Forever Never

On a dissatisfied groan, Remi stared down at the half dozen sheets of watercolor projects she’d started and abandoned.

After an entire day of relentless internet searches, social media snooping, and meticulously documenting every insignificant find she’d marched over to Brick’s house in the dark to clear her head and try her hand—ha—at some painting. But it wasn’t what she craved. The colors were all wrong. The layering was impossible. She needed the texture and color she was used to.

Throwing down her brush, she rolled out her shoulders. Sitting and slumping over a work table wasn’t exactly her speed either. Especially not after an eternity spent hunched over a laptop.

She got up and tossed her supplies in the sink, watching as the colors melded, turning into a dark, ugly purple before swirling down the drain.

A distraction. That’s what she needed. Something to keep her from obsessively checking her phone for a message from Camille. Something to get her mind off her friend trapped in a house with a monster.

She wasn’t going to find that here. She could tell by the flicker of light on the door that the TV in the living room was on. Brick was on call tonight, so he was probably polishing his uniform boots or something equally anal.

Family, she decided. Family was fun.

Digging her phone out, she checked the time. 10 p.m.

Her niece and nephew would be in bed, but Kimber was a notorious night owl. Surely her sister would enjoy some company?

They still hadn’t really talked since she’d come home. She’d been remiss in her sisterly duties. Kimber was obviously going through something, and maybe this was the opportunity Remi could get her to open up about it.

The best way to forget about her own problems was to immerse herself in the problems of others.

She left the brushes to dry on the bathroom vanity, shut off the lights, and bundled herself out the door into the backyard.

The night sky was crystal clear, lit by a half moon and millions of pinpoints of light. She already felt better about her idea. She’d pry it out of Kimber, and they could figure it out together. Reclaim the connection they seemed to have misplaced.

She tiptoed up the street past her parents’ house. Old habits died hard. At least she didn’t have to shimmy up the trellis this time.

Her sister’s place, an adorable bungalow in daffodil yellow, was just one block down on the opposite side of the street.

It was the place her sister had dreamed of owning since she was a little girl. Remi was so proud the day Kimber and Kyle signed the papers she’d sent them a Welcome Home mat for the little front porch and demanded a picture of it as soon as it was in place.

Her dad had snapped a picture of Kyle carrying her sister over the threshold like a bride. One foot on the mat and one foot in the door.

She stepped up onto the porch and found the mat was still there.

Welcome Home.

It was worn now. Frayed around the edges. Some of the letters were fading under the abuse of sidewalk salt.

But it was still there.

She was about to knock when she heard a noise from around back. It sounded like the back door opening and closing.

Remi tiptoed off the porch and followed the walkway around to the fence.

She heard the flick of a lighter. Eyebrows raised, she knocked at the wooded gate. “Psst! Kimber?”

“Remi?” she heard her sister say.

“Yeah. Want some company?”

There was a hesitation that pained her. Not only had they lost their connection, her sister seemed like a stranger now.

She let out a breath when the handle on the gate jiggled, and it swung open.

“Holy shit. Are you—”

Kimber stood in plaid pajama pants and a black parka. “Smoking? Yes. I am. You can withdraw the judgment.”

She blinked. “I’ve just never seen you do anything…” Bad. Wrong. Inappropriate. Unhealthy. “Like that.”

“It’s my own little rebellion,” Kimber said flatly. “I thought you of all people would be proud.”

It sounded and felt like a dig. “What are you rebelling against?”

Kimber blew out a stream of smoke into the night air. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it does. If it’s a good cause, I’ll join the rebellion.”

Her sister’s laugh was dry. “That’s the last thing I need.”

Remi took a breath and tried to focus on what lay behind her sister’s words. “Are you and Kyle okay?” she asked.

“Define okay. Yes, we’re still married. No, he didn’t come home for Ian’s Media Club Awards at the school tonight because it was easier to stay another night instead of seeing his kids and commuting in the morning.”

Remi winced. “Does he do that often?”

She ignored the question. “You know what he did have time for? To ask me if everything was okay with you. Apparently you called him looking for some vague legal advice, and now he’s worried you’re in trouble.”

“It’s nothing,” Remi said quickly.

“Nothing? Do you know what it would take for my husband to remember that I exist in any capacity beyond folder of laundry and raiser of children?” Kimber’s voice rose shrilly.

Remi decided to stay quiet. She was no stranger to emotional volcanic activity. But this was her first time witnessing her big sister lose her cool.

