CHAPTER 9
Rhett
“Well, she’s not coming back.” I gripped my hands together to keep from punching the wall. “She was so close to telling me something. I could see it on her face.”
Shep held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I had no idea I was interrupting—”
“It’s not your fault.” I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. “A leaf could’ve blown across the floor and she would’ve panicked the same way.”
I quickly told them about the panic attack she’d had and the way she’d reacted to breaking the table. She’d been afraid.
“I pushed too far at the store. It’s my fault.” Shaking his head, Shep crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter.
“It wasn’t that.” Arlo stood between us, his face tense as he spoke. “I watched her at the store. She was embarrassed but she wasn’t upset. It was the same when I told her we should’ve knocked her up back then.”
My mouth dropped open.
“What?”
His grin was just a flash of teeth and then it was gone.
“Yeah. I lost my head a bit. I might’ve also mentioned that moan she made when we kissed her.”
Shep grunted.
“And I thought I was pushing.”
“She wasn’t upset. She’s not hard to read, which is why I’m fucking floored that no one else seems to see anything is wrong. Every emotion shows on her face when she’s not being the weird robot version of herself. She was shocked but she was turned on. I saw it both times.”
“So she doesn’t run from the sexual stuff. Just the emotional shit. I asked her to tell me what happened to her while we were gone and I think she was going to. She’s as skittish as a wild horse, though.” My mind was already fast at work trying to figure out a way to show her she could trust us. “What do we do?”
“Do we let her hide and lick her wounds in peace or do we go after her?” Shep looked like he was leaning towards chasing after her.
“We want forever with her, right?” Arlo looked at each of us. “So we have time. We don’t need to chase her down right now. If she needs space, she can have it. For now.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Shep frowned. “For ten years I was able to put thoughts of her aside most of the time but now that we’re back here, it’s like I’m addicted. I don’t think I’m going to feel okay until she’s here, with us, smiling a real smile. How the fuck did that happen so fast?”
“I don’t know but it did.” I patted my pocket to see if I had the keys. “I’m going to talk to Mills. Coming?”
“Yep.” Arlo held up the keys I was looking for and tossed them to me. “We need to get our shit here, including the other trucks. Sharing one truck again makes me feel like we didn’t just spend the last two decades of our lives making a good living.”
“Some might say more than a good living.” I stepped out of the house and my eyes naturally looked around for Maxie, just in case she had come back. Of course, she hadn’t.
Shep clapped me on the back and pushed me forward.
“Come on. Maybe we’ll see her at the ranch.”
We were quiet on the drive over, each of us lost in our own thoughts. When I drove under the Hellstone Ranch sign I thought of the dozens of times I’d driven under it before. We’d been in our early thirties when we visited before. Fresh out of the service, we’d wanted to be home in Texas but it was a little too much to be at home with family all the time. Hellstone Ranch had become an escape, a place we could escape to. We’d kept our eyes and hands to ourselves until that one night with Maxie.
It was wrong. I knew it the first time I looked around the pasture and saw Mills’ little sister riding up on her massive horse. She was too fucking young. I didn’t want to look at her and see anything other than my friends’ kid sister but when she looked up at me with her big green eyes and her wide smile, I was fucked. Still, I knew better. Eighteen might’ve made her legal but it didn’t make it right. I never had any intention of acting on the attraction I felt for her. Until I did.
“There’s Mills.” Arlo broke me from my thoughts and brought me back to the present.
I parked next to our old friend’s truck and got out just as he was coming down the porch steps. Trying to pretend like I wasn’t there hoping to see his little sister, I smiled at him and shook his hand when he got closer.
“Hey, man. Weird seeing you two days in a row.”
He nodded. “Not sure I like it. You fuckers used to get me so drunk I couldn’t see straight for days. I’m too old for that shit now.”
Arlo slapped his hand away and hugged him instead.
“If you’re too old, I’m too old, asshole, and I’m not too old.”
“Where’s Tate and West? Figured you three would be connected at the hip still.” Shep slapped him on the back and then pushed him aside when Tate came out of the house. “There’s my favorite Hellstone brother.”
Mills crossed his arms over his chest and shook his head as Shep and Tate fist bumped.
“Y’all tired of ranching already?”
I snorted.
“Haven’t started yet. That house is in such bad shape that we have to focus on it first. We didn’t even have a place to sit down and plan with Maxie today.”
“What’s there to plan?” Mills gestured to the barn and I fell into step beside him, leaving Arlo and Shep to chat with Tate.
