Chapter 2 Dex
DEX
My SUV made the final turn into Starlight Grove as if on autopilot. Or maybe it was me who was. My hands moved with the kind of knowledge that came from years upon years of making the same turns, even after almost a decade away.
It wasn’t that I never came back. I did. Made the visit at least three times a year. Sometimes more. Christmas. Anytime Great-Uncle Waylon had a follow-up scan after kicking cancer’s ass. My niece Skylar’s birthday as often as possible. And always Mom’s birthday…or what would’ve been.
But there was always a cost. Coming back here, to a place where people knew exactly what my brothers and I had come from. Exactly why our great-uncle had taken us in.
The reactions varied: pity, disgust, fear.
But there was always a reaction. I hadn’t had to deal with it in DC—not in a city where I was practically invisible, just one of the many filing through the streets and metro stations.
That anonymity had become a comforting blanket, and I’d just ripped it clean off by deciding to move back here.
I eased my car to a stop as a woman I recognized stepped into the crosswalk. People never worried about cars coming to a stop for them in Starlight Grove. There was blind trust around here, a belief that people would do the right thing.
Maisy Carmichael, one of the ladies who worked at the Yarn Barn, the local quilt and craft shop, slowed a fraction as her gaze met mine through my windshield. Her pale-green eyes widened, making the endless wrinkles on her face deepen.
Fear.
That was what those eyes held. It was as if she thought I’d gun the engine and run her down right then and there. Part of me didn’t blame her. She knew whose blood ran through my veins. But another part of me did blame her—her and every other person who looked at my brothers and me with wary eyes.
Instead, I forced a smile I’d donned more times than I could count. The kind that said I’m nothing like the monster who makes up half my DNA. And then I waved. A little finger wave that was beyond ridiculous but made to tell her I was no one to fear.
Maisy sent me a tight smile and a nod, then scrambled the rest of the way across the street. I didn’t think I’d seen the woman—who had to be deep into her eighties now—move that fast in years.
Guilt swamped me. I was an asshole. And that assholishness had been made worse by the fact that I’d just spent the past four days driving cross-country, sleeping in crappy motels, and drinking awful coffee, and I was pretty sure I’d pulled something in my back.
I wasn’t sure how you could pull something in your back by doing nothing but sitting for forty-two-plus hours, but I’d managed it. Was this what it was like to get old? If it was, it sucked. And the fact that I was feeling the effects at thirty-one was concerning.
I waited until Maisy was deep onto the sidewalk before easing off the brake, but I couldn’t stop my gaze from flicking over to her. A scowl twisted my lips when I saw a cell phone pressed to her ear, no doubt telling her sewing circle that all five Archer boys were back in Starlight Grove now.
As I forced my focus back onto the road, I had to slam on my brakes as a maroon SUV backed into the street, not a care in the world. I resisted the urge to lay on my horn. But the last thing I needed was Maisy telling the world I had a rage problem on top of all the rumors she was helping along.
I didn’t—at least not that I ever let anyone see—because I did everything to combat it. I meditated. Had a gratitude practice. Did things to counterbalance all the evil my father had bled into the world.
The SUV kept right on backing up, and I realized it wasn’t a fuck-you move; the woman likely couldn’t see over the piles of suitcases and boxes in the back.
I could only tell it was a woman by the flash of long, blond hair I saw as her head turned.
Oblivious to me, she started down Mountain View Way on her way out of town, a dog shoving his or her massive head out the window.
“Tourists,” I muttered. Always completely unaware of their surroundings unless stopping to take a selfie and bringing more crap with them than they’d ever need for a two-week vacation.
I cracked my neck and eased off the brake yet again.
If I could make it to the ranch without getting into a wreck or biting someone’s head off, it’d be a miracle.
I needed a meal that didn’t come from a vending machine or a fast-food drive-through, a cold beer, and a scalding-hot shower to scrub off the road. Not necessarily in that order.
But I still didn’t let myself drive even three miles over the speed limit. Couldn’t risk it. Not with my history. Not with my family’s reputation.
Instead, I tried to take stock of all that had changed in downtown Starlight Grove since my last visit.
My brother Wylder’s bar, the Boot, looked damn good.
He’d added some color in the form of flowers in water troughs out front, and they worked against the dark, almost-black stain of the wood building.
