His Wicked Mouth

by Jessica Mills

  Daddy would want me to go home, take care of the farm, and hold up my end of the responsibilities. There was nobody else to do it. It wasn’t like there were other members of the family we could fall back on.

  I knew if I asked, Sawyer would do anything he could for me. He would take every second of time that he had and devote it to handling what needed to be done on the farm. He would even bring along some of the other Montgomery boys to make sure it got done well. But I didn’t want to ask him to do that. He had already given up so much time and had to ask Wade to take on the beginning of his dude-ranch experience so he could be at the hospital with me.

  I needed to get back home.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let me just talk to the doctor and the nurses really fast so they know to call me if anything happens. I’ll meet you in the waiting room.”

  “Good,” he said. “You’re making the right choice. As stubborn as you are, you’re doing something right.”

  I made a face at him and he smiled. It was good to have a guy friend I could rely on as much as him. I knew I could trust him with anything and that nothing would ever come between us.

  When he got me home, Bridget was already sitting on the front porch since I called her as I left the hospital. The kindness and love I felt from both of these people was so much it made tears come to my eyes. Sawyer reached over and wrapped his arms around me, holding me close. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. I knew everything he wanted to tell me right in that hug.

  I got out and waved as he drove away. When I walked up onto the front porch, Bridget gave me a tight hug. I could see a bag of takeout from one of my favorite restaurants sitting beside her, along with a basket. A piece of cloth concealed what looked like several items inside.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Just a few comforting goodies for you,” she said. “I know tonight’s going to be a bit rough on you, and I wanted to do anything I could to make it easier. Come on inside and I’ll show you.”

  We went in and brought the takeout into the kitchen. I got plates and silverware out and placed them on the table so we could dish everything out. Carrying plates loaded with food, we went into the living room and sat on the couch.

  Bridget placed the basket on the table in front of her and reached under the piece of fabric. She pulled out the first item, a new fleece blanket rolled up and tied neatly with a satin ribbon.

  “Something to cuddle up with,” she said. “Especially if you can’t fall asleep and come out here to watch TV.”

  “It’s so soft,” I said. “And I love the color.”

  “I thought you would,” she said. “And it goes perfectly with,” she reached under the fabric and pulled out something else, “a good movie.”

  She had a copy of one of the comedies we used to watch when we were younger. I laughed and took it from her hands, flipping it over so I could read the back of the case.

  “Wow, I haven’t seen this in so long. Remember how we used to watch it all the time and quote the lines to each other?”

  “Of course, I do,” she said. “I think half our conversations for a while consisted only of lines from this movie.” She reached into the basket one more time. “And finally, something to relax you and make you feel more comfortable.”

  She pulled out a large glass jar candle, and when she took the top off, I could smell the sweet, spicy scent even from where I was sitting. I breathed it in deeply.

  “Cinnamon, my favorite,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “Hopefully, it will help make you feel a little better while you’re here.”

  I was insanely grateful for her. It was obvious she had put a huge amount of thought into picking out these items for me, knowing what I would need to help me get through the challenge ahead of me.

  “Thank you so much,” I said. “You have no idea how much I appreciate you doing this for me. And for you just being here. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like to spend the night alone while my father is at the hospital. I can’t even remember ever sleeping here by myself.”

  “You won’t have to,” Bridget said. “I promise to stay with you until your father’s able to come home. You don’t have to be by yourself.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that,” I said.

  “You’re not asking me to,” she said. “I’m telling you that’s what I’m going to do. I can just as easily get to work from here as from my place. There’s no reason you should have to be by yourself at a time like this. I already have a bag packed in the car with everything I need to be here for a few days. Hopefully, he won’t be there for that long, but however long he is, I’ll be here.”

  I choked back tears and leaned over to rest my head on her shoulder. We sat there like that for a few seconds before I got up, brushed away the tears that were lingering in the corners of my eyes, and walked back into the kitchen. I came back with a beer for both of us and dropped down onto the couch.

  “Let’s get this movie going and eat,” I said.

  Bridget grinned. “Absolutely.”

  We ate dinner and drank the beer as we laughed our way through the movie. It was a good distraction. By the time it was over, I was feeling a bit more relaxed and at ease. I got another beer and leaned back against the arm of the couch.

  “So, how are things going with Garrett?” Bridget asked, lifting one eyebrow and giving me a smirk.

  I laughed and shook my head. “Really?”

  “What? Don’t you want to keep your mind off everything? And I want to hear all the details.”

  I took a swig of my beer. “Well, that’s just the thing. I want to take my mind off that, too.”

  Her face dropped. “Oh, no. Did he do something? What happened?”

  I turned an unamused expression toward her. “It bodes really well that you go straight to asking if he did something rather than just asking what happened.”

  “He is Garrett Montgomery. His track record isn’t the most exceptional thing in the world. When I hear you say you want to take your mind off him, that’s kind of the first thing I’m going to think of.”

  “I don’t want to take my mind off him exactly. It’s just… well, I told Sawyer what happened between Garrett and me when we were in Las Vegas.”

