Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The aroma of freshly-brewed coffee wafted through the house, greeting me before I even set foot into the kitchen.
Jake was leaning against the counter, thumbing through an honest-to-goodness newspaper, just like our dad used to do, back when he was still alive.
Colt stood at the stove, spatula in hand, expertly flipping pancakes that sizzled on the cast iron griddle, while Nash sat hunched at the table, his dark-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose as he pored over a dog-eared paperback, nursing what was probably his third cup of joe of the morning.
I shuffled into the kitchen, my boots scraping over the hardwood floors. “Morning,” I muttered sheepishly, my voice still rough with sleep.
I ran a hand through my unkempt hair, wincing as my fingers moved over a spot that was still tender from where Siena had tugged on it while I made her see stars.
The clock on the microwave showed it was nearly eight o’clock—more than an hour later than I was supposed to have breakfast on the table for my family.
Thank God, Colt had stepped in to pick up my slack. I’d have to make it up to him somehow, but after last night, I couldn’t bring myself to care what he might ask for in return.
“Look who the cat dragged in,” he murmured, spatula pausing mid-flip. “Your meeting run long?” His shoulders shook slightly as he chuckled under his breath.
Jake’s newspaper crinkled as he lowered it, his dark brows drawing together. “What meeting?”
If anyone thought finding love again would have mellowed my oldest brother, they'd have been dead wrong. If anything, his protective instincts had only gotten more intense, made him even more vigilant about the comings and goings of his younger brothers. And ever since Senator Rafferty had made it clear he was interested in me getting into local politics, Jake had been especially vigilant about mine in particular. He hadn’t pressured me into making any decisions, but I knew he hoped I’d give it serious consideration.
Colt spun around to face the room, while the latest batch of pancakes cooked, his hazel eyes gleaming with pure mischief. “I’m sorry, did I say ‘meeting’? I actually meant hookup.”
Heat crawled up my neck and flooded my face. I crossed to the cupboard, focusing on the familiar worn handles to avoid three pairs of knowing eyes. “It’s not like that,” I muttered.
Except it had been like that. At first, anyway. A way to scratch an itch, to burn off the tension that built up every time I thought about Siena Bellrose and all the things I wanted to do to her.
Only somewhere between then and now—waking up this morning with her hair spilled across my chest, her breathing soft and even—everything had shifted. Now all I wanted was to spend every night tangled up with her, to wake up to her sleepy smile for the rest of my goddamn life.
The problem was, I had no idea if she wanted the same thing.
Sure, we’d hashed out our differences, cleared up our miscommunications, but beyond that, we hadn’t talked about what, exactly, we were doing.
This morning, it had certainly felt like we were moving toward something real, something true, but every time I thought I knew where I stood with Siena, I seemed to have the rug pulled out from under me.
I didn’t want to get my hopes up only to find myself knocked flat on my ass again.
Colt’s lips tilted into a knowing smirk, his head cocked, daring me to contradict him. “No?” He let the question hang in the air between us before turning back to the stove with a shrug of his broad shoulder to rescue the pancakes from burning. “My mistake.”
At the table, Nash never lifted his eyes from his book, but his fingers stilled on the page corner. “Leave him be,” he murmured, that faint upturn at the corner of his mouth betraying his amusement.
I poured a cup of coffee, the steam fogging my view of the counter. I tried to act casual, but the truth was, I was a mess inside. Had been since the moment I’d left Siena’s house, and I didn’t see that changing any time soon.
Jake folded his paper, set it aside, and gave me that big-brother stare that saw through damn near everything. “You gonna tell us what’s got you looking like that, or do we have to guess?”
“I’m guessing it starts with See and ends with iena,” Colt said, plating up the last of the pancakes and turning off the burner. He carried the heaping platter to the table and dropped into his chair, immediately stabbing his fork into the stack and piling his plate high.
I leaned back against the counter, taking a sip of coffee that was too damn hot, but didn’t dignify his comment with a response. I didn’t have to. It was written all over my face, and I knew it.
