Chapter 18
HUNTER
Work had been hell today.
It wasn’t just the heat, though the air stuck to my skin like syrup and made every job feel twice as heavy. The fence along the east line of the ranch had blown out again, and by sunrise, a herd of cattle damn near made it to the river before anyone noticed.
I’d spent half the morning trudging through mud, cussing at stubborn cattle, and trying to keep my temper in check while McCoy made the worst jokes I’d ever heard.
By the time I cleaned up, my whole body ached and my mood was ugly enough to match.
Which is why I was here.
I let myself into the house and the thick, dusty quiet hit me square in the chest. The fading sunlight bled through the half-covered windows, pooling across the unfinished floors and the neat stacks of lumber I’d left last week.
It had been months since I’d been out here to work, but today I needed it bad enough that I hadn’t thought twice about the drive.
I picked up where I’d left off, fitting, cutting, measuring, and letting the clatter and low grind of it crowd out everything else.
By the time I could really feel the exhaustion setting into my muscles, I’d stopped thinking about McCoy, about the cattle, about any of it.
Everything except her.
Sweat rolled down my spine, soaking through the back of my shirt, but I didn’t bother wiping it away. I just kept working. That’s what this place was for. Not thinking, not feeling. Just work that would settle into my bones until I could forget everything else.
Except that was a damn lie.
Every nail I drove, every board I measured and trimmed, all I could think about was her. I imagined her here, the sound of her laugh bouncing off these unfinished walls, what she’d look like standing in the kitchen experimenting with her newest creation.
The house was still more bones than anything else, and I hated how I’d come out here to sweat her out of my head, and instead every stud I nailed and every board I laid just made it worse, made it more hers, until I couldn’t picture a single finished room without her standing in it.
My phone was propped up on the rickety sawhorse next to me. I kept glancing at it every few minutes. Maggie left for Alabama on Friday, and I hadn’t heard from her since.
I told myself she was busy. That she’d been swept up in the mess of wedding planning, dealing with her parents and her sister. I almost believed it too, but every time I looked at the damn phone, the silence gnawed a little deeper.
I’d sent her a message every day since she’d been gone. I’d just been checking in on her, fuck, just missing her, but she hadn’t responded to any.
The first couple times, it didn’t bother me. I could almost hear her voice in my head, teasing me for being needy. I pictured her sprawled across her childhood bed, phone forgotten somewhere under a pile of clothes and whatever mess she’d made of her suitcase. I told myself it was fine.
But day two hit, and the silence pressed in. Hell, by day three I’d started typing out messages and deleting them before I even hit send.
She said she’d be gone the weekend, but that was four days ago.
I knew going back there was hard on her, even if she’d never admit it. I pictured her in that house, surrounded by every reason she’d ever left, having to grit her teeth and play nice. I could see exactly how she’d look, straight-backed and mouth set, refusing to let anything show.
She didn’t belong in a house like that; she never did.
But the last thing she’d said to me was that she’d talk to me when she got home, and I fucking hated it.
I set my tape measure down and flexed my hands, fighting the urge to check my phone for the tenth time in a handful of minutes. The silence pulsed against my ears, thick as the humidity pressing at my skin. Sweat dripped down my temples, soaking into the band of my cap, but I didn’t stop moving.
The longer I was in this house, the more it shifted in my mind. I could still remember the way the foundation went down, the hours I’d spent framing these walls in the dead of winter, my hands numb and busted open.
I’d thought working out here would be different. I had avoided this place for so long, avoided making these decisions and shifting my roots, but I told myself the work was for me, for my future.
And maybe that was true once.
But now, it felt like every inch of this place was shaped by the ache I carried, and I was so damn caught up in that fact that I didn’t hear Colt’s truck at first.
His boots hit the porch, but I kept working as he walked in the house and came to stand next to me. He didn’t say a word at first, just looked around like he could see every plan and hope I’d tried to nail down inside these walls.
“I haven’t seen you up here in a while,” Colt said, his voice low as he traced his hand over the rough frame of the archway I’d been working on that led to the kitchen.
I shrugged, not trusting myself to look up from the board I was measuring. “We were out this way to get the east fence patched. I figured I’d get a few hours in up here before it gets dark.”
Colt nodded, but he kept studying the archway. “Is this new?”
“It’s all new.” I laughed even as my stomach tightened. “The house isn’t built yet.”
“No shit, asshole.” He finally turned to face me. “But this wasn’t part of the plan.”
I tucked the pencil behind my ear and kept my eyes on the board, pretending like every inch of this damn house didn’t feel tight and raw with the things I wasn’t saying. “Just figured it might look good open like that. More light.”
Colt just studied me for a minute, arms crossed over his chest. The quiet stretched out so long it started to itch, and I finally met his gaze.
“What?”
“What’s going on with you?” He narrowed his eyes at me the way only Colt could, the way he’d been doing since I was a boy and couldn’t lie to save my life.
He didn’t blink, didn’t flinch, just stood there like he could see right through my bullshit.
