Chapter 22 Michael
MICHAEL
I was absolutely stuffed. Between the blueberry pie and the late lunch I had at the diner, I couldn’t put another thing in my mouth if I wanted.
Yet, I had a feeling that Blake would have something waiting at home for me.
I pulled down the drive, about to park when something didn’t sit right. Glancing to the right, the river rolled by, same as it always did. The mountains spiked against the night sky, and the moon illuminated the specks of snow capping the tips of the mountains.
The rolling plains were just as I left them, but there was one very noticeable thing missing.
My house.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered under my breath.
Getting out, I slammed the door and walked over to the place where I had left it. I walked the perimeter of where it should have been, studying the marks that had been left behind, but the damn house was not there.
Scratching my jaw, I thought maybe I was imagining things. Surely, a house didn’t just get up and drive away.
Well, most houses.
This house had wheels.
Pulling out my phone, I dialed Blake’s number.
“Hey, babe!”
“Uh…Blake?”
“Yes,” she said slowly.
“Have you uh…happened to see our house?”
“Yes,” she answered, confused by the question. “Why?”
“Well…” I looked around again, wondering if maybe I drove to the wrong spot. But then again, I knew this land like the back of my hand. I wasn’t likely to misplace something like a house.
“Well, what?”
“I’m here.”
“Okay?”
“And the house is not.”
She huffed out a laugh. “Don’t be silly. A house doesn’t just up and drive away.”
“Well, this one did.”
She was silent on the other end for a moment. “Well, that does pose a problem.”
“You think?”
“Who would have moved our house?”
I was about to tell her to go through the list of suspects when I realized there was only one man I could think of who would pull something like this.
“Jeff,” we both said at the same time.
“Goddamnit, I’m gonna kill him.”
“Well, don’t do that yet. We still need him to tell us where our house is,” she mused.
Never in all my life had I been this pissed at my brother. I was tired and ready for a relaxing night, but that wasn’t going to happen as long as my house was actually missing.
“Alright, I’ll find out where it is.”
“Good, and Parker?”
“Yeah?”
“Um…I have a little bit of a surprise tonight.”
“Yeah?” I grinned. “Good surprise?”
“Sure. Let’s go with that.”
She hung up before I could question her less-than-reasonable answer. Stalking over to my truck, I got in and slammed the door, ready to find my brother and beat the shit out of him until he gave me some fucking answers.
Driving back the way I came, I turned down the side road toward his house. Ever since the accident that nearly killed Clay, he’d hidden himself away, though he liked to pretend everything was fine. But I knew the truth. He liked to be there alone so he could wallow in self-pity.
The drive to his neck of the woods was smoother than most of the other roads, but then Jeff spent a lot of time out here improving his part of the land. It didn’t surprise me that the potholes had been filled in or that when I pulled up to his house, the yard was in pristine condition.
What did surprise me was that my house was sitting opposite his, as if he had planned for us to be neighbors. He even had a fucking fire pit going and was roasting what looked like a pig on the spit.
“What the fuck is this?” I shouted as I got out and stalked toward him.
“Hey, neighbor! Nice night for a barbecue, huh?”
“I’m not your fucking neighbor!”
He glanced at the house, cocking his head. “Well, that sure looks like a house, and it appears to be close enough for me to call you a neighbor. Should we think of a different term?”
“I think we should move the house back to my property where I can wake up every morning and look at the falls like I intended.”
He pretended to think about that. “Well, that’s an idea, but how about not.”
Gritting my teeth, I stomped closer to him. “This isn’t a game. It’s my house.”
“Ah, yes, it is. Keen observation, if I do say so myself.”
“So?”
He poked at the pig, glancing up at me again. “So, what?”
“So, move the damn house back!”
Sighing, he rested the poker against a log, taking his seat on a chair he’d fashioned out of a tree.
“See, I would do just that. I really would, but that would require more energy than I have right now. Plus, there’s food.
