Chapter Fifteen
The Bennet Ranch
Something about lunch really did not agree with the baby. Aly would feel fine in the morning. Eat normally, though she was avoiding coffee and caffeine like all the books said and that sucked. Then she’d be hungry for lunch, sit down to eat it.
Then about fifteen minutes later, run to the bathroom and throw it all up. She knelt in the bathroom now, hoping once was enough. Sometimes it was. She really wanted today to be one of those days.
“I know you’re worth it and all,” she whispered to the baby as she had gotten in the habit of doing in such a short time. “But I’m not loving this.”
She got to her feet, washed her face. She’d taken to keeping a toothbrush in the downstairs bathroom so she didn’t have to trudge upstairs to brush her teeth after.
Because she was exhausted. She’d take the puking over this dogged feeling like she’d just rather be curled up in bed for eternity.
She stood in the bathroom, considering just that. She could just lie down on the couch. Set an alarm. Take a little nap. Landon was being all overprotective and thwarting her doing any of her outside ranch chores anyway.
Once she had her doctor’s appointment, that was going to be over, but for now what else did she have to do but sleep? She moved from the bathroom to the living room, looking around, feeling like some kind of criminal. She wasn’t a nap kind of person. She was a go, go, go kind of person.
Just as she sat on the couch, she heard the sound of the back door opening. Boots stomping on the mat in the mudroom. She jumped off the couch like a shot and then felt ridiculously silly for it.
Still, she was glad Landon hadn’t caught her napping. He’d worry or fuss or something.
She frowned then. Landon had come in for lunch, then gone out for his afternoon chores not twenty minutes ago. There was no good reason for him to be back, unless he’d forgotten his phone or something.
Or he was checking in on her. And to think, if he’d been five minutes later, he would have caught her taking a nap. She wouldn’t have been able to live that one down.
She moved toward the kitchen, pretending to bustle as though she’d been doing very important house chores. But he appeared at the doorway between the living room and entryway, looking very grim.
She forgot all about looking busy.
“I just got a call from Cal,” he said.
If he was missing chores to come inside and tell her about a phone call in person, rather than just texting her, it was bad. Catastrophically bad.
Landon swallowed. He was working very hard to keep his reactions steady, but she knew him. She saw him. Worry and frustration and a million other bad things lived underneath that stoic facade.
“Nate’s been arrested for the murder.”
Aly had to reach out for the wall to steady herself. “What? No. No. That can’t be right. Cal…”
“Cal is bringing Sam up here. I guess Nate was hoping she could stay for a few days so someone could keep an eye on her. Then Cal will handle Nate’s … stuff. He’ll take care of Nate.”
Aly managed an inhale. Yes, catastrophically bad. She let out a slow breath. She needed to think. Focus. Problem-solve.
“And we’ll take care of Sam. Of course.” Aly’s mind was reeling.
None of it good. “I’ll … I’ll make up a room for her right now.
” It was something to do. Something concrete.
“I’ll … we’ll keep an eye on her until Cal sorts this out.
I’ll make her favorite dinner. It’s spaghetti. I’m almost sure of it.”
Landon reached out, took her arm. “Honey, you just got done puking your guts out.”
Aly waved that away with her free hand. “Our friend is hurting, Landon. We can’t do anything about Nate, so we’ll have to leave that up to Cal. But we can try to ease Sam’s hurt while he does.”
She looked up into her husband’s dark eyes. Hurt didn’t begin to cover what she saw there, but there was nothing she could do for him.
Except wrap her arms around him and hold on. For a moment, he stayed stiff, but eventually he softened, hugged her back, rested his chin on the top of her head.
“How’d this happen, Al?” he asked, sounding lost.
She shook her head against his shoulder. “I don’t know.” It wasn’t fair, that she knew, but what was? Before she could find some sort of positivity in this awful moment, the front door opened.
Sam and Cal appeared. It seemed like Cal was all but dragging Sam. But not because she was fighting him. Just because she wasn’t moving on her own at all.
Aly turned from Landon and rushed over to Sam, enveloped her in a hug and squeezed tight. “It’s going to be okay,” Aly assured her, even as Sam just stood still and accepted the hug without reciprocating.
Aly looked up at Cal, hoping for affirmation. He didn’t meet her gaze. He dropped a bag, presumably Sam’s, next to the coatrack.
