Brother’s Best Friend

by Black, Natasha L.

  Making my move into his place—and his life—complete.

  Living in those in-law quarters for all those weeks had been both wonderful and painful. Wonderful, because I felt more at home than ever. And painful, because I’d been much too far away from Cole. But now, I had the best of both worlds. I woke up to Cole every morning. I got to enjoy coffee with him out on his porch. And I got to enjoy breakfast with Millie before spending my days making memories with the two of them.

  A win-win for everyone involved.

  Cole pulled back, but his kiss lingered against my lips. I sighed with contentment, then opened my eyes and found him staring at me. I loved it when he stared at me. It made me feel loved. Wanted. Cherished. Adored. I wanted that feeling to stay forever.

  I wanted this to be my life.

  “How did dropping Millie off with my mother go this morning?” I asked.

  Cole nodded. “It went okay. Ginny’s obviously worried. But Millie’s completely oblivious to what’s going on.”

  “It’s better that way. At least, until we know how this is going to sway.”

  “Oh, no. My mother’s going to prison.”

  “You don’t have any sort of sympathy for her? At all?”

  He shrugged. “Why should I?”

  I paused. “I don’t know. I mean, she’s your mother. You’ve heard her story. The grief she’d been going through. Her wanting some part of Millie’s life to keep Susie’s memory alive.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that she almost killed you, Layla.”

  I nodded softly before smoothing my hands down his suit coat. He looked dapper in it. And yet, it seemed like such an odd time to admire something like that.

  “Are you ready?” Cole asked.

  “Why do I get the feeling you don’t mean ‘ready to go’?” I asked.

  “I mean, Lance has told me if he has to, he’s going to call you as a witness to all this.”

  “I know.”

  “I can put a pin in that if you need me to.”

  “Like I told you, I’m more than willing to be on that witness stand. So long as you understand I’m not of the mindset to put your mother in jail. I think she needs help. Counseling. Maybe some sort of house arrest while she gets it. And if they ask me that, I will speak my mind.”

  He pulled me in for a hug. “I’d expect nothing less.”

  I wrapped my arms around him. “You think there’s a chance she’ll stop fighting the charges and take the plea deal?”

  “Not a chance. If she wants to argue her innocence based on some sort of psychological default, that’s her business. But your brother presented that plea deal to her and her lawyer on three separate occasions. She’s fighting it, so why not let her dig her own grave?”

  “Cole.”

  “What? Layla, I know this is new to you, but this is how my mother works. This is how she’s always been. Why do you think I was over at your parents’ place so much as a child?”

  I sighed. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you had to grow up with something like this. With someone like this.”

  He kissed the top of my head. “Have you given any thought to what kind of car you might want?”

  “No. Not really. I kind of get overwhelmed every time I go to do research on it.”

  “Well, our deal still stands. Okay?”

  I nodded. “Yes, yes. I know, I know. You can put the down payment on the car.”

  “So, no wiggling out of buying one just to keep me from paying.”

  I giggled, but deep down, I really was nervous about buying another car. Or, being behind the wheel of a car in the first place. Cole took my hand and led me down the stairs, and we made our way for his truck. He helped me up into it, like the gentleman he always was. Then, we headed to the courthouse to meet my brother who was waiting for us at the courthouse steps.

  What I figured would be an all-day affair was really an open-and-shut case. My brother came prepared. It helped that Holly’s lawyer had talked a bit of sense into her. The tactics of her defense changed. She no longer pleaded insanity, but instead tried to go with the “guilt-stricken mother” routine. She leaned heavily on the loss of Susie, something that made me sick to watch.

  The jury had been on our side, though.

  I didn’t know how Holly wiggled her way into a closed-door court, nor who she had to pay off in order to get it expedited on the court’s docket. All I knew was that after four hours of testimony and two separate breaks, the jury deliberated for only twenty minutes before sentencing Holly to two years in prison for the DUI as well as fleeing the scene of a serious injury accident.

  As much as I figured there would be rejoicing, there wasn’t. Cameras and photographers were waiting on the courthouse steps for all of us to emerge. Microphones were stuck in our faces as Lance paved a way through the throng of media outlets that had gathered. I shielded my face. Cole wrapped his arm around me and quickly guided me to his truck. It didn’t shock me that they wanted quotes, especially with how prominent Cole’s family was in the area.

  But some of the things those reporters shouted gave me pause.

  “How does it feel to know your family’s company has been bought out?”

  “Anything you want to say to the board that bought out your mother?”

  “Will you take her place in your family’s business now that it’s vacant?”

  “Do you think your mother will do the entire two years in prison?”

  “At this time, I have no comment. If you need questions answered, feel free to reach out to my attorney, Lance Harper. Thank you,” Cole said.

  We got into his truck and sped off, leaving my brother to field the questions. I turned around and watched him stand in front of the crowd of hungry news analysts and bloggers, waiting anxiously for him to say something.

  “He’ll be fine. Lance knows how to handle himself,” Cole said.

  But his words did little to soothe me.

  “Did the board of investors really remove your mother from the family company?”

  Cole took my hand. “I found out last night.”

