River's End (River's End Series, #1) (23 page)

“I know it. I do. But I can’t live your life, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out who I am. Shane is the mechanic. Ian knows the horses and farming; and you’re the goddamn horse whisperer. I’m just the pretty, younger brother, right? Even you think that. You made that pretty clear when Erin showed up. It’s exactly why you thought she let me screw her. You think that about me, Jack, and you can’t deny it. The thing is: I can’t deny that it’s who I am right now. But I need more than that.”

“Is it because of Erin?”

Joey glanced at him and Jack focused on the horses grazing out in the pastures to the right of him. “No. It has nothing to do with her. If it did, what would you do, Jack? Kick her out?”

“I would choose you,” he said simply. “You know that, Joey.”

Joey nodded. “It’s never been, Erin. She’s your problem, not mine.”

Jack raised the beer and let the cool liquid slide down his throat. “Why did you do it? Why didn’t you talk to me first?”

“Because you would have talked me out of it. You’d have used my previous bad judgment, like with Chance and Erin, to convince me I didn’t know what I wanted, or what I was doing.”

Jack was about to argue, but he realized Joey was right. That’s exactly what he would have done. “I guess there’s nothing else to say about it, is there?”

“No, Jack, there really isn’t.”

“It won’t be the same around here without you.”

“I’ll be back. This will always be my home.”

Jack stretched his legs out. “Yeah, we’ll always be here. When do you leave then?”

“Two weeks.”

“Do you need anything?”

Joey smiled. “No. Just… thanks, Jack, for asking. For accepting my decision. For, hell, for, you know, everything.”

Jack nodded at the brother he raised as his son. The gut-wrenching pain of watching Joey leave, and thinking about Joey getting in harm’s way filled him. But Joey was a grown man, and he had to find his own way. He was right; he’d been floundering and drifting for a while now. This life, this ranch, fit Jack, and not all the brothers quite as well as it did him.

Jack watched Joey go inside, and stared back out at the land. The anchor that tied him, the albatross that hung around his neck.

He never had the chance or choice to find his own way in life. He was twenty years old, with a wife and baby, when his parents died. That quickly, five-year-old Joey became his other kid, along with Shane and Ian, older, true, but now totally his responsibility. He had no skills beyond working with horses. There was never any question about what he intended to do with his life. He would naturally take over for his dad. He and Lily moved into the house his parents built, and that was where he planned to stay for the rest of his life. It was where he and Lily planned to raise their family.

He sometimes wondered what it would have been like to have any kind of freedom or choice in the matter. But… he still would have ended up right there. Doing what he already did. He was a rancher, and the only place he had any real skills or knowledge was with his horses.

Darkness settled around him and he kept drinking the beer. The empty bottles grew to nearly seven, lined up at his feet.

“Jack?”

He turned when he heard her voice. Erin was standing to his left, and the yard light shimmered on her dark as night hair. Her face was in shadows. Wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, she looked about as young as Ben standing there. Only she wasn’t. As he now well knew, she was a grown up woman, with grown up female responses to him. His hand gripped the glass bottle tighter at the images of her that had taken up residence in his head. And the ugly images of her doing that with his brother.

“What?”

“Are you all right?”

Was he all right? No. He hadn’t been okay in years. Not since his wife died and he had to raise three boys alone, two of whom needed his help accepting the death of their mother. All the while, he had a business to run and money to make for a family name that extended further back than a century. No pressure there. Except there was. All of it was like a pressure cooker he could never escape. He felt his neck tightening now, just by thinking of Joey leaving, and what could happen to him. Just another thing to stress over.

And now Erin. He couldn’t get her out of his head, or his gut. He hated that and almost hated her for it sometimes. He knew she’d be trouble since the first time he ever laid eyes on her. Little did he realize the kind of trouble she’d become to
him
. The kind that set his body on fire, all the while he pictured her naked
with his brother
.

She walked closer and stood where Joey was, leaning her small butt against the porch railing. She seemed to glow against the darkening twilight.

“Leave me alone, Erin.”

She stared at him, tapping her fingers on the wood post next to her. He found it annoying.

“He’ll be back, Jack, he just needs to know that the world out there isn’t any better than here. He’ll discover that, and come straight back home.”

Jack glared up at her. “Really? Did he tell you that in one of your post-coital moments?”

The skin around her small mouth tightened into a frown, and her jaw moved back and forth. “Why do you do that? You can be the kindest man sometimes, and at others, the cruelest.”

No one ever accused him of being cruel before; although no one ever accused him of being all that kind either.

“Well, isn’t it true? Isn’t that how you know my little brother?”

She turned her face, then her whole body to stare off into the darkening yard. “Yes. We were down on the beach, right after I arrived here. I told him this place was beautiful, and he said it was, but he wouldn’t know any differently because he’d never been away from it. I just think he needs some time to find himself, away from here, away from you, even, but I feel sure he will be back, and when he does return, it’ll be for good.”

“Oh? So now he needs to get away from me?”

“You cast a long shadow here, Jack, and you know it.”

“I know my brother doesn’t like you living here.”

She tipped her head and he heard her sigh. “That again? I thought you said…”

He sighed in his own right, and stood up, gulping the rest of the now warm beer. He swayed on his feet and was starting to get drunk. “I said you have a home here. I just didn’t expect it to keep being so damn hard.”

She didn’t pursue the conversation or ask him why. She knew exactly what he was talking about. “Joey just needs some space.”

He hated that she knew Joey so well. As well as she could possibly know him. He hated not being able to control his reaction to her, and wanting her more than any woman he’d met in the last five years.

