Rain Shadow Book 4 (The Barringer Brothers)

by Tess Oliver

  “What did he say? Did you tell him we might head his way?”

  “Yeah, he said it’s fine. I guess the guy he was sharing the boat with left the job early. His wife had a baby on the way. It’s cramped quarters, but there are a few open bunks. He’s working on some bridge near the Port of Los Angeles.” He smiled at me. “Not going to be quite as convenient as this place.”

  Angel and the horse came around the back of the barn. Her long dark hair hung wild and unruly on her shoulders as the breeze pushed it around her face. She looked content but then riding on a horse always seemed to produce that same expression.

  “I guess you haven’t told her about leaving this place.”

  I shook my head but couldn’t draw my gaze away from her. She dropped down off the horse and led it into the barn.

  He laughed quietly.

  “I’m glad my misery amuses you.”

  Gage stood from the railing. “I mean the girl is fucking amazing, but I just can’t believe how deeply you’ve gotten yourself into this.”

  “That’s only because you haven’t had this happen to you yet. It’s like having the wind knocked out of you but in a good way. You wake up one morning and realize everything in your life has changed. She invades my every thought, Gage. It’s weird, but it’s like we’ve been connected for years. I can’t explain it.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “I just hope if anyone ever knocks the wind out of me that she doesn’t come with a wicked grandfather.”

  “Definitely leave that part off the list when you’re looking for the right girl.” I looked toward the barn. “I need to talk to her.” I headed down the steps.

  “So much for my advice on giving her space.”

  I glanced back at him. “Just wait. Wait until it happens to you.”

  Angel was carrying the saddle to the rack as I stepped into the barn aisle. She hoisted it up onto the metal bar jutting from the wall and then stared straight ahead as if the saddle held her interest.

  I moved closer. “This is all new to me, Angel.” She looked down at the ground as I spoke. “I’ve never had someone who means so much to me that I can’t think straight or make good decisions. You’ve got me spinning, and the only thing I know, the only thing that is clear to me, is that I don’t ever want to lose you.”

  She still hadn’t looked at me as she walked back to the horse. She grabbed a brush from a bucket and ran it brusquely over the horse’s coat. I wasn’t making even a dent in the cold wall she’d put up.

  “All I can say, Angel, is you just have to forgive me.” She bit her lip as I spoke and continued grooming the horse. “Please, just forgive me.”

  She dropped the brush in the bucket, unhooked the horse from the crossties and led it out of the barn and away from me.

  I walked back to the house feeling shittier than I’d felt in a long time. Jericho was just shuffling down the hallway as I walked inside.

  He smiled. “Whoa, you look as if you just got stuck in the rain with your cotton candy.”

  “Not now, Jericho.”

  “She’s still pissed at you?”

  “Drag that bad leg into the kitchen and get the fuck out of my face.”

  Gage had caught my harsh words and came to the kitchen doorway. Jericho’s mouth had pulled tight and his fists were balled at his sides.

  I shook my head. “Didn’t mean that, Richo. But we need to get ready to leave here. There’s room for us on Seth’s boat.”

  “Neither of us have ever been on a boat,” Jericho said. “I don’t think it’s a good plan.”

  Nothing, it seemed, was going to go my way. “How the fuck is it possible that you two haven’t been on a damn boat?” I couldn’t seem to stop myself from taking it out on Jericho, but he’d stepped out of the hallway at the wrong time. And sometimes his cocky smile just got on my nerves.

  “Uh, we lived in Nevada.” His tone was making my blood boil.

  “So? Uh,” I said purposely to mimic him, “Lake Mead, the Colorado River, fucking Lake Tahoe.”

  He smacked his palm against his head. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot about those champagne and caviar cruises we took along Tahoe’s shore on our cozy family vacations at the resort.”

  “It’s not my fucking fault you grew up in a shit hole.” There was nothing in my head that could throw the brakes on the harsh crap falling from my mouth. My fingers were curled in tension. Gage saw this coming to a head, but he didn’t stop it.