Swallowing down her worry, she kept an arm around Sam. “Are you hungry?” Aly asked, even if it was silly. “I’ll make you some lunch or a snack or—”
“I’m just going to lie down, I think. Same room as before?” Sam had spent the night last summer when they’d all had a little too much to drink.
Aly had never seen Sam so pale. So quiet. So withdrawn. Even last month, when she’d stumbled across a dead body and been visibly affected, she hadn’t been this. “Yes, same room. I’ll—”
“No, I’m fine,” Sam said, walking past Aly, not looking at Landon. She just went to the stairs and trudged up them, apparently completely unaware three people stared at her retreating back in shock and worry.
“I’m going down to the jail,” Cal said quietly once Sam disappeared down the upstairs hall.
“I’ll talk with Nate, try to set up a meeting with Hayes.
See what our options are.” Cal glanced at where Sam had disappeared.
“Nate’s more worried about her than himself.
” This seemed to bother him, though Aly didn’t understand why.
It didn’t matter. “We’ve got her. You tell him that. We’ve got her. However long we need to.”
*
Landon couldn’t sleep that night. Cal had texted updates that evening, but they weren’t really updates. Just information. There’d be a bond hearing, then an arraignment. Landon didn’t really understand it all and found he didn’t want to.
Aly was dead asleep next to him. Pregnancy, no doubt, because normally she’d be an anxious, pacing wreck. But the past few days she’d been exhausted and throwing up.
And Nate was in jail. For murder.
What was it about Bennets and murder?
Just a little over a year ago, he’d believed his father innocent of everything Sam had accused Benjamin Bennet of.
For nearly fifteen years, it had never occurred to him that his father could be so cruel.
So heartless. So evil as to kill his mother.
Landon hadn’t seen the horrible man underneath because he hadn’t wanted to. He’d wanted life to make sense.
Did that lesson demand he consider Nate capable of murder? He had been a soldier. Away from the family for fifteen years. What did Landon really know about his brother?
Yeah, Landon wasn’t getting any sleep tonight. He slid out of bed. Walked carefully to the door, avoiding the spots that would creak. Aly slept soundly as he slipped out of the room.
He went downstairs, edgy and irritated with his own line of thought.
Of course, Nate hadn’t killed anyone. Believing that wasn’t keeping his head in the sand.
It wasn’t denial like it had been before.
Because he didn’t have to work to convince himself, like he’d spent so much time working to defend his father.
All because he’d been so desperate to keep a status quo that had felt safe.
It hadn’t been.
So, yeah, Landon’s radar was way off, but Nate wasn’t a murderer. Wasn’t like Dad. Nate had never asked anything of Landon, of anyone. He never demanded loyalty. He’d never done anything but follow his own carefully crafted moral code.
And felt guilty over not helping this woman who’d, by all accounts, been incredibly difficult.
But somehow, thinking about this only made Landon all the more disgusted with himself for spending so many years defending his father.
Sure, Dad was a master manipulator. He’d fooled better, smarter men than Landon.
Hell, he’d fooled Aly. It wasn’t a moral failing to have believed in Benjamin Bennet, Landon tried to tell himself.
But it felt like one at the moment, sitting here wondering if he was supposed to question his brother’s innocence too.
Edgy and unable to go out and work it out with chores or something physical since it was the middle of the night, Landon questioned his options.
Maybe a beer on the porch. Maybe go look out at the stars and remind himself he’d gotten through a lot, so why not one more thing?
Because this ranch had survived over a century, even when every kind of shit hit the fan.
He just needed to move. Even if it’d likely be freezing outside. Maybe the bracing cold would knock something loose inside of him, so he’d know how to move through this moment.
He went to the door, then stopped. It was unlocked. Concerned, since he always locked up before bed, Landon was careful when he eased it open, nice and slow so it wouldn’t creak.
Sam stood on the porch, faintly outlined by the moonlight.
She was dressed in the same clothes she’d arrived in, but the chill of a spring night was too much for the thin thermal she was wearing.
She didn’t seem to notice the cold though.
She had her hands wrapped around the porch railing, and she was staring not up at the stars, but out at the empty gravel lot.
Cal had dropped her off, so she didn’t have a vehicle. His and Aly’s trucks were parked in an outbuilding behind the house. If she wanted to go somewhere, she was stuck. Which had likely been Cal’s intention.
She’d shown up looking like a ghost, and that hadn’t gotten any better. She hadn’t come down to dinner, so Aly had gone up and fussed.