For the Love of Brothers

By Candace Carpenter

Faced with the tough decision between towing the line and living her life, Cassie Bergeron, struggles to get through her senior year. That is, until, she meets the devilishly charming, Ryan Carter and falls face first into complete infatuation.

When her life at home is turned upside down and she has nowhere to go, Ryan's younger brother, the hopelessly sweet, guitar playing, Russell, rushes to her side and offers her a life that she never thought possible. However, Russell has an earth-shattering secret and once Cassie knows the truth, she will have to choose between the electric bond she shares with Ryan or the life she's beginning to build with Russell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Candace Carpenter
• Release date: Oct 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301705405

Candace Carpenter

Candace Carpenter is a mother, a wife, a photographer , a free spirit, and a lover of all things beautiful. She grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana , but now lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son.

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For the Love of Brothers

By Candace Carpenter

Copyright 2013 Candace Carpenter

Smashwords Edition

Cover images Courtesy of Adrenalina, Kirstypargeter, Canstockphoto & Joleene Naylor

Cover by Joleene Naylor

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

For the Love of Brothers is a work of fiction .Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Cassie Bergeron

Chapter 2 The Party

Chapter 3 Wow and Whoa

Chapter 4 Typical

Chapter 5 The worst Best Birthday

Chapter 6 Decisions that change your life

Chapter 7 Home

Chapter 8 Pot Roast

Chapter 9 Prom

Chapter 10 Olive Juice

Chapter 11 Graduation and other Nightmares

Chapter 12 Pain

Chapter 13 A. Promise

Chapter 14 Maybe I didn’t want to know

Chapter 15 Young, Wild, & Free?

Chapter 16 I can’t do this

Chapter 17 Stumbling

Chapter 18 I left for you

Chapter 19 Our first

Chapter 20 All Good things

Chapter 21 Surprise

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Chapter One. Cassie Bergeron

The moon always seemed bigger out here, away from the city. The sky was black and sprawling and free to be admired. The air was crisper, no matter how humid it really was and that moon, well, it had a way of making you feel small. It made you realize that you were not as important as you seemed when the sun was out. That huge moon came out at night just to confirm that you were a tiny part of a vast universe. It had a way of making me forget all the wrongs in the world, all the fights, the arguments, my shortcomings, his illness, and making me remember that all this would be over one day.

This night was not unlike the night we met. I drove with my windows down, took a deep breath in, and let myself remember for a moment.

My parents and I had this horrible tumultuous relationship. The man that raised me was not my biological father. My mother, in her epic search for stability, married an accountant, who ran a large firm when I was in elementary school. Harold, as I called him at the most comfortable point in our relationship, was like my super hero. I felt so rescued for a long time. He slept in my room when I had nightmares. He performed dance routines I created for us. He pitched the softball to me as much as I asked. He bought me my first car, but all good things must come to an end, right? Five years in, he and my mom didn’t get along as well as they did in the beginning and all the things that come along with marrying someone too soon reared their ugly heads. He had a temper. Not as much with me as with her, but it was still really scary. I remembered crisply one night that he was upset with me about putting a toe over rule four hundred eighty three which ended with him violently slamming my bedroom door resulting in the shattering of my beloved full length mirror.

It wasn’t long after that my mom left. She moved back into the first house she bought on her own, when she was just twenty-seven. It was just around the corner from the house we lived in now. She offered for me to live with her, but I preferred the peace of being left alone, away from the constant scrutiny of my mother’s endlessly annoyed and disappointed demeanor. At Harold’s, I had my own room and living area that he rarely went into. He had his bedroom and living area at the front of the remodeled shot gun. As a teenager, we rarely crossed paths. We didn’t eat dinner together. I was becoming a problem before I even realized it myself. It started at the end of middle school. I began to rebel against my mother, Veronica, and Harold insisting that I switch from my public school and all my friends, to this crummy and very old, catholic school just up the highway. I was eventually asked to leave the school. I decided to go to high school a year early and registered at one of the most respected all-girl high schools in the city of New Orleans. I had the grades. Harold had the money. It wasn’t long before I had an older boyfriend who drove me around in his midnight blue, almost black, dark tinted Volvo with a sound system that I could hear coming in just enough time to run outside before he got to my house.