And after a long day at work, do you really want to hitch that thing up and haul it back across the pot holes and open land, just to have a specific view when you could be eating my delicious meal in just a few minutes? ”
No, I didn’t want to do all that. I just wanted to eat and relax for the night with my wife.
And my stomach was grumbling.
“I made potato salad, too,” he teased. “Just the way you like it.”
“With peas?”
He scoffed at that. “Would I really make it any other way? Of course, I made it with peas. You’re a hardworking man. You deserve the best of the best.”
I really did. And it had been a long day, with eating all that pie, and then walking around town to work off the extra calories. I even chased a dog a whole block. I almost worked up a sweat.
“Well, I guess it would be ridiculous to move it tonight.”
“It would.”
“I mean, it’s already dark.”
“Exactly. Who wants to fumble around with a flashlight?”
“And then there’s the chance I might lose some of the connections.”
He snorted. “What a pain that would be.”
“And it is already set up.”
He kicked up his feet, knowing he had won. “My point precisely.”
Taking another seat, I pulled out my phone. “Guess I’d better call Blake.”
“Oh, she’s already on her way. You know, she didn’t seem too happy about this setup either. That is, not until I told her I had dinner waiting for her.”
I rolled my eyes at how easily he had played us both. But there was something nice about sitting around the fire with my brother, just like old times.
“Is Liam coming?”
“Are you kidding? That grouch would ruin the night for us. He can have his moaning and whining at his own place.”
“His place burned down.”
“Then he should have bought a tiny home like you did. Then he could have parked it wherever he wanted,” Jeff said, snagging a beer out of the cooler by his side, tossing one to me.
I popped the top and took a drink, leaning back to stare up at the stars. It was a little chilly out tonight, but with the fire roaring, it was perfect.
Headlights appeared down the drive, and I wondered what Blake would think of our new living arrangements for the evening. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be too upset. I wasn’t in the mood for an argument.
But when she got out, she actually looked a little nervous. Surely not because we were at my brother’s place. That would be just weird. Stuffing her hands in her back pockets, she hesitantly walked closer.
“Um…so we’re staying here tonight, huh?”
“Jeff took it upon himself to move our house. Wasn’t that nice of him?”
She laughed nervously. “That’s something.”
“Everything alright?”
“Me? Oh, yeah. Everything’s fine. Totally fine.”
“Then why are you standing over there? Come get warm by the fire.”
She glanced back at the truck, then to me. “Um…I have something to tell you.”
“Uh-oh,” Jeff chuckled. “Leaving you already. Damn, that’s like some kind of record.”
“She’s not leaving me,” I hissed.
“Sure looks like it. She won’t come any closer. She has that deer in the headlights look. And it’s you.”
I whipped my head around to face him. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, come on,” he scoffed. “Remember Gina what’s her face?”
“Who?”
“You know, the girl who ran out on you after prom.”
“Tiffany?”
“Same difference,” he shrugged.
“They’re completely different girls. And they don’t even have names that sound the same!”
“Oh, my God!” he groaned. “This is just like you, nitpicking over things that don’t matter.”
I would have kept arguing with him, but it was just pointless. That, and my bride was still standing over by the truck. Shoving to my feet, I headed over to her, wondering why the hell she was acting so strange. It was not like her at all.
“Babe, what’s—”
But the rest of the words never left my lips because as I got closer, I noticed a second figure in the truck.
A male figure.
My temper spiked before logic could kick in and remind me that under no circumstances would Blake bring another man around me and rub it in my face.
“Who the fuck is he?”
“That’s sort of the surprise,” she chuckled, tipping back on her heels.
“You brought another man as a surprise?” I barked out a laugh. “Wow, that’s very generous of you. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll surprise you with another woman!”
“It’s not like that,” she argued.
“Really? Then what the fuck is it like?” I snarled.
The passenger door swung open and a kid—not an adult male—stepped out and slammed the door. It took me a minute to realize who it was, and when I did, confusion slammed into me.
“Um…what the fuck is this?”
I heard my brother approach from behind. His soft chuckle sent prickles of anger down my spine, but it was the kid standing in front of me that really grated on my nerves.