Countless people were crowded into picnic tables around the diner, opting for the Grove Griddle’s walk-up window in the deep May warmth.
And the bookstore looked like it had gotten a facelift, too.
My brain stayed occupied until I reached the edge of town and could breathe a little more deeply.
Luckily, my hands stayed on autopilot, taking me on the fifteen-minute drive out of town to the place that was more home than anything else I’d ever had.
The estate I’d grown up on in Greenwich, Connecticut, sure as hell hadn’t been home.
I’d thought it was, but it had been a house of horrors.
My apartment in DC had barely seen my face other than for me to grab fitful patches of sleep.
And the only thing my college dorm room had been was the backdrop for my arrest by the FBI.
But Twisted Oak Ranch. That was home. The perfect fit for the misfit Archer brothers.
And it all centered around the ramshackle house my great-uncle had built with his friends and added onto year after year.
The house he’d been determined to build with a massive, living oak tree at the center of it.
The tree house. That was what my brothers and I called it. There was even a swing off one of the branches in the living room.
But it was more than the house itself. It was the land and all the things on it.
Over a thousand acres with everything but what most people raised around here: cattle.
Not Uncle Waylon. The only cows he had were those of the mini-Highland cow variety.
He had alpacas, an extra shaggy breed of sheep, goats, and a small herd of yaks.
Even the land itself seemed to fit us. Rustic and wild, a little ragged around the edges. Fields and meadows punctuated by brambles and sagebrush, framed by endless forests with that staggering mountaintop in the distance.
Beauty and home.
My SUV slowed as I reached the gate, the rusted metal complete with Uncle Waylon’s true love in the middle…a clock. And not just any clock. A Bigfoot clock.
A soft chuckle left my lips as I rolled down my window and punched in the gate code—the same one we’d had since we’d come here to live. It sure as hell wasn’t secure to not change it in two decades, but every time I brought that up to Waylon, he said he’d never be able to remember a new one.
The gate swung open with a creak, and I eased my SUV over the familiar bumps of a cattle guard. Each vibration sent a spasm of pain through my back. Damn. I needed a soak in the hot springs on the property.
I guided my vehicle around the bends in the bumpy-as-hell dirt road, cursing every divot and ridge.
But finally, the tree house came into view.
Its sage-green siding almost matched the oak tree leaves that sprang out of the roof.
How Waylon had managed to make that work without a leak of some sort was beyond me.
But then again, he had all sorts of mechanical tricks up his sleeve. And like a magician, he always refused to share his secrets.
Slowing to a stop, I cut the engine and climbed out of the SUV. I stretched and cracked my back, groaning with the movement.
“Uncle Dex!”
The two words had me searching out the source. Skylar ran at me full-out. Her blond hair flew behind her in a tangle of waves, the crown atop it sliding to one side. She wore a pink princess dress paired with cowboy boots covered in pink flowers and mud, and wielded a play sword.
I couldn’t help the chuckle that left my lips as she launched herself into the air. I caught her with an oomph as pain flared in my back and my glasses nearly flew from my face. “Did you grow on me, Little Princess?”
“Duuuuuuh, I’m seven now,” she shot back.
“Driving yet?”
Skylar sent me a sly smile. “Sometimes, on the tractor.”
Oh Jesus. I bet Kol didn’t have a clue about that one. My brother put the over in overprotective, especially when it came to his little girl.
“Damn it, she’s fast,” Maverick called on a wheeze as he ran around the side of the house.
I choked on a laugh as I took in the youngest of our bunch, adjusting my glasses. He wore a cowboy hat, a hot-pink feather boa, and held a shield and sword. Behind him charged a mini-Highland cow decked out in fairy wings.
“I thought hotshots were in better shape,” I yelled back.
Mav flipped me off. “Smoke jumper now, you asshat.”
“Swear jar!” Skylar chastised.
Mav scowled. “You’re always getting me in trouble.”
I arched a brow as I deposited Skylar back on her mud-caked boots. “Pretty sure you don’t need my help in that department.”
Maverick did everything he could to live up to his name: reckless to the bone and always searching for his next dose of adrenaline. Uncle Waylon blamed Maverick for his white hair.
Mav rolled his eyes. “The FBI really did make you boring as shit.”
