Too Far 02 - Never Too Far

pulled me away as Cain stumbled backwards holding his hands up to his nose with a panicked look in his eyes. Well, one of his eyes. The other one was already swelling shut.
    “What the hell did you say to him?” Grant asked from behind me. It was Grant who had me in a vise grip.
    “Don’t you fucking say it!” I roared when Cain opened his mouth to reply. I couldn’t hear him talk about her like that. What we had done was more than something dirty or wrong. He acted like I’d ruined her. Blaire was innocent. So incredibly innocent.What he had done didn’t change that.
    Grant’s arms tightened on me as he pulled me back against his chest. “You need to go now. I can only hold him for so long. He’s got about twenty more pounds of muscle on him than I do and this ain’t as easy as it looks. You need to run, dude. Don’t come back. You’re one lucky shit I showed up.”
    Cain nodded and then stumbled back to his truck. The anger had simmered in my veins but I still felt it. I wanted to hurt him more. To wash away any thought he may have in his head that Blaire wasn’t as perfect as she had been when she had left Alabama. He didn’t know what all she’d been through. The hell my family had put her through. How could he take care of her? She needed me.
    “If I let you go are you gonna chase his truck down or are we good?” Grant asked loosening his hold on me.
    “I’m good,” I assured him as I shrugged free of his arms and walked over to the railing to grip it and take several deep breaths. The pain was back full force. I’d managed to bury it until it only throbbed a little but seeing that chickenshit reminded me of everything. That night. The one I would never recover from. The one that would mark me forever.
    “Can I ask you what the hell that was about or are you gonna beat the shit outta me too?” Grant asked putting some distance between us.
    He was my brother for all intents and purposes. Our parents had been married when we were kids. Long enough for us to form that bond. Even though my mom had a couple husbands since then Grant was still my family. He knew enough to know this was about Blaire.
    “Blaire’s ex-boyfriend,” I replied without looking back at him.
    Grant cleared his throat. “So, uh, he come over here to gloat? Or did you just beat him to a bloody pulp because he touched her once?”
    Both. Neither. I shook my head. “No. He came over here asking questions about me and Blaire. Things that weren’t his business. He asked the wrong thing.”
“Ah, I see. That makes sense. Well he paid for it. The dude’s probably got a broken nose to go with that closed shut eye of his.”
    I finally lifted my head and looked back at Grant. “Thanks for pulling me off him. I just snapped.”
    Grant nodded then opened the door. “Come on. Let’s go turn on the game and drink a beer.”

Blaire

    My mother’s grave was the only place I could think of to go. I had no home. I couldn’t go back to Granny Q’s. She was Cain’s grandmother. He was probably there waiting on me. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe I’d pushed him away too. I sat down at the foot of my mother’s grave.I pulled my knees up under my chin and wrapped my arms around my legs.
    I had come back to Sumit because it was the only place I knew to come. Now, I needed to leave. I couldn’t stay here. Once again my life was about to take a sudden turn. One I wasn’t prepared for. When I’d been a little girl my momma had taken us to Sunday school at the local Baptist church. I remembered a scripture they read us from the Bible about God not putting more on us than we could bear. I was beginning to wonder if that was just for those people who went to church every Sunday and prayed before they went to bed at night. Because he wasn’t holding back any punches with me.
    Feeling sorry for myself didn’t help me. I couldn’t do that. I had to figure this one out too. My staying with Granny Q and letting Cain help me deal with day to day life had only been temporary. I knew when I moved into her guest bedroom that I couldn’t stay long. There was too much history between Cain and me. History I didn’t intend to repeat. The time to leave was here but I was still just as clueless about where I was gonna go and what I was gonna do as I had been three weeks ago.
    “I wish you were here, Momma. I don’t know what to do and I don’t have anyone to ask,” I whispered as I sat there in the quiet cemetery. I wanted to believe