Nash leaned back in his chair, studying me in that quiet way of his. “Well, that confirms it,” he said mildly.
“I know that look,” Jake chuckled, the sound low and knowing. “You’re in deep, little brother.”
I exhaled hard, staring down into the dark swirl of my mug. “Yeah,” I said finally. “I think I’m in love with her.”
Silence greeted my confession until Colt barked out a laugh so loud it startled Nash’s ancient basset hound from his nap. “You don’t fall in love with someone you’ve only known for a couple of weeks,” he said, his tone sharp. Something flickered behind his eyes before he schooled his expression.
Curious.
For the past few months, Colt had been disappearing from the ranch with no explanation of where he was going or how long he’d be gone.
He’d be tense and moody for a few days beforehand, and then when he’d get home, he’d be relaxed as all get out.
Calm. Practically rejuvenated … until the moodiness would rise again.
Jake, Nash, and I were convinced there was a woman involved, but anytime one of us asked, he’d brush us off.
Tell us we didn’t know what the fuck we were talking about. Act like we were imagining things.
But I hadn’t imagined his tone just now. If I was in deep, so was he.
I just didn’t have the faintest clue with who or how long it’d been going on, and it didn’t look like any of us were going to learn any time soon.
Nash cleared his throat quietly, then chimed in to defend me. “When you know, you know.”
The three of us turned to look at him.
He flushed, his ears going red. “Or so I imagine,” he muttered, staring intently out the double doors that led onto the back patio.
Jake took a sip of his coffee. “There something you want to tell us, Nash?”
If my face and behavior were dead giveaways, so were Nash’s.
He’d been in love with his best friend, Sage Montgomery, since they were kids, and she’d loved him just as long, but for some reason none of us understood, they kept pretending there was nothing more between them.
Unfortunately, they danced around their feelings quite differently: while Sage dated every lowlife and loser in the Valley, Nash didn’t date.
At all. Never had, probably never would.
It seemed like if he couldn’t have Sage, he didn’t want anyone.
Nash shook his head. “Nope. Not a thing.”
Jake simply grunted and rolled his eyes, while under his breath, Colt murmured something to Nash that sounded like, “You need to tell her, man. I’m serious.”
“Y’all can dissect Nash’s love life later,” I said, cutting through Colt’s muttering to Nash. “Right now, I’m the one who’s seriously fucked here, and I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Jake’s smirk softened into something more thoughtful. “Talk us through it, brother.”
I set my mug down and rubbed the back of my neck. “I didn’t plan this. Hell, I didn’t even want it. I told myself we were just fucking, that what happened between us didn’t mean anything. But that was bullshit, and I think I knew it even from the start.”
“That’s how it starts,” Cole muttered, shoving another bite of pancakes into his mouth.
Jake shot him a quick, inquisitive look, but then dragged his attention back to me. “What about her being a Bellrose? Doesn’t that clash with your work to keep developers out of the valley?”
I grabbed the coffee pot and refilled my mug, buying myself a moment to think.
“Yeah,” I admitted, watching the dark liquid swirl.
“At first, that was the excuse I used to stay mad at her. Told myself she represented everything I hated—the kind of people who come here, take what they want, and leave the place worse off.”
I crossed to the window, cradling the hot mug between my palms. The steam rose between me and the snow-dusted pastures beyond.
“But the truth is, that wasn’t about her.
That was about me not wanting to admit how I felt.
It was easier to be pissed off than to face the fact that she’d gotten under my skin. ”
“So what changed?” Nash asked, his voice quiet. I mean, his voice was always quiet, but this was softer. More probing.
Behind me, I heard Colt scraping his plate, the screech of his chair as he pushed back from the table. Jake was pouring himself more coffee, but both of them had gone still, waiting for my answer.
“She did.” The words came out rough, almost reverent. I turned from the window to face them. “Or maybe I finally listened. She’s not trying to turn Bridger Falls into another overbuilt resort town. She’s trying to honor it. The people, the land. It means something to her.
