by Megan Crane
Funny how Jonah really didn’t want to play this out any longer. But he pushed on anyway. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You do.” Jasper ran a hand through the hair he’d always insisted on keeping too long—to make sure they were different, Jonah had always assumed, at a single glance. “I get it. We came from nothing, Dad was a dick, and we had too much to prove to him before he died like every other angry young man in the history of the world.”
“Unlike most of them,” Jonah pointed out crisply, “we proved it.”
“There’s more to life than making money,” Jasper growled at him.
“Says the man who made enough of it to retire at thirty-five,” Jonah retorted. He rolled his eyes. “You’ll forgive me if I find your sudden one-eighty on that topic a little suspicious.”
He took a long swig of the ale, and wasn’t surprised to find his brother glaring at him when he lowered his pint glass. What did surprise him was the way Jasper was doing it. As if he pitied Jonah. Deeply.
Which Jonah didn’t like much at all.
“There’s more to life than money,” Jasper said again, very deliberately, as if Jonah might have misheard him the first time. “And you can collect as much of it as you want. You can fill your life with snotty, passive-aggressive corporate girlfriends, who act more like one of your minions than any kind of partner. It’s not going to feed the empty thing inside you.”
Jonah let out a sigh. “Are you also a psychiatrist, in all your spare time? You wear a lot of hats up here in the hinterland, Jasper. You’re bordering on unrecognizable.”
“I’d tell you what would fill it, but you wouldn’t believe me,” Jasper said, his gaze hot and intent on Jonah’s as if he hadn’t even heard what Jonah had said. “You wouldn’t know how to believe me. And that makes me sad for you, but I spent thirty-four years taking care of you, Jonah. I’m taking care of me now. And I’m taking care of Chelsea, who believe me, I’m marrying, whether you like it or not.”
And there was that grin. Jasper’s friendly shark’s grin, that Jonah had seen a great many times in his life, but never directed at him. He told himself it didn’t make everything inside him freeze up. That it didn’t matter if it did.
“Which is the point I’m making here,” Jasper continued quietly. “If you sic your little Doberman girlfriend on Chelsea again—if Chelsea cries one more tear over something Gracelyn says or does—I’m not going to respect that you’re my brother and she’s your problem, the way I have been. I’m going to handle it myself. And I don’t think either one of you is going to appreciate that.”
Jonah had never wanted to punch his brother in the face as much as he did then, and the worst part was, he didn’t know if it was because Jasper had insulted him or that he’d insulted Gracelyn. Maybe both, a small voice inside him suggested. And he knew, dimly, that it was revolutionary that he cared about anyone who wasn’t himself or Jasper.
He felt his fingers curl into a fist—and then he had to check that urge and remind himself that this wasn’t why he was here. That he’d spent a week and a half working to get to this point with his brother and there was no point wasting it on a bar brawl.
He thought of Gracelyn, lying naked in his bed this morning with all her thick, dark hair tumbling around her. He thought of that smile on her face as she’d laughed at the stories he’d told her and then haltingly shared her own. And he reminded himself that he could do anything. Even use her the way he’d always intended to use her when they’d come here, despite how gross that felt tonight.
Because he knew the truth, he assured himself. He knew what he felt, and that had nothing to do with what was said here. Unlike Jasper, he knew reality.
Unlike Jasper, Jonah had never known anything but reality.
“I don’t understand,” he said, keeping his voice perfectly even, and it was the first time in his life he could remember it costing him. “Do you think I’m making a mistake with Gracelyn?”
Jasper let out a bark of laughter. “Of course not. Every man dreams of his only brother hooking up with a vicious, fanged creature, who likes to use other people as her chew toy. By all means, Jonah, keep it up. But when she tears you up and spits you out, and you can count on it, she will—don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
There was a slight shift in the crowd behind Jasper then, and Jonah knew before he looked. He knew. He felt it deep in his bones, like fate. But he looked anyway, and there she was, a little bit early for the dinner they’d agreed to have here at FlintWorks tonight. His beautiful Gracelyn, who deserved so much better than this, standing right behind his brother and clearly waiting for Jonah to defend her.
