Chapter One
Muttered grumbling from the changing room in the menswear shop made Brady grin ear to ear; his brother was completely out of his element as he wrestled himself into a suit.
“This should be entertaining,” Jake said, barely holding in a snort when a thump against the side of the wall shook the curtain, followed by a stream of swear words.
Brady couldn’t help it, and burst into laughter as Tanner muttered a, “Goddamn stupid suit, where the fuck are the buttons?”
“You okay in there, Tan? Need some help with the big boy pants?” Jake managed through his own laughter.
“Fuck you, asshole,” came the clipped reply.
The clerk currently circling Jake with a floppy tape measure raised a bushy gray eyebrow and looked over at them both.
“He doesn’t wear suits often, I take it?” he said around the pins in his mouth.
“He lives in Carhartt overalls and Wranglers,” Brady replied, tugging at the lapels of the dark-gray suit jacket he’d tried on, the tag scratching at the back of his neck, the sleeves dangling a bit too far over his fingers. None of them wore suits often, if at all.
He thumbed over a chalk mark that the clerk had made on where to pin the cuffs, anticipating taking it off once Tanner was done with the lone changing room.
He’d never admit it, but he’d struggled with the different clasps and buttons on the pants too.
But Brady would wear whatever the hell Liz wanted him to if it made her happy on her wedding day.
So really, he could put up with a nice suit, even if it was scratchy.
As Tanner emerged from the change room looking far better than he should in the same dark-blue suit that Jake had selected, Brady reflected that a lot had changed since Brett had died and chaos had descended over the ranch.
This included Tanner’s new tolerance for finicky tasks, even if they were pushing the envelope by forcing him to try on formalwear in the suit store at the Southcentre Mall, all the way in Calgary.
It felt like a lifetime ago, all that chaos.
Most of that change was because of Jake.
A half brother they never knew about and an abrupt change in ownership at the ranch had upended their entire world last summer.
It could have been a soap opera script, complete with fistfights, cattle thieves, and drunken tirades, the way it had all played out.
Tanner scowled and stuffed his hands in the pockets of the suit pants, testing the depth.
Brady was thankful that Jake had bargained Peony down from fancy tuxedos.
New suits were a far less expensive alternative to losing their deposit on rentals, because Brady could picture Tanner in a black tux with a bow tie driving a tractor, trying to get morning chores done before the ceremony, and Jake having to explain manure stains when they returned them.
Brady had conceded as they drove in that they needed new suits when Tanner had asked why he couldn’t just wear the one he had.
He and Tanner had last worn theirs at the arraignments and sentencing for the cattle thieves last fall, forced into them by Peony’s chastising Look professional, boys!
Brady’s suit had been uncomfortably tight; Tanner’s wasn’t much better, and was possibly older than their oldest bull.
So here they were.
Jake was more at home in suits and ties, and was relaxed as he stood for measurements, casually adjusting the lapels on the jacket, critically glancing over his reflection in the mirrors.
He’d mentioned—after he had bargained Peony down—that he wanted a new suit anyway.
His jackets were all too tight across the shoulders and down his arms now.
Fresh Alberta foothills air and the past nine months learning the ropes on the ranch was good for him.
They were slowly working the city out of him, as Brady had joked one too many times for his own good.
But it was all in good fun, because Jake fit right into the ranch, and Brady couldn’t picture them running the place without him now.
“Gonna have to bust out the custom sizes for those guns,” he remarked as Jake hopped down from the platform in front of the mirror.
“Ha-ha,” Jake replied.
“Liz is working you too hard in the stable,” Brady teased. “You’re not spending nearly enough time with the paperwork like you should.”
“Well . . .” Jake wiggled his eyebrows as he shrugged off the jacket and handed it to the clerk, who slid a hanger inside it and set it on a coatrack. Jake grinned widely as he drawled “She’s a taskmaster . . . and a mornin’ person, if you know what I mean.”
Brady groaned and covered his eyes. “I did not need to know that. She’s like a sister to me, damn it!”
Tanner huffed, obviously not impressed with how long this was taking, and sent a peevish look to Jake and the clerk, who was waiting for him. As he tugged on his pants, the pissed-off look on his face spoke volumes about what he thought of the whole process.
