Chapter 5
five
. . .
LANE
I fucking hated being an invalid—almost as much as I hated being a newly thirty-six-year-old man living with my mother.
“Mama,” I said, exasperated, as I took in the impressive feast she was preparing. “This is completely unnecessary.”
“Nonsense,” she said, waving her hand at me. “It’s your birthday.” Looking up, she met my gaze. “A birthday you almost weren’t here to celebrate.”
I groaned. She’d been making comments like that nonstop since I got out of the hospital, and while I acknowledged the stress my almost dying had put on my family, the bit was wearing thin.
Not that I’d ever say that to her. This was Mama we were talking about.
“Besides, you have so few left.”
When I cut Aria with a glare where she stood at the opposite end of the counter, putting the finishing touches on a cake, she merely giggled and stuck her tongue out at me.
Damn little sisters.
I’d been out of the hospital for nearly a week, and instead of going home to my own bed, it was…
recommended by my doctor that I not be alone right away.
Thanks to the location of my gunshot wound, my left arm remained in a sling, and though my right was my dominant side, I was in a world of pain basically any time I moved.
The help was necessary, and even appreciated, but this wasn’t an ideal situation for any of us.
Living with Mama was one thing, but adding Aria to the mix made it so I never experienced a moment of rest. I couldn’t wait for my next appointment when I’d hopefully be cleared to start getting my strength back.
God, the hospital. What a shit show that time had been once I’d woken up. Between the showdown with Addie and making a fool of myself in front of Sutton, I’d never be able to enter the building again without experiencing a wave of negative emotions.
Addie, I didn’t care about. I mean, I did because she’d been my friend, but I wasn’t interested in being any more than that. If she couldn’t accept that, it was her problem, not mine.
Sutton, on the other hand…well, I wanted everything with Sutton. But it had been so long since we were together. Nearly half of our lives. Making myself vulnerable to being hurt by putting myself out there with her had been a daunting task, but I’d swallowed that fear and gone for it.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think she felt the same way. Actually, I could almost guarantee it given the way she’d shut me down and rushed out of the room.
Maybe, unlike me, she hadn’t spent the last fifteen years wishing we’d handled our demise differently—wishing we hadn’t ended at all.
However, that was a problem for a different day. For now, I was trapped at the ranch, and thanks to the fact that it was my birthday, all of my siblings would soon be descending on the house for family dinner.
Even Owen was still in town. He’d been here for almost three weeks now, since Crew’s wedding, helping where he could. Honestly, his presence had been a blessing as he was the only one big enough to maneuver me around when I struggled.
Tonight, we were also celebrating Aria, who was officially moving to Nashville in a few days.
Trey and Owen would be driving her there and getting her settled.
Trey would return here, and Owen would head back to Michigan and his own little family.
I had to admit, I’d miss him. I hadn’t spent this much time with him in over twenty years, since he’d moved out and gone off to college, and while we’d long since gotten used to him living halfway across the country, I couldn’t deny things were…
better with him around. The family was whole.
If only we could bring Dad back from the dead.
As if I’d conjured him, Owen walked into the house. He’d spent most of the day out on the ranch, helping West out at the dude ranch before joining Finn in the paddock where he was working with one of his rescue horses.
His hand came down on my shoulder as he passed, patting it a few times. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’d be a lot better if everyone stopped asking me that,” I grumbled.
“Just checking to make sure you’re not going to drop dead at any moment.”
Mama waved a serving spoon at him. “Don’t joke about that.”
Owen grimaced as he realized his mistake. Our dad had just dropped dead, fine one moment, gone the next.
“Sorry Mama,” he said.
“Make it up to me by bringing this stuff into the dining room.” Owen grabbed a couple bowls off the counter, heading for the door at the back of the kitchen, but Mama tutted. “The formal one, Owen.”
“No,” Aria and I said in unison.
Mama’s brow creased. “Why not?”
“We don’t need to get fancy,” Aria said. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of leaving, and Lane doesn’t about his birthday.”
Owen stood there, eyes darting between the three of us, waiting for further instruction.
Mama looked as though she wanted to argue, but since this meal was supposed to be about me and Aria, she let it go and directed Owen into the informal dining room where we normally ate.
I mouthed thank you to my sister, and she winked.
As I was useless in this situation, I wandered out to the front porch and sank onto one of the rockers.
The mid-September air was unseasonably warm, but the temperature nosedived when the sun went down.
While the weather remained temperate, the trees on our land had started to change.
The verdant green of summer was now dotted with spots of yellow, orange, and red.
The scent of fall, of softly decaying things, hung in the air, and I inhaled deeply, letting it soothe me.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, staring out at the land, lost in contemplation, before I was brought back to reality by the clopping of horse hooves approaching the house.
“Happy birthdayyyyyyy!” West crowed as he reined his horse, Rogue, to a stop at the old-fashioned hitching post at the edge of the gravel drive, a holdover from generations past. He dismounted, looped Rogue’s reins over it, and climbed the steps to the porch.
“Thanks,” I grumbled. “Where’s your partner in crime?”
