by Niki Green
“I can do that, but you might want to move in a minute unless you want a piece of his attitude.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can handle Brent. I’m just wonderin’ if you can?”
“I can hold my own.”
“I hope you can. Good luck.” Nick stepped to Carter’s side, saw Hayden cast him a questioning look and shook it off. The shit was about to hit the fan, and Nick had a front-row seat—he wondered if he really wanted one though.
“To tell the truth, I’m kinda upset about leaving town. Now that me and Peyton have called it quits I’d love to stick around and see how many men in this town line up to have a go at her.”
That was news to Nick. It was news to everyone. When the truth about Carter and Peyton fell from Carter’s lips, all the Kiel’s responded in turn. Hayden’s mouth fell open. Brent stopped dead in his tracks and turned to stare at Carter, who only smiled back at him and nodded his head. And Jason ran flat into Brent’s back when he stopped. It was a comical scene to say the least, but Nick knew the laughs were about to end.
“Peyton’s something to look at all right. All curvy in just the right places, places you and I both know every man in this town would give his left nut to see. I just wonder who’ll be the first to take our place? Wonder who she’ll compare them to in bed? Me? Or you?”
“You’ve made your point, now shut your fuckin’ mouth.”
“My mouth? It’s not my mouth you should be worrying about. It’s all these other fellows in town and their mouths. I can see them licking their lips now. Waiting in the wings to get a taste of Peyton James. I have to admit, it is something worth waiting—”
Carter never got a chance to finish his thought. Everything happened so fast Nick could barely keep up. Brent’s fist connected with Carter’s mouth a second before he could deliver his last pride-pricking word. Carter recovered quickly and returned the punch. It landed just below Brent’s right eye, but it didn’t stop his charge.
Brent and Carter both took hold of each other’s shirts and let their free fists fly. Somewhere between the third and fourth blow, Jocelyn entered the barn.
“What the hell’s going on? Stop them!” She tried in vain to step around Jason, but he wouldn’t let her pass.
“Let them go. This has been building up for years. Let them get it out. It’ll do them good.”
“You’re all crazy. A bunch of grown men beating the shit out of each other in a barn seems a little severe to me.”
Nick watched as she moved left and tried to duck under Jason’s arm—she didn’t get very far. Jason grabbed her, blocked her body with his own and moved her until her back was against one of the stalls and her front was against him.
“Would you rather them sit down and have tea and discuss this issue?” Jason’s tone had a laugh attached to it, and Nick thought for a minute, only a minute, that he was having a much better time containing Jocelyn than watching the action taking place on the floor of the barn—which is where the fight had ended up.
Brent and Carter rolled around on the ground, each having his turn on top and each landing a punch here and there.
“They’re hurting each other.”
Nick heard Jocelyn and saw the pleading look she cast toward Jace. It tore at his heart, and if he had been Jason at that moment he would have let her go and stopped the rumble.
“They’re supposed to. It’s a fight. Not a tea party.”
“You really think this is going to solve anything?”
“Seems to be.”
“You’re the stupidest bunch of men I know.”
“Believe me, honey. There are worse out there than us.”
“Just stop them.” Her pleading voice and her wide eyes must have appealed to Jason. Nick watched him release Jocelyn, turn and motion for him and Hayden to help.
They waited for Brent and Carter to roll once more so that Carter was on top, and then they pulled the man and his fists away from Brent. Nick and Hayden held Carter under the arms and moved him away from their still-fuming brother.
“You’re not going to talk about her like that. You hear me. If I ever hear you utter another word about Peyton, I finish what we just started and bury your sorry ass in the deepest hole I can find. You got me?” Brent charged at Carter once again, but Jason was there to hold him back.
“What do you care what I say or what I do as far as Peyton is concerned? She’s nothing to you. I’m just calling it like I see it. You’d do the same if you were in my shoes.”
“The hell I would. If I had been in your shoes I never would have left for months at a time leaving her alone. I sure as hell wouldn’t have put a ring and a promise on her finger for three fuckin’ years and then not be man enough to keep it.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t, but you never got that far did you? You tucked tail and ran before you got that far. At least I asked her to marry me.”
“Asked and doin’ are two different things.”
“What are you so upset for? Peyton’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”
“Because I love her, you sorry son of a bitch! She needs someone to love her and to be there for her and to take care of her even if she is a big girl.”
Nick wondered if Brent knew what he had said. He loved Peyton. Then. Now. Always. It had only taken an ass whoopin’ to get him to admit it.
“You love her?” Carter asked, and all of the Kiels, including Jocelyn, looked to Brent for an answer. He clenched his jaw, jerked his arms away from Jace’s grasp and nodded.
“Good. Stop being such an ass and go tell her.”
Nick and Hayden released Carter’s arms, watched as he stepped to retrieve his once-pristine hat from the ground and place it on his head. Once it was settled, he tipped it in Brent’s direction and turned to leave.
“Good to see you boys. Make sure he takes care of her.”