  “It’s not my fucking fault that she knew me first,” Jericho yelled. “I loved her long before you even knew she existed. Then you came along and fucked it all up.”

  “She wasn’t in love with you.” And as that last syllable fell from my mouth, his fist came at me. I didn’t duck from it. I deserved to be nailed straight on, and something inside of me said take the punishment.

  I took a faltering step back and shook the shards of light from my vision. He hit me again. I bounced off the wall. A painting of the ranch ripped from its hook and fell. I threw myself at him. We gripped each other like two fighters in a ring. I thrust my fist into his stomach, and he stumbled sideways as the bad leg gave out on him. He slammed into the console table and my grandmother’s favorite lamp rolled to the floor. Gage walked calmly over and righted it.

  My head ached. “This is stupid, Richo.” I lowered my hand to him. He grabbed it and jumped up. Then he swung his fist into my side. I felt the pain of it all the way through my gut. He lunged at me before I could recover. In a rolling heap of arms and legs, we crashed through the screen door, breaking off the latch and nearly ripping it from its hinges.

  The dogs scattered from their naps as we rolled off the porch steps, simultaneously grunting in pain as the edge of each step ground into our backs. Jericho’s elbow swung back and hit me squarely on the nose. Blood dripped from it, and I swiped at it with the back of my hand. My head was swimming from the impact. In the distance, I heard Angel scream.

  Jericho was as spent as I was, but I’d hurled some really asshole remarks toward him and he wasn’t done with me. And he was fucking tough too. I’d been professionally trained at the academy, but he was holding his own. He was free to continue, but I was done hitting him. He’d been through enough, and I didn’t need any other points against me in Angel’s eyes. He pushed to his feet but then dropped back down in pain. His leg was hurting him. Through the sweat and blood and haze that hadn’t cleared from my head, I saw Angel running toward us.

  Chapter 13

  Angel

  “Stupid, stupid men,” I muttered under my breath as I raced toward the porch. And worst of all, Gage seemed to be just standing there watching the whole thing as if he’d been watching a movie. He grabbed me around the waist as I reached Jericho and Luke. Luke’s face and shirt were covered in blood. Jericho gripped his leg in agony. A bruise had started to form around his eye.

  I tried to pry Gage’s arm from my stomach, but it was like an iron clamp. “Dammit, Gage.”

  “It’s over, Angel. Let them be.”

  I peered up at him, nearly as angry at him as at the two bloodied numbskulls sitting in the dirt.

  “This might sound like something you don’t want to hear right now,” Gage said, “but I think this really needed to happen. Seems like it’s been brewing for awhile. Otherwise, I would have stopped them.”

  For a man who showed little emotion, he had a profound grip on other people’s motives and feelings. I relaxed, and he lowered his arm.

  Luke was the first to push to his feet. He walked over and offered Jericho a hand, which he took after a long moment of hesitation. Jericho winced as Luke helped him up. There were no words exchanged between them. Luke pressed his hand against the blood that dripped from his nose, and Jericho hopped on his good leg up the steps.

  I followed them inside and
went to the kitchen for ice and wet cloths. Luke was leaning against the kitchen counter spitting blood into the sink. He peered up at me through unfocused, gray eyes. Jericho plopped down hard onto a chair.

  I searched in the freezer and found a frozen steak buried in the back. It looked as if it had been there for years. I handed it to Jericho. “For that eye.” He winced as he pressed it against his face.

  I soaked a kitchen towel with water and handed it to Luke, but he waved it away and walked out. He headed across the yard toward the riding pen. He leaned against the pipe railing, took off his shirt and used it to wipe the blood from his face. Then he tossed it on the ground.

  I watched him from the kitchen window. I’d seen his face at the height of despair, on the night that his memory had returned, and the expression he wore now, while not as intense, reminded me of that terrible night.

  “Just give him some time to cool his heels.” Gage grabbed some orange juice from the refrigerator. He sat across from Jericho. “Shit, I wondered where that damn steak had gotten to.”