He saw the very second she understood that he wasn’t going to do that.
“Let me return the favor,” he said to his brother instead, looking back at Jasper then and ignoring the furious, spiked thing that tore at him from the inside out. “You married Marlene in this same haste, if you’ll recall. You didn’t want to hear that trophy wives tend to look a little bit less like a prize when you want more from them than just standing around, looking pretty on a shelf somewhere. You made me promise never to let you act so foolishly again.”
Jasper went very, very still.
“Don’t compare Chelsea to Marlene, Jonah.” He sounded conversational, casual even, but Jonah could see the murder in his eyes. “Don’t ever do it again.”
“The only comparing I’m doing is you to you,” Jonah replied calmly. While other people might look at an obviously angry Jasper Flint and see a man to steer clear of, Jonah only saw his little brother. And it would be a bitterly cold day in hell before he’d let his little brother take him in a fight, no matter how big a man Jasper might think he was these days. “You walked away from more money than most people ever dream of making—certainly more money than we ever dreamed of making. You got divorced when your trophy wife cheated on you with the personal trainer you paid for. You relocated from a big city to a tiny little town in the middle of rural Montana. From a giant mansion in Preston Hollow to a studio apartment above a bar. You went from corporate America and oil fields to artisanal beer and the local rodeo fundraising committee. Now you want to marry a high school history teacher and what? Run for Mayor of Nowheresville?”
“I believe that position is currently filled,” Jasper bit out. “But I’m not ruling it out. I like it here.”
“They have names for this kind of thing,” Jonah said gently. Kindly, even, though he doubted his brother would appreciate it at the moment. “You’re a little early for it, but then, you always were quick on the draw. It’s called a mid-life crisis, Jasper. Or sometimes even a downward spiral. Why the hell else would you wake up one morning and decide you needed to live out your life in downtown Mayberry?”
“This is not my crisis, it’s yours.” And Jasper’s voice wasn’t hot, or lazy, or even angry. It was as direct as the way he stared at Jonah then, like they were strangers to each other. Something cold seemed to sweep over Jonah, turning him to ice where he stood. “You’re my brother. My twin. You know I love you. But I can’t be all things to you. You have your girlfriend, I guess. And we have other family—”
Jonah was appalled then and didn’t try to hide it. “They’re not our family. Why would you mention them?”
“They’re Mom’s family. They’re our sisters. More than that, they’re coming here.” Jasper glanced at the watch on his wrist, and then back at Jonah, and the look in his eyes was painful. It hurt. “They should be in town within the hour. Chelsea’s a big fan of roots. Family in all its forms. And it turns out, so am I.”
“I’m your family.”
“You are,” Jasper agreed quietly. “And it’s the only reason I didn’t kick your ass and rip that woman of yours in half. But I’m not playing this game with you any more. This is the future. This is my future, and you can either take part in it and support it or you can get the hell out of it.” He lifted his hand when Jonah started to speak. “This isn’t a debate, Jonah. You don
’t get a vote.”
And by the time he’d recovered himself, Jasper had turned and walked away, disappearing into the heedless, happy crowd all around them while the band kicked into an old Bob Seger song and the world kept right on turning.
But worse, so had Gracelyn.
Chapter Six
‡
The sun was still out, but the shadows were long when Jonah pushed his way out of the bar and onto the street. There were already too many people wandering around the town, he thought, and the rodeo hadn’t even officially begun. Tourists snapping pictures. Locals taking in the festive atmosphere.
And he was like a stranger inside himself after that conversation—as if Jasper was a limb and he’d hacked himself off.
Jonah felt something like dizzy.
But there, walking quickly toward the hotel with her head down, between a couple of grinning cowboys and an overexcited brace of teenaged girls, was Gracelyn.
