She shook her head slowly, the tears rolling down her beautiful face, giving him his answer without a word. "I can't," she choked out around a sob. "I just can't do that."

Jaw clenched shut tightly, he nodded as he stepped past her and headed for the door. "Goodbye, Marybeth."

Chapter 21.

Three Weeks Later...

"Are you still mad at me?" Jake asked as they sat there, waiting to pull up to the curb so that she could get out and be miserable in a different state for the next two weeks.

"Are you still siding with him?" she asked, absently watching the organized chaos around them.

She should have just cancelled her trip and ate the cost of her ticket, but then she would have been forced to deal with questions from Mrs. Bradford and right now she really didn't think that she could handle that without letting the woman know exactly what she thought of her son.

"Yes, yes I am," Jake said firmly as he pulled up closer to the curb.

"Then I'm still mad at you," she said, releasing her seatbelt so that she could lean over and grab her carry-on bag.

"You didn't leave him with much of a choice," Jake pointed out, again, as he shifted forward in his seat so that he could pull out his wallet.

"You're supposed to be on my side," she grumbled, double-checking to make sure that she had her boarding pass and paperwork.

"I am on your side," Jake explained as he reached over and stuffed some money in the front pocket of her backpack.

"It doesn't sound like it," she said as she looked out the window, wondering what had possessed her to tell Jake.

"You knew that he was in love with you," Jake said, not sounding at all sympathetic the way that a good brother should.

"And he knew that I didn't want to get married," she muttered back, debating her chances of making it to the sidewalk without getting run over.

"He's a Bradford, Marybeth," he said, chucking and shaking his head in disbelief. "What did you expect him to do?"

"To respect my wishes?" she suggested, not appreciating the way that he started laughing at her.

"A Bradford?" he managed to ask between bouts of laughter as she sat there, seething with rage.

"Yes," she hissed, deciding in that moment that she no longer had to feel bad about telling their mother about his collection of Playboys to save her own ass when they were kids.

Deciding that she'd rather take her chances with the taxi drivers suffering from road rage than to sit here and listen to another second of disloyalty, she threw her door open, grabbed her bag and stepped out with a grumbled, "Thanks for the ride, you insensitive jackass!"

"You're welcome, Goose," Jake said with a wink and that same damned pleased grin he'd been wearing since she'd told him that Darrin had ended their arrangement.

"Bastard," she muttered as she opened the back passenger door, grabbed her bag and- Groaned when the large bastard that she'd been avoiding for the last three weeks was suddenly there, reaching into the backseat and grabbing her bag. Without a word, he threw her bag over his shoulder, closed the backdoor and walked off, leaving her to follow after him or get run over. Muttering to herself, she followed after him as she pulled out her boarding pass and ID to distract herself from just how much she'd missed him.

When he reached the bag check-in line, he dropped her bag and walked off like he was the one that had the right to be angry. She considered going after him and throwing her bag at his head, but in the end she settled for dragging it behind her as she moved closer to the front of the line. If anyone had a right to be mad it was definitely her.

"Can I see your boarding pass and ID, please?" the bag attendant asked as he picked up her bag and placed it on the scale.

Silently seething at the bastard that had ruined everything, she pulled out her boarding pass and ID and handed it over. She glanced over to her right to find Darrin standing several lines down from her, glaring at her like he had every right in the world to be pissed. Eyes narrowing, she glared right back at him, reminding him that she wasn't the one who'd ruined everything.

"Ma'am, this ID doesn't match your boarding pass."

Keeping her eyes locked on the bastard that she was tempted to kick the shit out of, she reached into her bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it over to the attendant.

"Thank you, Mrs. Bradford."

"She's still not talking to you?" Reese asked as he dropped down on the hard plastic chair next to him. He handed Darrin a bottle of water as they glanced around the gate.

"Nope," Darrin said, shaking his head as he opened the bottle of water and took a sip, keeping his eyes locked on the woman that he wanted to throttle.

"Does anyone else know?"

