Page 64 of Conveniently Wed
He was raw, rage-filled, hot.
He rode into a brushy woods and ran off his horse, going knee-deep in the little meandering creek they’d been following for three days.
Tossing his hat, he cupped his hands and scooped up handfuls of cool water, splashing his face.
The icy water did nothing to quench the burn inside him.
A twig snapped and he jerked around, water arcing from his hands.
Seb.
“You okay? You flew out of there pretty quick.”
He nodded. Then shook his head.
Turned his back on his younger brother and ran both hands down his face.
“Should I have checked on Fran first?” Seb asked.
He squeezed, but the pounding in his head didn’t dissipate.
“You yell at her?” His younger brother was looking for trouble, nosing in where he didn’t belong.
“Could you go away?” he responded. “I need?—”
He needed to take it back. All of it. But couldn’t.
He splashed both hands violently through the water, getting wet and cold up to his armpits.
“Did it help? Yelling at her?” Seb pushed.
“No!” he burst out, hanging his head and sliding the fingers of both hands back along his scalp.
All that did was make him think of her, too. The tender way she’d cut his hair. She was driving him insane.
“No, it didn’t help.”
Seeing her tears had torn something open inside of him, releasing a flow of hot emotion that broke him.
Reopening an old wound like his that had scarred over didn’t help, it just created more scar tissue, more memories he didn’t need.
Unless the wound needed to be lanced.
He shook his head, confusion and that old pain warring with regret that he’d spoken to Fran like he had. She shouldn’t have been prying into his past, but that didn’t mean she deserved to be yelled at.
He needed a clear head. The cattle. He had to think of the cattle first, and Emma’s safety.
“You could always…oh, I don’t know. Apologize,” Seb said.
Before Edgar could turn and read his brother the riot, he heard hoofbeats heading into the distance. He looked over his shoulder to see Seb’s retreating back.
He was alone.
He hadn’t felt this alone since Jonas had fit him into his family. He’d been accepted immediately, been made a part of the group. Was expected to pull his weight and was taken care of in ways he hadn’t known since he’d come to the orphanage at a young age.
Now, with his brother’s disapproval stinging and himself worn raw from the confrontation with Fran, he felt like that four-year-old boy again.
And it hurt.
