Three Brothers, Page 4

  “Too late in the season for calving,” I said, tapping my chin.

  He nodded. “Calves are all happily calved.”

  “You would have already gotten all the weak spots in the fences fixed from winter, and if you were just doing a count of the herd, you wouldn’t look so beat.”

  Chance tugged off his other boot, sighing as he stretched and wiggled his toes. “And to think you were some big city girl who didn’t know the difference between alfalfa and straw.”

  I laughed. “You would have thought I’d committed high treason when I dropped that bale of straw in that cow’s pen.”

  “In the cow’s eyes, you had.” Chance laughed with me.

  “Okay, okay. So back to why you were a no-show at dinner. Does it have anything to do with the cattle?” I didn’t think so, but I wanted to make sure I was on the right track.

  “Nope. Not the cattle who got me up before sunrise and kept me out past sunset today.” When he yanked off his socks, he balled them up and tossed them in my direction, but he missed.

  Chance always missed when he threw his stinky socks at me. I used to think it was due to bad aim, but I’d figured out the opposite was true. He had just as good of aim as his two brothers, who had no problem flinging their stinky socks in my face. Chance just chose to be a gentleman instead of a jerk.

  “So you were with the mustangs.”

  “Getting warmer,” he said, twisting around to look at me.

  “Were you moving them into a different pasture?” I collected Chance’s socks and balled them together to remember to toss them into the laundry later.

  “Wrong. Although we’ll be moving them soon if that’s any consolation.” Chance glanced at the star-spattered sky. One of the first things I’d come to appreciate about the country were the starry nights. We didn’t have anything close to them in the city I’d grown up in. “Those things burn through grass like Conn burns through a liquor cabinet.”

  I’d forgotten all about Conn and our “amiable” catch up not even five minutes earlier, but at the mention of his name, I glanced down the porch. The glow from his cigarette was gone, but that didn’t mean he was gone. Conn could hide in the shadows like no one else I’d ever known.

  “Introducing new members to the herd?” I guessed again.

  Red Mountain Ranch had hosted several thousand mustangs for over a decade, and that number had grown over time. It was part of a deal with the Bureau of Land Management, and while the payout of a dollar plus a mustang daily seemed to add up to a nice sum at the end of the month, the overhead was so much that there was barely ten percent profit in the whole venture. But Chance didn’t do it for the profit. He did it because it was the right thing to do, and in his eyes, letting the wild mustangs roam the same land that had once been their home was the right thing to do, pathetic profit percentages aside.

  I scanned my brain, searching for other alternatives that had kept him so busy today. “You singlehandedly braided every last mare’s mane in the herd?”

  He was still looking at the stars when he started laughing. “Considering they’re all mares, save for the few stray colts born this year, I would still be out there braiding horse hair.”

  It was his answer, combined with him hoisting himself off the porch with a slow wince as he rubbed his side, that gave me my answer. “You were sorting the colts out from the herd.” I didn’t need to cap my guess with a question mark because I was that confident.

  “There’s the countriest city girl I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.” Chance winked as he walked closer to me. “What gave it away? My wince or my walk?” Now that he was up, he was moving just fine, but he’d gotten stiff enough sitting for just that short amount of time to give away he’d taken a beating out there.

  “Both,” I answered, stepping closer. I pulled his shirt free from his jeans before hoisting it up his side.

  “I think you’re like supposed to buy me a drink first. Or I’m supposed to buy you one first. Or something drink-related before you start ripping my clothes off.”

  I wasn’t looking at his face, but I heard the smile in his voice as I traced the giant purple bruise that stretched from the middle of his ribs down to the tip of his belt. “It looks like you’ve already had your share of getting nailed today. I’ll spare you.” I glanced up to find him looking at me with a look in his eyes that I wasn’t used to seeing there. It made my fingers freeze and the back of my throat go dry. I averted my gaze, dropped his shirt back over his side, and stepped back. My head felt strange, light and heavy at the same time. While that wasn’t a foreign sensation, I’d never felt it over this brother. “If you’re working with the mustangs again tomorrow, try not to get kicked, okay?”

