Three Brothers

by Nicole Williams

  “Did you get trampled by it a few times after it threw you?” I asked, unable to keep from gaping at him as though he were spewing blood in front of me.

  Chance’s expression switched from anguished to sheepish. “Maybe,” he admitted, which meant he had been. “And the place the colt chose to throw me might have been on a rocky patch of ground where a terrifying baby bunny might have hopped out of its hole and spooked it. Because, you know, nothing says spooky like a white, fluffy baby bunny.” As soon as he chuckled, he winced, grabbing at his ribs with his good arm.

  “Shit, you broke some ribs too.” Seeing him show pain was such a rare occasion that it spurred me into action. Rushing to the sink, I threw open the cupboards until I found a couple of bins containing first aid supplies. I was in such a hurry to pull them out I spilled them on the floor. “Double shit,” I mumbled, collecting the scattered contents. “Quite the nurse I am.”

  Chance moved toward me, scooting a roll of gauze along with his toes. Probably because bending down and picking it up would have been a practice in torture. “I’ll take you over a real nurse any day. And I haven’t broken anything. Maybe a couple hairline fractures, but nothing’s broken broken.”

  I eyed his arm as I tossed the gauze back into the bin. If that wasn’t broken, then I was Little Miss Sunshine.

  “It’s sprained. It’s a bad one,” he added when I lifted a brow.

  “What makes you so sure?” I asked, lifting the bins and putting them on the sink.

  “Experience. I’ve had enough broken bones to know what one feels like and what doesn’t.”

  I eyed the arm skeptically. “Still, we should get it X-rayed just to make sure.”

  Chance shook his head—even that seemed painful. “If you still feel the need to get me X-rayed tomorrow, I promise I will go willingly with a smile, but not tonight. I’m beat, bruised, and kind of just want to collapse into bed.”

  He looked almost as tired as he looked injured. From the events that had kept us out so late last night and the knowledge he’d still risen at his usual crack of dawn wake-up call, he’d just worked fifteen hard hours on a few hours of sleep. Taking him to the E.R., waiting for the X-ray then waiting for a doctor to read the X-ray . . . he wouldn’t be in bed until sunrise tomorrow.

  “Okay, but I will hold you to that willingly with a smile thing tomorrow if I still think you’re lying about that ‘sprain.’”

  Chance nodded. “Deal.”

  I cranked on the warm water and grabbed a washcloth from the pile. “How did you get back here? Why didn’t you call someone to come help?” I knew the likely answer to the second question better than I knew the answer to the first—asking for help was some kind of Armstrong man handicap. I wasn’t even sure they knew the word.

  “I didn’t call anyone to help because I knew you’d be the first one to show up, and I didn’t really want you to see me like this—thanks, by the way, for showing up early.” He looked at me in the mirror as I ran the washcloth under the warm water, the brow in the muddy side of his face lifting. “And I got here on the bunny-phobic horse himself.”

  I shut off the water. “You mean you actually climbed back onto that thing after it nearly killed you and rode here like that?” I didn’t know how far away he’d been when it had happened, but the distance seemed insignificant. He’d been thrown onto a hard pillow of rocky ground, likely stomped on by the frightened animal, then after “shaking it off,” he’d decided to climb back aboard and trot home?

  Just thinking about how painful that ride must have been made me grimace.

  I approached him with the wet washcloth. “Where’s the horse now?”

  “Tied to the hitching post out back. I already have him untacked, fed, and watered, so he’ll be good until morning. Unless those bastard bunnies come after him again.” Chance shook his head and didn’t flinch when I pressed the hot cloth to his face. The dried mud started to crumble off, but it was so thick, it would take a dozen fresh cloths to clean his face alone.

  “Go figure you’d make sure an animal was safe and taken care of before you’d take care of yourself.” As I dabbed at the mud, I found something mixed in with it. It was dried too, but this substance was darker and made my stomach squirm. “You either are or were bleeding too.”

