by Nicole Helm
“Sit down, Michael,” Mrs. Armstrong said quietly.
“You’re hugging the woman who punched me in the nose, and I’m supposed to sit down?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Armstrong snapped, and it was that snap that had Rose sinking into the couch herself, that snap that had her leaning into Jack when he slid his arm around her shoulders.
“What did you say about your brother?” Mrs. Armstrong asked, her voice shaking.
“Mom.”
“I allowed you and Madison to come on this trip because I thought you would make amends. I thought you would at least try.” Her voice broke on the last word, but she pulled herself together. “I did not expect this of you, but maybe I should have. Now, what did you say to your brother?”
“He’s been harassing Madison. He has!”
“Answer your mother’s question,” Mr. Armstrong bit out. He moved to stand behind Mrs. Armstrong, putting his hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“He said it was Jack’s fault he was in that grenade blast. That it must be his own dumb fault for getting hurt,” Rose supplied, because she wasn’t letting Mike weasel out of anything.
Though she immediately felt bad when Jack’s arm withdrew from her shoulders, when both Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong’s faces paled.
“He provoked me! He—”
“Stop,” Mrs. Armstrong rasped.
“Mom!”
“You are not the victim here, Michael. My God, what on earth is wrong with you?”
“What?” Mike blustered.
“You’ve gotten everything you ever said you wanted. The farm. A family. It all came to you, whether you deserved it or not, and you sit here so certain you’re the victim. I don’t know where I went so wrong.”
There were tears on Mrs. Armstrong’s cheeks now, and Rose felt a little like crying herself. She didn’t know why. She’d witnessed the way families could be so much worse than this, but the clear pain on Mrs. Armstrong’s face was too much to bear.
Jack stood and stepped toward his mother. “Mom, it’s just words. It’s just…” He touched her shoulder, clearly struggling with seeing her upset. “You didn’t go wrong. We were just bickering.”
Rose understood he wanted to soothe his mother, understood in a way she hadn’t before that Jack would always do that—soothe and save the people he cared about at the expense of himself.
He loved his family. He still wanted to make things all right for them, but it wouldn’t fix this.
“Jack.”
He glanced down at her, mostly blank, just a hint of the hurt lingering in his eyes. “Remember what we talked about this morning? About talking?”
There was something a little haunted in that blue gaze then, and she knew this was hard for him. He could forge ahead with his new determination all he liked, but going back and fixing old hurts wasn’t quite so easy.
Jack took a deep breath, never taking his gaze from her, and she wanted to believe he was drawing something from her—strength. Certainty. Anything. So she stayed. If she could know that she’d given him something valuable before she had to blow all this up, then maybe it wouldn’t kill her to have to walk away.
Chapter 21
Jack stared down at Rose. She had her hands clasped together as though she were begging him for something. He knew she wasn’t, but her dark eyes were imploring and…
He’d been the one to talk about talking making things better. His life had gotten immeasurably better in these past few weeks, but he didn’t know how to talk to his brother. They’d been at odds so long, always in competition. Always keeping score and protecting their softest parts from each other.
Rose was right though. Nothing healed if you didn’t acknowledge the wound existed. Maybe he and Mike would never be best buddies, maybe Mike would never change, but this wasn’t for Mike.
It was for himself. “Okay, it isn’t just bickering,” Jack said, his voice feeling like a raw scrape against his throat.
“Jack—” Mom reached out to him, but Jack turned to face his brother.
“You slept with my fiancée and got her pregnant—while I was deployed, and then you dare come here, to the place I’ve built a new home, and claim that my injuries were my own fault.” He bit back the rest of what he wanted to say while you sat at home like a coward and fucked my fiancée.
But this wasn’t about Mike. It was about Jack.
“Clearly you have no respect for me. No brotherly love.”
“Or a conscience or a heart,” Rose muttered under her breath. When Jack slid her a glance, she shrugged. “Sorry.”
“The point is, I don’t get too worked up about the things you say to me. I think they stem from your own insecurities. They’re not about me.”
Mike scoffed, but Jack kept talking.
“I don’t know that I’ll ever forgive you for what you and Madison did, but you’re still my brother. As I told Madison when she insisted on talking, I’ll treat you with respect because of that. I hope you can find it within yourself to do the same. For our parents’ sake, if nothing else.”
Mike’s gaze darted from Mom and Dad to Jack, to Rose, and then at the floor. “Fine. Whatever.” He stood, straightening his shoulders and fixing a glare on his face.
“With one caveat,” Jack added. Because this couldn’t be just a bunch of bluster before they fell back into the same old pattern of lashing out. “If you ever talk to Rose again the way you did this morning, you’ll crawl away with a lot more than a sore nose.”
“Oh,” Rose added. “And the same goes for if you ever say anything remotely like what you said to Jack. I’ll target something a lot more painful than your nose.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Just keep your girlfriend away from me, and stay away from my wife.” Then he stalked out, baggie of ice still on his face.
Jack let out a long sigh. He doubted that would satisfy Mom, and he wasn’t sure it satisfied him. He’d said what he needed to say though.