And Jonah couldn’t process what Jasper had said to him. He couldn’t seem to look at it straight, not any of it. The only thing he could see was the way Gracelyn had stood there looking at him in that crowd, an awful sort of bruised acceptance in her dark gaze, completely unlike the woman he’d come to know.
Earlier, he’d pulled her to him in the entryway of their suite when they’d been on their way out. He’d already had her in the shower that afternoon, long and soapy and sweet in ways he wasn’t ready to acknowledge, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself where she was concerned. She’d looped her arms around his neck and tilted her head back in that half-challenging, half-seductive manner of hers that made his pulse pound, thinking about it now. He’d wanted to taste that little smile of hers, trace it with his fingers, learn it with every sense he had.
He’d settled for a taste, picking her up and wrapping her legs around his waist. Then, when she was high against him and holding him tight, he’d walked with her. She’d laughed against his mouth. And when he’d toppled them both over the arm of the longer sofa and deep into the cushions there, her dark brown eyes had sparkled so bright, he’d felt it like fireworks in his own chest.
He still did.
And that had been before he’d lost himself deep inside of her and heard her sigh out his name like a song into his ear.
Jonah couldn’t bear the thought that he’d ruined that, too.
He caught her outside the hotel’s front door and moved her out of the flow of traffic, and he didn’t care that the people around them did that double take when they saw him. He didn’t care that this was a small town and his every move would no doubt be reported back to Jasper and discussed endlessly. He wouldn’t have cared if there were tabloid reporters camped out to get a piece of him. He only cared about that look of stunned misery on Gracelyn’s face and the way she refused to meet his gaze.
For the first time since he’d met her.
“You’re going to have to look at me sooner or later,” he said quietly.
He wanted to plant his hands on either side of her head, back her into the brick wall behind her and kiss her until she smiled again, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Something in the way she stood there, like she’d been this fragile all along but he hadn’t noticed it, stopped him where he stood only scant inches from her.
Jonah shoved his hands in his pockets and told himself to be patient when it was the last thing in the world he felt capable of doing. His heart was too big for his chest, suddenly, like a heart attack in the making—but he knew, somehow, that his condition wasn’t medical. Not yet.
I’d tell you what would fill your heart, Jasper had told him, but you wouldn’t believe me.
Jonah shoved that aside. And then Gracelyn looked at him, her dark eyes glassy and haunted, and that was a whole lot worse.
“I knew you had a plan,” she said, very matter-of-factly. He hated it. Jonah wanted to throw back his head and howl like something wild. His hands bunched into fists, but she kept going. “I knew you were using me to execute it. I signed up for it! There’s absolutely no reason I should feel like you betrayed me in there.”
“But you do.”
She nodded, short and convulsive. “I do.”
“Gracelyn . . . ”
She waited for a moment, as if maybe he could fix this somehow if he had the right words. But he’d never had the right words. He’d never needed words. His father hadn’t heard a single thing anyone said, and Jasper had never needed them.
Or maybe he had, Jonah thought then—that possibility like a punch to his gut—and he’d never understood that until now.
But that didn’t help him here. He wasn’t sure anything could.
He reached over and slid his hand over her cheek, letting his thumb trace over that sulky mouth that he knew, now, could drive him wild. He wanted to take some measure of comfort from the fact she leaned into his hand, just slightly, but that miserable thing in her eyes, stamped across her face, told him there was no comfort here.
“Do you know why I’m called Gracelyn?” she asked. Jonah blinked. Gracelyn smiled, but it was a hard quirk of her lovely mouth. Worse, she pulled her face away from his touch. “My mother was only a kid when she had me. Eighteen. She had also been high through what few high school classes she attended.” Her smile sharpened at the look on his face. “Oh, don’t worry. That was her harmless weed phase. She wouldn’t upgrade to the hard stuff for a few more years yet.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
It was a plea, and she ignored it.