  “Not getting kicked is my primary objective every time I work with the mustangs.” Chance tucked his shirt back into his jeans. He seemed to be as concerned about looking away from me as I was from him.

  “Chance . . .” I wasn’t sure how to start. How did one apologize for giving someone they cared about the brush-off for seven years? How did I explain why I had? How could I tell him that while he’d made me believe I could do anything, another Armstrong son had made me feel as though I was worth nothing and at the end of the day, I went to bed remembering the bad? I supposed there was really only one way to start that apology—just like any other kind. “I’m sorry.”

  Chance shook his head. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. I get it. I understand. Really.” When I exhaled, he added, “You had to do what was right and best for you. I’ve never blamed you for that. It’s the same thing anyone would have done in your situation.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. I felt strange keeping a safe distance from Chance as well, but after that shared look and the feeling that followed, maybe distance wasn’t the worst idea. “Not everyone, Chance Armstrong. In fact, I’m pretty convinced that you’ve never done anything with yourself in mind first.”

  He slid his hat back into place and looked at his hands, which were creased with dust and dirt. “You’re wrong, you know. If I hadn’t thought of myself first, I wouldn’t have left a couple of hired hands to finish sorting the last couple hundred mustangs.”

  My forehead creased. “You actually left a job before it was done?”

  He nodded once.

  “Why?”

  This time when he smiled, it was more like Conn’s—the one tilted due to the tug of guilt. “Because I couldn’t wait to see you.”

  He shifted, clearly uncomfortable. Whether that was from his confession or having to live with bailing on a job before it was done, I knew I had to ease whatever was weighing him down. I’d never been able to just watch one of the brothers suffer. They were older and they were men, but I possessed just as much, if not more, of a protective nature over them.

  I gave a shrug. “But you knew how much I couldn’t wait to see you and that if you didn’t get here soon, I would have saddled up Dark Horse and gone out looking for you. Then I probably would have wound up falling off and getting stampeded by three thousand pissed off mares with beautifully braided hair.” His smile became less Conn’s and more his. I let out the breath I’d been holding. “So really, you weren’t thinking of your own best interest but mine.”

  Chance stepped toward me. “Twisting my words. Making me out to be this great, selfless guy. Bossing me around at the same time you mother me. God, I’ve missed you.”

  He’d just slung his arm around my shoulders and was leading me into the house to finally make it to dinner when a shadow dodged in front of us.

  “Aren’t family reunions just the best thing since having a serious thing for your adopted brother?” Conn’s arms spread across the doorway to block our path, but had Chance wanted to get past him, he would have had no problem doing so.

  But Chance paused beside me, giving Conn a captive audience. Why Chance had suffered Conn as long as he had, I didn’t know. I supposed it was for the same reason I had—when I was sure Conn didn’t have a single redeemin
g quality and was prepared to wash my hands of him for good, redemption showed up at the last possible second. It had happened so many times I’d started to wonder if that was yet another calculated move in the man’s game of manipulation.

  “Would you please just hurry and drink yourself into a stupor already?” I waved at the tequila bottle still clutched in his hand. It was down to the halfway mark, but putting him into a stupor would take the rest of that half and some of another bottle if he was still the experienced drinker I remembered. “This whole dark act is getting old and boring, Conn. Find another one.”

  With the light of the foyer streaming behind him, I could see him better, but his look was nothing I’d never seen before. Whether it was navy or steel or black, he was always dressed head to toe in something dark. You know, in case the pissed-off-at-the-world expression didn’t get the message across. His dark hair had grown long enough that he could tuck it behind his ears, which he didn’t because he preferred a wild mess falling in chunks across his face and forehead. His eyes matched the whole wild theme, perhaps being the example of what the rest of him should aspire to. He was still a good-looking son of a bitch, and he was more aware of his advantageous genetic disposition than any other man out there.

