Chapter 14
Brookes
The sky is still a soft gray-blue when Mason and I head out to the barn for morning chores. My eyes are bleary, and my face is still damp from washing, and Mason seems equally tired. Janey’s pregnancy and her presence are weighing on both of us.
Dew clings to the grass, and the air smells clean and sharp. I like this time of day, before the sun gets mean and the ranch hands start showing up, when it is just me, my brother, and the animals waking up around us.
We work in comfortable silence for a while, tossing hay into the stalls and checking water troughs. Even so, I can tell Mason’s mind is burdened. He moves more slowly than usual, as if he's chewing on words he hasn’t decided how to spit out yet.
Finally, he straightens and rests one arm on the stall door. “Janey came to my room last night.”
I pause mid-throw with hay still in my hands. “Yeah?” I keep my voice even. “She okay?”
Mason nods, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Couldn’t sleep alone. Climbed in behind me and wrapped herself around me like she was trying to disappear into my back.
” A small, soft smile crosses his face. “We talked for a while. About her family. Her mom especially. Sounds like the woman’s been riding her hard her whole life.
Nothing Janey does is ever quite enough. ”
I lean against the wall and listen. Part of me is glad that Janey felt safe enough to seek comfort from one of us. Then comes the sharper feeling underneath it. Jealousy, small and ugly and unwelcome because of course, I wish it had been me.
I'm usually the one people confide in. I hate that I'm thinking about myself when this should be about her, but the sting is there all the same. The thought that she chose Mason’s bed hits somewhere I don’t want to look too closely at.
“She say much else?” I ask.
Mason’s expression turns serious. “She’s scared her mom’s never gonna forgive her for this. For the baby. For us.” His jaw tightens. “Thinks it’ll break her family for good.”
I let out a slow breath.
That sounds like Janey. She’d never ask for pity. She’d simply carry the hurt quietly and convince herself that if it’s broken, it must somehow be her fault.
Mason looks down at the hay scattered over the barn floor. “Sounds like her mom’s got impossible standards. Janey’s spent her whole life trying to measure up and still feels like she’s failing.”
“Damn,” I mutter.
We both know what that feels like.
Different house. Different rules. Same burden.
Mason continues, “She’s carrying a lot of guilt. Worried she’s letting everyone down. Especially her mom.”
I nod, but the doubt that has been working at me since we brought her here sharpens. It has been there from the beginning, buried under wanting her close, making room, and pretending that wanting it badly enough makes it right and real.
“You think her parents will ever accept this?” I ask. “Both of us? A baby that could belong to either one of us?”
Mason snorts, but there is no humor in it. “Not a chance in hell. Not the way she described her mom.”
I kick at a clump of dirt with my boot.
Beyond the open barn doors, the pasture glows pale with morning.
Running our own thing gives us freedom you don’t get with employment. A house that’s ours. A barn and land enough to raise a family on.
It’s a good life. One we can be proud of, and hearing someone else's hypothetical disapproval grates me. People have a way of making simple things complicated. If people want to be together, and they respect and care for each other, why does it matter if it doesn’t look like the cookie-cutter version of life?
“So what happens if they can’t accept both of us?” I ask quietly.
Mason goes still.
I keep my eyes on the dirt because if I look at him, I may lose the nerve to finish.
“What if one of us could give her a more normal life? One dad for the kid. One man for her. Less scandal.” The words taste worse the farther I get into them, but I keep going.
“If her parents would accept that, wouldn’t that be better for her and the kid? ”
Mason turns to me fully, eyes narrowing. “What the hell are you saying, Brookes?”
I shrug, but it feels forced and cowardly, like I’m trying to make sacrifice sound practical because I don’t want to admit it would gut me.
“I’m thinking out loud. You and me, we’ve always said we’d share everything. But this situation is bigger than us.” I swallow. “If it came down to it, wouldn’t it be better if at least one of us could keep her? Give them a life with fewer whispers and less judgment?”