  Jericho held it out on his palm. “Do you want it back?”

  “Nah, you keep it.” He pointed to his own eye. “That’s going to be pretty once all the color comes out.”

  I ran the faucet and started washing the breakfast dishes. I watched Luke from the kitchen window, feeling pangs of guilt for how coldly I’d treated him earlier. He hoisted himself up on the top of the pipe corral and scrubbed his hair with his fingers. It stuck up in black spikes all over his head. He looked miserable and incredibly lonely. My heart ached for him. Just one night being upset and away from him had made me miss him terribly. In the barn, he’d asked for my forgiveness, but I hadn’t been ready to give it to him yet.

  I dropped a cup in the sink. It bounced and the handle snapped off. I lifted it up and showed the two pieces with a look of apology.

  “It was my least favorite cup,” Gage said.

  I turned off the water. “Maybe I’ll wait and do those later.” I sat next to Jericho. “It’s been one hell of a morning.”

  Jericho hid behind his steak and avoided looking at me. I pulled his hand away from his eye. “Look straight at me, Richo, so I can check the size of your pupils.”

  “Put your doctor’s suit away. I don’t want you to look at my fucking pupils.”

  I grabbed his chin and turned his face to mine. I knew Jericho better than anyone, or at least I thought I did. Luke had told me more than once that Jericho’s love for me was not the sibling type of affection I felt for him. Now, I saw that truth in all its bloody and bruised glory. I pressed my palm against his face, and he winced as I touched a bruise. I stared at him. I didn’t need to say anything because just as I knew him, he knew me. He’d already come to grips with my love for Luke long ago. But what Gage had said made sense. This fight, as much as it had freaked me out to see, had needed to happen.

  “Well, Doctor Angel, am I going to live?” The question should have been comical, but it sent a shiver down my spine. None of us knew for sure if we would outlive Dreygon’s ruthless spree of insanity and murder.

  “I think you’ll be even dopier than you already are, and I think the girls will like that black eye.”

  He looked at Gage and nodded. “It’s true. A black eye is always good for at least one decent blow job.”

  I smacked Jericho’s arm. It was the only place that wasn’t bruised or battered.

  “Just speaking the truth.”

  I got up and walked back to the window.

  “Is he still sitting there?” Gage asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Gage stood and walked over to the window. “I think his heels are cooled enough.”

  I nodded and headed out the screen door. The latch had been broken during the fight, and it swung back and forth on its hinges. I walked down the steps. Luke lifted his face. He was a mess. He watched as I strolled toward him. Last night, I’d told myself that I wasn’t going to talk to him for several days to let him know just how upset I was, but I had no willpower when it came to Luke.

  He dropped down from the top of the corral. His gaze didn’t leave my face, and with only fifty feet to go, my feet took off at a run. I pressed myself against his chest and his strong arms wrapped around me. We didn’t need to say a word to each other. We were so entwined in each other’s emotions, it was as if we could read each other’s thoughts.

  After a few minutes of standing in his arms, I peered up at his face. Streaks of dried blood crossed his skin, and two dark rings were forming beneath his eyes. “How does it look? Crooked?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “He hit it straight on.”

  I pressed my head against his chest again. “It’s a good thing. Now, I won’t have to throw you back for having a tweaked nose.”

  “Throw me back? Isn’t that what you do when something is too small?”

  “Well, I know that’s not a problem.” I smiled up at him. “Seriously, let’s put some ice on it. You might need to see a doctor.”

  He lowered his arms and took my hand. “You’re the only doctor I need, and frankly, I miss our little first aid sessions back in that old dusty cabin.”

  We turned and walked toward the house. The horses grazed in the pasture. They’d looked up at one point to see what the commotion on the front porch had been and then they’d returned to their grass. Chance’s tall withers towered above them all as he buried his nose in the green blades.