  I wanted to slap him. I wanted to kiss him.

  Shit!

  I backed into Chance, somehow hoping he’d protect me from Conn . . . or more like protect me from myself. Conn was a black hole, a place I’d never come back from if I let him consume any more of me. I’d known that for a long time, so where the urge to love him came from I didn’t know, but I would have paid in blood and limbs to have it cut away once and for all.

  “We’re heading to dinner. Why don’t you join us?” Chance’s ever-calm voice settled the charged air.

  Conn’s smirk leapt into place. “Tell you what, I’ll come to dinner with you guys when that bastard known as my father chokes on his pureed venison and puts himself out of his and our misery.”

  “Conn,” I hissed, back to wanting to slap him. That should have been a measured improvement over wanting to kiss him, but the less emotion I felt about Conn, the better. No emotion would have been the best.

  “We’ll take that as a no. Okay. I’ll let Mrs. Baker know to save you a plate.” Chance squeezed my shoulders and steered me back toward the door, but all that did was make Conn bolster himself in the doorway even more.

  “Can we get by please?” My blood was boiling.

  “Sure.” Conn butted his shoulder into the doorway and crossed his ankles. “When I’m ready to let you pass.”

  “There’re a few dozen ways to get inside, Conn. You don’t want to let us in this one? No problem. We’ll take the back door or climb through a window. You want to police this door, knock yourself out.” Chance spun me around and was guiding me down the stairs when Conn’s haunting laugh filled the night.

  “You finally moved on, did you, Scout? From the piece-of-shit brother to the one who shits gold, according to dear old dad.”

  Chance’s hands stiffened on my shoulders, but they were still nowhere close to as tight as my hands balling at my sides.

  “There was nothing to move on from,” I said. “Get over yourself.”

  “Oh, please, don’t play it down now. I thought our twenties were all about accepting who we are and who we were and getting all Zen with it and shit.” Conn paused long enough to take another swallow from his bottle. “First it was me you were all hot for, and now you’re moving on to another Armstrong brother. I’m not judging—Chance deserves a turn. He’s the one destined to save the world, after all. He might as well enjoy the spoils of it.”

  Impulse led me toward Conn, but Chance helped stall my impulse until reason had a chance to catch up.

  “Don’t,” he whispered, bracing his hands on my shoulders to keep me from lunging up the stairs at the man smiling at me as though this was the most amusing game he’d ever played. “It’s what he wants. Don’t give it to him.”

  Chance lowered his head until his eyes were level with mine. A second later, I was calm, and another after that, I was heading back down the stairs with Chance. I’d successfully shrugged off Conn’s words.

  “Good-bye, Conn,” was all I said as we walked away.

  “Do you actually mean it this time? Or should I hold my breath for another seven years?”

  I bristled, but I kept walking thanks to Chance steering me away from Conn. “Yeah, you do that. Hold your breath for seven years. Then I won’t have to stay away from three people I care about because one person is a total jackass.”

  “Do you think that if you say that enough times, you’ll actually believe it?” Conn asked. “Because, Scout, come on. If I slipped you the key to my bedroom right this minute, you and I both know you’d be wet and naked between my sheets before Chance could take a swing at me for disrespecting a woman.”

  This time, it was Chance who broke to a stop, creating a cloud of dust around our feet. He turned toward Conn. “You don’t want to be here. You’ve made that clear from the moment you showed up. So why don’t you leave? You’ll be happier, and I think everyone else will be too.”

  “I know everyone else will be,” I mumbled, grabbing Chance’s hand in case he decided to charge Conn. Chance was the least violent person I knew, but nothing about this night had followed the theme of normal.

  “Nah, I’m having too much fun here. I think I’ll stay a while. Besides, I only just got here.” Conn’s last couple words echoed in his bottle.

  “I think you should leave,” Chance said in a level voice.