  “So, your mother has nothing.”

  He shook his head. “Everything’s gone for her now.”

  I paused. “I feel bad for her.”

  “Because you’re a good person, Layla. She could learn a thing or two from you.”

  “Maybe she will, with all this time on her hands.”

  “I can only hope.”

  He brought his hand to my lips to kiss. “Anyway, I don’t want to focus on that. Right now, I want to focus on us. On Millie. On where we go from here.”

  “Where do we go from here?”

  We came to a stop at a stoplight, and we turned to face one another.

  “Well, I figured tonight, all of us could do dinner at the house. I could whip up something nice. Everyone could come over and hang out. Maybe do something out on the back porch. You know, get our family groove back before you go back to work in a couple weeks.”

  I smiled. “A family groove. I like that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Then, it’s settled. Dinner at the house. Everyone’s invited. Then, we can retire for the evening and enjoy the holiday season.”

  I leaned over, kissing his cheek. “Sounds like a plan, handsome.”

  “Sounds like perfection.”

  The End

  Faking It (Sample)

  Enjoy a free sample of one of my other novels.

  1

  Raul

  I scanned the expanse of open ground before me. I could see clear to the tree line that marked the boundary of my property -- or of what should be my property. Unless Papí got his way, the ranch would never be mine.

  I’d spent six months and thousands of dollars trying to break the will, find any loophole in those terms. But like Papí’s opinions, the will was ironclad.

  That wasn’t the problem at hand though. The problem at hand was the pair of calves that hadn’t f
ollowed the round up to the sheds. A storm was rolling in despite what the weather report on my phone said. I had grown up on the land. I knew for damn sure when the sky was changing and when trouble is about to rain down.

  I had sent Miguel, Pablo, and Kirby back with the herd to get them under cover in time. I turned back for the calves. Sure, I had thousands of head of cattle, but those two mattered. I wasn’t a man to waste anything, and I wasn’t leaving my livestock loose on the ranch while I hunkered down out of the rain. I nudged Mantilla, my favorite horse, into action. We would search until we found them.

  My Papí would make a joke about finding lost lambs, about shepherds or loyalty or something. I shook my head at the memory, wishing he was here. I’d give him a piece of my mind and then share a bottle of whiskey with him one more time. The rain started to fall the way it always did in this part of Texas -- all of a sudden and hard enough to hammer nails. I tugged at the brim of my hat and rode on, skirting the usual pastureland and heading southeast toward the river. Wind whipped up, slinging rain my face like a volley of arrows. I wasn’t a mile on when I saw the two calves huddled near some scrub, lowing in panic. I whistled, got my rope from its place on my saddle.

  In no time, I had them headed to the sheds. Mantilla picked up the pace at the first hint that I’d let her hurry toward shelter and feed. We made quick work of the distance back to the outbuildings. Soon I had the calves under roof. I dismounted and led Mantilla into the stables so I could remove her tack, comb her and towel her off. “A man takes care of his animals,” I remembered my grandfather always saying to me. Sure, we had plenty of money and plenty of staff to do that for us, but it was a matter of pride that you do it yourself when it’s the animal that bore you on its back all day. So I set to work, though my clothes were drenched from the pitiless rain.

  Pablo came up to see me and sat down on a bucket because he knew me well enough to realize I wasn’t going to let him take over caring for Mantilla after a ride.

  “You find the lost ones?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I never doubted it. You know you could go dry off. I been in charge of these stables four years, and I’m not gonna neglect your favorite mount. Tia here is my old friend, aren’t you Tia?” he said, scratching under Mantilla’s forelock.

  I worked in silence for a few minutes. I knew what was coming, but I wanted to make him ask. I wasn’t about to offer information about the most personal blow I’d ever taken. They say that the people you love can hurt you worse than your enemies every time, because they know your heart. I always thought some bitter asshole came up with that. Until the day I sat in the law office and listened to them read his last will and testament, the controlling old bastard. I would have laid down my life for him from the time I was five years old, but I’d be damned if I’d lay down my free will for him, especially after he was dead.

  “So are we gonna talk about this? Or are you pretending you can get out of it?” he said.

  I raised an eyebrow at him.

  “C’mon, caballero. Sometimes you take the strong silent type a little too far. Watched too many of them Clint Eastwood westerns with Antonio up at the big house.”

  “When you call it the big house instead of the main house, it sounds like you’re talking about jail,” I remarked.

  “Don’t get salty with me. I taught you to ride a bike.”

  “True,” I said, “but that don’t give you the right to talk about my personal problems.”

  “No, but the fact is, I’m your best friend so that gives me the right. And another thing, when your personal problem is the difference between me keeping this job I love and me driving my pickup clear across Texas looking for another stable this size that needs a man like me to run it, you’re damned right it’s my business,” he said.

  He never raised his voice, but his tone had a thread of steel in it then. He grew up on Santiago land same as me, but I was the owner’s grandson and ward, while Pablo was the foreman’s boy. A handful of years older than me, better with animals than anyone I ever met. The best friend I’ve ever had. And I owed him an explanation, no matter how private I wanted to keep it.