“Nothing,” I muttered as I lifted the front of my T-shirt and wiped the sweat off my face.
“Seriously?” His voice was dry. “Because you’re out here working like this place is on fire when it’s just been sitting here for two years unfinished.” He cocked a brow. “You’re a damn good bullshitter, Hunt, but not when it comes to me.”
I exhaled hard and pressed my hands on my hips. “I just needed to clear my head.”
He watched me for a long second before he looked back at the archway. “And clearing your head involves you suddenly building a meticulous archway into a kitchen you’re not even going to use.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I would use it, even if we both knew it was a lie, but his gaze snagged on something and he started walking into the room where the kitchen would be.
“Wait a minute.” Colt ducked under the raw frame of what would be the pantry and stopped dead, staring at the long, raw island I’d spent all day Sunday building.
“It’s not done.” I followed behind him, but he wasn’t looking at me.
His eyes flicked around the room with a focus that belonged more to a building inspector than a brother.
He stopped by two gaping holes roughed into the plywood, ready for a set of double ovens, even though I didn’t know how to bake for shit, and I moved around the island, pretending not to care what he saw.
He picked up a slip of paper from the island, swept off the sawdust with the back of his hand, and I cursed under my breath.
“You building a commercial kitchen out here?”
I didn’t answer, just watched the sawdust swirling in the shafts of light slanting through the room. The large window above where the sink would go had a perfect view of the lake, and I let myself stand there for a second, just taking in the last of the light breaking apart on the water.
Colt didn’t say a damn thing for a minute. He just let his hand drift over the edge of the island, like he could feel every secret I’d tried to bury in the grain of that wood. I watched him carefully, hoping he’d let it drop, but my brother was nothing if not persistent.
And sometimes an ass.
He ran his thumb over the lines I’d sanded smooth, then he leveled me with a look. “You wanna tell me when you started needing a kitchen like this?” He cocked his head to the side. “Or should I just ask what you’re hoping she’ll cook for you in here?”
I tried to laugh, but it came out rough. “You’re funny,” I said. “Maybe I just thought I deserved a nice kitchen.”
Colt scoffed, shaking his head. “Bullshit.” He folded his arms and leaned back against the island. “I’ve known you your whole life, Hunt. You can barely make toast. So, let me try again. Is Maggie aware of what you’re building in here?”
I let out a bitter laugh. “How is she supposed to know what I’m doing when I don’t have a fucking clue?
” I scrubbed my hands over my face. “I thought maybe if I finished the house, I’d figure it out.
Or maybe if I got all the work done, it’d feel like I could actually have something for myself at the end of it. ”
I hadn’t let myself say it out loud before, but there it was. Every hour I’d sunk into this place was suddenly tangled up in her, but I was building toward something I didn’t know how to ask for.
“It’s about damn time.” Colt nodded once, something shifting in the set of his jaw.
“And what about Maggie? What the hell are you doing there?” His voice had gone gentler than it had been all evening.
It was the voice he used on me when I was a boy and got hurt bad enough to cry and make him swear not to tell Dad.
“I don’t know that the hell I’m doing,” I answered him honestly. “I don’t really know what she wants.”
“Have you asked her?” he asked, as if it were that simple.
“She’s got Ella to think about. And her parents.” I picked up a scrap of wood off the island and turned it over in my hands. “Can’t imagine they’d be real excited about her bringing home the same man her sister already did.”
“It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks, Hunter.” His voice left no room for argument. “It’s just you and her in it.”
My jaw clenched, and I stared at the big window and the gold-washed light that was dying away.
“So you would have been fine with me bringing Blaire home after the two of you broke up?”
The question had barely left my lips before his hand slapped me across the back of my head.
“Don’t be a dumbass,” Colt growled. “You know damn well it’s not the same.
” He gave me a look that stripped all the pretense from the room.
“I’d have lost my mind if you ever touched Blaire, and you know why?
Not because she and I dated, but because I’ve loved the girl for as long as I’ve known her.
” He shook his head, his breath coming out heavy. “Did you love Ella?”
“No.” My answer was instant.
“And how fucking long have you been in love with Maggie?” The question hit me harder than if he’d punched me.
“Years,” I forced out, and my chest tightened until I had to fight for breath. “It’s been so long, I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with her.”
Colt nodded, like he’d already known. “So why the hell are you here instead of with her?”
“She’s in Alabama,” I said defensively.
He cocked his head, his eyes narrowing as if he were trying to fit the pieces together. “She’s in Alabama.” He repeated my words as if they were a question.
“You knew she was going,” I said with more edge than I meant to. “She had dress shopping with Ella.”
Colt gave me a long, slow look that made dread pool in my stomach.
“What?”
He didn’t answer right away. Just watched me with that same steady patience he’d had since we were kids, the kind that meant he already knew how something was going to end and he wanted to protect me from it.
“Colt, what is it?” I demanded, and all I could hear was the sound of my pulse in my ears.
He took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving mine. “Maggie got back yesterday, Hunter. I thought you knew.”