by Nicole Helm
The conversation with Ben had helped some as well. It wasn’t the kind of closure Shane would have preferred, but Cora had been right when she said it sounded like progress.
But part of being able to believe that was Cora herself. He would never have come up with the idea of talking openly with someone on his own, and he certainly never would have done it without a nudge. Cora had swept into his life and rearranged something he didn’t quite understand yet. She’d eased some tenseness that had been inside of him.
He walked with Cora and Micah to their car, listening as Micah chattered on about the level he’d beaten on the old-school arcade game inside. Gavin and Boone were waiting for Shane back at his truck across the lot. Molly had taken a ride back to the ranch with Lou and Em a little earlier.
“Well, guys, thanks for coming along. We enjoyed the extra company.”
“It was cool,” Micah said, and Shane was noticing more and more he didn’t even try to tamper his enthusiasm. “Mom usually makes us get carryout and eat at home.”
“Well, I don’t carry quarters around, so you wouldn’t be able to play all those games anyway. We’re lucky Boone came prepared.”
Shane caught Micah’s glance toward where Boone and Gavin were waiting by the truck. It was strange to know the kid had some hero worship for Boone and mostly tolerated Shane and Gavin. Weird to be in some kind of competition for affection with his baby brother. Probably unbeknownst to Boone, who wouldn’t have cared either way.
Shane tried not to care because he knew the important thing wasn’t who the boy looked up to. It was that the boy had someone to look up to. And Shane had some work to do on remembering his brother was a grown man who had done a lot of cool and interesting things.
“We’ll see you tomorrow?”
“It’s actually my day off, and I think Micah should probably take one, too,” Cora offered somewhat apologetically.
“I don’t want a day off,” Micah interrupted.
Cora looked at Shane and Micah, some kind of argument going on within her. Shane had been the one to put her in the middle of it.
“Why don’t you call me in the morning. You can decide which one whenever. We’ll be around.”
“Thanks, Shane.” She took a step toward him, sort of half reaching out her hand before she pulled it back and stepped away from him and toward her car. “Thanks for tonight. We had a really great time. I’ll call tomorrow.”
Shane tipped his hat and waited for Micah and her to get in the car and get buckled. They pulled away before Shane turned and walked back toward his brothers.
When they started making kissing noises and falsetto woo-oos, he flipped them both off.
“Man, I haven’t seen you this hung up on somebody since Mattie York,” Boone offered.
Luckily Shane was halfway through moving into the driver’s seat, so the immediate tension that went through his body was offset by forward motion.
Boone was mostly clueless about everything that had happened with Mattie as far as Shane knew, but Gavin was aware of bits and pieces. Shane had tried to hide it, but some things couldn’t be hidden when you were family and in business together.
Shane considered briefly Cora’s words about being honest with people. Giving them pieces of yourself to better understand the situation, or maybe better understand theirs. Shane rejected the advice for this particular moment. His brothers didn’t need to know about the mistakes he’d made. Not on this. But he could focus on one truth that he wasn’t embarrassed of. “Yeah, I’m hung up on Cora. Why wouldn’t I be? She’s great.”
“She’s hot,” Boone offered from the back, clearly wanting to get a rise out of Shane. “Don’t know why you’d mess around with a woman with a kid, though. Haven’t you had enough responsibility in your life?”
“I don’t mind responsibility. Besides, I like the kid.”
“Hard worker,” Gavin added. “Good touch with the horses.”
“Yeah, he’s a funny kid. But you really want to play daddy to a kid who’s already half grown?”
“He tried to play daddy to me, and we’re only two years apart. I don’t see why this would be any different,” Gavin offered. He grinned at Shane. “Especially if you’re getting sex out of the deal.”
“You are getting sex out of the deal, aren’t you?” Boone asked as Shane pulled out of the pizza place’s parking lot.
“What’s it to you?”
“Well, we know Gavin isn’t since he spends every free moment fluttering over Lou.”
“I don’t flutter, asshole.”
“And I can barely walk these days without wanting to saw my damn leg off. Molly’s worked up about the divorce, and if Lindsay is sleeping with anyone I’ll personally saw his balls off. So . . .” Boone trailed off, and Shane had the unfortunate, horrible, scarring realization that their mother was the only member of the Tyler family currently getting regular sex.
Due to the uncomfortable silence that descended, Shane had the feeling they’d all come to that horrifying conclusion.
