Three Brothers

by Nicole Williams

  “He’s playing pool, isn’t he?” Chance replied as Chase sunk the red solid ball into one of the corner pockets.

  “He’s playing pool all right,” I said while Chase lined up his next shot.

  “Hey, I can hear, you know? Have some respect and at least talk about me when I’m out of earshot.”

  Chase’s voice startled me. Not because of what he’d said, but because the tone he’d said it in was the one I was used to, not the one that was too tight and far too toneless.

  “You got it, Chase. No more smack-talking unless your back’s turned.” Chance winked at me while Chase grumbled before sinking the blue ball as well.

  “You’re quite the pool shark tonight. Glad to see you’re doing better.” I watched Chase study the table. The man I was so certain would never marry that I would have staked my life on it had fallen in love with a school teacher, married her, and been widowed. I didn’t know any more than those particulars, her name, and how they’d met, but I guessed that when he was ready to talk about it, he’d lead the way. I had so many questions, but they’d have to wait.

  “What I’d rather be doing is kicking, punching, and taking out every shred of anger I have on one of those damn trees outside, but Chance asked me to play pool instead.” Chase took his next shot, sinking his third ball in a row. “I suppose this is what people consider a more constructive alternative.”

  With all the lights on, it was easier to tell just how much his wife’s death had taken out of him. Chase’s clothes that used to cling in all the right places now hung off him as if they were a size too big. He was still handsome in the way Chase always would be, no matter what tragedy life threw his way, but his boyish charm and easy smile seemed to be gone for good.

  “How about when you’re done playing here, I’ll take you out in search of the perfect ass-kicking tree?” I said.

  Chase studied the lay of the table. I didn’t miss the way he seemed to flinch when his eyes rolled across the eight ball. His shoulders fell. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll just hit the sack after I finish reminding my brother why he should never bet a hundred bucks against me in pool.”

  I crossed my arms. “You just asked him to play pool, huh?”

  Chance rubbed his neck, smiling. “Well, yeah, after mentioning some money would be on the line. Oh, quit giving me that look. He’s playing, isn’t he?” Chance thrust his arms at Chase lining up his shot. “He’s communicating in more than grunts and frowns and moving like a man instead of a zombie, so why don’t you get off of that high horse of yours and give credit where it’s due.” Chance’s smile didn’t dim one bit as he waited for me to give him the credit he was so convinced I owed him.

  “Hey, dipshit, he is five feet away from you.” Chase glared at Chance. “If I have to tell you again not to talk about me like I’m some invalid drooling in his wheelchair, I’m going to break my pool stick over your thick head.”

  Both my and Chance’s eyes widened for a moment—I was surprised and relived that some of the old Chase was breaking through the surface—before we burst into laughter. Real, honest laughter was so desperately needed after that long dinner that had felt like it would suffocate me. When a tear leaked out of one of Chance’s eyes from laughing so hard, that only made me laugh harder.

  I could tell Chase was trying his hardest to look as though he was pissed at the two of us, but it looked more like he was trying to keep from joining us. “Eh, fuck it.” Chase threw his pool stick on the table. “You two can keep chuckling like a pair of hyenas for the rest of the night if you want, but I’m going to bed.” As he passed his brother, he swept Chance’s hat off his head.

  “Do you want a nightcap or something first?” I called, recomposing myself and starting toward the crystal bottles John kept filled with expensive liquor. “You know, to help you sleep better?” I tried to sound casual, but I knew everyone could see through what I was really getting at. Do you want to drink until you pass out so that when you close your eyes, you don’t have to see your wife and every good memory you have of her?

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a special sleeping pill of sorts that does a good job of knocking me out.” Chase waved at us before leaving the library.

  I watched him leave while Chance retrieved his hat. “Thank God for script-happy doctors. They make tragedy a bit easier to cope with.” When I’d gone to a doctor shortly after my mom’s suicide in search of some kind of relief from the sleepless nights and days haunted by depression, he’d told me I needed to deal with her death, not mask it with pharmacology. What he called “masking” I considered temporary relief, but I had managed to make it through. That didn’t mean Dr. Pick-Yourself-Up-by-Your-Bootstraps wasn’t a dickhead.