I didn’t fit in at school. I missed my old friends. Life never made sense without them. I clung to my old life like a cat climbing a curtain. Even though I hated to admit it, my parents were right. They claimed that the move to catholic school was going to save my life and make a future for me. By the time I was a sophomore, most of the friends that I adored from five years earlier, were dropped out of school, drinking and doing drugs, and just generally causing trouble. I was different. Doing those things felt wrong to me, but they were still so much more interesting than formal dinners and afternoon teas. So I joined my old crew. Harold got me a car for my 16th birthday, and my life was never the same. By the next year, I had broken up with Mike and my best friend and I spent a night in jail for underage drinking and resisting arrest.

I was given an ultimatum that morning: Straighten up or the day I turned 18 would be my last day at Harold’s. Elise, who I called Leese since age three when we wreaked havoc on our Day Nursery together, told me not to worry. She said all I had to do was make it seem like I was doing the right things. After all, we weren’t even close to the worst of what we knew people were doing. She didn’t even smoke the cigarettes I’d smoked since age eleven. It worked for a while, our constant lying and manipulating.

It was October, and I was seventeen. Elise and I devised this intricate plan to attend this amazing bonfire party out in the country, about an hour from where we lived, at our friend Marissa’s. I told Harold I was sleeping at Elise’s. She told her parents that she was sleeping at my house. We filled my car with 12 gallons of gas and hit the highway. We did not plan to fit in. We were dressed in city clothes. We knew how Marissa dressed when she came back into town and we were total opposite in jeans, but with high heels and semi-revealing tops. I packed my pair of black Chuck Taylor’s in the car and Elise brought some casual boots. We both had sweatshirts to throw on, just in case we felt stupid.

CHAPTER TWO: The Party

When we arrived at the party, it was just as beautiful as we expected it would be. Pitch black, cicada’s chirping, a tall sparkly fire crackling, the sweet smell of pecan wood burning and Elise’s absolute favorite, the faint smell of a beer keg in the distance.

Be right back, she said with her long straight dirty blonde hair trailing behind her. She was so beautiful, and completely clueless about it.

I watched and she flirted her way into a beer being made for her. I scanned the circles of friends until I was startled by this this loud, goofy laugh.

Ha-Haaaaaaa, it trailed forever.

I looked over to see Marissa talking to this oddly dressed, tall, guy with a fitted hat and bandannas tied all over him. They were slung from his pockets and around the top of his boots.

Riss! I walked over to Marissa. Elise had heard the commotion and cut eyes at me while she met us, mid- journey.

So glad you guys came. I miss you, Marissa said to Elise and I.

This is Ryan, she said as she pointed to the costumed laugher, …and you know Nate and Brendan. They are all in a band together. They are really amazing. I’m trying to get them to play for us later

That explains the get-up, I accidentally said out loud in Ryan’s direction. I instantly blushed.

Ha-Haaaaaaaa! You should talk little one. He spoke of my 5’1 stature. Ya’ll hitting the club after this or what?"

I met his eyes just then. Beside the costume, he was pretty good looking. He was tall and blonde. Enough said.

No, actually, we just left and headed out this way because we were bored, Elise snapped, rolling her eyes.

I could tell she thought his outfit was ridiculous too.

That’s right, actually Marissa, we were going to ask if you had somewhere we could change, my heels are getting full of mud, or what I hope is mud, I chimed.

Ryan laughed that goofy laugh again and Elise and I followed Marissa to my car and then to her bedroom.

So, Ryan, he’s interesting. Does he have a girlfriend? I asked slipping a white v-neck t-shirt over my head and then a fitted black zip-up hoodie on top.