  “Oh,” Bridget said.

  “Yeah. So now I’m worried about what’s going to happen when both of them are home and Sawyer confronts him. Because you know he’s going to.”

  She grimaced and nodded. “It won’t be pretty.”

  Chapter 27

  Garrett

  It was killing me not to go see Annabelle. I knew she was bound to be beside herself with worry and fear. Her father was her whole world, and the commitment she had shown taking care of him was testament enough to how devastating it would be for her to lose him. To even come close to that had to be one of the worst moments of her life. All I wanted to do was be near her, to help her through it and be there for her.

  But Sawyer was there with her.

  If I went over there when Sawyer was there, it would just cause more stress, and that was definitely not going to help Annabelle. She needed her best friend, and like it or not, that was my brother.

  All I could do was wait around at home and hope that I could figure out a way to ask about her when he got back that wouldn’t let on what was going on between us. That was a conversation for a different time.

  Figuring I needed to do something, I went to work cleaning up around the house. My brothers were usually pretty neat, a holdover from our father’s insistence on staying tidy, but the last few days had been a bit busier than normal and some things had fallen by the wayside. Since I didn’t really have any duties on the ranch itself to get to, I figured I could use my time to get the living spaces back in order.

  The living room was looking damn near perfect when I heard a truck pull up in the driveway. Since everyone else that was supposed to be home was, that could only mean Sawyer was back from the hospital. I went into the kitchen
to grab a glass of water and was coming out when the door slammed open and an angry Sawyer scanned the room, finally settling on me. He marched toward me with purpose, and I didn’t have time to set my glass down before he shoved me halfway across the room.

  I landed hard on my ass, knocking a chair out of the way and slamming my elbow on the corner of a table. It hurt like hell, but I didn’t have time to react to it out of sheer surprise and the well of anger that burned inside me.

  “What the hell, man?” I yelled as I scrambled to my feet. Bruises and scrapes that had yet to heal were already screaming, and what would assuredly be a knot on my elbow was threatening to join the party.

  “Annabelle,” he yelled, not giving any further information than that. He didn’t need to. I knew by my brother’s reaction that she must have told him. But I didn’t know how much.

  “What about her?” I asked, immediately realizing it was the worst possible response.

  “What about her?” he repeated. “This is exactly what the problem is. Exactly.”

  Sawyer pounded past me and into the kitchen, where he gripped the island with both hands, seemingly trying to control his anger.

  “What problem?” I yelled back at him, coming into the room. “That two adults are acting like consenting adults without your approval?”

  “You son of a bitch,” he muttered, almost as if he was talking to the butcher’s block top of the cutting board on the island. “You know how precious she is to me. You know how important she is to me. And you just couldn’t stand it, could you?”

  As he said the last few words, rising in volume and emotion, he yanked the heavy block from the table and threw it at me as an exclamation. I ducked just in time for it to sail harmlessly over my head, but I made the mistake of looking back to it, where it had broken part of the wall. By the time I looked back, Sawyer was on me, tackling me to the floor.

  I rolled away, pushing him away. The last thing I wanted was to fist fight with my brother. But if he kept charging me, I had no other response than to hit him back.

  “Sawyer, stop,” I pleaded, backing up a few steps. They would be the only steps I would take away. If he kept coming, I was going to have to stand my ground. Brother or not.

  “Stop? Why don’t you stop? Why don’t you stop being… you!”

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, the rage now building in my own voice. I knew what he meant, but I wanted him to say it. To spell it out for me so there would be no doubt. That way, when I knocked his lights out, there could be no denying he said the words he knew would lead to it. It would be his own damn fault.

  “You know what it means,” Sawyer said. “She deserves better than you, Garrett. And you had to take advantage of her.”

  “Take advantage of her?” I yelled. “It was completely consensual, if you must know. If anything, I was the one who was hurt. I was the one who was lonely. I didn’t take advantage of her.”

  “So your defense is she took advantage of you?” he said, throwing his arms up in disgust.

  “No, no one took advantage of anyone. We are adults, Sawyer.”

  “Adults. Yeah, you sure have been acting like an adult, haven’t you?” Sawyer said mockingly. “Where have you been? Oh, that’s right. I know where you have been. Dicking around in Las Vegas! Getting into fights and gambling your money away and staying drunk.”

  I shut my jaw tight, not wanting to say something out of anger. I knew Sawyer was pissed, and I felt like maybe he had the right to be. She was his best friend, and they had been best friends as far back as I could remember. And his words hurt, but they were true. I had skipped out on the family for a long time.

  “I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” I said, “but I am back now. And I can’t tell you what’s going on with me and Annabelle.”

  “Why?” Sawyer said, suddenly in my face. Our noses were inches apart and he was bouncing from one foot to the other. He wanted to take a swing at me and was daring me to say something to allow him that. I had to keep my cool.

  “Sawyer,” I said, trying to calm him.

  “Why? Answer me, dammit.”

  “Sawyer, please.”

  “She deserves better than you. She’s a good woman, Garrett.”

