Asher by Effy Vaughn Read Free Book Online Page B

have mattered. Nothing could hurt more than Asher not loving me anymore.
                  I had been wrong.
                  So very wrong.
                  “Come on, Dix. Let’s take you home,” Bray said as he started moving me toward my Jeep.
                  Home. My home. Was it still my home? Did Daddy know this? Did he love me anyway? Could I tell him?
                  “Does my daddy know?” I asked Bray.
                  He reached around me and opened the passenger door. “I didn’t even know. So I’m not sure who knew, but it won’t make a difference to your daddy. He loves you and has loved you all your life. In his heart, you’re his little girl. That’s something I’m fucking positive about.”              
                  I let Bray help me up into the Jeep. I felt as if I was walking through fog. Nothing made sense. I had watched as Asher’s truck drove away but I didn’t see Steel leave. I couldn’t look at him now. He had been the one I hoped could heal me, but he’d just made it worse.
                  “Why would he keep this from me?” I asked staring out the window at the field of hay.
                  “Because he has been protecting you since he was a kid. He would do anything to protect you. It wasn’t the right decision, but it was because he loves you, Dix. He’s suffered alone with this for three years because he loves you. He didn’t want you to know this. He wanted you happy.”
                  He wanted me happy? He had broken my heart. How had that been making me happy? “He can’t love me. His actions prove differently.”
                  Bray let out a deep sigh and cranked the Jeep. “His love ain’t normal when it comes to you. Never was,” he replied. “But don’t doubt that he loves you. Damn, Dix, he smashed in our little brother’s face because he was trying to protect you. Asher has never hit one of us. We’ve hit each other and he’s broken it up, but he’s always protected us. He picked you over Steel. That’s fucking huge. Be mad at him for not telling you, but don’t think he doesn’t love you.”
                  I couldn’t listen to this. He was my brother. Asher was my brother. The horror of that one fact washed over me and a wail filled the truck as I curled into a ball and let the sorrow consume me.
     
                                                                         
     

STEEL SUTTON
     
                  Asher hadn’t come home last night. Bray and Brent had gone to look for him but they’d come home after two in the morning with no luck. Momma was going to notice this morning that he wasn’t here. Keeping his disappearance from her would be hard. I could smell the bacon now and I knew we’d have a big breakfast waiting on us.
                  I had done the right thing. Dixie needed to know. It was wrong to keep that kind of thing from her. Why couldn’t he see that? I couldn’t just desert her the way he had. She needed to know the reasons. Asher hadn’t been thinking clearly. He hadn’t looked at the big picture.
                  Dixie would have found out one day on her own and we wouldn’t have been there to help her deal. She planned on finding her real mother one day and that is the kind of thing Dixie needed to know before she was blindsided by some bitch who didn’t love her. Not like we did.
                  And I did love her. That hadn’t changed.
                  I wasn’t sure it ever would.
                  “His room’s still empty,” Brent said as he walked into my room.
                  “Truck’s gone too. But his shit is all still here,” Dallas said following Brent into the room. He’d gotten up early to go