The news relaxed Eliza. She lowered her arms. David wasn’t with Jillian to sleep with her.
“Jillian’s been quite a chaperone,” David said. “I’ve been sitting here with her trying to figure out why you broke up with her. I mean, I could understand if you knew she—”
“Maybe I should drive you back to Brandon’s ranch now,” Jillian interrupted, turning from David to Brandon. “Then maybe you and I can talk.”
They had nothing to talk about. Or did they? What had David been about to say? She was obviously hiding something. And he didn’t believe she was here by coincidence.
“I’ll drive him home.” Brandon would like to question her, but his drunk brother was his first priority. “You take his truck, and I’ll arrange to pick it up tomorrow.” Eliza moved forward and extended her hand to David. “Come on, David. You and I can talk about this tomorrow…when you’re sober.”
“I don’t need to be sober.” He waved her hand away. “And I’m not going back to the ranch.”
“David…” Eliza was clearly mystified. “Why?”
“I’m doing you a favor, Eliza.” Pain and resentment laced his tone. “Go home with Brandon. That’s what you wish for.” He turned to Brandon. “It’s what you both wish for.” And then more somberly, “You belong together anyway.”
“That’s enough, little brother,” Brandon said. He’d had enough of this nonsense. “Let’s go.”
He took hold of his brother’s arm to help him up from the booth.
David yanked free. “If I go anywhere, it’ll be with Jillian.” He turned to her. “Right, sweetheart?”
Jillian turned a narrow-eyed, warning look to David. Was David threatening her? Why had he called a woman he barely knew sweetheart? Had he discovered something about her? Once he had David alone and sober, he’d be sure and ask.
“Brandon, come back to the ranch with us,” Eliza said.
Brandon shot a look at her. David went utterly still.
“I—I mean…David,” she corrected.
David smiled without humor, calculating and cruel. “You see? You’re even saying his name instead of mine now.”
“You drank too much,” Brandon said. “You’re overreacting.”
“It was an accident. It doesn’t mean—”
“Come on, Eliza, let’s not pretend what this marriage is all about,” David cut her off. “We both know it’s him you’ve always wanted. I only married you so I could see what all the fuss was about.”
Eliza drew in a sharp breath just as the jukebox went silent with the last notes of piano music. She gripped Brandon’s jacket sleeve. David’s insensitivity was hurting her. Why was he acting this way? It couldn’t be that he truly believed his own brother fancied his wife.
“Brandon doesn’t want Eliza,” Jillian said to David. “She’s married to you. Besides, Brandon and I are seeing each other.”
The woman really grated his nerves when she did that, talking as though he hadn’t broken up with her and she hadn’t gone crazy on his front doorstep.
“He doesn’t care about you,” David said and sneered. “He doesn’t care about any woman. Except maybe Eliza here. Other than her, all he cares about is himself and that ranch of his.”
Eliza’s face had gone pale. “That isn’t true.”
David got up from the booth and staggered to her, making a show of running his gaze down to her hand still gripping Brandon’s sleeve and back up again. “Yes, it is.”
Jillian slid out of the booth and hooked her arm with David’s. She said to Brandon, “I’ll drive him home.”
“I don’t want to go back to the ranch. Let’s go to your place.”
“David—”
“Now,” David growled, making Jillian’s head flinch ever so slightly.
This was not the brother Brandon had grown up with. This man Brandon felt like punching. The way he’d just given Jillian another order kept him from acting. It was as if David had something on her, whatever she had stopped him from saying earlier.
David rounded on Eliza, cold eyes scathing. “I want an annulment. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to marry you.” And then he began walking toward the door, his arm around Jillian’s waist.
Jillian looked back apologetically at Brandon and mouthed, “I’ll take him home.”
They left through the door. David didn’t want to be anywhere near him or Eliza. What bothered Brandon was that all it had taken to send his brother walking was seeing Eliza with him. The friction hadn’t been there after they’d first been married. Clearly David had worried his wife still felt something for his brother. Seeing them together had confirmed his suspicion.
Beside him, Eliza silently cried.
Anger boiled up hotly in him. He had sound reasons for letting Eliza go all those years ago. She may not be as wild as she once was, but she still put her parties ahead of anything else, just as he’d predicted. David hadn’t seen that about her. He was accustomed to women falling all over him. He was a good-looking man. And now he thought Brandon and Eliza wanted to be together.
When had David become so vulnerable? Since he’d started gambling and drinking and doing drugs? Or since he’d married Eliza, the one and only woman who didn’t worship him? That had to be it. He must have discovered that her parties came first. She didn’t care about him as much as he needed her to. It wasn’t that she wanted Brandon more. In the morning, he’d make sure David understood that.
As David and Jillian left the bar, Eliza turned to him, still crying. Brandon took her into his arms, all his conviction to stay away from her vanishing. She buried her head against his chest and cried while everyone in the bar watched. In grade school some boys had bullied her and he’d comforted her after chasing them away. Now she was a grown woman with grown-woman tears pouring out of her.
Would she be this upset if she didn’t love his brother? He hoped she did. How terrible would it be if David was right about them? Seeing her for the first time in years had struck him intensely. More intensely than he’d anticipated. He thought he was long over her. Seeing her stirred up too much old chemistry.
Sparing her any more of this public display, Brandon guided her outside. At his truck, he lifted her onto the seat, her legs over the side. He brushed her heavy, silky dark brown hair away from her face. It fell back down, swooping across her face. He tipped her chin up a bit.
She sniffled and those sad eyes met his. “He doesn’t think our marriage is real.”
Was it? Brandon would have guessed not. But Eliza obviously had believed it was. Despite her unspoken motive to make Brandon jealous or otherwise regretful for ever letting her go, she’d intended to stay with David. Maybe she really did love him.
“He’s been drinking. People say things they don’t really mean when they drink.”
“I should have known better,” she said. “I shouldn’t have married him.” She wiped tears from one cheek and then the other.
He wished she hadn’t married him. None of this would be happening if she hadn’t. “It was a little impulsive.”
She wiped another tear with the back of her hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”
Was that why she was crying? Her sweet sincerity cracked his resolve. He was tall enough