“I agreed to take Wesley under my care.”
So many questions pummeled me at once, but there was one in particular that was really picking at me. “We just got married.”
Okay, it wasn’t really a question. In fact, it was just a statement. One that I thought was pretty damn self-explanatory.
“Yes, I was there. I remember.”
And yet, I stood there, staring at her like she would get the idea of the insanity racing through my brain if only she tried a little harder to figure it out.
And then that damn eyebrow quirked at me, challenging me to say something—anything that might light the fuse on her temper.
So, I did what any normal husband would do. I shoved my hands in my pockets, and I stayed quiet for all of three damn seconds.
“And just what the fuck were you thinking?”
“Ooh, not good,” Jeff hissed.
“I was thinking that he would end up in juvie if someone didn’t help him out.”
“Didn’t fucking need your help,” the kid sneered.
“Watch it,” I snapped. “That’s my wife you’re talking to.”
The kid rolled his eyes at me. He had absolutely no fucking respect for anyone, and this was the kid my wife chose to act as her puppy.
“How about we talk about this later?” she said, the pointed look on her face telling me to back down.
“Sure. We’ll talk about it in the privacy of our tiny home! No one would overhear us there. By the way, where is the kid supposed to sleep? Are we gonna slap a mattress on the roof? Or maybe we could have him sleep on the cement pad if we ever get the house back to the original location we put it.”
She opened her mouth, but I wasn’t done being a jackass.
“Better yet, let’s just give him our bed. We can sleep standing up or curled up on that half a couch that you fell in love with.”
Her nostrils flared in anger at my outburst, and I knew the end was near.
There was no stopping a normal woman when a man acted that stupid.
But add in that she was pregnant and…well, Blake, I knew the eruption would be bad.
Like if the Yellowstone volcano were ever to erupt.
The pyroclastic cloud would cover the land, spreading darkness and suffocating ash over everyone until nothing alive could survive.
And the devastation would go for thousands of miles, killing off all plant life and destroying food supplies everywhere.
Complete annihilation.
That was Blake at this moment.
“How about you stay here and sleep on the ground,” she snapped back.
“You really think I’m going to let my pregnant wife go home with a kid who attacked her and broke into a house?”
“He didn’t attack me. He stole my purse.”
“And that’s better?” I laughed. “Sure, while we’re at it, let’s invite the homeless and the drug addicts into our house as well! We’ll have a regular—”
Jeff slapped a hand over my mouth, holding it down tight. “I beg you to stop talking before you end up with the shortest marriage in the history of marriages.”
Her eyes flicked to Jeff. “We’ll be in the house. He can sleep at your place or outside for all I care.”
“Sure, I’ll take care of him.”
She sauntered up to me, the worst of her temper yet to be unleashed. “I wouldn’t bother coming home for the next couple of nights. If you do, you might end up through a window again. And this time, I’ll make sure it cuts deeper.”
I swallowed hard at the promise in her voice and in her eyes. She was pissed at me. Not that she had the right. She brought home a kid without consulting me. Who did that? And where were we supposed to put him?
But that was not something I wanted to open my mouth and say to her at this moment. Not when her hand was gripping my cock through my jeans.
And there wasn’t a single ounce of my body that was responding in a positive way right now. No, I knew Blake like the back of my hand, and the way she was gripping me could only mean one thing.
We’d never have kids again.
“Let’s go, Wes! You have school in the morning!” she shouted over her shoulder as she sauntered to our tiny home.
The kid heaved a sigh, tossing his backpack over his shoulder as he stomped behind her. I knew the feeling all too well, but I wasn’t about to open my mouth and risk my cock for a second time in one night.
I watched her stomp away, and when the door closed, I stalked back to the fire and slumped in one of the chairs.
“I gotta say, you really showed her,” Jeff snorted, taking a pull of his beer. “Remind me when I get married what not to do.”
“Go to hell.”
He shook his head with a laugh. “I believe I will be there tonight.”