Nick and Hayden nodded in turn and let him pass and be on his way. He stopped only once to speak to Jocelyn who stood where Jason had left her and stared at the males in the barn in utter confusion.
“Ma’am,” Nick heard Carter say as he passed Jocelyn. She said nothing in return. After Carter left the barn all that remained was quiet. Jocelyn was the one to break the silence and asked the question on Nick’s mind.
“Now what?”
“Now I fix what I broke.” Brent moved to leave the barn and everyone stepped to the side and let him pass. He was halfway to the house when Jocelyn asked her next question.
“That’s it? That’s all it took?” She threw her hands in the air and then placed them on her hips.
“That’s it,” Jason confirmed.
“Well, somebody should have kicked his ass a long time ago.”
No one agreed or disagreed out loud with her statement, but Nick knew that all three of them agreed with her. Chase would have as well if he had been there. He would have probably kicked Brent’s ass himself if Carter hadn’t done it first.
“What happens if Peyton doesn’t want to talk to him? What happens if she tells him to take a flying leap?”
“That won’t happen,” Jason said with the utmost certainty.
“How do you know?”
Nick was wondering that as well. How did Jason know that Peyton wouldn’t reject Brent as he had rejected her?
“Because all of you women are the same. You love it when a man fights over you and shows you the manly side of him. You can say all you like that you want a sensitive guy, but in fact you want a man that will toss you over his shoulder and carry you to his bed and not let you out for days.”
“You think you know so much about women.”
“I do, honey—and don’t you forget it.” Jason ruffled the hair on the top of her head as he glided past and barely missed the kick she sent his way.
“Do you two agree with that fool there?”
“You gonna hit us if we say yes?” Hayden asked with a smile on his face.
“Maybe.”
Nick watched her cock her head
to the side and arch one of those auburn eyebrows at his younger brother.
“Then nope. I sure don’t.”
Nick smiled at that. Hayden rarely knew when to stop while he was ahead, but it looked as if he was learning. Having a woman around on a daily basis was doing him good—it was doing them all good.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Peyton’s walk took forever and landed her in her grandfather’s front yard. She had walked for miles searching for an answer to all of her problems and a solution that would make everything right. At the end of it though, when clarity was suppose to come, there was none to be found. That was just her luck. She just needed a little peace and quiet. She needed to forget all of the events leading up to this point.
She needed to forget Carter and their broken engagement. She needed to forget what people in Millbrook might say. She needed to forget the disappointment that would come with the news of her broken engagement. She needed to forget everything—especially him.
Some peace and quiet might be what she needed, but she didn’t find it. The screen door popped open and her grandfather appeared on the porch. He narrowed his gaze at her and wiggled his finger in her direction in an I-know-what-you’ve-done way, causing Peyton to inwardly groan.
The noise her boots made against the steps of the porch warned her grandfather to keep his mouth shut before she ever got to him. When she sat down in the swing beside him he simply cleared his throat and laid his arm across the back of the swing, allowing her to move her back against his side.
They sat this way for an endless amount of time, his side to her back. Glenn pushed the swing at a lazy pace, lulling Peyton’s mind and her insides. Closing her eyes to the setting sun that bathed them both, she let every thought of what had happened, what would happen, and what might could have happened float free from her mind. Through her sleeping daze she could feel her grandfather twitching and tensing behind her. He was getting restless. Might as well get it over with.
“Spit it out,” she finally told him after they had sat in silence for what seemed like forever.
“What?” The guilty tone attached to his voice gave him away. Stopping the swing with the toe of her boot, Peyton stood and perched on the railing of the porch.
“What’s on your mind, Grandpa?”
“Nothing,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and reaching to pick up the whittling stick he kept next to the swing. He couldn’t whittle for shit. He knew it. She knew it. He only did it to keep his fingers busy.
“You’re such a bad liar. No wonder you avoid Mama and Aunt Macy like the plague. They can smell a lie at fifty paces.” Peyton knew that for a fact. Even over the telephone her mama and Macy McCready could detect a liar from a truth teller.
“I was just wonderin’ something.” While he spoke, he raked shaving after shaving of the bark to his feet. He had been working on that piece of wood for years—it still looked just like a stick.
“Wonderin’ what?” Peyton rubbed her temples. She didn’t have time to play cat and mouse with him. She wanted to go home. To run, flee, retreat.
“Whose headlights I saw at your place the other night.”
Jerking her head to meet her grandfather’s gaze was not the best course of action. There he sat with those eyes, so like her own, looking into her soul for every secret she had. Recover, her mind shouted. Recover. Recover.
“You didn’t see anything at my place. You must have been dreaming.” Waiting for him to respond was awful. Peyton watched him turn his strategy around and around.
“I didn’t dream nothin’. I saw headlights.” He nodded his head one good time, and went back to shaving that damn stick of his.
“Tell me something, Pa. How is it that you can’t hear yourself fart, but you can see headlights from yards away? How is that possible?” Peyton watched his belly move as he laughed at her. He was evil, that was all there was to it. Evil.