  “The sleeping aid he’s referring to isn’t a pill.” Instead of placing his hat back on his head, Chance set it on the pool table. “From what I’ve heard coming from his room the past few nights he’s been here, I’m pretty sure Chase’s ‘sleeping aid’ is him banging his head against a wall until he knocks himself out.”

  I sighed. I felt like all the men I cared about were being torn apart, brick by brick, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. Well, all the men except for Chance. He was his same old self, although I guessed the burden of watching his dad and brothers go through hell was wearing on him. Chance might have been optimistic but not to the point of being blinded to reality.

  “What happened to her? What happened to his wife?” I checked the doorway to make sure Chase hadn’t reappeared.

  Chance’s head bowed, his forehead creasing. “She died.”

  I guessed I didn’t want to know—because what way could a young woman die that wouldn’t be tragic?—but I still asked, “How?”

  Chance was quiet for a while. I knew he was gauging if it was his place to tell me and, if so, how much. But I couldn’t ask Chase—there was no way I would make him relive whatever had happened just so I’d know—and John wasn’t exactly in a position to explain it to me. Even if Conn knew, he’d toy with me until I was ready to strangle it out of him, so Chance was really my only option to find out what was responsible for doing a one-eighty on the Chase Armstrong I remembered.

  “She was driving home from work a couple of weeks ago.”

  I fell into the chair behind me, needing its support. I hadn’t realized she’d died so recently. No wonder Chase looked more corpse than man.

  “When a tree on the side of the road fell on her car.” Chance looked as though he was choking on the words. “She died instantly, but it took them a while to get . . . everything cleaned up.”

  I couldn’t feel my toes or my fingers. I probably couldn’t have stood without falling. My entire body had gone numb.

  “Chase couldn’t get a hold of her, and with her being late and everything, he went out looking for her.” Chance’s eyes clamped shut. From his expression, it was almost as if he’d lost his wife. “So he saw what had happened. He saw Jenny’s body still . . . trapped in the car.” One side of Chance’s face pulled tight in a grimace. “He didn’t think she was dead or he didn’t want to believe it. He just kept trying to pull her out, to get her out of that car, to save whatever life he thought was left in her. He was still trying to get what was left of Jenny out of her car when I arrived.”

  My speeding heart froze. Not only had Chase seen Jenny and what I could only imagine a tree had done to her poor body, but so had Chance.

  “The sheriff called me when he couldn’t get a hold of Chase right away, but he’d just told me that there’d been an accident and to get there quickly. He hadn’t told me what had happened or who it had happened to.”

  “What did you do?” My whisper was so silent I could barely make it out.

  One of Chance’s shoulders lifted. “The only thing that was left to be done. I tried to console my brother as best as I could, and I punched the face of some reporter who kept making his cameraman pan in on Jenny’s body while he crowed about one-in-ten-million odds and some other bullshit.”<
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  My eyes lifted. “You punched a reporter?” Chance was as rough and tough as they made them, but I’d been under the impression he didn’t possess a single fiber of violence.

  “He deserved it.”

  “With the sheriff nearby?”

  “The sheriff was the one who suggested I nail the jerk.” Chance was gripping the edge of the pool table as though he was contemplating ripping it off, but his eyes were open again.

  “God, Chance. How did you get Chase away from there?”

  “I couldn’t. A couple of sheriffs and a set of handcuffs had to.” He rolled the pool stick across the table, his gaze locked on the blue tip.

  “Was that really necessary? He’d just found his wife dead. Couldn’t they have given him some time before hauling him away?” My fists balled as I imagined it. Chase and Chance had grown up hanging out with some of the guys in the sheriff’s department. They’d all seemed like solid, decent guys, but right now, I didn’t feel very gracious.