He shook his head, finishing off his water while he watched Marybeth sit down next to Aidan. She hadn't spoken to him since he'd forced her to make a choice. Not that he cared, because he didn't, he told himself as he watched his brother throw his arm around her shoulders and pull her close so that he could kissed her cheek. She laughed at something Aidan said, earning a second kiss that had Darrin deciding that it would probably be for the best if he had one less brother to deal with.

"Does he know?" he asked, deciding that he should at least make sure that his brother was innocent before he beat the shit out of him and most likely dunked his head in a toilet.

"About you and Marybeth?" Reese asked with a thoughtful frown as finished off his bottle of water.

"Yes," he said as his eyes narrowed on his smiling brother as Marybeth reached up and playfully ruffled his short hair.

Reese nodded. "For the past few years at least."

"You're sure?"

"He was with me when I walked in on Marybeth dropping to her knees and-"

He swore roundly, cutting his brother off. "I get the picture."

"I'm glad that you do," Reese mumbled as they watched Aidan kiss the top of Marybeth's head. "You're going to beat the shit out of him, aren't you?"

"At the very least," he said, getting up to do just that only to sit back down with a sigh when their mother walked over and joined them.

"They make such a cute couple, don't they?" she asked with a smile.

Darrin automatically started to agree until he realized that his mother wasn't talking about his brother Danny and his girlfriend Jodi, who were sitting across from them, but Marybeth and Aidan.

"I'm so glad she came," his mother said, sighing with content as Darrin sat there, making a mental note to make sure that his mother got coal in her Christmas stocking this year.

"Me, too," Reese agreed, noticeably trying not to laugh while Darrin sat there, fuming.

"They're not a couple," he bit out, wondering what was wrong with this woman. Marybeth had been his best friend since they were seven. If anyone belonged with Marybeth it was him and his mother should damn well be able to see that!

"No, but I think it's only a matter of time," his mother confided in a stage whisper that had him shooting a look of warning at his twin, daring the traitorous bastard to laugh.

"Why do you say that?" Reese asked for him, his eyes twinkling with merriment.

"They've grown so close over the years," she said before she added a little sadly, "besides, neither one of them is interested in having children."

"Aidan doesn't want children?" he asked, mostly to distract himself when his stomach dropped at the reminder that he was never going to have children even as he prayed that it would stop hurting so damn much.

"No, he wants to expand the practice and travel and he doesn't think that he'll be able to do that with a family," she explained in a resigned tone.

"Dad more than managed with us," Reese pointed out and he couldn't help but agree.

Their father had made a lot of sacrifices and busted his ass to make the practice what it was today, but the one thing that he hadn't been willing to sacrifice was his family. Their Dad had always been up before the crack of dawn every morning, made phone calls to check on his patients while he made breakfast, helped everyone get ready, and made sure that they all sat down to breakfast together. At the end of the day, their father came home exhausted, stressed and sometimes upset over the loss of a patient, but he never showed it. He always made sure that they knew that they were the best part of his day.

"Because your father's dream was to have a big family," their mother said, sending him a warm smile as she reached up and ran her fingers through his hair, "just like yours."

"That's not my dream," he said, looking up as his dream shot him another glare.

"One day you'll find a wonderful man who will treasure you and make you happy," his mother said with a sappy smile as he sat there, giving his head a little shake, sure that he'd misheard her.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" he asked, shifting his attention from the glaring woman to find his mother giving him a hopeful smile.

"It will happen one day," she said confidently, giving his cheek a small pinch as he shot a horrified look to his twin to find Reese sitting there about to laugh until their mother turned her attention to him and said, "Don't worry, sweetheart. You'll find a good man one day, too."

"What will happen one day?" he demanded weakly as they sat there, staring in horror at their mother, wondering, hell praying, that she was drunk, because otherwise they were going to have to start looking into places that could give his mother the kind of help that she so desperately needed.

"You'll both find good men that will love you," she said with a firm nod as she grabbed their hands and gave them a reassuring squeeze.

"Why the hell would we want to do that?" they snapped in unison as they sat there, glaring at the woman that had clearly lost her goddamn mind.

Her hopeful smile turned thoughtful as she thought it over again. "You still plan on getting married, don't you? You can do that now, you know."