No, that’s not really his thing. He’s been with pretty much every girl here though if you are looking for references, Marissa answered sarcastically.

I could tell her name had made his list by her tone.

I was just asking. Jeez I responded, feeling badly that I’d stepped on her toes.

Well, I really hope they play tonight, Brendan is so hot! What kind of music do they play anyway? Elise added, changing the subject and saving me from my own mouth twice in one night.

She’s been saving me since we were in diapers.

It’s kind of a mix of like country, rock, pop, and rap. Does that narrow it down? Marissa joked. You’ll love them.

I laced my black Chuck Taylor’s over my gray skinny jeans and thanked myself for bringing them after all. Elise and I headed back outside much more comfortably. I always wished that I liked beer. This was partly because Elise seemed to enjoy it so much, but also because it was cheap and always around. I never could develop a taste for it. I put a single cigarette precariously in the pocket of my jeans before I walked outside and decided since I wasn’t going to be drinking that I might as well have a cigarette or two. I looked around for a familiar face because, surely, I had not been intelligent enough to bring a lighter out too.

Hmmmm, I thought aloud to myself. Ah! Bandanna Boy! Surely he would have one.

Ryan, right? I pretended to question.

Yes ma’am. What’s up with you? Don’t tell me you took my comments so personally that you felt a need to go change clothes? He chuckled.

I could tell he was enjoying himself.

I told you that we were planning to change anyway. You just caught me in mid-arrival. Anyway, I did not come over here to give you a fashion show. I need a lighter.

Oh are you about to blow one?

Don’t get excited it’s just a cigarette, I calmed him

Oh, that’s too bad. Can I join you?

Sure, I said, a little too excitedly.

We moved over to a far end of the bonfire’s growing circle. It made me nervous that he walked out of hearing distance of everyone. After all, I didn’t know him. I trusted no one and I was curiously becoming more and more attracted to him every time he smiled. Ryan’s laugh became less strange to me as our conversation continued. I’m not really even sure what we talked about. Once he flipped the top of his silver lighter exposing the flame to light my cigarette in that very southern gentleman kind of way, I kind of got lost. There was something so interesting about someone who obviously did not care what anyone else thought of who he was. This clearly was his personality, it had to be. He was dressed like a clown. I, of course, was the only person in the free world immediately attracted to someone who dressed like a clown. As he spoke to me about silly unimportant things I could not help but stare at the corners of his mouth and how they turned up the way a joker’s mouth would when he amused himself. The only person to think he was any funnier than Ryan had to be Ryan himself. Our cigarette conversation turned into a three cigarette conversation and when I excused myself to run inside to get another I found myself running back outside a little too quickly to find him.

Over here, boo I heard him call out to me.

I prayed he didn’t see the look of disappointment in my face as I searched the darkened circle for him.

Boo? Really? Did you forget my name already? I played it off.

No, Miss Cassie he emphasized, but I know you ladies like to be called boo, and baby, and love, et cetera, more than any of you like the names your mama gave you

Ew, what kind of girls do you date? I laughed

Oh, Are we dating already? He retorted.

I was sure that my face turned red in response to his comment. That had not been what I meant, certainly not after an hour of talking. However, I had been thinking it. Now he was a mind reader.

Don’t freak. I’m just playing, girl! I didn’t mean to scare you. I know good, sweet girls like you just like a little trouble but you’d really never bring home anyone like me.

Oh, are you meeting my parents already? Point for me.

He laughed nervously and tipped his hat to me in surrender.

…and, you don’t know me, I might bring you home, if you weren’t dressed like that, I winked at him.

Elise crashed into me already a beer too many to ask me to escort her to the restroom. I never understood why girls need to do this in pairs. I liked to be alone. Of course, being that she had been my own personal superhero for the past 15 years, I was obligated.

HOLD MY HAND! She shouted a little too loudly as we were going up the stairs.

I am! Why are we running? I asked