Chapter Sixteen
Chapter
Sixteen
Bay sat next to Max as his old but beautifully kept
Ford rolled toward the ranch.
“See, I should have punched Nate or something.” Max’s head
shook as they approached the drive that would take them to the big house. “I
could be having jailhouse sex right now.”
Nate had told Gemma that it was time to take a break the
minute Rachel showed up and started yelling at her husband. Apparently she’d
been having a lovely day when she’d been told her husband was in jail.
“Uh, she seemed real upset,” Bay pointed out. Rather like
Brooke, who was having none of him when it came to jailhouse sex. That could be
fun. He and Shane could pretend like they were prisoners and she was the prize
in some kind of wicked game. He could come up with some fun scenarios.
If she ever forgave him.
He was going to lose her because he hadn’t proven himself.
She was still wary, still worried he wouldn’t do what it took to make her
happy.
“See, that’s where you don’t understand women. Rach was
pissed off, but we made a deal a long time ago. When I do something to upset
her, I owe her sexual servitude. Usually that’s my place because it’s hard to
be the charming, funny one all the time. Some of my adventures don’t go the way
I want them to, and I end up hanging out with Nate. Rye doesn’t usually get
into the same kind of trouble, but I have to give him this one. Those two need
to reconnect. I’m actually happy she walked in yelling. It means she’s coming
back to us. My baby has some anger issues. I can handle those. What I can’t
handle is her being sad all the time. Especially when we’re the cause. We’ve
been parents and not spouses, and being her husband is my favorite thing on
earth to be. We have to remind her of that.”
He didn’t hate the sound of Max’s reasoning. “So you’re
saying if I want to get Brooke back, I should make her happy in bed?”
Max winced. “No. I am not saying that. Not saying that at
all.” His hands tightened on the wheel, and he let out a long sigh. “But I’m
also not not saying that, damn it. Where is your
daddy?”
“Well, he’s dead, but if you’re asking why I’m not talking
to him about this instead of you, it wouldn’t matter if he was still alive. I
wouldn’t be talking to him. My dad was pretty pathetic. I always talk to
Shane.”
“Son, that is the dumb leading the even dumber,” Max
quipped. “Well, I guess the only thing to do is take you both in hand and under
my tender care.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I think my sister is in love with you, and while I
wish like hell I could blame you for all of this, we might be looking at a
problem of my own making. Or rather my other half’s. Hell, I’m involved too
because I never wanted Brooke to leave at all. I would have been perfectly
happy with her coming home and staying in that house we built and being auntie
to all our kids. It’s hard when you have to deal with the fact that the people
you love, the ones you watched grow, turn into actual adults who need to make
their own way in the world. We handled it poorly with Brooke. We made her think
she owed us something. We didn’t try to but that’s what happened.”
“She loves you.”
“Which is why she’s hurting. We haven’t been communicating
well. See, this is the funny thing about a great love story. Which is what I
have with Rach. She and Rye have a regular old love story, but the outcome is
the same.”
He wasn’t going to debate with Max about whether Rye had the
better love story. It was ridiculous because they both loved her. It was all
their story. But he was curious. “What outcome?”
“See, when you get married you think it’s all settled, but
here’s the hard part. You still grow, and you have to make the choice to do
that together. You have to watch the woman you love more than life itself
become a mother and give herself to those babies you made together. You have to
watch them become their own people and know that one day they’re going to leave
and you won’t be able to protect them anymore. They want their own stories, and
your story never stopped. If you aren’t careful, you’ll forget that love is an
active choice you make. And you start using the kind of words I just did.”
Bay felt a deep well of emotion open inside him, and his
childhood spilled out. His parents hadn’t loved each other. They’d gotten
married because it was time and they were dating. There had been no grand love
story for them. He’d grown up in a house where they didn’t even like each
other. They stayed together because someone told them they had to in order to
be good human beings. They hadn’t chosen each other. They hadn’t chosen
themselves. They had chosen misery.
He knew the words Max was talking about. “You don’t have to.
You get to. You said that was the bad part, but it’s the good part. You get to
watch the woman you love become more. You get to hold her hand. You get to have
a partner to watch your kids grow, and no matter what happens you stand beside
her. Those kids are there because of you and her and the love you have. It
isn’t an obligation. It isn’t a sacrifice. It’s the whole reason we’re alive.”