“I don’t condone violence,” Mom said carefully. “I’ll trust that you’ve all come to an agreement of sorts and it won’t happen again. Now, sit down, Jack. We have a few more things to discuss.”
Which did not bode well, but Jack moved back into his seat next to Rose on the couch. She laced her fingers with his without looking at him, and it felt like they were a team. He realized that wasn’t something he’d ever felt with Madison. It wasn’t that he hadn’t loved her at the time. It had just been different. Young and naive. What he was building with Rose wasn’t that. It was the chance for something deeper, stronger.
“I was going to discuss this with you later, but since we have you alone, it might be good to do it now.”
“That sounds ominous,” Jack muttered.
“I talked with Monica.”
Jack stilled. Well, he hadn’t expected that. “What were you talking to Monica about?”
Mom took a deep breath, coming to sit in the chair next to the couch. Dad moved behind her.
They were a unit. Always had been. Jack couldn’t remember ever seeing them be overly affectionate with one another, but they had always been each other’s helping hand and support.
“It wasn’t to try and figure out what you’d talked about with her. I know therapists can’t do that, but I wanted to… Since you said she had experience with military families, I wanted to talk to her for me.”
Jack couldn’t work up a response to that. He’d only told his mother about Monica because she’d asked. They were not a family prone to trusting therapy, but his mother had gone of her own volition to talk for her.
“I was worried I had failed you. I wanted to get Monica’s advice on the best role of a mother in this situation.”
“Mom, how could you have failed me?”
“I let you have your space, and I should’ve pushed. I should’ve demanded you come home. I shouldn’t
have let you waste away in that rehabilitation center with only a few sporadic visits.” She glanced around the room and smiled. “Except, coming here, seeing you here, I’m glad I didn’t demand you come back. I just wanted to know I was being the mother you needed.”
“You’ve always been the mother I needed.”
Mom looked like she was going to cry again, and he hated this. Even knowing it was good and healing, he hated watching his mother deal with pain.
“I asked Monica what I could do for you, and she said the first step is to ask. Not everyone is in a place to ask for what they need, but she thought you were. And that I should ask. So I’m asking. Both of you. Because I see how much Rose has helped you.”
Jack pushed off the couch and kneeled in front of Mom. A tear was slipping down her cheek, but he couldn’t let that stop him. Talk—the thing that hurt like hell and made him feel vulnerable when so much of the past ten years of his life had been about becoming invulnerable.
Now, on the other side, it strengthened him. It made things better. It healed.
“I think space was exactly what I needed. And this place is exactly what I need. And though she’ll undoubtedly argue with me later, Rose was exactly what I needed. I’m incredibly grateful for…” He winced, the kneeling not good for his leg, and shifted onto his butt, his shoulder against his mother’s knee, like a kid—and he supposed, in his mother’s eyes, that’s what he’d always be.
“The fact of the matter is I was in a dark, ugly place after the accident and finding out about Mike and Madison.” He stared at his hands—odd to realize he’d come out of it, really and truly, when not that long ago, he’d been wallowing in it. “I’d lost hope in pretty much everything, but there was nothing you or Dad or anyone could’ve done about that. It was something time and mountains had to heal.”
He glanced at Rose, who was staring wide eyed at her feet, and he knew she was feeling out of her depth, wishing she wasn’t here, but she didn’t get up to leave. She might not like that she was getting involved in his world, but she wasn’t running away, and that made him smile.
“I think the reason I could survive that dark place and come to this point is because I knew—even with everything that happened with Mike and Madison—I knew you and Dad were there. I knew I had a home to go to if I needed it. I didn’t want to, not then and not now, but when you know that safety net is there, I think you can be in a really bad place and survive it.”
Mom made a little sobbing sound, and he reached out for her hand, giving it a squeeze. “I need this. This place and the foundation we’re building. It’s important to me to have a chance to help other guys in that same dark place. To give them a home, especially if they don’t have one.” He glanced over at Rose, who was looking a little teary herself. “And Rose is important to me,” he said, not missing the way she flicked her gaze to his, her panic as clear as day.
He’d stamp it out. He would.
“Well,” Mom said, her voice a squeaky, watery thing. “My goodness, it’s awfully late for me not to be dressed. I should head back up and get ready for the day.” She squeezed his hand before releasing it and getting to her feet.
He stood too, and Mom looked up at him, so many things on her face that she’d never allowed to show before—pain, hurt, love.
“I love you, Mom.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “I love you too, Jack.” She pulled him into a tight, fierce hug. She released him, smiling a wobbly smile before she and Dad left the room.
Hand in hand.
Once they were gone, Jack glanced at Rose’s very still form. There were things he could say, things he wanted to say, and talking could heal, but you had to be ready.
Rose wasn’t ready.
“Do you really think Madison is still in love with me?” he asked instead.
She frowned at him, and he was maybe a little validated by the spark of jealousy that he saw there. “No, actually.”
