Page 9 of The Fence Between Us

Alone on the sidewalk, Skye mourned the loss of her coffee that would sit in the bridal shop and grow cold while she drove home and tried to function on three crappy hours of sleep. No way could she survive the rest of the day without liquid energy or a serious nap, but the idea of going back into The Wild Bride to retrieve her cup sounded even worse, so she silently said farewell to her drink.

“Skye.”

She stiffened, her body freezing at the lulling baritone of his voice. The gravel there was much deeper and more assured than when he was a boy. The fear of the future and pain of the past didn’t seem to hang in his words like they used to. No matter what had transpired between them, Skye nearly sighed in relief, thankful he’d found something that made life worth living. Even if it wasn’t her.

She turned as Rabble approached, her coffee in his large hand.

He studied her, his eyes seeking out her soul as only he seemed able to. Whatever he saw there must have puzzled him and he frowned, though his eyes softened with everything once between them. Skye’s muscles tightened, her traitorous body igniting at his nearness, his intense gaze. She refused to acknowledge that feeling low in her belly and shook her head slowly as she walked backward a few paces before hurrying away. Maybe that’s whatthey’d always be to each other, just pieces of their past that didn’t fit anywhere in their present.

Chapter 5

Rabble

Rabble watched, eyes wide, as Skye practically ran down the street, away from him. His first reaction was shock, it knocked the wind from him, frying his veins and sending static through his brain. That was immediately followed by a thought that horrified him.

She wasn’t supposed to be here. What the hell was she doing here?

Eight years felt like an eternity when the days slogged by without a heart, but presented with that missing part of him, the part that belonged to her, those years really weren’t that long in the grand scheme of things. Seeing her immediately transported him back to that warm spring day when everything had well and truly gone to hell. Rabble could almost pinpoint the exact moment he and Skye had fallen apart and any chance they had disappeared like the evaporating dew on new spring leaves.

It wasn’t something he liked to think about, the choices he’d made, how they’d plagued him in their years apart. In the weeks after he’d left Shiloh Hills, during those long days of the intensehellscape of basic training, his mind drifted to her often, the silken gold of her hair, the light blue eyes that sparkled when she laughed. Images of her haunted him in his sleeping and waking hours, leaving him exhausted and vulnerable. It was that vulnerability his commanding officers honed in on and hammered like steel in a blacksmith’s forge, until it became a tool in Rabble’s arsenal, it became the strength of his will and the determination of his body. After that, he still thought of her, but with a resolute acceptance that kept him moving forward.

Had those moments tormented her as well? Did she wake in the middle of the night, as he did, sweaty and panting from dreams of what had been and never would be again?

He’d never tell Skye what prompted him to enter that recruitment office or sign the papers that meant leaving her behind. She didn’t deserve the shitshow of his life, so he’d taken it with him.

Confronting her on the sidewalk had not been his smartest move, but he couldn’t stop himself from following her. Since the day he enlisted, he imagined what he’d say if they ever saw each other again, but the moment he had the chance, he’d choked on words that refused to leave his mouth while she’d paled like she’d seen a ghost.

Rabble returned to The Wild Bride, anticipating at least one of the three siblings, or maybe even Bekah, to grill him on his strange encounter with Skye. He wished someone would yell at him, curse him, or do something, anything, to wipe the pity off of Elyza’s face and the look on Dash’s that said he saw more than Rabble wanted.

Only Declan didn’t stare at him with a mixture of emotion that made Rabble’s stomach churn but only because his friend was busy showing Bekah around the boutique, pointing out exists and hiding spots and anything that might work as a weapon if she ever needed one. Declan’s words echoed in the otherwisequiet space. Maybe they were having an odd conversation at a potential workplace, but for someone in Bekah’s situation, the men at Rabble & Bros. Security agreed they would encourage their clients to adopt proactive measures and self-defense. They took their duty seriously; they didn’t shy away from the fact that they stood at the border of life and death, nor did they pretend these cases were anything other than what they were, situations that could go to hell in a handbasket at any moment.

Rabble took a breath, centering himself. He was in no way prepared to answer the questions brewing behind Elyza’s curious and loving eyes as she sidled closer to him.

“Elyza,” he said quietly, “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

She pursed her lips together, her face taking on a semi-apologetic expression, “Okay, Rab. But I have bad news. Skye is the other half of your team for the float.”

Rabble’s heart stopped cold.

Damn. When was he going to catch a break?

He forced a small smile of acceptance. “Doesn’t matter, little sister. I told you I’d help; I got your back.”

Rabble tucked his hands into his pockets and left the siblings standing at the retail counter to catch up while Declan and Bekah wandered around the bridal shop. The comfortable atmosphere suddenly grated at his nerves, so he shouldered his way outside, needing a moment alone.

On the sidewalk, he took a deep breath of humid summer air and glanced around the familiar scene. Though new concrete pads made up sidewalks that no longer sank unevenly along the path, he could still picture the old cracked and broken places he’d traced years ago. Patches of flowers bloomed along the path, fresh dirt and mulch mounded up around them to keep weeds at bay—so different from the dried, dying grass he remembered from his long walks between the school and his house.

He had grown up on the outskirts of town where the nicely maintained houses gave way to the countryside and the poverty that was an unfortunate reality for some, like him. Skye had been his only neighbor; a field bordered the other side of his property line. The school bus didn’t bother driving down their street, a narrow gravel path that counted as a backroad. Instead, the driver stopped at the top of the road to let him and Skye off. Her father always picked her up, leaving Rabble to walk every dusty step back to the rundown trailer home he lived in.

Outwardly, Shiloh Hills looked to be making a noticeable effort to reclaim some of its former glory; glory that had faded long before he’d moved in. He wondered if their efforts would be in vain, if the rot in certain parts ran too deep, remained too ingrained, for the town to ever be truly lovely again.

Rabble wandered down the new sidewalk, alternating between staring at the fresh light gray stone and taking in the slowly maturing trees planted equidistance from each other between the road and the narrow pathway.

What was Skye doing back in Shiloh Hills? Was she here for the Independence Day celebration or some other reason?

No matter the answer, it looked like he would be seeing a lot more of the girl who had always been there for him, always stood beside him. That is, until he stepped away, leaving her and all of their plans in the dust of a Greyhound bus.

At the end of the street, Rabble turned around and walked back to his truck where he’d parked it in front of the bridal shop. He climbed in, determined to focus on work instead of getting stuck in his head and obsessing over the situation he now found himself in. Driving through town, he noted the differences, the changes for better or worse. Several older buildings appeared abandoned with plywood covered windows and amateur graffiti gracing the red brick. In other areas, buildings restored to theirformer glory now heralded the beauty of architecture gone by, or their renovations fit a more modern style altogether.

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