“Get up there, Tan, let’s get you measured, yeah?” Brady said, slapping Tanner on the back. “You look nice, brother.”
“These pants ride up my ass, and I can’t move in this jacket.”
Brady grinned at him, which earned him a further disgruntled sigh and an eye roll. He pulled out the collar of Tanner’s jacket, which had folded under, and smoothed it down, adjusting the shoulders while Tanner gritted his teeth.
“Stop fussing, it’s not like you’ll be driving a tractor in it,” Brady said.
“It itches.”
“You’re fine, just need to get used to it. Maybe you’ll find someone crazy enough to put up with you, and when you get married, you can wear it again!” Brady teased, deciding to poke the grumpy bear just a little. It was too easy, really.
The look of horror that crossed Tanner’s face made it worthwhile, and Brady started to laugh again. The clerk was chuckling as well, looking between Tanner and Jake.
“Well, I’ll tailor it so it’s a bit roomier for comfort, son. Looks like you picked a different lapel style as well, which I think suits. Wouldn’t want the bride confusing herself between twins, now, would we?”
Jake snorted a laugh and said, “If Liz can’t tell us apart, we’re all doomed!”
“They’re not twins. Different moms,” Brady explained when the clerk gave him a confused look. “The bride is their dad’s widow’s daughter from her first marriage. No blood relation.”
The clerk hummed under his breath, the confusion even more evident as he tried to make sense of the family tree at that point, looking between them.
He beckoned Tanner to the mirror to take his measurements and smiled politely at him as Tanner’s forehead wrinkled as he eyeballed the platform like it might swallow him.
“You have to stand on that so he can check your pant length,” Jake said, pointing. “Up you get, cowboy.”
“Won’t take long. Just need a few notes,” the clerk said crisply, and Tanner nodded curtly as he stepped up.
“Sorry. Not used to this.”
The clerk crouched to adjust and pin Tanner’s pant leg without another word.
Brady sorted over some ties splayed in a circle on a nearby table as the room went quiet. He let his mind wander as he browsed, the reds and blues and greens all jumbled together in a pleasing mosaic of silk.
It was an honest mistake for the clerk to make thinking Jake and Tanner were twins, because if you looked at them side by side, they were spitting images of each other.
Tall, wide shouldered, dark hair, dark eyes, and that ruggedness that made you think they could chop down trees with their bare hands.
Just like Brett.
But their temperaments were vastly different. Jake had grown up in New York City, away from his father’s influence, while Tanner had taken after Brett lock, stock, and stoic barrel.
“And you’re the friend?” the clerk glanced over at him after a few moments, obviously pointing out he was not a tall, dark-haired bulldozer. Brady topped out at six feet with light hazel eyes and rusty auburn hair instead. The hair he got from his mother, but the rest . . .
“He’s our baby brother,” Jake replied, nodding to Brady, then thumbing at Tanner. “He keeps this one and me from killin’ each other.”
Brady’s body went taut at that statement, but he didn’t correct Jake. He was no more Jake’s brother than a pig could fly.
He wasn’t a true West.
In all the mess of Brett dying and Jake coming into their lives, Brady had found out that Brett wasn’t his father.
Veronica, his mother—Tanner’s as well—had had an affair after Tanner was born.
In the paternity testing they’d all done last year to certify Jake was who he said he was, it had been a surprise when Brady’s results came back as a zero chance of Brett being his biological dad.
Strangely, he’d always had a niggle of doubt that Brett was his father.
They had been like oil and water as Brady had gotten older, never seeing eye to eye, Brett often coming down on him harder than Tanner or ignoring Brady’s successes.
It had been a tough pill to swallow that Brett had played favorites.
Now he knew why.
He’d thought about it a lot since the results had come in, and as he turned it over in his head, he concluded that Brett had known. He had known exactly who Brady’s father had been but had raised him anyway, the entire thing a big secret in the family that had never once been spilled.
Peony had approached him the day they found out and bluntly asked him if he wanted to know who it was.
He said he didn’t, even though he had a very good idea and wanted to shout at her for it.
It irked him that even Peony knew, had been privy to secrets about who he really was.
He didn’t let the anger through and abruptly walked away from her before he said something he’d regret and upset her.
He stuffed his own shit down like he always did, because the ranch had bigger things to worry about.