Chapter Seven
Crawford County Courthouse
Landon didn’t know how anyone did this day in and day out. Just sat here and listened to people go over the facts of a gruesome crime. Bad enough not being involved.
Just … excruciating knowing the person whose murder they were dissecting.
Even the opening remarks brought home just how gruesome. It had been bad enough reliving it earlier this year, trying to put together the pieces of what had really happened. Bad enough to discover the father he’d respected was really behind everything awful.
But now they would hear about it every day for days on end.
He glanced down the row of chairs. He supposed it wasn’t unlike Sam and Nate’s job. Going over the same things, putting new pieces into place. Finding answers in the midst of awful things.
Landon couldn’t imagine dedicating his life to wading in this shit. Just listening to the attorney go through his opening remarks made Landon’s stomach revolt, and still he wasn’t even the one bearing the hardest and heaviest brunt of this.
Nate had been beaten after their mother’s funeral by Dad. He’d been chased away by the violence the prosecution had spoken of. He had disappeared, gone into the army, and lived a completely different life. Cut off from everything he’d known.
Cal had witnessed the murder. Had seen the horrible end result of what had happened to their mother. He’d suffered the trauma of that, what it had done to his mind and his memories, and he’d be carrying that suffering with him forever.
Landon had been in the dark. Completely and utterly fooled by his father.
He glanced at the man in question, or what he could see of him. He’d been avoiding it. Not wanting to get twisted up any more than he already was, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
Just maybe a third of Dad’s profile was visible as he sat at the front of the room, watching the goings-on. He didn’t look angry or happy or anything. Just a kind of blank.
Landon had spent his whole life until this year thinking he wanted to be like that man—or at least the image of him Landon had created in his head—no, the image of him Benjamin himself had created in Landon’s head.
Strong and noble and dedicated to the land.
Ben had fooled Landon in so many small ways over the years, but they built up to this huge, horrible thing.
Aly’s hand squeezed his, which was when he realized he wasn’t breathing. He slowly let his breath out, then sucked a new one in. Carefully. Quietly. Easing that pressure that wanted to build.
Aly had been fooled by Dad too. Together, they had supported and made excuses for Benjamin Bennet for the fifteen years after Mom died.
Maybe that shouldn’t make Landon feel better, that they’d been duped together, but since he couldn’t warp his mind enough to think Aly was somehow in the wrong when she was the best damn thing in his life, it meant he had to cut himself some slack too.
Not one of the tools in his arsenal, it had to be said.
The day was interminable. Breaks felt like a new form of torture. And even the final recess for the day didn’t feel like relief because they were going to have to be back here tomorrow.
He wasn’t sure he could do it. Not for days on end.
They filed out of the courtroom. The heavy memories of the day his mother had died like a horrible weight in his lungs. No one said anything. There was nothing to say.
It was dark and frigid when they stepped outside. It almost felt good. It almost felt like salvation. The hard part was knowing it would all repeat itself tomorrow—and perhaps in worse ways as people were called to the stand.
As he and his brothers were called to the stand.
“Christ, I need a drink,” Cal muttered as they walked into the parking lot.
Worry over his brother was mostly new. For a lot of years, they had been adversaries, thanks to Dad and their own stubborn pride Landon could see and admit now.
If he’d worried about Cal back then, it hadn’t been like this.
A worry that Cal simply … wouldn’t be okay.
That nothing they did could ease his demons and trauma enough to … be okay.
But Cal’s reliance on alcohol these days reminded Landon more and more of Dad in the aftermath of Sandy’s murder last year.
“Everyone will come to the ranch and eat dinner,” Aly said firmly.
“You don’t need to be feeding us after every shitty day, Aly,” Cal said.
Landon thought maybe he was trying to be nice, but it came out accusatory and that had Landon’s hackles rising.
“No, but the first shitty day and some of the others I will,” Aly replied, clearly not offended. “Besides, I put together a lasagna last night. All I have to do is throw it in the oven when we get home. Cal, why don’t we drive you? We’ll swing by in the morning and get your car.”
“Sure.”
When Nate and Sam peeled off, Landon put his hand on Cal’s arm. In the dark, Aly didn’t notice he was holding Cal back. Landon spoke quietly, so she couldn’t hear. She was already worried enough, and Landon wasn’t sure how this was going to go over.
“Don’t let the drinking become a problem, Cal.”
Cal was silent for ticking seconds. When he spoke, his voice was full of daggers. “And if I do?”
“Dad went down that route. I won’t let it in my house again.”
“Thought it was ours, brother.”
Landon sighed. Maybe he should have handled this differently. But he didn’t know how else to worry but to take charge. A year ago, he’d let this blow up into a fight. It might still yet, but he didn’t want to start there.
