Free Dangerous Waters by Toni Anderson Page B

from prison, Finn and Thom had turned up to bring him home. Brent had wanted nothing to do with them. Finn had tried to talk to him a few times since but had been constantly rebuffed. It had gotten to the stage where it simply hurt too much to try to repair their tattered relationship, even if he’d known how.
    “How’ve you been, Brent?”
    A harsh laugh cracked the shadows. “I’ve been great, Finn. Fucking great. How was the army? Kill anyone?”
    Anger simmered too close to the surface. “I did what I had to do.”
    “What you were ordered to do.” Bitterness laced his brother’s tone.
    “We both did what we had to do.”
    The scrape of a chair grated across the deck as his brother climbed to his feet. “Is that your version of forgiveness? I don’t need your fucking forgiveness.”
    “My forgiveness ? You saved me.” Their father had beaten Finn unconscious with an iron bar. If it hadn’t been for Brent, he’d be dead. Worse, because Finn had been unconscious for much of the attack, the prosecuting attorney at Brent’s trial had created enough doubt in the jurors’ minds to suggest Brent might have been responsible for Finn’s injuries too. But Finn knew exactly who’d hurt him, and guilt expanded in his chest every time he saw his brother. Most days it almost suffocated him.
    Waves washed against the nearby beach—the sound so reminiscent of childhood, he choked. “You’re the one who wouldn’t let me visit you in prison. You’re the one who shut me out.” Finn stood, breathing hard. Thirty seconds of togetherness and they’d said everything that needed to be said.
    “I should’ve just let him hammer away at you, you runty little bastard.” The red glow settled malevolently back into the shadows.
    “Maybe you should have.” He wasn’t a runty little bastard anymore.
    “Get lost. I don’t want you here. I haven’t seen you for half a goddamned lifetime and you turn up like the prodigal son? Get off my fucking land.”
    Brent had made it more than clear over the years he wanted nothing to do with him, but he wasn’t running away this time. “Our land,” Finn reminded him grimly. Not that he wanted it. Brent had earned that and more over the years. “I didn’t come here to fight. I am sorry for screwing up your life.”
    There was a long, taut silence as shared memories connected them. They didn’t need to say the words; they’d lived through good and bad times by relying on each other. Then Finn had let them both down.
    “You had that asshole professor looking out for you. It worked out all right for you in the end.” Brent sounded snide and bitter, just like their old man. His resentment toward Thom had been palpable from the start, and Finn didn’t know if it was because Thom had given him the life they’d both craved or if Brent just didn’t like the man.
    “He taught me how to read.” Dyslexia had made him an easy target for bullies at school. Brent had tried to help but hadn’t been much better at reading himself. Finn doubted that had improved in prison.
    “And I killed for you. You’re a hell of a lucky guy.”
    “Lucky?” His voice cracked and an old embarrassment welled up inside him.
    Emotion finally penetrated his brother’s ex-con hide, and Brent let out a deep breath. “You were just a kid. I didn’t want you coming to the prison and seeing that…filth, that ugliness. And by the time I got out, you’d joined the army. And after you came home…” His brother swallowed audibly. “I’m not good to be around, Finn.”
    Finn took a step forward.
    “Come any closer and I’ll blow your head off.”
    Finn’s night vision had kicked in, and the moon had risen over the water. His brother’s face was lined with age and experience. Lean and mean. Beloved and familiar.
    “You wouldn’t shoot me.”
    A bullet scored the earth to his right.
    “I’m not the same stupid asshole who protected you from that fucker. I don’t want you here.” It was the