“Since Kyle’s concerned. And Mom and Dad are concerned. Why don’t we talk about you? How’s your life, Remi? How’s your asthma?”

“I’d rather talk about you.”

“Really? I thought you only thrived with all the attention in the room on you.” A tiny tear tracked its way down her sister’s cheek.

“Okay,” Remi said, taking a step back. “You’re obviously going through some tough things. I should go.”

“What’s it like being fascinating? No one’s found me interesting, let alone fascinating, since before I had kids,” Kimber mused. “Maybe never.”

Remi started for the gate. “Call me later.”

“You and your technicolor brain and your deficient lungs and your whole ‘watch me get in trouble’ without consequences. How do you do it, Rem?”

“Do what?” Remi asked, feeling tired and sad.

“Ever since we were kids, you just sucked all the attention out of the room.”

Remi closed her eyes and absorbed the blow.

“I mean, I don’t begrudge you your ‘special sparkle,’ but I get why Audrey married Brick.” Kimber’s laugh was humorless.

Remi’s head was spinning at the unexpected attack. “What does one have to do with the other?”

“She took something you couldn’t have. You could charm your way into getting anything. Except Brick. Who could blame Audrey for taking something that you wanted? At least she got to feel as if she was just as good as you.”

Remi was stunned into silence.

“Haven’t you ever noticed? Standing next to you makes everyone else invisible. You know what happens when someone like you lights up the room? It makes the rest of us dimmer. And I know it’s not your fault. And I still love you because it’s impossible not to love you, though frankly, that pisses me off, too.”

“I’m going to go,” Remi said again. She wasn’t sure how many more direct hits she could absorb before she reacted.

“When we were growing up, everything in our lives organized itself around you. Your asthma. Your synesthesia. You getting grounded. There was no other option for me except to be the good one.”

“You about finished?”

Kimber let out a breath. “Yeah. I think I am.”

“Feel better?”

Kimber put down the cigarette and picked up her drink. “Yeah. I think I do. I should have a fucking meltdown more often.”

“Listen up. I never asked to be protected. I left because I was suffocating here, surrounded by people who were never going to accept that I’d grown up. Who’d never stop seeing me as the flighty screw-up who needed saving. I never asked to have fucking asthma.”

“But you also never gave managing it a second thought. Because someone was always going to be around to bring you an inhaler or carry your ass to the doctor.”

“I was a kid, Kimber. Hell, I was still a kid at twenty-five. The only thing I felt as if I had control over was my own fucking body. So I made choices. Bad ones just because no one else could make them for me. And no one noticed when I fucking grew out of it.”

“You still haven’t grown out of it! Brick had to ride to your rescue yet again.”

“Oh, fuck off. I didn’t ask him to do that.”

“Maybe not this time, but what about every other time? The man is your real-life guardian angel.”

“I DON’T NEED GUARDING!”

“YES. YOU DO! And now that you’re an adult, your decisions can hurt others.”

It was a direct hit. The one that broke through her resolve to stay calm. “I know that. And that’s my problem to deal with. You know what your problem is?”

“Gee, I can’t wait to hear this,” Kimber scoffed.

“Your problem is you. Your husband checked out on you? Who let him? Who made that an option? Who didn’t throw down an ultimatum? Either check back in or get the fuck out. It wasn’t me. Who’s fault is it that you don’t have a job to give you back a piece of your identity? Who’s fault is it that you’re unsatisfied?”

“Fuck you, Remi!”

“Fuck you right back, Kimber. You don’t get to lay the blame on me and my dumb ass for your current problems. I take full responsibility for the shit you had to deal with when we were growing up. I am aware that I sucked up all the attention, and not all of it was unintentional. I know that I’m hard to love, that I’m too fucking much. But in case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t lived here in years.”

“What in the hell is going on here?” The flashlight blinded her, and she held up a hand to block the light.

“Gee. Look who shows up to save the day,” Kimber scoffed as Brick kicked the gate shut behind him and stomped toward them in the snow.

“I didn’t call him!” Remi insisted.

“No, but your sister’s next-door neighbor did. Said it sounded as if there was some kind of fight.”

“Oh, just fucking great!” Kimber was too far past the point of no return to stop. “Now the entire island is going to know my business.”

“Why don’t you blame that on me, too,” Remi shot back. The adrenaline was making her chest feel tight. But it was the most alive she’d felt in a while.