Mason stares at me for a long beat.
Then he shakes his head, slow and hard. “No.”
I look up. “No?”
“No,” he says again. “That isn’t noble. There’s no way I could leave you on the sidelines and take Janey for myself.
And I’m sure you couldn’t live that way, either.
Whichever way you look at it, someone is out in the cold, and I won’t break my relationship with my brother to please someone's judgmental mother.”
Mason steps closer. “You think stepping back would make things easier for her?” His voice is low but rough with feeling. “Maybe for a minute. Maybe on paper. But Janey would still know. We’d still know. And that kid would grow up with a lie sitting at the table.”
I say nothing.
He points between us. “Janey’s mom… I know the type.
Nothing will ever be good enough. That’s her game.
She enjoys making Janey stretch impossibly high.
She enjoys the control. It wouldn’t matter if Janey stood at the top of Mount Everest because her mom would point to the moon.
And we’re a package deal, Brookes. Always have been.
That doesn’t mean we own her, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean we get to decide what she chooses.
It means we don’t start cutting pieces off ourselves so the world has a relationship that’s easier to swallow. ”
My throat tightens at the fierceness in my brother's face.
“Janey deserves all the love being offered to her, not some watered-down version because her mother might clutch her pearls. And the baby?” His voice catches. “The baby deserves every person who’s ready to love it.”
I look away as emotion swells inside me. The barn is quiet except for the shuffle of horses and the soft creak of wood settling around us.
“What if she doesn’t want that?” I ask. ”What if she’s unwilling to risk it all for this life we’re offering?”
“Then that’s her choice. But we don’t make it for her by deciding ahead of time that one of us has to disappear.”
I drag a hand over my jaw.
For a second, I see us as boys, long before we understood what family could cost. Mason had scraped knuckles and a busted lip because someone at school said I was too quiet. I sat beside him on the porch afterward, cleaning the blood off his face while he pretended it didn’t hurt.
He has always fought hard. Always sacrificed.
I look toward the house. The kitchen windows are lit. I can already smell coffee and the sweetness of baking.
Janey is up.
She’s in our kitchen, already moving around our house like it’s home. We don’t have long to prove that what we’re offering is worth risking everything for. But we’ll try.
Mason follows my gaze.
“She fits,” he says quietly.
I nod. “Yeah.”
“And you’re already trying to make yourself fit less.”
I close my eyes for half a second. “Maybe.”
“Well, stop.”
Despite everything, a low chuckle slips out of me. “That's your whole argument?”
“Pretty much.”
Mason picks up the pitchfork again, but his gaze stays on me. “We offer her everything. She decides what she wants. That’s the deal.”
I nod slowly. “That’s the deal.”
“And no more martyr bullshit before breakfast.”
This time, I do laugh. “Fine.”
“I mean it.”
“I said fine.”
He studies me for another second, then seems to accept it, though I know Mason well enough to know he’ll remember this. He’ll keep one eye on me now.
We finish the last of the early chores and head back toward the house. The morning sun has lifted over the pasture, turning the dew bright on the grass. Buck barks from inside, one hoarse warning that probably means he has heard us coming and wants credit for guarding the place.
The smell of coffee grows stronger as we step onto the porch.
Under it is cinnamon.
I pause with my hand on the doorframe.
Mason looks back. “You coming?”
“Yeah,” I say.
For one more second, I stand there and listen.
Mason’s boots cross the porch. Janey moves around in the kitchen. The old dog barks like he's still young enough to protect everyone in this house.
This is what I'm afraid of losing.
The messy, impossible, already-loved thing that’s taking shape under our roof.
I push the conversation down deep where it can’t touch the day yet, but it stays there, as I follow Mason inside.
No matter how much I want this, all of us together, I can’t shake the fear that Janey might be better off with one of us.
And God help me, I don’t know whether I’m more afraid she’d choose Mason, or that she’d choose me.