  “It’s amazing how totally happy we were in those first weeks, even with the occasional confrontation with Dreygon,” I said. For a long time, I’d convinced myself that it could all just stay the way it had been, that Luke could live with us in the compound and acclimate to our way of life. Of course, I’d had no idea who he was, and I was biased and blinded by the fact that I’d hardly ever been out of that world. Now that I’d left it, I couldn’t ever imagine going back.

  Luke looked over at me. “Since I’ve promised to tell you everything, we were talking last night, and we thought it might be a good time for all of us to leave Montana.”

  I stopped. “Really? But I love this place. And Chance is here.”

  “I’m sure Gage won’t mind keeping him until things smooth out.”

  I laughed. “Smooth out? What a quaint way to put it. It sounds like you’re still sugar coating everything for my benefit.” We kept walking. “But where would we go?”

  “Seth is off the coast of California. Most of the time he rents a houseboat and lives out by the job site. It’ll be cramped quarters, but it should be an adventure.”

  I glanced over at him. “Have you mentioned this plan to Jericho?”

  He hesitated. “Yeah, we were discussing the idea when the scuffle broke out.”

  I laughed again. “Scuffle? Seriously stop that, Luke. It was a brawl, not a scuffle. Aside from throwing his fist at a perfectly good nose—”

  He reached up and flinched as he touched his nose. “Actually, that was his elbow, I think. And it’s a hard fucking elbow at that.”

  “Anyhow, what did Jericho say about living on a boat?”

  “Just that you two had never been on one. He didn’t seem too enthusiastic about it.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. He lied. We’ve been on a boat. His dad used to love fishing, and he had a little outboard motor fishing boat. He would take us out on Winnemucca Lake.”

  “Why would he lie?”

  “He was trying to talk you out of it, and telling the truth was a bit embarrassing. Jericho has a terrible problem with seasickness. Motion sickness of any kind, actually. I think it must have something to do with his inner ear. He’d spend the whole fishing trip hanging over the side of the boat, but he wouldn’t have missed that time with his dad for anything. Poor guy, the one thing his father liked to do, that had nothing to do w
ith the club, made him sick as hell.”

  “Shit,” Luke muttered, “he should have just told me.”

  “Anyway, I think that idea is out.”

  We reached the house and went inside. Gage and Jericho were munching on potato chips and laughing about something. They’d formed an instant bond, and I was glad for Jericho. He’d lost everyone close to him in just a short span of time.

  Luke and I pulled up chairs at the table. “You should have told me you get seasick. I would have understood.”

  Jericho tried to look pissed at me, but his black eye was seriously hampering his facial expressions.

  “I don’t know why you’re embarrassed,” I said. “It’s a perfectly natural and common problem.”

  Jericho pushed back the chair but rather than stand and stomp away, he squeezed his leg with his hand to stop the pain. “Fucking leg.”

  “Hey, I’ve got some Vicodin from a pulled back muscle.” Gage walked to the kitchen cupboard that held aspirin and other items more suited to a medicine cabinet. He took out a small orange prescription bottle. “Take a couple.” He put the bottle on the table.

  Jericho needed no prodding.

  “So, what are you going to do?” Gage asked. “I think you should just stay here for now. There aren’t a lot of ways to sneak up on this place. I’ve cleared most of the tall trees and shrubs away from the house. There are a few extra guns in the safe.” He looked at Jericho. “While most people aren’t as skilled as Wild Bill over here.” He motioned with his head toward Luke. “I assume you can shoot.”

  “I can hit a target if it’s not moving too fast.”

  Luke stared at the side of my face, but I didn’t turn to look at him. “I know you hate guns.”

  I turned to face him. “I do hate them. But I can shoot one if I need to scare someone off. Dreygon gave me my first gun for my eighth birthday. Wasn’t exactly the paint set I’d wanted, but he thought it was appropriate.” His gray eyes rounded, and the dark rings beneath them gave him the look of a shocked raccoon. I smiled. “I could tell you stories about my childhood that would curl your toes, Reno.”