  I swiped through a patch of mud on his cheek, and a small scrape started to ooze. The dried mud was probably acting as some kind of bond to keep his wounds sealed. Removing the mud would mean opening up whatever gashes and wounds were hiding beneath them, but the mud had to come off. It might have been doing him some good, but it couldn’t hide the wounds forever. Eventually they’d get infected or bleed again.

  “Chance, what the hell?” I whispered, my voice shaking as I rinsed the cloth, finding just as much red tinting the water as brown.

  “My description of what happened exactly,” he replied as I approached with the once again clean cloth.

  “If I grab you a chair, could you sit? Would that help?” I was desperate to help him feel better. Desperate. I would have stripped down, painted stripes on myself, and streaked around downtown Jackson Hole if that would have made him feel better.

  “I don’t know. Let’s find out.” He moved toward the sink, seeming to favor his right leg. Turning around, he settled on the ledge and slowly scooted onto the counter. He was trying so hard not to wince that beads of sweat formed above his brows.

  “Have you taken anything for the pain yet?” I asked, trying to help him get into a more comfortable position. “Ibuprofen? Hydrocodone? A shot of Demerol? A shot of whiskey?”

  Chance tilted his face so I could better wipe it clean. I tried to dab as gently as I could, but the mud wouldn’t budge with just light dabbing.

  “I was thinking of grabbing a bag of frozen peas, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet,” he said.

  I dropped the cloth back into the sink and dug through the bins for something that resembled pain relief. Something a bit more effective than frozen peas. All he had were a couple travel packets of Tylenol, so I ripped one open, filled the cup on the sink with water, and lifted the pills to his mouth.

  “Are you trying to drug me?” he asked, smiling.

  “Yeah, so I can take advantage of you in your damaged, druggy haze.”

  His smile grew. “In that case . . .” He opened his mouth and let me pop the pills inside then took a drink when I lifted the cup to his lips. “You keep your promises, right?” he teased after swallowing them.

  I tapped the tip of his nose before picking up the washcloth and getting back to work. “Always.”

  “Too bad I can’t keep my promise about dinner,” he replied as I kept swiping away at the mud, revealing more hairline scratches crisscrossing his face. “I had it all planned out. Barbecued steaks, baked potatoes, and grilled asparagus. I even had some tea steeping in the sun all day and a pack of non-cheap beer in the fridge.”

  Nothing about this should have made me smile—the man I cared about had been in a serious accident—but I couldn’t help it. “Well, if you give me a rain check on dinner, I won’t count this as you breaking your promise. Plus, if any guy’s got an excuse for canceling on a dinner date, that guy would be you.”

  On my third trip to the sink with the dirty washcloth, I noticed the framed photo hanging on the wall beside the sink. My eyebrows came together as I studied it, not sure how the pieces fit together. Chance was in the very center of the picture, standing in front of the illuminated Wild Bill sign, and he was surrounded by a few dozen familiar and unfamiliar people wearing Wild Bill employee T-shirts. Chance’s arm was in the air and from one of his fingers dangled a set of keys.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been staring at that photo before he cleared his throat. “Yeah, I was going to explain that to you tonight. You know, over prime T-bone steak and a couple of really good beers.”

  I looked at him. “Explain it now.”

  He inhaled. “I own the place.”

  I felt my forehead wrinkl
e. “You own Wild Bill’s?”

  Chance nodded, watching for my reaction.

  “Since when?”

  “For about five years now. Right after the original owners let me know about their forthcoming bankruptcy.” Chance lifted his good shoulder. “I stepped in and bought it from them before the banks could formally foreclose.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything last night?” I asked, taking another look at the photo. What in the world had made a through-and-through rancher decide to get into the classless bar business?

  “Because I thought I’d said enough stuff last night. I didn’t want to add anything else to the pile.”