He leaned his elbows onto the railing near her. “Space, huh? I wonder what that’s like? To choose what you want, and where you get to be. Or how you get to be.”

“It doesn’t matter if you were allowed the same space; you’d have ended up right here, being who you are, and doing what you do. The family was lucky you were the oldest, because no one else could have fulfilled the roles that needed filling. You wouldn’t have left, even if you could have.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

She shrugged. “Because I’ve never met anyone who was so where he was supposed to be and doing what he was supposed to be doing. I’ve never spent one day feeling as fulfilled as you do on each of your days. So yeah, you’ve had a lot of responsibility for a long time, but then again, we both know you were built for it. Joey wasn’t. At least, not yet.”

For someone who should have been a bit of fluff and annoyance, Erin wasn’t. She was thoughtful, sentimental, and sweet. Sweeter than anyone he’d met in years. So many years, her softness and tender emotions called to him far more than the alcohol he swallowed, or the sex he got whenever he was out of town.

The problem was: she screwed his brother. She was as close in age to his son as she was to him, and the least appropriate woman he knew to even contemplate having a role in his life that could be construed as anything close to motherly for his sons. She was completely inappropriate for him, and perhaps, that was why he so wanted her. He’d always been appropriate for his entire life. He never got to sow his wild oats or explore anything that wasn’t for his greater good or that of his family. He never got to run off and see the world because he wasn’t ready to grow up yet.

“Couldn’t he have found a safer way to get out of here?”

Erin looked up at him and finally smiled. “I don’t think he thinks of it like that. At twenty, you’re immortal, and nothing can happen to you; the danger is never real. You surely remember that.”

He held her gaze and stood up straighter. He finally whispered his tone nearly guttural, “Why Joey? Why did you choose Joey?”

She didn’t look away or pretend to be clueless about what he was asking. She licked her lips and whispered, “Because I didn’t know any better.”

They were quiet. The crickets made a loud background of constant noise and darkness surrounded the ranch. A soft breeze pushed some stray strands of hair towards her shoulders. He looked away to avoid getting the urge to run his hands into her thick, tangled, mass of shiny black hair.

“I heard what you said to Joey.”

“About what?”

“About burying someone you love. I'm sorry. I was ready to go home when I heard you two.”

“So you listened.”

“Yes.”

“So you heard me say I’d side with Joey if he demanded it?”

She smiled. “That’s exactly what I’d expect from you. It’s one of the things I most admire; you’re loyal to a fault. I wish I had anyone who was that loyal to me, especially my own brother. Actually, I was wondering more about Lily.”

His armor fell back over his heart.
No.
He didn’t talk about Lily. He didn’t grieve for Lily with anyone. Not even his own sons. But… her big green eyes were searching his face with care and curiosity. She wanted to know. She wanted to know him. And damn, if he didn’t want her to know him.

“How old were you and she when she died?”

His jaw tightened. His stomach twisted. He hated discussing Lily. Finally he said his tone abrupt, “Twenty-nine.”

“Ben was close to Charlie’s age, right? Charlie doesn’t remember her, does he?”

“No. Why are you asking this?”

“I don’t know anything about it. I guess I wanted to understand.”

He looked out into the night. “I knew her my entire life. We went on our first date when we were fifteen years old. We got married when we were just nineteen, and purposely tried to have Ben, starting on our honeymoon. She was the only woman I’ll ever love.”

Erin’s gaze was on his face and he could feel her looking at him, evaluating him, processing what he just told her in case she had any delusions otherwise. “It’s like you lived a whole lifetime before you were thirty. And I haven’t even started my life.”

“That’s because you’re a chicken, Erin.”

Her eyes widened when he turned and fully looked at her. “What was that for?”

“For not calling Allison. You won’t even try. And the only reason I can see is because you’re too scared to fail.”

“You don’t understand what it’s like.”

“No. I don’t. But I do understand that life is unfair, and it often sucks, but when you can change things, you have to do it. You don’t give up just because you’re scared.”

“You don’t know the first thing about being weak, stupid, or unimportant, now do you, Jack? You’ve always been in charge of your life, and had this ranch as your backup. You’ve never been known as the stupid one in the room. You’ve never doubted yourself. It’s not a choice for me to make. It’s just a fact for me. Yeah, I’m scared. I’m scared every day of my life. Every day I used to wake up, wondering what’s going to happen to me. Will I eat today? Or have a place to sleep tonight? So, you’re right, I’m scared, Jack. I’m always scared and alone, and sometimes, it seems like it will never change.”

He was quiet, but finally said, “It has changed for you. You have a place to sleep every night, that’s guaranteed. You also have enough to eat too. No one will hurt you on my ranch, and no one will make you leave either. Why won’t you believe that?”

“Because the last person who promised to stay in my life left her body for me to cremate.”

Tears welled in her eyes and she used the back of her hand to wipe them.

“Erin?”

She held a hand up. “Forget it, Jack. I know what you were trying to say. I know I should call Allison. I just… can’t.”

“Look, I’m sorry. Your mom was the chicken shit. Not you. I shouldn’t have said that. Sometimes, I’m not real sensitive. Lily was always telling me that.”

She snorted, then looked at up at him. “You can’t call a dead woman a chicken shit.”

He smiled. “Yes, I can. I can after she did something like that to you. You know you didn’t deserve it, right?”

She shrugged. “You’d think so, huh? Thing is, most times I don’t agree with you.”

“Well, you should.”

“What was she like?”

“Who?”

“Lily? What was she like?”