West stuffed his thumbs in the front pockets of his Wranglers and turned in a slow circle, surveying the surrounding area. Then he pointed at a figure in the distance, approaching from the big red barn.
When Finn neared enough to see us, he shouted, “Happy birthdayyyyyyy!” using the same tone as his twin, and I dropped my face into my hands.
“Gotta be a new record,” West said to Finn. “We’ve been here three seconds and he’s already annoyed.”
Finn chuckled. “In that case, our work here is done.”
I looked up in time to catch them dap each other before they blessedly disappeared inside and left me alone.
The silence didn’t last long as, one after the other, my remaining two brothers pulled in. Once they both parked, Trey approached, with Crew, Aspen, and Reagan—who they must’ve picked up on the way—not far behind.
My brothers tossed “happy birthday, bro” comments my way as they entered the house, but Crew and Finn’s better halves stopped, leaning down to gently hug me and hand over a gift I was instructed to open later when I was alone.
I quirked a brow at Aspen. “Should I be worried there’s a bomb in here?” I asked her, studying the small, wrapped box she’d given me.
Aspen smirked. “One way to find out,” she tossed over her shoulder then headed inside.
“They’re cigars,” Reagan murmured with a wink before following.
Since my lung had collapsed when I’d gotten shot, I definitely wouldn’t be smoking these anytime soon, but still, I grinned at the sentiment as I got up to join my family. They were something to look forward to.
When I walked into the dining room, I found a spot next to Crew.
My brothers dug into the spread immediately, only for Mama to walk in and scold them all, saying I was to receive the first serving of everything.
Instead of rolling my eyes, I stood and leaned over the table, Crew holding my plate aloft as I loaded it up with food.
“So you’re staying in our old room?” Crew asked almost conversationally. But there was something in his tone that had me glancing sidelong at him, and when I did, I noticed a weird gleam in his eye.
“Yes…”
Across the table, his wife smirked and winked at him, and my suspicions rose.
My worst fear was confirmed when Crew said, “Well, I’m sure Mama washed the sheets since we stayed here.”
With my good arm, I reached across my body and socked him in the shoulder.
“Ow!” he yelped, drawing the attention of the rest of the table. “What was that for?”
“You’re disgusting,” I told him. Then I directed my attention toward my sister and demanded, “Aria, trade me rooms.”
Aria snorted. “Not a chance in hell am I entering that sex dungeon. I heard things, Lane. I might never recover.”
Crew rolled his eyes, and Aspen chuckled. Both of them remained unperturbed.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” Crew said. “It’s not like you’ve never had sex.”
In an impressively and unintentionally synchronized move we’d normally see from the twins, both Owen and Trey lifted their hands and stuffed their fingers in their ears. Owen even went so far as to start humming loudly to himself, and Trey said, “I’m not hearing this!”
Aria smirked. “You’re right, big brother,” she said to Crew. “A virgin, I am not. But I’ve never fucked anyone in this house.”
“Jesus Christ,” Finn mumbled, a sentiment I agreed with.
“We’re not talking about this,” West said.
“Ever,” I added. Unfortunately, I knew plenty about my brothers’ sex lives, but they were my brothers.
Aria’s was uncharted territory I had zero desire to venture into.
To me, she’d always be the baby twelve-year-old me held for the first time.
The little girl my brothers and I swore to protect with our lives.
Her moving across the country was a tough pill to swallow. If something happened to her like it had over the summer, none of us would be minutes away to come to her aid. But I had to remember she was an adult who could take care of herself.
Mama reentered the room then, thankfully missing the inappropriate dinner conversation. My siblings stared expectantly at her, waiting for her approval to start eating now that I’d been served.
But Mama only stood there, surveying the room and frowning.
“What’s wrong?” Owen asked.
“We’re waiting for one more,” she said, then sighed. “But I guess you can dig in.”
One more?
I glanced around the room with a frown. The entire family save Owen’s wife and son were here. Who could we possibly be waiting for? My brothers and I exchanged concerned looks.
“She’s not…seeing someone, is she?” West hissed.
“Not a fucking chance,” Owen stated firmly.
Mama had always said Dad was the love of her life.
In fact, in the decades since he died, she’d never even removed her wedding ring.
They’d met in high school at the beginning of freshman year when she first moved to town from the other side of the state.
Falling hard and fast for each other, they’d gotten married not long after graduating high school—when she was already pregnant with Owen.
She’d always been certain she’d never find anything like what they’d had, and she had no interest in trying.
Mama claimed she was more than fulfilled with her kids, the ranch, and her blossoming business ventures.
“Then who are we waiting for?” Crew asked.
There was a knock on the front door.
“Ahh,” Mama said. “That must be her.”
Her?
Oh no. Oh no no no.
She couldn’t have.
She wouldn’t.
“Think I can leave without Mama noticing?” I muttered to Crew.
“Why would you—ahh.”
A familiar frame filled the doorway, and my fears were confirmed.
I remained frozen in place as Sutton raised her hand and awkwardly waved.