  “She is a good woman,” I agreed.

  “What’s your game plan, huh?” Sawyer asked. “What are you planning on doing? Just going to have a little fun? Going to have her around for a little bit and get in her pants some? And then when you’re bored with her, you’ll just throw her away, maybe hightail it back to Vegas? Is that it? Just leave me behind to pick up the pieces when you made a mess?”

  “Shut up,” I said, my voice low and quiet. “I’ve let you say what you wanted to say, but you need to shut up now.”

  “Why? You going to hit me?” Sawyer said, his face red and eyes wild with anger.

  “Maybe,” I said as cool as I could manage. “You know why I went to Vegas, Sawyer?”

  “Oh, I have some thoughts on that,” Sawyer began, but I cut him off.

  “I went to Vegas because of this.” I gestured around the house and back at him. “At the expectation of me by everyone in this damned town. Even my own brothers. It’s been the corner I have been painted into for as far back as I can remember. Someone has to be the bad brother. Someone has to be the black sheep. Someone has to be the fuckup. Well, here I am.” I had gotten louder as the emotion took control. I could feel it building inside me like black sludge, whirling in a centrifuge, producing negative energy and ready to burst.

  “Don’t give me that crap,” Sawyer began but I wasn’t listening anymore. I had done my listening. Now it was his turn.

  “Shut up!” I pushed Sawyer so he was a few feet from me, and before he could charge, before he could light the match that would send this argument up in flames, I spoke again. “It’s all anyone has ever expected of me. All anyone ever allowed me to be. I am the bad one. Garrett Montgomery, the black sheep of the family. That’s me. The drunk, the gambler, the womanizer, the useless piece of shit. That’s me, Sawyer. And all my life, I dealt with that. Before you were born, I dealt with that. I caused too much trouble. I caused too much stress. I was the one who didn’t fit in with the rest of the boys.”

  I slammed my hand against the wall, punching a hole through it, but I didn’t care. It was better it was the wall than my brother’s face.

  “Quit your bitching,” Sawyer said. “I don’t want to hear it. You made your bed. Nobody forced you to drink. Nobody forced you to gamble. You did that on your own. Nobody forced you to go to the bar and look for a fight. You did that. That’s your fault. And nobody asked you to go sleep with Annabelle. You did that. You knew how I would feel about it, and you did it anyway. Because, as usual, the only goddam thing you care about is yourself.”

  I lunged at him, wrapping my fingers around his collar, and we tussled to the floor. We both threw punches, aiming for ribs and stomach rather than the face. It was the way brothers fought, at least us. You reserved punching people’s face for other people, but when it was your brother, you avoided remaking their mug.

  Rolling to get an advantage, I tried to get upright, but he threw me sideways, and I landed on my right knee, which had been swelling and in pain since the fight with Roy. I winced as I hit the floor, and Sawyer jumped up, slamming his elbow into the side of my head. I put up my dukes but was met with a few hard blows to my stomach and knew I had to do something to get out from under him or else I’d end up black and blue for the next few weeks.

  Someone was yelling, and suddenly, the weight and pressure of Sawyer leaning down onto me to lay in blows was gone. I scrambled to my knees and saw Cassidy holding him down.

  “Stop it,” he screamed at the struggling Sawyer. I saw that at some point I must have hit him in the face as his eyebrow was bleeding. So much for the rules. “I said stop it, both of you.”

  “He slept with Annabelle,” Sawyer yelled as he tried to escape his brother’s grip, but Cassidy had him in a modified
chokehold that held him in place without actually choking him out.

  “I don’t care. We can sort that out when you two are calmed down, but for right now, you need to stop it. Garrett, get the hell out of here. You two need to calm down.” Cassidy looked at me. I nodded and stood. “Just take the van. That one’s in my name too. Just go.”

  I walked over to the rack on the wall where the keys hung and grabbed the ones marked “van.” Looking back over my shoulder as I opened the door, I saw Cassidy letting Sawyer go and Sawyer shoving himself into the couch, his back to it but not looking at me. We might not have been done, but he was done for the night as long as I got out of his sight.

  Shutting the door behind me, I got in the van and drove out deep into the ranch, with every intention of finding a place somewhere quiet and sleeping in the backseat.

  Chapter 28

  Annabelle

  I woke up early on Friday morning like I always did and headed out to start my work on the farm. My first stop was to the chickens like usual. They clucked and shouted their greeting, and I gathered up their eggs before continuing on. It felt like any other morning until I headed back into the house.

  That was when it hit me that I wasn’t going into the kitchen to make breakfast for my father. Instead, I was preparing a meal for myself and for my best friend who had spent the night at the house to keep me company and make sure I weathered the experience.

  That thought made me emotional all over again, but I did my best to push it out of my mind and concentrate on one step at a time. If I just focused on the next thing in front of me, I could get that done and not have to think about anything else.

  That started with making breakfast. By the time Bridget got up, I had a selection of pepper and onion omelets, toast, hash browns, and fruit spread out across the kitchen table. She looked at it and lifted her eyebrows at me.