“Remington,” Brick threatened.

“If you reach for those zip ties on your belt, I will not be held accountable for my actions,” she warned him.

“Don’t make me use them.”

“Goddamn you! How am I supposed to pretend you don’t exist if you keep showing up?” Remi demanded, shrilly. Between the cold, the yelling, and her generalized fury, she could feel her throat tightening.

“Because you always need him. You always need someone to bail you out,” Kimber shot back.

Remi’s gasp was more of a wheeze.

“You know better than to get her riled like this,” Brick snapped at Kimber. “Where’s your inhaler?”

“Fuck you, Brick,” the sisters shouted together.

“If you two don’t knock it the hell off right now, I swear to God I will take you both down to the station and call your mother.”

It was the wrong move for him to make. Sisters divided were still sisters. And he’d just united them against a common enemy.

Remi picked up a fistful of snow.

“Don’t even think about it,” he growled as she formed it into a ball.

“I am not happy,” Chief Darlene Ford announced through the bars of the holding cell. She was wearing pink bunny fleece pajama pants and a Mackinac Police parka.

“Hi, Mom,” Remi and Kimber said innocently.

“Zip ties, Sergeant?” Darlene observed.

“I hit him with a snowball and tried to kick him in the balls,” Remi said cheerfully.

“I kicked him in the shin,” Kimber announced.

Darlene blinked, then sighed. “Let ’em out, Brick.”

“Only if you promise not to murder them,” he said. “I don’t want to deal with the paperwork.”

Remi watched her mom accept the keys from Brick. “You two are grounded.”

Kimber snorted. “I don’t think you can do that.”

“Yeah. We’re adults,” Remi agreed.

“Well, one of us is,” her sister said snidely.

“You wanna go again, Kimber?”

“That answers the zip-tie question,” their mother observed. “Cut ’em loose.”

Minutes later, they were bundled up and booted out onto the street to face the wrath of their bunny pajamaed mother.

“I’m not going to ask what this was about,” Darlene began. “Because frankly, I don’t give a shit. You’re both obviously going through something bad enough to get zip-tied and dragged downtown. By the way, Kimber, the kids are fine. Mrs. Croix let them have ice cream and watch an episode of Schitt’s Creek before putting them back to bed.”

“Great. I’ll never hear the end of this,” Kimber muttered under her breath.

“Enough.” Darlene’s voice cracked like a whip in the stillness. “If you have problems in your marriage, they sure as hell aren’t your sister’s fault. And you,” she said, pointing at Remi. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you. But you’d better get your head out of your ass and figure it out. We’re your parents. We love you both. But you two are fucking adults and you need to start solving your own problems. Not blaming them on someone else or running away from them.”

With that, she turned on heel and stalked off to the snowmobile parked on the street.

It was a long, cold, lonely walk back to Red Gate. Glumly, Remi glanced around the living space. There was no one here to talk to. Not that she needed to talk. Not that she needed the attention. She winced and dragged her hat off.

Was that it? Did she require so much attention just to exist that she eclipsed other people? People she cared about? Was that why Audrey had seemingly floated out of her life only to marry the one man Remi loved?

She needed a drink.

Her phone vibrated in her hand, and she glanced at the screen.

Brick: Need to talk to you.

There was no way in hell she was having a conversation with him right now. That would only reinforce every accusation Kimber had thrown in her face.

Another text came through.

Brick: Answer your phone or I’m coming over.

Ha! The gall of the man.

When the phone rang a second later, she ignored it. The same with the second call, too. To ensure she didn’t cave, she silenced the phone and headed into the bathroom.

“I’ll just drown myself in a nice hot shower,” she decided, turning the faucet to scalding. She cued up a playlist and blasted Queen’s “Someone to Love” through the speaker on the vanity counter. Stripping out of her clothes, she piled her hair on top of her head and slipped beneath the water.

The steam rose toward the ceiling as hues of red and orange shifted like clouds with the beat of the music. She closed her eyes and pretended not to hear the distant pounding on her front door. He’d give up and go away. Brick wasn’t the kind of man to cross any lines or disrespect a boundary. At least not where she was concerned. The rules mattered more to him than the reward for breaking them.

She held her face under the stream of hot water and pretended she was under the surface where everything was quiet, where she could scream and no one would hear.

The music cut off abruptly. “Damn it!” She drew back the curtain and froze. The opening note of a shriek climbed her throat, ending in a squeak.