"We're not gay, woman!" he hissed, yanking his hand away from the psychotic woman that he'd once allowed the pleasure of cooking and cleaning for him.

She blinked up at him. "You're not?"

"No!"

"Oh, you're not?" she asked with a frown, and God help him if she didn't sound disappointed. "Then why would Jason and Trevor tell me that?"

"Because they're hateful bastards?" he suggested, wondering how she'd managed to miss that over the years.

She gave him another hopeful smile as she asked, "You know that we'd still love you, don't you?"

"We're. Not. Gay," they bit out, glaring down at the small woman who actually sighed heavily with disappointment.

"And I'm sure that you'd both be able to find wonderful men one day," she continued explaining, apparently intent on ignoring them.

Reese opened his mouth, no doubt to argue with her some more when something in their mother's tone caught Darrin's attention.

"What do you mean that you're sure that we'd be able to find wonderful men one day?" he demanded, highly offended that she was actually questioning their abilities to get a good man.

"We're a fucking catch," Reese said with a glare, shaking his head in disgust while Darrin stood up.

"Any man would be lucky to have us," Darrin added, grabbing his carry-on bag before he stormed off in a huff, deciding that now was a good time to have a word with the wife-stealing son of a bitch.

Chapter 22.

"Do you want to grab a cup of coffee or-oh, shit!" Aidan gasped, drawing her attention away from the "e-mail" that she'd been pretending to read for the past five minutes so that she wouldn't end up doing something stupid like stare at Darrin like some love sick teenage girl.

She glanced up from her phone just in time to see Darrin grab Aidan by his shirt and yank him up and over the back of his chair without breaking his stride. It took her sex-deprived mind a few seconds to shake the image of Darrin's large bicep flexing and the memories of how his muscles used to flex when he- "Stop manhandling me, you violent son of a bitch!" Aidan snapped, thankfully pulling her thoughts away from just how good it used to feel when Darrin would settle between her legs and- "Let's go have ourselves a little talk, shall we?" Darrin announced, making her shake her head in disgust.

What the hell was wrong with her? she wondered with a groan as she returned her attention back to her phone. After a month without sex, you'd think that she'd be able to stop thinking about it so much, but all it took most days was hearing his name and- Wait.

Did he just say...

"Damn it!" she snapped, getting out of her seat to go after them only to groan in defeat when she spotted them entering the men's room, the one place that he knew she wouldn't follow.

Panic soared through her as she looked around, searching for someone, anyone, to stop Darrin from making this worse. She spotted Arik and Garrett sitting next to their father and quickly dismissed them since there was no way that she was going to be able to get the boys to go save their brother before Darrin killed him without cluing Dr. Bradford into the fact that she was hiding something from him. Her attention moved to Reese, who was too busy glaring at his mother as she grabbed Kenzie and dragged her towards the ladies room where Danny's girlfriend Jodi was heading.

She shifted her attention to Danny and quickly moved on, not wanting to drag the oldest Bradford brother into this. She spotted Duncan charming an elderly woman as he helped her with her portable oxygen tank and moved on. Sighing, she shifted her attention to the only Bradford brother left.

Lucifer.

Whimpering pathetically, because she already knew the jerk wouldn't help her, she walked over to where he was leaning against the wall and- "Not interested," he said, not bothering to look up from his phone as she approached him.

"Good talking to you, Lucifer," she said dryly as she turned around and headed back to her chair in defeat, praying that Aidan didn't ruin everything before she could fix this.

"I'm telling!" Aidan snarled as he moved to step around him, but Darrin was done playing games.

"You can go cry and bitch as soon as you tell me what I want to know," he said, shoving his brother back against the marbled bathroom wall.

Eyes narrowing, Aidan tried to stare him down. "I don't know what you're talking about," the bastard said, trying to play stupid.

Sighing, because he really didn't have time for this shit, he decided to speed things up a bit.

"Ow! Let me go, you son of a bitch!" Aidan snarled as Darrin grabbed him and put him in a headlock.

"Now, where were we?" he asked conversationally as he stood there, holding his brother in a headlock as half a dozen men stopped mid-pee to gawk at them.

"I'm not telling you anything, you vicious bastard!"