Free Falling (Colburn Brothers #2)

Prologue Caleb

Prologue

Caleb

Duffel bag thumping against my hip, I marched down the hallway toward the living room, a gauntlet of chipped paint and forgotten laundry.

All I had to do, somehow, was say goodbye to Tucker and Kiera—a.k.a.

the human equivalent of a sugar-fueled tornado and a glitter bomb, respectively. Easy enough.

And when I’d started lying to myself, I had no idea.

In the La-Z-Boy sat Hank. A.k.a. former Marine Henry Colburn. A.k.a. Dad. He had a remote in one hand, a beer in the other. Eyes closed.

I wasn’t buying it. “Hey.”

Nothing.

I nudged the base of his chair with my foot. Okay, maybe I kicked it.

His eyes opened, already angry. “Thought you were getting the fuck out, boy.”

“Oh, I am,” I said conversationally, even though we hadn’t had a civil chat in years, if ever. From a sheer protect-my-own-ass standpoint, I rarely looked him in the eye, much less instigated a one-on-one. I did both now.

Deliberately, he stood. “Good riddance, you piece of shit.”

“Don’t call him that.” Tucker, who usually had the longest fuse of all of us Colburns, got between me and Hank, trying to protect me.

But that was my job. I shoved Tucker aside just as Hank swung.

One second, I was in the old man’s face, and in the next, I lay flat on the floor, taking stock: face on fire.

Pain in my chest, which had nothing to do with any physical injury.

Gingerly, I lifted a hand to my aching eye. Damn, he’d gotten me good.

The blare of a horn echoed from the driveway. Ryder, the eldest Colburn sibling, had zero patience when he was on a mission, and this was a biggie—Mission Get Caleb the Hell Outta Dodge.

I sat up slowly, and then Tucker was there, hauling me to my feet, his barely sixteen-year-old face tight with worry as he carefully probed the swelling around my eye. With a hiss, I pushed him away. “I’m fine.”

I went to the kitchen just as Ryder barged through the back door. “Clock’s ticking.” He stopped short when he saw my face and swore viciously while Kiera handed me a bag of frozen peas.

I brought the bag to my burning eye, then slid my arm around a trembling Kiera. “I’m okay, kiddo, I promise.”

She nodded tightly.

Ryder looked to be grinding his back teeth to powder as he took in my face. “Where is he?”

“No time.” Tucker shoved me at Ryder. “Get him out of here.”

“No.” I planted my feet. I couldn’t go. I wouldn’t. Not when Tucker and Kiera would be stuck here, with…him.

Ryder, who’d come home from college just to deliver me to mine, grabbed my arm and my duffel bag, hauling me toward the door. Quite the feat, given I had two inches and twenty pounds on him. “I’m not leaving them.”

“We’ll be all right,” Tucker said.

I looked back. Tucker nodded. Kiera offered me a small encouraging smile, the two of them trying to be happy for me. I shook my head. “No.”

“You can and you will,” Ryder said. “You’ve got a part-time job at your college gym. You’re going to try out for a walk-on spot on the hockey team, and believe me, they’ll want you.” His voice was gruff, thick with emotion. “If you’re lucky, you’ll never look back.”

Kiera’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

Tucker’s too. But neither let them fall.

They wouldn’t. Like me, like Ryder, they’d long ago become pros at burying emotions deep.

We’d never been apart. Even Ryder had stuck to a college close to home to keep an eye on us.

But I was going to San José State, three hours south of our small Sonoma County town of Star Falls, and I’d be working on campus, without a vehicle, studying architectural history, and hopefully playing Division One hockey, complete with travel. My time wouldn’t be my own.

I’d have no way to get home to check on Tucker and Kiera.

From the living room came a grunt and the metallic sigh of our recliner chair moving to an upright position.

“Now,” Ryder said firmly.

I nodded, wincing at the pain that caused in my eye. “One sec.” I strode out of the kitchen and down the short, narrow hall.

“Lay a hand on either of them after I’ve left,” I said, “and I’ll end you.”

He took in my throbbing eye and slid his gaze back to the TV without a word.

I’d been dismissed. But there was a reason I’d taken to working out and beefing up in high school, a very purposeful reason. That it had only made me better on the ice didn’t matter to me at all. “Try me,” I warned, then left him in my dust.