“Well, it’s like this, your driveway sits perpendicular to my living room. So the other night while I was watching the news—”
“Cops, is not the news,” she interjected. He didn’t care.
“Like I said, I was watching the news and I saw headlights. So naturally I got up to see who it was. Couldn’t see the vehicle. Just the headlights.” Lifting his eyebrows, he threw the challenge at Peyton’s feet. She knew his game. He was giving her just enough rope to hang herself with, but she wasn’t into suicide.
“What was Cops about?” The statement brought a full laugh from his body.
“It was good. It was good.” He kept laughing at her and whittling away. “Funny thing though about those headlights. They got there around ten and they didn’t leave until around five that morning. Of course, by then the sun was starting to come up and I could see a little better.
“Did you stay up all night just to see who was at my house?” she regretted the words the minute they were out of her mouth. She’d hung herself.
“You messin’ around with him?”
“No.” She told the truth. She wasn’t messin’ around with him—anymore.
“Thinking about messin’ around with him?” A few heavier pieces of wood fell to the porch. Peyton kicked them away, waiting for the scolding that was coming.
“No, I’m not thinking about doing anything.” That was the truth. Anything to do with Brent was out of the question—he had walked away, again. She wasn’t about to have her heart trampled on a third time. No, thank you.
“You want to date him?”
“Up until an hour ago I was still wearing my engagement ring. I haven’t had much time to think about dating or who I may date when I do plan on dating.”
“Never did much care for that Nash fellow if the truth be told.”
“Grandpa!” The truth was news to her. To the best of her knowledge her grandfather and Carter had always gotten along.
“I don’t mean he’s not a good fellow. He’s just not good enough for you is all.”
“He was good enough for me, just not right for me. The two are different.”
“I never really cared for the fact that he left you alone like he did. He didn’t know how to take care of you.”
“I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
“Every once and awhile it’s nice to have someone to lean on, someone to take the weight off, someone to care—to take care. Back to those headlights.”
Peyton rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. His mind was like a three-year-old with the remote control—it flipped at will and with ease, always looking for what was most colorful.
“You say one word about the headlights or the vehicle that was at my house and I will tell Mama and Macy about that little squirrel cemetery you’ve got going on in the back yard.” The whittling stopped.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“They’re eating my pecans,” he countered, pouting while pushing his argument out.
“You hate those pecans. You bitch about those pecans and you bitch about the squirrels eating your pecans.”
“They sit in the attic all night eating them. I can hear them chewing. Drives me crazy.”
Peyton cocked her head and gave him a look saying she didn’t believe him. He couldn’t hear those squirrels even if they plopped right in his lap and munched away.
“Well, whether you love them or hate them, you’re not supposed to be shooting them. I would hate to have to tattle about that shotgun you keep loaded just for your little furry friends.”
“You’d tattle on me?”
“Damned right I would.”
He huffed and puffed for a second but never said anything. “I’ll make you a deal.” Catching his attention with the deal part, Peyton continued. “You keep my visitor a secret from my mama and I won’t tell about your aversion to the squirrels you seem to have.”
“Deal.”
He spit in his palm and then offered the spitty hand to Peyton. She shook his suggestion off. She didn’t want any part of that.
She lifted her form from the railing, bent down and kissed his smooth cheek before taking the steps quickly into the yard.
“Peyton.” His voice caught her before she got too far away. “Just do me a favor, all right?”
“What’s that, Grandpa?” She couldn’t refuse the ornery old man anything and he knew it.
“Just protect yourself.”
Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, she kept walking.
“I wasn’t talking about anything nasty.” His tone stopped her. “I was talking about your heart.”
Expelling a breath, she stepped between the shrubs in the flowerbed and laid her chin on the rail.
“Grandpa, my heart is under lock and key. Nothing can get to it. I won’t get hurt.”
“I hope you’re right.” He spoke to his hands and then to her.
“Grandpa, don’t worry. Because one thing you taught me was how to throw a right hook. I still remember.” Winking at him, she stepped lightly through the mulch and made her way back to her own home—her empty home. Evidently her explanation helped ease his mind. When she turned she saw him pick up his stick and begin whittling away. Laughing at his choice of hobbies made her feel better. She did whatever she could to keep his words from filling her head—protect your heart. That wouldn’t be a problem. Her heart was not the part Brent had wanted. She wondered now if he ever had in the first place.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Brent couldn’t help but watch the little dance taking place on top of the main bar at Big Jack’s. Five woman he knew, ranging in ages from about twenty-one to thirty-five, were standing on top of the thick, dark wooden surface and were all doing their best to shimmy and shake whoops and hollers from the crowd at their feet.
It was hard not to watch as they dipped and swayed and showed a flash of skin here or there, but it was even harder not to watch the figure behind the bar slinging beer bottles and filtering shots.
Even though the ladies on the bar were dressed to impress, showing a little leg and a lot of breast, she was fully clothed in tight, hip-hugging jeans and a white T-shirt that hugged her form and made his mouth water—his mouth that hurt like hell. Damn Carter and that forgotten left hook he had.