For one split second, she thought it was him. The shadow that haunted her. The slicked-up charm that was only a veneer. And it froze her to the spot.

“Remi.”

Legs braced, arms crossed over his monumental chest, Brick Callan took up all the space in the room. He was still in uniform, still looking as if he wanted to throttle her.

“Did you break down my door?” she demanded, yanking the curtain closed. A flimsy barrier between them. She closed her eyes and willed her pulse to slow. He was so quiet on the other side of his many walls.

Finally, she heard a jingle and looked up. He was holding a keyring over the curtain rod.

Oh, right. He was so trustworthy and dependable. Of course he had a key.

“Go away, Brick. I’m too tired for a one-sided conversation with someone who doesn’t exist.”

Her jaw dropped when the fabric separating them was ripped open. There were three veins visible in his neck. Which meant he was seconds away from going nuclear. But an angry Brick was still safer than a smiling villain.

“Excuse me! I’m naked here,” she snarled, putting her hands on her hips and wishing she had a better shot at his balls.

The white, fluffy bath towel hit her in the face. “Cover up.”

“Cover up? You break into my bathroom while I’m in the shower and tell me to cover up? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You,” he said. A tremor of rage shook that one syllable, giving it too much meaning.

Of course she was his problem, she fumed, tucking the towel between her breasts. She’d ruined Kimber’s life. She’d turned a childhood friend into an enemy. And she’d put a good friend in a situation so dangerous there was no way out.

“You know what? I’m getting really tired of being everyone else’s problem. If you all hate being around me so much, leave me the fuck alone!”

She was so tired, she just wanted to sink down to the bottom of the tub and stay there. As if reading her mind, Brick reached in, shut off the water, and plucked her out of the tub.

Her wet legs left a damp trail over his crotch as he lowered her to the floor. Either he was hard or he’d found a new place to stow a nightstick. But it didn’t matter anymore. None of it did.

She needed to sleep. To curl up in a ball and sleep until the world was ready for her.

“You’re shaking,” he observed.

“You will be, too, if you don’t get the hell out of my bathroom.”

He ignored her threat and pulled her into the living room. She stood there and watched as he found the control for the fireplace and nudged the gas higher. When he started to pace in front of the fireplace, Remi gave up on standing and flopped down on the couch.

“What did you mean tonight?” he demanded, pausing mid-stride to stare at her with a strange intensity crackling in those blue eyes.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” she said, lolling her head on the back of the sofa. “I talk a lot.”

“When you were talking to Kimber.”

“I said a lot of things to my sister. And none of them are your business,” she said, pulling a soft throw off the back of the couch and spreading it over her legs.

He was pacing again.

“Wait, you’re mad at me about something I said to my sister in a private conversation?”

He stopped again and took a step toward her, then shoved a hand through his hair. “Mad doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.”

She’d never heard that tone from him before. It was brittle, jagged. He swallowed hard like the words were lodging themselves in his throat. But she squashed the desire to fix it, to make him more comfortable.

“You told her that you were hard to love. That you thought you were too much.”

The man had fought her off, zip-tied her, then hauled her ass to a holding cell, and he was upset that she’d announced a universal truth to her sister.

She tucked her feet under her. “I’m tired. What’s your point? What do you want me to say?”

He was moving again. Stepping into her space, he put his hands on the cushion on either side of her head. The fire flickered behind him as he loomed over her.

“Do you believe that?” His voice was a rasp, his eyes almost silver in the low light. A long beat of silence stretched on, broken only by their breaths.

Finally, she nodded. It was the truth. One she’d known as long as she’d known her own name.

“Remington, anyone who ever makes you feel as if you’re hard to love is a damn fool and doesn’t deserve to be in your world.”

She blinked. His nearness was taking the chill out of her bones, lighting up the shadows.

“Why do you care?” she whispered.

In slow motion, he removed one hand from the back of the couch and gently cupped her cheek. On instinct, she nuzzled against his palm and was rewarded with his hiss of breath.

“Because you’re the best person I know.”

His words were like a caress. A balm on some raw spot that had never healed. His thumb brushed over her lips. Once. Twice.

And then he was pulling back, straightening away from her. “Go to bed, Remi.” The order was gruff yet gentle.

Mouth open in stunned silence, she didn’t move from the spot as Sergeant Brick Callan put his hat back on and walked out, locking the door between them.