Chapter Eight
The Bennet Ranch
Landon frowned at his wife. She was flitting around the kitchen, making food for an army.
Cal had assured him that his suggestion for everyone meeting up wasn’t anything bad—or anything added bad.
Just more about Nate being a suspect and what they could do, but Landon still didn’t like the prospect of everyone coming over to dinner because of an idea Jill had.
Particularly if it made Aly work this hard. “Should you be on your feet this much?”
She spared him one condescending look. “Landon, ranching women have been having babies for millions of years, working ten times harder than I am.”
He knew she was right. Hell, his mother had somehow birthed four kids and his father had been an abusive asshole.
No doubt she hadn’t been well taken care of, but she’d survived.
And whatever Bennets had carved out this ranch surely hadn’t had access to a doctor, yet Bennets procreated all the same.
He wished that made him feel less like Aly was an egg just seconds away from being cracked. “When’s that doctor’s appointment again?”
“Not until the end of June. I’ll admit, I don’t like that any more than you do, but I’ve read everything I can get my hands on.” She put a big pan into the oven. “There’s no reason not to go about my day the way I normally do at this stage.”
She closed the oven, straightened. “And people think I’m a mother hen. Don’t you have a million things you should be doing out there?” she said, gesturing to the ranch beyond.
Where, yes, he had a million things he should be doing. He couldn’t seem to focus on any of them, though.
He just grunted. When she came over and leaned against him, he wound an arm around her shoulders and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “Are we going to tell them?”
She patted his chest. “I think … I think we should wait. At least until after the doctor’s appointment. Unless you really want to tell them.”
He shook his head. “No, I’m more than good keeping this between us for right now.”
He heard the creak of the front door opening, the click of it being closed. “Cal must be first.”
“We’re in the kitchen,” Aly called, moving away from Landon and back to her dinner preparations.
Cal entered. Landon felt some relief that Cal didn’t look particularly worried or stressed. In fact, he was looking so much like his old self, Landon almost felt the old knee-jerk reaction to find fault with his older brother.
But he kept his mouth shut, which he considered growth.
“I invited Jill and Glenda,” Aly told him. “I figured that would be okay, since you mentioned this was about Jill’s idea.”
Cal hesitated, but it was so imperceptible Landon figured he was imagining things.
“Sure. Yeah, good idea. The more, the merrier.” Then he smiled that fake, blank lawyer smile, and Landon inwardly winced.
Something tonight was definitely not going to go right.
*
Nate pulled his truck to a stop in front of the Bennet ranch house. In a lot of ways, when he came up here, he didn’t really think about his childhood growing up in that house. His childhood felt so removed from his present, even if it was taking place in the same town with the same people.
The Bennet Ranch had come to feel like somewhere new. Landon and Aly’s. The shadows of ghosts somehow swept away by how present and normal they were. And happy.
But tonight, with the light fading in the west, Nate felt like memories were crowding in. Not that they felt like memories, exactly. More like bad dreams he’d convinced himself weren’t real.
There had been something so sinister about the way his father had kept them all at odds so they’d never see the cracks in the foundation of everything their family was built on. Nate had never fully realized all the evil that had been slithering out of those cracks.
Something Nate had spent fifteen years away from. Away from Marietta and Montana and his family and, in some ways, himself. He thought sending his father to jail would lay to rest all he’d run from.
But being suspected of murder sure did fuck up all that equilibrium and life he’d been finding since.
He got out of the car and Sam followed suit. He wouldn’t say she was still icing him out, exactly. But she wasn’t herself, and he probably wasn’t himself, and now Cal wanted to have some kind of family meeting about this shit.
Nate supposed he could have refused, but what was the point? Everything was going to be terrible until the police figured out who’d really done this thing, and as much as Nate would like to dig in and figure it out himself, being a suspect meant keeping his distance.
Meant waiting.
Nate heard an engine approaching and stopped his forward movement. Cal was already here. Who else would be coming? He was bracing himself for something bad, but it was only Jill and Glenda.
Nate let out a slow breath. “I didn’t know they were coming.”
“I guess we’re all kind of connected now,” Sam said softly. “Glenda helped Cal when he was a kid, then helped us put Ben behind bars. We helped Jill and Glenda last month. That’s community, right?”