  “If they hadn’t escorted him away in cuffs, Scout, I’m certain he’d still be wrapped around Jenny’s body in the middle of that highway. He wasn’t going to let her go. Someone had to make him. She was gone.”

  I drilled my fingers into my temples, rubbing them in slow, hard circles. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you had to see that and . . . experience that.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry for Chase. He lost the woman he loved.”

  Life wasn’t just unfair—it was cruel, mean-spirited, and downright nasty. Life got off on witnessing people’s pain. It thrived on doling out tragedy. It wasn’t some unbiased entity—it possessed a black heart and a hollow soul.

  “I suppose that explains his comment about ripping a few trees from the ground after pummeling them with his appendages.” The temple massage wasn’t working—my headache kept getting stronger.

  “You should see what he’s done to the trees down by the lake. Give that guy a chainsaw and a jug of gasoline, and he can turn a forest into a clearing in an afternoon.” Chance’s brows lifted. “Trust me, I’ve got proof. And about fifty years’ of firewood before he went out for his afternoon session today.”

  “If that’s what Chase needs to do in order to get through this, let him.”

  “Sure, yeah, great. But what happens when we run out of trees? At the rate he’s going, all ten thousand acres of Red Mountain Ranch will be cleared in a couple more weeks. Where will Chance turn for ‘therapy’ when the trees run out?” Chance continued to roll the pool stick back and forth, staring at the tip as if he hoped it would point out some answers soon.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you? About running out of trees before Chase finds some sort of peace?” On the ten thousand acres of this ranch, they had tens of thousands of trees. But it didn’t take a psychology expert to look into Chase’s eyes and realize he wouldn’t find peace for decades to come. If ever.

  “I’m not sure Chase will ever recover from this,” Chance said. “He hasn’t been able to set foot in their home in town since she died. I had to go in and pick an outfit for her to be buried in. I picked up her pajamas from the bathroom from earlier that morning, washed her breakfast plate that was still in the sink, and hid the note she’d left on Chase’s briefcase with the name and room number of the hotel she’d booked for their six-month anniversary that weekend.” Chance jabbed the end of the pool stick at the eight ball, sending it rolling across the table. “It’s only been a couple of weeks since she died, but there’s something I see when I look at him that makes me doubt he’ll ever make it through. I can’t seem to pull him out of this. Not even a little bit.”

  He’d arrived at the same conclusion I had. Chase was so lost he may have no way back.

  “Okay, I’ll think about it, see if I can come up with something that might help Chase cope better.” When I looked up, I found Chance watching me with something on his face that had been missing since we’d started talking about Jenny’s accident. “What? What?” I repeated.

  He just kept staring at me with that hint of light easing his expression.

  “Oh my God, I just sounded like one of those delusional people who thinks they can fix the world and everyone in it, right?” I said.

  Chance smiled. “You’ve been that way for as long as I’ve known you. A sucker for anyone or anything that needs fixed.”

  I wanted to argue, but I knew a heap of evidence proved he was right. “I’m in therapy for my fix-the-world problem. Extensive.”

  “And what did you just complete all of those years of schooling to become?”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “A veterinarian.”

  “Which is what exactly?” He wasn’t even trying to hide his amusement.

  I started and ended my answer with a sigh. “A person who fixes animals. I’m hopeless, aren’t I?”

  Chance’s head tipped. “What you see as your weakness, I see as your defining strength.”

  When Chance seemed to stop himself from saying something else, I waited. Part of knowing each other so well was knowing what the other was or wasn’t saying.

  I got tired of waiting. “But . . .?”

  His smile turned sheepish. “But it can be unhealthy when taken to extremes,” he answered with a clap. “There, that’s what I was going to say. Happy now?”

  Feeling steadier and mostly sure I wouldn’t wipe out if I put any weight on my legs, I stood. “Are you referring to Chase? That it would be unhealthy to try to fix him?”

  Chance’s face went blank for a moment. He shook his head, meeting my eyes. “No, not that brother.” He didn’t break eye contact with me, as if he was trying to relay the rest of his message through our eyes alone.

