I tilted my head back and looked up at Asher, who was glaring at his brother. “You made Emily stop?”

He sighed then nodded. “Yeah.”

“How did you know it was her?”

“Asked a few questions,” he responded. “Didn’t want you suffering anymore.”

There was no possible way for me not to love Asher. He owned my heart. I stepped to his front, wrapped my arms around his neck, and held him tight. “Thank you,” I said. “You’re my hero.”

“Hey, I threatened her, too,” Bray called from across the pool table.

“She’s not hugging you. Back the hell off,” Asher returned as he hugged me back.

If my life could always be this perfect, I never wanted it to end. There’d be no one for me but Asher. I was young, but that I knew. When your soul finds its match, there’s no doubt in your heart. Telling Asher I loved him right now was too soon, I knew I had to wait. So as much as I wanted to pepper his face with kisses and tell him how I felt, I didn’t. Instead, I let him turn me in his arms and hold me against his chest. I would have been happy to stay there forever.

Steel Sutton

ASHER HADN’T COME home last night. Bray and Brent went to look for him and came back after two in the morning with no sign of our big brother. Momma was going to notice that he wasn’t here. Keeping his disappearance from her would be hard. I could smell the bacon now and knew we’d have a big breakfast waiting on us.

I believed I’d done the right thing. Dixie needed to know. It was wrong to keep that kind of thing from her. Why couldn’t Asher see that? I wouldn’t desert her the way he had, but she needed to know the reason we couldn’t be together anymore.

One day Dixie would’ve found out the truth on her own and we wouldn’t have been there to help. She planned on finding her real mother at some point. She didn’t need to be blindsided by some bitch who didn’t love her anyway.

And nothing had changed for me. I loved her as much as before and I wasn’t sure those feelings would ever go away.

“His bed’s still empty,” Brent said, as he walked into my room.

“Truck’s gone, too. But his shit is still here,” Dallas added, following Brent. He’d gotten up early to go work out in the barn. It was his normal morning routine.

“Momma ain’t gonna be happy about this. What’re we gonna tell her?” I asked, looking to Bray for an answer. He shook his head and walked over to the window. “Hell if I know. Can’t tell her the truth. It would kill her dead on the floor.”

“Sure didn’t matter to Steel that it might kill Dix like that.” Dallas said it like I wasn’t in the room. He just glared in my direction. He’d been pissed at me when he realized Asher had kept it from Dixie to protect her and I had told her anyway. Dallas thought Asher could do no wrong. He didn’t remember our dad because he was too young when dad died. Asher had always been the oldest male in his life, his onlyrole model.

“Dixie needed to know,” Bray said, looking back at Dallas.

“Really? Cause you want to keep it from Momma, to protect her just like Asher wanted to protect Dixie,” Dallas quickly shot back. He was two inches taller than Bray and his shoulders were wider and stronger, but we still saw him as the baby of the family. And even though no one else in Malroy messed with Dallas, we still treated him as the youngest.

“Shut up, Dallas! You don’t understand.”

“The fuck I don’t! I understand Asher told that dipshit a secret and trusted him to keep it from Dixie. And he didn’t do it,” Dallas accused, pointing at me.

“Take it down a notch or ten,” Brent said as he walked into the room, squinting against the sunlight streaming in from the window. He was still in his flannel pajama pants, his blond hair sticking up in several directions. He rarely went without a shirt, still hiding the tattoo on his waist from Momma because he didn’t want to deal with what she’d say. Brent was the last one of us anyone expected to get a tattoo. The word “yesterday” was inked on his right hip bone and no one knew what it meant. Except possibly Bray, because those two communicated without words. Their twin bond was fucking freakish at times.

Bray drawled, “sleeping beauty, glad you could join us.”

“Y’all woke me up. I bet Momma heard y’all, too,” Brent grumbled, flopping back on Dallas’s bed, which was unmade and torn to pieces. “And for the record, I think it was a shit thing to do for you to tell her that,” Brent added, lifting his head from the pillow to look at me with disgust, before dropping it down and leaving it.

“Majority vote is you suck,” Dallas said.

Bray groaned and turned around to shoot an angry glare at his brothers. “It’s done. Shut up and let it go. Now she knows and Asher has got to get a fucking grip. We can’t let him fall off the deep end. He was pretty damn close before this happened. He’s carried this shit around on his own for three fucking years. Remember that. Our goal is to find him. Not sit here and discuss if Steel did the right thing or not.”

I glanced down at my phone. Dixie hadn’t texted me. I’d almost expected something from her. We’d been fucking engaged . . . well, nearly. Now we were related. My stomach turned again. The only thing keeping me from losing my shit was the fact we hadn’t had sex. We had come close, but she always put the brakes on. As pissed as I was getting, I’m damn sure glad she did. Asher had to live knowing he’d slept with her. And that he’d taken her damn virginity. Fuck . . . I couldn’t imagine that.

“I can’t imagine what he’s been dealing with. Three years of daily hell. All I want to do is go drink so much I can’t feel a motherfucking thing.” Bray’s scowl deepened and he headed for the door. “Fuck drinking, I’m going to find him,” he said, before leaving us all sitting there, watching him exit the room.

“Guess that leaves us to explain their absence. Momma’s gonna love this,” Dallas said, moving toward the door himself.

“I should go with him,” Brent added, sitting up and scratching his head. He wasn’t a morning person and Bray had looked like a man on a mission.

“You’ll be in his way, and he’ll be gone before you can slide into a pair of jeans anyway. Let him go, you go charm Momma with pretty boy.” I spoke, nodding my head for him to follow Dallas.

Brent agreed with a tilt of his chin and then left the room, hopefully planning to find a shirt first before he joined Momma and Dallas in the kitchen.

Asher Sutton

THIS MORNING AT seven, I’d been sitting in my truck parked behind the football field, when I got a text from Dixie. She asked me where I was. I stared at my phone for ten minutes before responding. She didn’t need to ask me why I was here because she knew. Here, I felt safe. The place was deserted, with school being out, and it was the only place I could think of where I could park and be left alone.

Half an hour later, the passenger side of my truck opened and Dixie climbed in. She didn’t knock but I was expecting her. I knew she’d come, but then again, I knew Dixie better than anyone else. Better even than Steel.

Steel.

I loved him, but I couldn’t be trusted to be around him right now.

“You been here all night?” Dixie asked.

“Yeah,” I muttered.

“You sleep any?”