I moved back to the counter, gripping its edge.
“It turns out, she spent time here before now; she didn’t just pick us out on a map and think, ‘This looks like a good place to make some cash.’ We talked it out last night—really talked—and I realized I’ve been lumping her in with people she’s nothing like. ”
Jake nodded slowly. “Sounds like you see her pretty clearly now.”
“I do,” I said simply. “And it scares the hell out of me.” I rubbed the back of my neck, then shoved my hand through my hair—the same hair she’d tangled her fingers in just hours ago.
Colt glanced over his shoulder from where he was loading plates into the dishwasher. “You? Scared? Now that, I’d pay to see.”
I gave him a flat look and pushed off the counter, suddenly too restless to stand still. I paced to the window, then back. “Laugh all you want, but I mean it. I’ve never felt like this before. Not with anyone.”
I braced my hands on the back of Nash’s chair, needing something solid to hold onto.
“I don’t just want her body, or the way she looks at me when she’s coming apart.
I want the rest of it too—the mornings, the quiet.
The sound she makes when she laughs. The way she calls me on my bullshit. All of it.”
My brothers had all gone quiet now—Nash had closed his book, Colt had turned fully around, dish towel in hand, and Jake’s shoulders had relaxed, his posture loose, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.
“I took one look at Eden and knew my life was never going to be the same,” he said.
Colt rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and then you spent a decade pretending you didn’t still love her.”
Jake shrugged. “Didn’t change the truth.”
Nash let out a quiet laugh, his eyes finding Colt’s across the table. “Guess we’re all hypocrites in our own ways.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m done pretending.”
Jake studied me for a long moment, then nodded. “Then you better make sure she knows it.”
I stared down into my half-empty mug, feeling the echo of Jake’s words settle in my chest. Make sure she knows it.
I’d shown her with my body what she meant to me, let my lips kiss the words into her skin. But I hadn’t said any of what I was feeling. I’d just hoped she’d instinctively know.
I looked out the window again. The valley stretched before me, a patchwork of frost-tipped pastures and snow-topped peaks. The same view I’d known all my life—but somehow, this morning, it looked different.
Maybe because for the first time, I wasn’t just seeing home. I was seeing the place where I wanted to build something new—with her.
I straightened, setting my mug in the sink. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I will.”
Colt raised his mug in salute. “Go get your girl.”
Jake smiled, proud and knowing. “Looks like another Mercer’s off the market.”
“I’ve never been on the market,” Nash murmured lowly, almost like he was hoping none of us would hear him, but we all had.
Colt’s fork stilled halfway to his mouth.
He set it down carefully, his expression losing its usual cockiness.
“Nash.” He said his twin’s name with the type of quiet intensity that made the hairs stand up on my arms. “You can’t keep waiting for her to figure it out on her own.
Sometimes you’ve gotta take the leap, even when you’re scared shitless of landing wrong.
” His jaw tightened. “Trust me on that one.”
It was the most serious I’d heard Colt sound in months, and from the way Nash’s eyes widened slightly, he’d heard it too.
For a moment, nobody said a word, the four of us carrying our own shit—Colt with whatever secret he was keeping, Nash with the love he’d never confessed, Jake with memories of the decade he’d wasted, and me with a heart so full of feeling I didn’t know what to do with it all.
“Much as it pains me to admit it, Colt is right,” I said, breaking the silence. “About taking the leap.”
From across the room, Jake caught my eye and gave me a small nod—the kind that said he’d keep an eye on things here and help our brothers however they’d let him.
I clapped Nash on the shoulder as I passed, a silent “you’ve got this,” and grabbed my keys. Behind me, I heard Colt’s chair scrape closer to Nash’s, their voices dropping low.
The sound of their murmuring followed me out the door as I headed for my truck and the woman who’d upended my whole damn world. I’d only left her house an hour ago, but I needed to be back there.
And I wasn’t going to leave again until she knew what she meant to me.