  “What are you going to do if I don’t, brother? Hog-tie me, throw me in the back of your piece-of-shit truck, and drive me all the way back to California? Maybe kick my ass until you’ve broken a few bones? Or strap a couple cinder blocks to my feet and toss me into Falcon Lake?”

  Conn was an outline in the doorway. From the yard, for the first time in my life, he looked so small and insignificant it seemed I could squish him between my thumb and index finger.

  Chance shook his head. “There’s nothing worse I can do to you, Conn, than what you’ve already done to yourself.”

  For a moment, it was quiet. Just when I started to believe those were the words that would shut Conn up, I was reminded that nothing would ever shut Conn Armstrong up.

  “That was cold, brother,” he called after us. “I thought you were supposed to be the nice one.”

  We had rounded the side of the house, out of Conn’s hearing range, when Chance bumped his shoulder to mine. “I am the nice one. If I was more like him, he’d be choking on his front teeth right now.”

  THIS NIGHT WOULDN’T end.

  Chase was still hovering by the pool table, but instead of sitting on it in a dark room, he was leaning into it, pool stick in hand, with almost every light on. He didn’t look excited to be playing or have that typical easygoing feel about him, but he was upright and at least pretending to play a role in humanity.

  When I wandered over to the pool table after helping Mrs. Baker clean up after dinner, I smiled at Chance leaning across the table, lining up his stick behind the green-striped ball. I’d never played much pool when I lived there, and when I had, I’d never been good at it. I knew the difference between solid and stripes and the whole point of the eight ball—which Chase had given me an exhaustive recap of earlier. The only other person in the house who hadn’t been a pool shark was Chance, and his tongue sticking out ever so slightly as he concentrated on the ball made a small laugh sneak out of me.

  Of course, that laugh had to come at the very moment he slid his stick back to make his hit. Chance’s gaze cut my way, his pool stick cut to the side, and his ball went all cattywampus in what I guessed was the opposite direction of what he’d intended. Chase clapped his hand over his brother’s shoulder, almost smiling as the green-striped ball slowed to a stop in almost the exact same spot it had just been. Chance gave the ball a look as if he were expecting an explanation from it.

&nbs
p; “Sorry about that. You know it makes me laugh when you stick your tongue out like that.” I came closer and stopped when I was across the table from Chance. “I keep thinking that’s something you’ll outgrow, but if you haven’t yet at twenty-seven, I’m guessing you’re stuck with it.”

  Chance straightened, biting his tongue again as a look of concentration fell over his face. I laughed—I had no choice. It was hardwired into my system.

  “If it makes you laugh every time, I don’t want to outgrow it.” He shrugged and moved aside as Chase went to line up his shot.

  “In addition to making people laugh, you seem to have taken on the role of miracle-worker as well.” I indicated Chase with my eyes before lifting an eyebrow. “What’s your secret?”

  If he had one, I needed to know it. Chase had seemed to go from worse to worst between my conversation with him and dinner. At the table, he’d been an empty vessel, staring at his plate but never eating anything from it. Somehow Chance had gotten him to go from that to playing pool, and I wanted to know how to do the same when and if Chase found himself in a similar funk.

  “No secret.” Chance spun his pool stick between his hands. “I just asked.”

  “You just asked? And that actually worked?” I watched Chase line up his shot, the skin between his brows drawing into a deep crease.

  Chance shrugged again. “Well, yeah.”

  I shook my head. Chance always made things seem simple. Where the trend seemed to be viewing life as one complicated string of twists and turns that resulted in little to no rhyme or reason, Chance made it seem just the opposite. He’d been that way ever since I met him. He thought if I needed something, it was as simple as asking someone for it. If I wanted to do something, it was as simple as going out and doing it. If there was a problem, then I just had to solve it. In Chance Armstrong’s world, life wasn’t a convoluted mess, and as much as that had irritated me growing up, it was a refreshing concept at this point in my life.