“Everything? You know how long it’s been since I’ve done anything on a ranch? Maxie’s going to have her hands full with us. She was talking about the fence needing repair and some other stuff this morning, but like I said, the house needs a little work so we all have a base. We couldn’t even eat in it this morning. We ate outside and Maxie’s horse decided to help himself to the food.”
He growled under his breath. “That horse is a fucking asshole.”
The barn was in better shape than I remembered. It was perfectly maintained and I could see everything expertly organized on the walls.
“Damn. This isn’t the barn I remember. Last time we were here we had to search for shit to ride. This is downright easy.”
“Maxie.” Shaking his head, Mills led me through to an office at the back of the barn. It was also perfectly clean and organized. He sat behind the massive oak desk and reached behind him to rub his back.
I knew all about old injuries still giving you pain. I’d taken a bullet to the stomach while we were overseas and it’d done enough damage that I still woke up hurting a few times a week.
“Heard from any of the others lately?”
“Shit. You don’t know? I can’t believe you didn’t see them yesterday. Those fuckers, Dean, Lennon, and Reed, married Vera. She’s pregnant. Looks like she’s going to pop any second.”
“No shit.” I laughed. It seemed like we weren’t the only old friends of his that were sniffing around his sisters after all. Not that I was going to tell him that. “I can’t believe you didn’t mention that yesterday.”
“I’ve accepted it but that doesn’t mean I love it and want to brag about it.” He sighed. “First Vera and now Nellie. Gray, Owen, and Keaton got married a couple of years ago. They have triplets now. With Nellie’s girl, this place is going to be full of kids if we ever have a reunion. I’m just waiting on the news that Kyle, Jamison, and TJ have eloped or knocked someone up.”
I couldn’t help myself. “And Maxie?”
He didn’t blink twice and it almost made me feel like shit that he didn’t think twice about us going after her.
“Maxie is Maxie. She’s a good girl but I think she’s going to be one of those old cat ladies.”
“The fuck?” I sat forward, unable to contain my annoyance. “Why would you say that?”
“She doesn’t go out. She doesn’t date, doesn’t see friends, doesn’t do anything but work and ride that asshole horse.” He shrugged. “I don’t want her to end up alone but if she doesn’t get out, she’s going to.”
I had to change the subject or I was going to spill all the beans and tell him that she wasn’t going to be alone for much longer.
“What about you, Tate, and West?”
“What about us?”
“When are you going to settle down and have a few babies of your own?” I heard movement from outside of his office and glanced up to see Maxie standing in the doorway, a surprised look on her face. I raised my eyebrows at her.
Her cheeks heated but she quickly tucked her chin so she was staring at the ground.
“I’m making lunch.”
Mills watched as she retreated and shook his head.
“She didn’t have to come home to make lunch here. I’m sure someone could’ve handled it. To answer your question about kids, though… No. I don’t think any of us want kids. I know I don’t.”
I stood up, prepared to go after Maxie but his answer made me hesitate.
“You come from a massive family. Doesn’t that mean you automatically have to want ten children or something? Is that not how it works?”
He grunted. “Nope. It’s precisely the reason I don’t want ten kids. There’s always something going on and never any peace and quiet. No, thanks. What about you?”
I sat back down, hoping for a way to ease him into the idea of Maxie becoming ours.
“You know Arlo, Shep, and I want to share a wife. Hell, some of the rumors about the relationships in Devil’s Den were why we were so eager to jump on the ranch when you called us. We’re ready to settle down as soon as possible and start a family. We want kids, man. Lots of them. As many as our future wife will give us. That ranch house is a piece of shit right now but I can imagine it being full of kids. It’s big enough.”
Mills sighed and studied me.
“I don’t get it. The sharing thing, I mean. It seems to be catching around here, though, so I guess you’re in the right place. I’d say stay away from my sisters but Maxie is the only single one left and god knows she’s not going to date you three.”
I couldn’t help scowling. “No?”
“That girl is scared of her own shadow. She barely even talks to us. No way in hell would she ever go nuts like Vera and Nellie and date three men at once.” He stood up and laughed. “Thank god I have one sister I don’t have to worry about.”
I ground my teeth together. His dismissal of Maxie pissed me off. Did everyone in her family write her off like he was? They had their ideas of who she was but I knew for a fact there was a fire in Maxie that only needed to be stoked.
“I think Maxie might surprise you one of these days.”
“I hope not. I like not having to worry about her. Vera and Nellie have given me gray hairs.” He led the way out of the barn. “You staying for lunch? She always makes plenty.”
I saw that Arlo was talking with West and Tate and wondered where Shep had gone. “Sure. Sounds like a plan.”