Community. Family. He supposed both things were easy enough when it felt like he was actively helping those things.
He didn’t like to be the center of the problem. He didn’t want to be the center of anything.
But he supposed he didn’t have a choice.
They exchanged greetings with Glenda and Jill when they got out of their truck. They were let into the house by Cal. It had become almost commonplace to gather around the dining room table, usually for dire reasons, but also to work together to fight those dire reasons.
Nate hated being the dire reason. It made something that had begun to feel like family sour. But before that ugly feeling could really get its claws in him, Aly let out a little screech.
She all but leaped from her chair and grabbed Sam’s hand. She held it up in the air so everyone could see.
“What is this?” Aly demanded.
The ring he’d put there glinted under the light above them. Sam finished chewing the bite of food that was in her mouth.
She slid him an enigmatic look before answering. “What does it look like?”
Aly’s blue gaze flew to him. “Engaged? You got engaged? When?”
Uncomfortable with both Aly and Sam’s reaction, and that he hadn’t thought this whole hey, you have to tell your family big life decisions thing through, Nate shifted in his seat and looked down at his plate. “After Cal’s party.”
“You guys.” Aly sounded kind of baffled. “This is so great. So amazing. I’m so happy for you!”
Nate glanced up enough to see Aly squeeze Sam into a hug. Sam grimaced but patted the arm Aly had practically around her throat. Sam’s gaze met his briefly, with a little hint of amusement, so he smiled at her.
Because she might have tried to give that ring back, so convinced she was cursed, but it was still right where it belonged.
Bad could keep on throwing shit at them, but that didn’t mean they stopped living. And that ring was case in fucking point.
They settled back into eating, and Nate could almost convince himself it was just a nice family dinner. Aly doing her normal fussing. Gathering around the dining room table that almost felt normal. More real than those family dinners he’d spent eating at this very table as a kid.
But the specter of why they were here hung around Nate, and Sam too he’d guess, based on her complete silence and lack of entering into any of the superficial small talk going on around them, even when Aly tried to pull her into discussions about the engagement.
When Aly brought out the dessert, Nate felt exhausted by the energy it took to pretend like this was a normal day. He could feel Cal’s gaze on him, studying him in that lawyer way Cal had that seemed to see through things it shouldn’t.
“Well, I guess since this was my idea, I should be the one to broach the subject,” Cal announced as they all dug into the brownies Aly had dished out.
“Jill and I got to talking this morning. I thought she made a really good point. One we’ve overlooked.
I’ve been thinking about how to prove Nate didn’t murder anyone.
But there’s a much simpler way to go about that. Prove who did.”
Nate hadn’t really given much thought to which was simpler, but he had been considering who might have done it.
“Her ex-husband is the most likely suspect, but I’ve gone through all my notes on the case backward and forward.
Michael Hyatt never showed any concern that Jules might find out about the affair, want a divorce.
He didn’t even act like he cared about the big payout.
He was too busy with his new girlfriend and seemed quite happy to be.
But Jules did insist she was in danger.”
“She didn’t want to go to the cops, and she wanted you to spend the night at her house,” Sam said bitterly. “I’m not sure you can take that at face value.”
“She’s dead, Sam. That’s pretty damn face value.”
“I’m sure the cops are looking into him,” Aly offered, clearly trying to play peacemaker.
“I know they got everything wrong with Marie, but they certainly questioned Ben. They searched the house. They did all kinds of police work looking into a murdered woman’s husband.
And they did the same when Sandy died. The romantic partner is usually the first suspect.
I’m sure they’re looking into Hyatt, even if they also look at Nate. ”
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t too,” Sam said. “We’ve been so preoccupied with proving you didn’t do anything. Jill’s right. We need to prove someone else did.”
“You guys have to be careful with any investigating,” Cal warned.
“You’ve got bias, so we’ve got to tread lightly there.
I probably need to be careful as Nate’s representative.
But we’ve got a handful of people in our corner who might have some bias, but don’t have any kind of professional connection to the law.
” Cal looked from Landon and Aly to Glenda and Jill. “So why not all work together?”