26 #2
“She’s coming over for dinner,” I snap. “So y’all gotta get the fuck out.”
I set the one bottle of dusty wine I have in the fridge on the counter. Frowning, I jerk open the freezer, studying the contents. “We still got those steaks from last month?”
Davis crosses his arms and drops onto a stool. He looks every bit the smug bastard. “She still the good-for-a-summer girl?”
I freeze, painfully aware of my words from weeks ago.
I’m a fucking bastard. If Ruby heard me talking like that ...
It would hurt her. And that would break my goddamn heart.
The words don’t sit right with me. Not anymore.
She’s more than a summer fling. She’s Ruby.
She’s sunshine scorching the darkest pieces of me, a glow filling the cracks in my heart.
Cracks I tried to fill with alcohol, with the ranch, with silence and anger.
It feels like I’ve had a hangover for ten long years and I’m just getting sober.
“No,” I admit. “She’s more than that.”
Davis looks surprised, and for once in his life, he doesn’t have a know-it-all comeback.
“Sunk. Like a goddamn ship.” Ford hoots, pounding the countertop.
I stare, trying to glower when all I want to do is grin like a sorry son of a bitch.
“Head over boots, brother. Head over boots. You put her name on ‘em yet?” Ford asks, opening a bottle of whiskey and pouring out shots.
Head over boots. It’s what our father always said. When you find the right woman, you fall head over boots, then you write her name on the outsole, a mark she’s yours.
I grunt. “No.”
“You rode on a horse, Charlie.” Davis studies me for a beat. “For fun.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing with her,” I say, swallowing the whiskey, letting the sting of the liquid loosen my tongue. “All I know is I like her. A whole hell of a lot.”
Davis threads a hand through his dark hair, his face sober. “I haven’t heard you talk like this since ...well, in a long time.”
“Since Maggie,” Ford says. He gives me a sorry shrug, exchanges a look with Davis. “We’ve all been all thinking it.”
I inhale Ford’s words, Maggie’s name, and when I let the breath out, it doesn’t hurt so much.
“Smile looks good on you, brother.” Davis clears his throat. “Keep it there.”
I glance out the window at Ruby’s cottage. “I intend to.”
The radio on Davis’s hip crackles and Sam’s cigarette-riddled voice croaks out, “Hey, y’all seen Wyatt?”
Davis lifts the radio to his mouth. “No. Why?”
“We found Pepita over on the ridge. She’s got a real bad limp. No sign of your brother.”
Dread fills my stomach. Ford’s attention shifts from the whiskey bottle to me, his lean form tensing.
Davis’s jaw clenches. “She okay?”
“We’re takin’ her to the stables to check her over. Reckon she is, though. We’ll let you know. Over.”
“Thanks, Sam. Over.” Davis ends the call and swears.
The rare emotion from my level-headed brother sends alarm racing down my spine. Wyatt treats his horse like gold. There’s no way he’d let her run off hurt and not go after her.
“Where the fuck’s our brother?” Ford demands, worry blazing bright in his eyes.
The sentence lands like a wrecking ball and sends me flashing back to Wyatt getting bucked off a horse and knocked unconscious for two days.
The whole family planted roots at the hospital.
Our brother was hurt. That meant we weren’t okay.
It also meant he could count on us to be there, to look out for him.
Always.
My hackles rise. “I don’t like this.” I pick up my phone and dial Wyatt’s number, but there’s no answer.
“Round up the staff. Start looking for him.” Davis shoves himself off the stool, his expression grim. “I’ll get Keena and see if she can sniff him out.”
The back door bursts open just as I’m grabbing my keys.
“Y’all got an ice pack?” Wyatt drawls, limping into the kitchen. He looks pale and tired. Blood’s smeared across his temple. He wears a baseball cap pulled down low, but I can see the beginnings of a black eye.
The room erupts into pandemonium.
Thundering across the floor, Davis strong-arms Wyatt toward a chair at the kitchen table. “Sit.”
Wyatt does, wincing as if the very motion is painful, and I want to hunt down whoever hurt him and turn their face into ground beef.
“Who the fuck do I need to kill?” Ford demands, prowling behind Wyatt’s chair.
Davis removes Wyatt’s baseball cap and tilts his head back to examine his pupils.
“Start talkin’, Wy,” I warn, slapping an ice pack into his hand, a glass of whiskey in the other.
My brother meets my gaze. “I was headed to help Ford with the creek when someone ran me off the road.” He hisses a breath as Davis peels back his hair, blood spilling faster now from the shallow cut.
“I fell off Pepita and knocked myself out. I think they kicked me around when I was out, because my ribs hurt something fierce. When I woke up, I hiked my busted ass back here.” He exhales, trying to keep a cocky grin on his face, but the clench of his jaw tells me he’s in pain.
Blood pounds in my head as I stare at my little brother. Wyatt’s sitting there bleeding and I feel so goddamn helpless.
Ford swears and his head whips to me. “The Wolfingtons are dead—they’re fucking roadkill.”
I nod, rage simmering in my veins.
Wyatt can get knocked around on horses all he wants. Break ribs, get concussions, but someone fucks with my little brother, with my family, all bets are off.
“Keep it together,” Davis orders. “We won’t solve anything if you two go off half-cocked.”
“Fuck that, Davis, and fuck you,” Ford snaps. He yells so loud the whiskey glasses rattle. “They’ve gone too far this time.”
“I’m with Ford.” Stomping toward the door, I yank it open and scan the ranch. Outside, big black storm clouds threaten to unleash. “Go out there and snap some fucking necks.”
If the Wolfingtons are stupid enough to come onto our property and attack our brother, they better watch their backs.
Davis draws himself up, eyes flashing, pissed at being out voted, ready to knock our skulls together, but Wyatt waves a hand, silencing all of us.
“I don’t think it was them,” he says with a wince.
“That’s givin’ ‘em too much credit. They couldn’t find their dicks with a lasso.
” He huffs a laugh, then groans, pressing a hand to his ribs.
I whip around, my boots grinding to a halt. “Then who the fuck was it?”