So, he tried, he really did, to rein in his temper. “You can make this another me against you if you have to. But I’m going to hope, deep down, you know that it’s concern.”
Then he let Cal’s arm go and followed Aly to his truck.
Before he said something he’d regret.
*
The fury pumping off Cal was a mix of so many things he couldn’t fight any of them. He wasn’t going to get in a damn vehicle with his high-handed brother.
I won’t let it in my house again. Like Landon just got to decide how life went. Well, he should have stepped in and done something about their mother being murdered then, shouldn’t he?
Cal could see it, Dad tossing Mom’s lifeless body into that barn.
The fire exploding around him. A replay in his head he wanted to eradicate, and the only thing that worked sometimes was alcohol.
Better than the alternative, wasn’t it? Letting it drive him crazy—or maybe crazier was the right word.
Still, a little blackout drunk to take the edges off was hardly the worst he could do.
Landon could pretend what he’d said was worry, but it was judgment. It was lumping him in the same boat as Dad.
Because for fifteen damn years Cal had been Dad’s get-out-of-jail free card. While Gene Price had suffered. Hell, if he extrapolated off of that, Cal wasn’t just to blame for Mom, he was to blame for Sandy too. Because she wouldn’t have been murdered if Gene Price hadn’t needed revenge.
This was why drinking had gone from something to avoid—because when he’d been younger, it had given him nightmares. Nightmares he should have paid attention to because they were just real life. Now? Life was the nightmare, so why not drink it away?
Cal stormed in the opposite direction of Landon and Aly, spotting Sam pulling out of her parking spot, so he strode toward her car. And he didn’t move out of the way, just walked right toward the car now moving toward him so Sam had to hit the brake a little hard.
For a second, he just stood there. Dangerous thoughts whirling in his head. Maybe it was a positive sign he knew not to engage with them. But positive didn’t fix the boiling, violent thing erupting inside of him.
He marched to the back door, flung himself inside the car. “Drop me off at my car.”
“Well, gee, Cal, last time I checked I wasn’t your chauffeur to be ordered around. A please wouldn’t go astray.”
He could feel her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Then what exactly are you, Sam? Nancy Drew? Sticking her fucking nose where it doesn’t belong?”
Nate turned around in his seat. His gaze was hard. “If you got in here to take your shitty attitude out on us instead of Landon and Aly, why don’t you walk to your fucking car?”
“Yeah, why don’t I?” He shoved right back out.
Into the inky darkness. Into the frozen fucking winter. Away from everything swirling inside of him—some tsunami of grief and fear that was coming out of him one way or another.
But he walked through the night and the frigid icy wind for about thirty seconds before he heard footsteps behind him.
“Get back in the fucking car,” Nate growled.
Cal didn’t bother to say no. But when Nate grabbed him by the arm, he rounded on him. He’d held it in against Landon, but there was no holding back now.
Nate dodged the swing with ease, which somehow had the fury spiking even higher.
“Going to take a lot more than that to land one on me, asshole,” Nate said.
All calm and detached like the fucking soldier he was.
“Fight back. We’ll see.”
Nate didn’t take a swing, but Cal could see his hands clench into his fists at his sides. Cal wanted it. Sure, the gunshot wound still hurt, but he wouldn’t mind a new ache. Maybe Nate could break his nose. Knock out a tooth.
God knew his baby brother could. There was a leashed violence in the man in front of him, and Cal felt the pounding, desperate need to make it explode. So, he stepped forward, his own fists clenched and raised. Maybe he could break his hand on Nate’s hard jaw.
“Cal. Nate. Enough.” Sam’s command was sharp. Disapproving.
An old memory of his mother chastising them for fighting wanted to resurface. He wouldn’t let it.
“You’re making a goddamn scene,” she said, completely disgusted.
A scene. Cal glanced around them. The lot was mostly dark, small circles of light from the parking lights illuminating a person here, a couple there.
Watching.
Cal dropped his hands, embarrassment washing in all the places anger leaked out of. He might have ridden that anger, but something about Sam, this outsider, watching it, admonishing him for it. Something about making a scene people would talk about…
Something about memories of his mother flirting at the edges of his consciousness just made him feel like a tool.
“Get in the car. Now,” Sam ordered. “Both of you.”
“You can drop—”
“I’m not dropping you off at your fucking car, Cal. I’m driving you to the ranch. And if you say another damn word, I’ll have your car towed so it takes even longer to get it.”
He wanted to fight, to argue, but he could hear the murmur of voices. He heard a young woman ask whoever she was standing next to if she should call the police.
Yeah, he was making a scene, and for fucking what?
So, he got back into the car and rode in complete and utter silence back home.
Home. What a joke.