He raised his eyebrows at her and she sighed. “I think Mike thinks she still has feelings for you, or at least he’s insecure enough to worry that she does. I don’t think a woman would marry a guy that she doesn’t at least like if she’s still in love with his brother. Even if she is knocked up.”
Rose let that sit there, something like a challenge in her gaze, making it clear that wouldn’t be a reason for her to stay with him either.
It grated, he wouldn’t lie, but that wouldn’t change his course of action. “When will we know?”
“I should get my period next week. If it’s late, I take a test,” she said, not even pretending she didn’t know what he meant.
He nodded as she got to her feet, but he didn’t let her say anything else, didn’t let her make any excuses to leave. He pulled her close and pressed his mouth to hers.
She was a little stiff when he’d pulled her close, but she relaxed into the kiss, leaning against him, kissing him back, cupping his jaw with her hand.
Christ, he was in love with this woman. In a way that very nearly hurt. Because he didn’t know how to trust himself to love someone when he’d mistaken love so spectacularly before.
With Rose, he didn’t know how not to love her. He pulled away, and Rose frowned at him.
“What was that for?” she asked, weariness and wariness in those dark eyes.
“It wasn’t for anything, Rose. I just wanted to kiss you.” Someday she’d get it.
He hoped.
* * *
Rose had to get her ass off Revival Ranch and back to her bar, but every time she tried to sneak away, some Armstrong grabbed her and thrust her back into the fold. This time it was Vivian, and Rose didn’t bother to hide her irritation.
“I have a bar to run, and I’ve barely slept.” What was the point in fake Rose now that she’d punched Mike in the nose?
Vivian’s eyes widened, a beautiful blue just like Jack. “You have a bar?”
“Crap,” Rose muttered. “Jack didn’t tell you guys what I do?”
“I don’t know that it ever came up. Although now that I think about it, I think he just always changed the subject when it did.”
Rose rolled her eyes. Not that she could blame him. The Armstrong family didn’t strike her as the bar type. The other night at dinner, Gabe had grabbed a beer, and Rose was pretty sure she’d seen Mrs. Armstrong level a glare at him so strong that he’d actually put it back.
“Are you going to tell your mother?”
“My mom, who’s literally never had a sip of alcohol in my presence or probably her entire life? No, I think I’ll keep that to myself.” Vivian’s mouth curved into a lethal smile. “On one condition.”
Rose winced. “What condition is that?”
“Take me with you.”
“With me?”
“Let me come along. Let me see your bar. Oh my gosh, you have a bar. That is beyond cool.”
“Don’t you want to stay here and hang out with your family?”
“I see my family all the time,” Vivian said, already pulling Rose toward the cars. “I mean, not Jack, but you know. I’ve never met you. I’d like to spend time with you. One-on-one. Get to know you in a way I can’t with my mother lurking.” She winked. “Please, please, please, please.”
Rose knew she should say no. She shouldn’t keep twining herself into Jack’s family, into their memories here. But much like she was powerless against Jack when he was all sweet and earnest, she was powerless against Vivian’s effervescent enthusiasm.
“Okay. You’re coming up with your own excuses though, because I’m not lying to your mother.”
Vivian squealed happily and then bounded off toward Mrs. Armstrong.
Jack approached. “What was that about?”
Vivian was talking animatedly to Mrs. Armstrong, waving her arms.
“She wants to come to the bar.”
> “Christ.”
“Don’t worry, she’s not going to tell your mother what I do.”
Jack studied her. “I don’t care if she does.”
“Yes, you do. Vivian told me your mother’s never had a drink in her entire life. I can’t imagine her approving of a bar, and you want your mother’s approval.” I want your mother’s approval, moron that I am.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Jack said contemplatively before he flashed her a grin. “She might have had some champagne at her wedding.”
Rose laughed in spite of herself.
“We’ll have to tell her about Pioneer Spirit eventually,” Jack said, watching her with those patient, assessing eyes. He was waiting for her to argue with him. He was looking for some sort of reaction, and though she had one, she wasn’t going to give it to him.
If he thought she didn’t know he was waiting her out, wearing her down, then he didn’t know Rose Rogers. She was going to do the exact same—wait him out. Run him down. If he didn’t catch on soon that she was not the woman for him, then, well…
Well, that was something to figure out once she knew whether or not she was pregnant. Because no matter how much she told herself she wasn’t, couldn’t be, the possibility sat there in her brain like a tumor.
“Anyway,” Rose said, breaking eye contact. “I’ll take her to the bar, give her a tour, maybe a little job to do. Just have someone come get her before the bar opens, so I don’t have to explain to your mother why some grizzly rancher was hitting on her.”
“I’ll collect her before four.”
“Thank you.”
Vivian bounded back. “Did Rose tell you she’s going to take me to her bar and let me poke around?”
“Yes. Be a good little girl and don’t get in her way.”
Vivian rolled her eyes.
“I’ll come pick you up in an hour or so.”
“No rush!”
“You’re out before the bar opens, kid,” Rose said.
“What?” Vivian fisted her hands on her hips. “You realize I am twenty-four years old.”