  I didn’t have enough time to process his meaning before someone joined our party of two.

  “No need to quit talking about me because I’m here. Keep right on dishing it out. Makes for good entertainment.” Conn weaved into the room, a drink in his hand still, although this time it was a glass pot instead of a glass bottle. “Coffee, anyone? Lord knows I needed some. This is my second pot.” He raised the pot in one hand and a few cups dangling from the fingers of his other hand.

  “Nice of you to show up at dinner. Chase was there, and his wife was killed a month ago. What’s your excuse for not showing up?” Chance rarely spoke to Conn with such disdain.

  I was watching Chance when I felt Conn’s gaze drift in my direction. That made Chance’s eyes narrow.

  Conn yawned, clutching the coffee pot over his mouth. “I wasn’t in the mood. That’s my excuse. Now, coffee?”

  Chance shook his head. “Not in the mood tonight, brother. Not in the mood.”

  Shoving away from the pool table, Chance headed to the door. I was about to wish him a good night when he came to a stop. Conn was right beside him, but it was like Chance didn’t even see him.

  Instead, Chance studied me. “I’m heading out to inspect the herd tomorrow morning, make sure everyone’s settling back down after the colt sorting today. Horse leaves at five sharp if you want to come.”

  It was still too early in the summer for the early mornings to be anything resembling warm, and if I leapt into bed right away, which was unlikely with Conn hovering close by, I’d get a whopping four hours of sleep. I’d be lucky if I didn’t fall asleep in the saddle and get trampled by a thousand hooves.

  “I’ll make the coffee if you saddle the horses,” I said.

  Half a smile broke on Chance’s face. “Deal.” His gaze cut to Conn, his face sharpening. “You might want to get to bed soon though. Don’t let the dark monster keep you awake all night.”

  “Hey, I love you too, big brother.” Conn pretended to be insulted, thumping Chance’s arm as he continued out of the library.

  “I was talking about the coffee, Conn. Don’t take everything so personally.” Chance winked at me before stepping out of the room.

  “He wasn’t talking about the coffee.” Conn lifted the pot toward me with a raised brow.

  “I kno
w.” I headed for the hallway too, keeping as much space between Conn and me as the room would allow.

  “Hey? Coffee? Give me a chance to apologize?” Conn held up the cups. “A chance to catch up?”

  I slowed long enough to give him my answer, but I didn’t stop. Our “catch up” earlier tonight had been the solid reminder I needed that where Conn was concerned, I had to keep walking. If I stopped, that would allow him the chance to catch me, and I’d lived enough of that in five years to know nothing good could come of it.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think there’s anything to catch up on.” My eyes ran down him, not missing the eyes still glazed from tequila or the very same boots he’d been wearing the last night I’d seen him before I ran away from this place. “Nothing really seems to have changed.”

  “YOU MADE IT.” Chance’s smile was on full tilt when I wandered into the barn with a Thermos full of fresh coffee and a serious case of sleep deprivation.

  “After taking a break from tossing and turning last night long enough to maybe catch an hour and a half of solid sleep, I can still make out the doubt in your voice.” I stifled the yawn that begged to be released after the mention of last night’s insomnia-fest and worked on a smile of my own.

  “Not doubt but maybe surprise.” Chance tightened the girth on his horse, Honor, while Dark Horse whinnied his greeting. Chance already had him saddled and ready to go.

  “Why surprise?” I asked as I headed toward Dark Horse. It had been years since I’d seen him, and I already felt tears wanting to form.

  One of the few pieces of evidence that Conn wasn’t entirely evil was that horse. His dad had given the white horse to him the summer I arrived, but being the rebel anti-cowboy who’d rather strangle himself with a pair of Wranglers than shimmy into them, Conn had refused to ride the gentled mustang. Instead, Conn gave him to me. Dark Horse was one of the best gifts I’d ever been given. At the same time, he was one of the gifts I most regretted accepting because that was what had started my long, unhealthy obsession with a person who made me wonder if he was more monster than man.