking around out here in the dark?!" His eyes fixed on Stormy with a look of obvious contempt. "What, your dance card isn't full enough already?"
Surprisingly, Stormy didn't fight back, and her face clouded over with shame at the mere implication of impropriety on her part. She murmured a quick goodbye to Brian as she brushed past him, skittering up the steps and disappearing into the house. He could hear her muffled footsteps on the stairs, followed shortly by the slam of what he assumed to be her bedroom door. Walter merely shrugged, grumbling something under his breath as he started up the porch steps. Despite what Stormy had said about his not getting involved, he knew he had to intervene in this instance.
"Hey, Walter," Brian said. "Do you have a minute?"