“She wasn’t much of a student,” Gracelyn confided. “She thought that was the name of Elvis’s magical mansion down in Memphis and she wanted me to be magical in the same way.” She laughed, and the raw sound made him tense. “She knew exactly what my life was going to be like. She had it all planned. And she was disappointed when she figured out how the name was really spelled, but not as disappointed as she was when she discovered I was a whole other person with a set of my very own thoughts and opinions, and not very magical at all.”
“I take it there’s a message in that story?” he asked, feeling too tight, too on edge, too much.
“I’ve never told anyone that story,” she said, too much emotion in her voice, but she didn’t seem to notice it and he couldn’t seem to do a thing to stop it. “And I’ve always, always hated Elvis. I’m no corporate attack dog, Jonah,” she threw at him when he was very nearly tempted to laugh at the Elvis crack. “If this debacle has taught me anything, it’s that I need to stop denying my roots.”
More roots. Jonah was tired of all the damned roots.
“I own my past,” he told her then, his voice too hot. Uncontrolled. “I know exactly where I come from. An angry man with very few skills and less money, and the woman who abandoned him and her two young sons in the bargain. What more do I need to know? There’s a difference between acknowledging your roots while choosing to move on from them, and letting them choke you and trip you and drag you down into the dirt.”
She stared at him, and he didn’t know if he’d been talking to Jasper or to her. All he knew was that she was only a few inches away from him and it felt like miles.
“How would you know?” she asked quietly. “It sounded a lot like you have a whole branch of your family you’ve never even met.”
He wanted to rage then. Howl again, and louder than before. He wanted to tear off the top of the world and make it tremble—or maybe that was just the way it felt inside him, then. And he could only think of one thing on the planet that might make him feel any better, and she was looking at him in a way he really, really didn’t like.
“Come on,” he said, his tone abrupt. But he couldn’t seem to help that, either. “Let’s go inside. This is pointless.”
“Then I think you’re missing the point,” she said, very distinctly, her eyes trained on his. “Because you gave your brother a choice and he chose the woman he’s going to marry.”
He felt his jaw tense. “I came after you, not him.”
Gracel
yn made a scoffing sound. “Because you knew you could catch me. I’m a sure thing, aren’t I?” She pulled in a breath, and everything was dangerous, everything hurt, and he couldn’t look away. He couldn’t stop this. He couldn’t keep either one of them safe. “But I’m betting you knew that when you called me into your office, didn’t you? I’m betting that’s exactly what you were looking for. An ambitious little would-be Doberman with more desperation than sense.”
Jonah actually took a step back. He was reeling and he thought if he touched her just then it would all tangle and knot and destroy him, and he had no idea if he’d survive that. He had no idea how he’d survive any of this.
“Stop,” he said, but he didn’t know if he was talking to her or to himself. There were volcanoes under Yellowstone National Park a mere hour or so south and he was sure he could feel them inside of him, boiling over, getting ready to blow. “You know. You know I—”
She stared at him. She waited. Jonah stared back at her, stricken.
He could hear the music from his brother’s brewery. He could hear cars and pick ups passing by on the street behind him. He could hear the sounds of a town gearing up into its festive weekend all around them, weaving in and out of the last of the day’s light. He could hear the shifting, lethal tectonics inside of him, the seismic disaster he was terribly afraid had already taken place.
And he didn’t finish that sentence. He didn’t know how.
He still didn’t have the words.
Her delicate face crumpled slightly, just slightly, and then smoothed out again so fast he almost thought he’d imagined it. Almost—but the pit in his stomach told him otherwise. She swallowed, hard.
And when she met his gaze again, it scalded him alive.
“But this isn’t really fair, is it?” Gracelyn asked softly. “You’re not the only one pretending. You’re not the only one hiding yourself away in work, because it hurts too much to feel. It’s hypocritical to act like I’m not just as bad as you are.”
