It didn’t surprise me that she wanted to know. She hadn’t even heard the conversation we’d had. “It’s my foster brother. I haven’t seen him in four years. I didn’t know he was here.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Your foster brother? That didn’t look like a brotherly hug.”
It wasn’t. “I was really shocked to see him. In a good way. I thought something awful had happened to him.”
“So why haven’t you ever mentioned him?” The hurt was evident in her voice. “I’m your best friend. I mean, he’s obviously important to you. Or was.”
Busted. I shrugged, not wanting to lie. Unable to tell the truth. “If I didn’t know where he was, what was there to say?”
“Oh, I don’t know, like maybe a story here and there about growing up together, about something funny that happened in high school. It just seems like at some point it would have come up.”
“I didn’t grow up with him.” It was an evasive answer.
She knew it. “Did you have a thing with him?”
“A thing?” I steeled myself to lie. I really did have to at that point. Because I couldn’t ever speak about how much it had hurt when Heath had left. How betrayed I had felt, how absolutely and utterly heartbroken. I couldn’t share that with anyone, least of all Ethan’s sister. How could she ever trust my feelings for Ethan if she heard the truth from me? “He was a friend, someone to hang out with. It was lonely living on an island with only a thousand people.”
He’d been a friend and a confidant, that was true. But he’d been way more than that. I waved my hand in front of my face. “It stinks out here. I want to go back in. Ethan is waiting for me.” She couldn’t argue with that.
Aubrey opened her mouth but seemed to think better of it. But then she said, “It’s pretty f**king awesome we’re going to be sisters, isn’t it?”
It still didn’t feel real, the idea of marriage to Ethan. That he would want me forever. That I would want him. Forever. “Totally awesome. Where is Colton, by the way?”
“He’s over there smoking a blunt.”
“Shouldn’t you at least like say hi or something?”
She rolled her eyes but she said, “Yeah. Probably. Shit. I hate being a nice person.”
That made me laugh. “I’ll see you later.”
Determined to go back to Ethan and forget about Heath Deprey, I opened the door to the house.
And came face to face with everything I wanted to avoid.
“Cat,” Heath said. “I was looking for you.”
A shiver rolled up my spine.
Chapter Three
“I was looking for you,” Heath had said to me just a few weeks after he arrived at our house. Mostly he had been lying low, not speaking to anyone, only appearing to forage for food. Otherwise, he spent the majority of his time outside, walking the rocks, trekking into town and not returning until dark. I had wondered where he went, what he did in town.
I had wondered a lot of things about him, but had been afraid to ask. He was intimidating, and while he had given me a few smiles and made a couple of comments about my ability to pack away a lot of food, he had never sought me out.
That he did then made my stomach tighten. A fluttery anticipation crawled over my flesh. “Yeah? Why?”
We were outside and I was stealthily filling a bucket of water from the faucet on the house where my father wouldn’t see me. He didn’t object to me having a vegetable garden, but he did object to me watering it because of the expense. I wasn’t sure how he thought the veggies survived and grew without water since it hadn’t rained in a week, but he didn’t seem to think about that fact. As long as he didn’t see an increase in the water bill, he happily ate the tomatoes, and I got to enjoy my hobby.
“I wanted to ask if you can cut my hair.” Heath held up a pair of scissors.
I paused with the bucket in my hands. “Cut your hair? Why? I don’t know how to cut hair.” His hair was a little unruly but it didn’t seem to me like it should be a big deal. Mine was way more unkempt than his was and I thought he looked cool with it all shaggy and bad boy.
He eyed my head. “I’m not even sure you know how to brush hair, honestly.”
My cheeks burned. “Hey!” Though I couldn’t really argue with him on that. I had long thick hair that was a pain in the ass to control so mostly I just didn’t. It was snarled and wild and usually either in a drooping bun or raining down my back. But that didn’t make it any less embarrassing that Heath had pointed it out. “Then why are you asking me if I’m clearly failing Cute Hair 101?”
I expected a snarky answer back. That’s what his type did. But instead he just reached out and took the end of my hair and flipped it a little, giving me a small smile. “I don’t trust anyone else here to come at me with a pair of scissors, that’s why.” He held the scissors up. “So yes or no?”
I was torn between the horror that I would completely jack his hair up and the desperate desire to both touch his head and to please him. Besides, no one had ever put their trust in me. My fear lost out to my curiosity and I reached for the scissors. “Sure.”
From then on, we were inseparable.
“Yes?” I asked Heath, fighting the urge to bite my lip and run the hell away from him. I wanted to know what he had to say but at the same time I was terrified. I was afraid it would hurt more then it already had, and that had been almost more than I could take. His leaving had sent me into a dark, ugly place that had taken months to crawl out of it and I didn’t want to fall down into that well again. “Where’s your girlfriend?” I asked then silently cursed myself for making it so freaking obvious I cared.
“Where’s your fiancé?” he countered.
“He’s in the house. He’s the Gamma president.” I don’t know why I said that. Actually, yes I did. I said it because I wanted him to understand that he might have left and tossed me aside like I was nothing, but Ethan wanted to marry me and Ethan was somebody. But it wasn’t the right tactic to take with Heath and I knew it the second the words left my mouth.
He rolled his eyes. “Well, good for him. I’m sure that will matter so much in ten years.”
“What are you doing here? Are you enrolled in classes?” Why the hell didn’t you contact me was what I really wanted to ask, but I didn’t.