“You’re going to be all right, Bay,” Max said quietly. “And
so are we. We’re going to be family. I know you’ve been the big brother all
your life…”
Bay chuckled even as his heart felt so damn full. “Was I? I
don’t know about that, but I understand what you’re saying. Be careful. I think
you might find me and Shane would welcome a couple of older brothers to advise
us. Max, I love her. Shane loves her. She needs to roam for a while. She needs
to figure out what to do with all her talent. It’s not designing jeans for some
snobby fashion house.”
“You take care of her and you bring her home from time to
time.” Max was the one who sounded emotional now.
“She’ll always come home, and someday she’ll want to put
down roots,” Bay said. “My vote will be for here, but she’s got to have her
work.”
Max’s head shook. “Damn cowboys. Knew you would be trouble
the minute I saw you.”
“We were being paid to annoy you,” Bay admitted. “I would
probably take that back if I could. Especially if I’d seen Brooke first.”
“Little asshole,” Max said under his breath and then he
started to turn and stopped in front of the gates. Which should be open.
“What’s going on? The G’s gates are always open during the day.”
They were open most of the time since the owners never
discouraged visitors. He’d heard Jamie and Trev joke about never spending money
on the gate since they didn’t use it.
It was the first time he’d seen it shut.
Max pulled up to the reception box. “What’s the code?”
He didn’t know there was a code. “No idea, man.”
Something was wrong. Trev wasn’t here. He’d called and asked
Max to bring Bay back because he and Bo were going to help Beth. He wouldn’t
have locked the place up because Jamie was taking Hope into Alamosa. None of
this made sense, and every instinct he had was flaring up.
Max started to reach for the button on the call box.
It would alert the house that someone was trying to get in.
“Stop.” Bay’s heart rate ticked up as adrenaline started
pumping. “Let’s call Trev.”
Max put the truck in park. “You worried? Didn’t you think
your brother was overreacting?”
“I might have to eat those words.” He glanced at his cell.
“Why don’t I have any bars?”
Max looked at his phone, too. “Yeah, I got nothing. Let’s
head back. This feels like a Nate problem. We can find service and tell Brooke
and Shane to stay where they are.”
Bay’s gut took a deep dive. “He texted me over an hour ago.
He was bringing her back to the ranch.”
“My sister’s in there?” Max asked.
Bay’s whole fucking life was locked behind those gates.
Shane and Brooke were in there, and he had no idea what was going on.
“Open the glove box. I keep binoculars in there. Paige is
crazy about bird watching right now.” Max opened the driver’s side door. “What
kind of cameras do Trev and Jamie have on this place?”
Bay found the binoculars and handed them over, getting out
of his side. “There’s one here, but it’s not on. It would have a light, and it
would move.” He’d read enough thrillers to ponder what had happened. “I suspect
when they took out the cell signal it locked the camera. If someone’s here,
they damn straight wouldn’t want to get caught on tape.”
“So if someone’s in there, they won’t know we’re here,” Max
mused, looking through the binoculars.
Bay needed to be clear. “Not someone. Kale Kingman, or at
least his crew, and I’m betting I was entirely wrong and my brother was right.
They’re deadly, Max. If the rumors are true, it wouldn’t be the first time they
got rid of someone inconvenient.”
A single image passed over his brain. A young woman walking
out of the main house, a bag in her hand and a look of desolation on her face.
He’d drawn her because the emotion on her face had called to
him. It had been one of those moments when he’d known he had to draw. The
vision seared into his brain and late that night, he’d taken his sketchpad and
drawn the scene. Now he remembered Kale Kingman had been in the background.
He’d been holding something. A tool of some kind. Maybe a hammer, which was
weird because it wasn’t like the man did his own work.
He’d still been holding it when he’d gotten into the truck
and driven her off. To go back home, he’d told everyone.
Except she’d told Bay she didn’t have a home.
Was she alive?
It was insane, but was this about him? Was this about the
drawing he’d made? It wasn’t a photograph. It wasn’t evidence of anything.
But it might make people think, might lead some to ask
questions.
“I think this is about a drawing I did,” Bay said quietly.
Max hopped on the hood of his truck. Well, hopped was a
strong word to use for the awkward maneuver, but then the guy was getting up
there in years. “I thought Shane was the one who saw something.”
“But if it was Shane, they would simply kill him. They