  When I thought about what we had talked about last night, I realized we had gone over plenty of heavy topics, but him owning the bar didn’t seem like a heavy topic in comparison. It didn’t seem heavy at all. It sure explained why everyone seemed to know him and why Little Miss Ponytail wanted to jump his bones. “I’m not following. Why is you owning Wild Bill’s such a hard topic to discuss?”

  Chance leaned back, resting his head against the wall. “I knew if I told you that I’d bought Wild Bill’s, I’d also have to explain why I’d bought it . . . and we’d talked or hinted around that topic enough for one night. That’s why I was saving it for tonight, so thank you for providing the segue.” Chance’s eyes lifted to the photo. “Even though dinner and drinks would have been my preferred method for tackling it.”

  “How about tackling it now?”

  His forehead creased when I uncovered yet another cut just above his jawline.

  “Why not?” he mumbled before his face cleared. “You know how Wild Bill’s kind of always felt like our place? Our place?” Chance opened his eyes to search for some agreement on my face. Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him. “When I heard it was going to be shut down, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and that translated into me not being able to watch that happen.” He searched my face again. I wasn’t sure what he was searching for. “So I bought the place.”

  As I wrung out the soiled washcloth, watching more mud and blood wash down the drain, I tried to understand. “So because you felt like Wild Bill’s was our place, you couldn’t let it close down? Don’t get me wrong, because I think that’s amazing and totally unexpected and something I probably would have done because that place is so tacky it’s got to be doing something right, but I’m still not so sure I understand why you did it . . . exactly.”

  Chance’s tongue went into his cheek, his eyes shifting from me to the photo then back again. “It was all I had left of you here.” He sounded like he was at confession. “You were gone, but it was still here and . . . I don’t know . . . every time I went there on my own to play darts while drinking a beer, it was like you were right there with me. It was the last place I could still . . . feel you.” Chance’s face pulled up as if he was trying to make an apology. “That was why I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t let the doors just be shut and the windows boarded up when all I had left of you was still inside.” His head lowered as he held his injured arm closer to his body. “I couldn’t let it go as easily as I’d let you go.”

  He was opening up. Finally. Unlike last night, he was admitting things I had started to wonder if he ever would. Nothing like some serious bodily harm to open the flood gates. I told myself to stay calm, to not act as though I was practically leaping on the inside from him lowering the walls he’d built to keep me hidden from whatever curse he was so sure would be looking for me if he told me what he was saying right now.

  “So you’ve felt something for me . . . for a while?” I focused on his neck, washing away the dirt and blood.

  Chance answered with a nod.

  “How long?” When I realized I’d been dabbing at the same spot after it had been cleaned two swipes ago, I went back to the sink to rinse the cloth.

  Chance’s chest rose and fell several times. Just when I was certain I’d scared him off with my questions, it fell again and his mouth opened. “Pretty much from the moment you arrived.”

  My hands stopped squeezing the cloth. “Like that first summer I moved here?”

  “That one.” His answer didn’t take long that time.

  The cloth was clean, but I kept it under the water. I was still frozen from what he’d just said. “Why? How? You never said—”

  I didn’t want to scare him with all of my questions, but I’d never once suspected Chance cared about me in that way, in the way I felt about him now. He’d always been my friend, a shoulder when I needed one, a hand up when I fell, an ear to listen, and a heart to heal me. I’d never seen the signs, a flicker in his eye or lingering looks across the table. I couldn’t imagine keeping what I felt to myself for that many years when he was right in front of me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I said at last. That was the question I was most stumped over. I didn’t need to understand the rest yet, just why he’d never given me the slightest hint that our friendship could have been more if I’d been open to it.

  Chance’s head turned to look at me, still frozen at the sink. “Because it was very clear from the start who your preference was for in that department. And it wasn’t me.”

  Conn. He’d messed up so many areas of my life. Because I’d let him mess up so many areas of my life.