  “Not much to say about it,” I said, “Either I get married and inherit, or the ranch gets sold out of the family. Maybe taken apart and sold in pieces.”

  The words were gravel in my throat. Just forming the syllables was like trying to swallow knives. The idea of having to marry someone, just anyone, to secure what was rightfully mine stuck in my craw. The only thing worse was letting Brock Delany, the executor of the will, sell it off in parcels to the highest bidder and watching Santiago land go out of the family forever. Watching him count every dollar the ranch brought on the auction block and divvying it up between me and some second cousins and a handful of charities. I’d spit on that money. It meant nothing. The land was what meant something, to my Papí, to my dad, to me. That’s why it was a slap in the face that day to learn it wasn’t mine free and clear as I’d always thought it would be. He’d raised me to be the head of the Santiago family business, the expansive cattle ranch and the luxury leather goods company his grandfather had based in Italy before he met my Cuban great-grandmother and established Santeria on tens of thousands of acres in west Texas. Antonio had been born here, had taken a Mexican wife, Isabel, and raised my father. Our blood ran in this soil, in that river.

  I was raised to kill any man who tried to take Santiago land from me. I could do it in a heartbeat, natural as breathing. I just never thought a woman would stand between me and my birthright. And not just any woman. A bride. The one I had to secure as soon as possible or forfeit Santeria and all it meant.

  He knew there was no way I could let it go. He had me over a barrel, so he could make his final act a posthumous demand. Get married and stay that way. If I didn’t make a verifiable legal marriage by the deadline, or if that marriage were dissolved within a period of three years, the ranch and all the Santiago holdings would be sold and dispersed. I shook my head. I wanted to curse, long and colorfully. But it wouldn’t do any good. The only thing that would make a difference was a marriage license from the state of Texas.

  “So that’s it then? You gave up trying to break the will?”

  “No. But I see how this ends. It’s time to face it.”

  “So you’re getting married?”

  “There’s no other choice,” I said grimly.

  2

  Allie

  “Come on, Gussie, it’s to make you better,” I cooed to the grouchy Chihuahua. I injected the anti-inflammatory medication into his IV and managed to back away before he could bite me.

  “I know it’s no fun being sick. But we’re gonna help you out, and you can go home to your mama tomorrow if you keep getting better and better!” I said.

  I was happy that the dog was improving, and it would be so hard and confusing to be away from home and his people, staying at a strange place where the people had needles and everything smelled weird. I felt bad for him, for all the pets who had to be hospitalized, but there were so many that were worse off, who didn’t have caring owners who got them the help they needed. It would be good when Gussie got to go home, partly because he tried to bite me even if all I did was feed him or give him fresh water. I had to do it because the assistants didn’t like his attitude. So in this case, I bit the bullet and took over his care myself. I was the vet tech on duty, and it was my responsibility to see that the animals received the proper treatment. It would have been irresponsible to make lower ranked staff with less training deal with an animal they were skittish around. Plus, I was pretty sure Gussie and all his Chihuahua brethren fed off the fear of us lesser beings.

  I tossed him a treat and marked off his dosage timing on the chart. I heard the door chime and remembered that Madalyn had gone to lunch early. The assistants were in exam rooms, and the other tech was in surgery with one of the doctors. I washed my hands and dashed out front to the registration desk. I smiled brightly to greet whoever was coming in.<
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  Before I could launch into my ‘Welcome to St. Francis Animal Hospital, my name is Allie, how may I help you?’ spiel, I lost my breath the way you do when you miss a step going down the stairs. He was something else. Timeless, classically good-looking. Not in a cute, boy-band way. Like a man, like six foot plus of man with black hair, dark eyes, and an impeccable business suit. Whoa, is what I wanted to say. Also, come to mama—which sounded hilariously creepy, so I didn’t say it.

  “Is there something I—oh no!” I broke off, my gaze finally reaching what he held in his arms.

  A small dog with matted fur shivered in his arms, covering his obviously-designer sleeves with a dusting of grayish white hairs.

  “Has he been hit by a car?” I said, rounding the counter in no time.

  He met my eyes, shook his head, “I found him wandering around. He doesn’t have a collar, and he’s too skinny. I was on my way to an appointment with my attorneys when I saw him. He was limping along the street.”

  “Here,” I said, leaning down to the dog, holding my hand out, palm down so he could sniff it, “It’s okay, buddy,” I said in a low voice, not meeting the dog’s eyes.

  My voice was low and soothing. I didn’t want to scare the little guy by being aggressive. He sniffed my hand, but he was still shaking.

  “Do you want me to put him down?” the man asked.

  “No, just hold him close but not tight. Did he growl or nip at you when you picked him up?”

  “He cowered away,” he said.

  “Okay, if you’ll go sit right over there, I’ll sit by you and calm him a little so I can take him.”

  He did what I said. I got a kick out of the fact that the unbelievably handsome man in the suit did exactly what I told him without question. I wanted to laugh. I felt like a total badass, like I should put on leather and snap a whip against some knee-high boots. I pushed that thought aside and slid into the chair beside him. I shushed the dog, petted him on the back where his hair was matted and dirty.