“Swear jar,” Skylar singsonged again.
Without warning, I dove for my brother, trying to get him into a headlock and attempting a noogie at the same time.
Maverick instantly retaliated by thwacking me with his plastic sword as Skylar giggled.
“Shots fired on an unarmed man!” I accused.
An ear-splitting whistle pierced the air, which had Maverick and me releasing each other.
“Do I need to turn the hose on you two?”
I grimaced as I took in Uncle Waylon, clad in his favorite Carhartt overalls complete with a Bigfoot patch on the bib, work boots, and his worn ball cap that read The truth is out there.
Lucy, the sweetest Irish wolfhound known to man, ambled down the porch steps after him, making her way toward me.
“He started it,” Mav complained.
I crouched low to give my old girl scratches. “There she is,” I cooed.
“Mav,” Waylon began, “you start shit nine times out of ten.”
Skylar giggled. “Swear jar, Grampa Way Way.”
She’d called him that from the moment she learned to talk. Because he was a grandfather to her in all the ways that mattered and the only grandparent she’d ever have.
A door slammed. “I ask you two to keep an eye on my daughter for two hours,” Kol grumbled as he ambled away from his Forest Service truck.
Maverick clamped his hands over Skylar’s ears. “Newsflash, buzzkill, she already knows more than a couple of four-letter words.”
This was not the thing to say to Kol. You did not expose his daughter to anything that might harm her in any way, even if that was just a curse word.
“Boy,” Uncle Waylon warned in Mav’s direction. “You wake up on the stupid side of the bed this morning?”
I pushed to my feet, dropping my hands from Lucy’s scruff. “Pretty sure that’s every morning.”
Mav released Skylar to take a swipe at me that I dodged with a laugh, and I turned to Kol, pulling him into a back-slapping hug. “How the hell are you?”
“Language,” Kol warned.
“Is hell really a bad word?” I asked.
“It’s on the no-no list,” Skylar helpfully informed me.
“Whoops,” I muttered as I released Kol.
He clapped me on the shoulder. “It’s good to have you back.”
I took a second to really take Kol in. His dark scruff was thicker, edging on beard territory, and he was just as broad and tall as he’d always been, but it looked like he’d put on more muscle.
With his job as an investigator for the Forest Service, he could resemble a lumberjack.
But those hazel eyes, which leaned toward the dark side, were the same ones we all had—the ones we all hated. Because of what they reminded us of.
I shoved that thought down. “It’s good to be back. Wylder and Orion around?”
“Wylder’s at the bar like always,” Maverick offered about our eldest brother.
“Orion?” I asked.
Mav and Kol shared a look, and my gut sank like a boulder in a lake. Orion hadn’t been what I’d call good since the day our whole world imploded. But Orion’s world had fractured more than the rest of ours because of the higher price he’d paid for our survival.
“He’s been sticking to his place more than usual,” Kol hedged.
All my brothers lived on ranch property except for me, while I’d been working for the FBI in their tech wing, what I lovingly referred to as Hackers Anonymous, and Wylder, who lived above his bar.
But Orion’s house, which he built with Waylon’s help and moved into the second he turned eighteen, was as far from the rest of the residences as he could get.
My jaw worked back and forth as worry set in. I’d be paying him a visit before long. And his cantankerous ass would be talking to me, in whatever way Orion was willing to talk these days.
I cracked my neck. “I need to get over to the guest cabin, unload my stuff, and take the longest shower known to man.”
Maverick eyed my back seat. “You mean unload your two duffel bags?”
“Hey,” I shot back. “I also have three boxes.”
“Let me guess,” Mav continued. “Computer crap?”
I narrowed my eyes on my brother. “Do not demean Betty Lou.”
“Who’s Betty Lou?” Skylar piped up. “Did you get a kitty?”
Maverick snorted. “It’s his nerdtastic computer.”
“I’d watch your tone about Betty Lou, or I’ll make sure you can’t access a single bank account, social media profile, or email.”
“Dexter,” Uncle Waylon warned. “We have a deal.”
“No hacking on your property,” I grumbled.
“Speaking of this property,” Kol interjected, “what guest cabin do you think you’re staying in?”
I blinked back at my brother a few times. “The one and only guest cabin on the ranch.”
Mav and Kol shared another look.
“What now?” I groaned.