  “I suppose I can understand why you never mentioned it.” I wrung out the cloth and came back to his neck. “I’m sorry. That sounds so ridiculous as a reply to what you just admitted, but that’s all I’ve got. I’m sorry.” I wiped at my eyes with the back of my arm, both to prevent tears from falling and new ones from forming. “Conn blinded me to everything around me. He was a mistake. I didn’t see it then, but it’s so clear now that it’s depressing to think about how much time I wasted giving my heart to a person who’d killed his. I was wrong.” I rested my other hand on the other side of his neck, inadvertently pressing my fingers into his pulse. It was strong, fast. I’d never have to worry about Chance’s heart. “I’m not making the same mistake this time.”

  Chance’s good arm reached for me and settled into the bend of my waist. “You picked Conn first. You picked me next.” His thumb stroked my hip. “Does it look like I’m at all concerned or put out about that?”

  I glanced up from the spot on his neck I was working on. His eyes were waiting for mine. “No. Not really. Actually . . . not at all.” I wondered why he wasn’t at least marginally upset that I’d chosen his younger brother for all of those years, so I asked. “Why not?”

  His hand at my waist tightened. I felt the heat from his hand coming through my shirt, warming my skin just above my hipbone.

  “Because I’ve got you now. That’s all that matters. Right now, right here, you’re mine.” His voice didn’t hold a controlling note, nothing that hinted that he meant he owned me or could dominate me or could control me. Instead, he said it in a way that led me to believe it was the thing he was most proud of in the world. That I was his and he was mine. That we belonged to one another.

  When I’d brought up the Conn topic, I was sure we’d be discussing it until next week, but since he’d opened the door to the other hurdle that rested between us, I was leaping through it. “So that means you’ve gotten over that little thing you’ve been preoccupied with for a while?” I went back to examining his neck. “Something about a curse maybe?”

  I felt him watching me and waiting for my eyes to return to his, but they couldn’t. Not yet. If he saw into my eyes, he would see past them, and seeing past them meant seeing that shred of apprehension I felt about the curse and what it had done to the women the Armstrong men had loved. I didn’t want him to see my fear. He possessed enough for the both of us.

  “Wow,” he said with a soft chuckle, “you are really bulldozing through the bullet points I had planned for tonight.”

  His laugh wasn’t right. It was a little too high and contrived, which meant . . . I didn’t want to hear what he had to say next. I wanted to cover my ears and run away, but I that wouldn’t ma
ke what he was about to say any less true.

  “Yes, I’ve got you now, and knowing that will be the one thought that gets me through the hard times in life, and it will be the last thing I think of before leaving this life. That’s all I’ve ever wanted or can imagine ever wanting, knowing that there was a time when you wanted me too.” Chance’s thumb stopped drawing circles into my side. I might not have been looking at them, but I could tell when his eyes fell away from me. “But I can’t keep you, Scout.”

  There they were. The words I wanted to run away from, ears covered, before he’d uttered them. Those words were my enemy, and I wanted to pretend I’d never heard them. Even though pretending might have only been a child’s game, I wouldn’t let them be the end. I wouldn’t accept them without a fight.

  I took a breath and held it. As I let it go, I whispered, “Because of the curse.”

  Chance’s hand moved from my waist to cover my hand still around his neck. “Because of what the curse means. Because of what it brings. Because of what will happen to you as a result.”

  I wanted to stomp my foot or kick something or drive my fist through the mirror. I wanted to act like the impulsive teenager Chance had first gotten to know, but that wasn’t who I was anymore. I’d moved past those impulses in order to see what I was really hiding behind them. I kept myself calm, my breaths even, my strokes down his neck gentle. “You don’t even know it exists.”

  His fingers braided through mine. Realizing that if he got his way, I’d never feel his fingers through mine again made the touch that much more intimate, as bittersweet as it was fleeting.

  “Yes. I do.” His voice was so confident, so without doubt. “I know it’s there, just as confidently as I know what I feel for you.” He lowered our joined hands to his chest. “It’s inside me. I was born with it. It’s tied to me, and I won’t let something that’s inside me that I have the power to take you away from me.”