“Let’s go drinking,” Boone offered.
Shane snorted, but Gavin elbowed him and gave him a meaningful look. “We could go to Branded Man’s. Just for an hour or so. I’ll text Moll she’s in charge at the ranch tonight. She won’t care.”
Shane caught on. They hadn’t really welcomed Boone home as they might have normally done if Mom hadn’t been so pissed at him. The injuries, and the fact he hadn’t told them about the injuries had only stoked her anger with him higher.
It’d be a good thing to take him out, just the three of them. In an environment Boone could relax in.
“Yeah, sounds good.” Shane made a U-turn and headed back toward the other side of town. Branded Man’s was no Main Street tourist stop. It was mostly a glorified shack on the north side of Gracely. It wasn’t much frequented by anyone who didn’t work land somewhere around Gracely.
The parking lot was little more than a postage stamp of dirt people arranged their trucks in whichever way they could. Blocking someone in would ensure a fistfight before you were allowed to leave. Shane carefully parked his car.
“I haven’t been here in something like ten years.”
“I’m surprised you’ve ever been here,” Boone offered, clapping him on the shoulder from behind before he slid out of the truck.
Shane sighed, but he followed his brother toward the sound of Merle Haggard singing about drinking. Inside, the room was filled with smoke. Since the owner didn’t employ anyone and acted as bartender himself, he didn’t have to follow any of the state’s smoking regulations.
Shane coughed a little as they made their way toward the long, worn bar. Boone laughed at him and ordered three beers from Peach, a name all locals knew better than to make fun of him for, who slapped three bottles onto the bar in rapid succession. He shook his head when Boone pulled out his wallet.
“On the house. Saw that tramplin’ you got while back.”
Boone held up his beer toward Peach. “Thanks, Peach.” He then made a beeline for a table in the corner.
“How come we didn’t see the trampling?” Gavin asked as they settled themselves around the table.
Boone shrugged. “Pretty sure it was on TV. Nothing stopping you.”
“Except knowing where the hell you were, what outfit you were with, and so on.”
Again Boone shrugged negligently. Shane kept his mouth shut because he couldn’t trust himself to say anything that wasn’t a lecture. Because he’d made sure to know all of those things, but it hadn’t occurred to him to check on how Boone had done in his event. He hadn’t wanted to know, because Boone’s success in the rodeo only ever felt like a failure to his mother.
He hadn’t protected Boone. Hadn’t kept him on the straight and narrow. Shane took a long, deep drink of the beer. A nice double of whiskey might dull the guilt, but he’d be driving them home, which meant this beer was it.
Gavin pushed back from the table. “Be right back. Think I see someone I kn
ow.”
Shane watched Gavin walk away, but he didn’t see whomever Gavin thought he knew, so he turned back to Boone. His little brother who was home and injured. His little brother who probably needed to be reminded he had a place here. No matter what.
“We’re glad you’re home.”
Boone quirked a sardonic eyebrow. “Are you?”
“I am. We’ve missed you around here, and I know Mom’s being a little cool, but it’s only because she’s been worried sick.”
Boone took a long, deep sip of his beer. “Probably not going back to the rodeo,” he mumbled, studying the wall hard.
Shane nodded. “Because of the injuries?”
Boone shrugged, which was as good as a yes in Shane’s estimation.
“You’ve got a place with us.”
“Maybe I don’t want one,” Boone said, his ice-blue eyes landing square on Shane and holding.
Shane fought his first impulse, which was to tell Boone exactly what to do. Come home. Stay home. Work the ranch. If they had all five of them running things, they could maybe convince Mom to expand, and it could support all of them. If they were smart, if they were careful.
But he knew that’s what Boone expected of him. Boone wanted demands, something to fight against.
Shane was done giving that to him. “I’ll support you in whatever you do, Boone. Just let me know how I can.”
Boone’s frown went from belligerent to confused. “Right now you can support me by getting me another beer.” He drained the one he had. “Or ten.”
Shane sighed. Boone wanted to get drunk, Shane would let him. He could keep an eye on him now. He wouldn’t always be able to.
“Oh, shit.”
Shane swiveled at Boone’s muttered oath, then repeated it. Somehow Gavin was in the middle of an argument that was heading straight for a fistfight. With Lou’s ex.
Oh, this was so not going to be good.
Chapter Fourteen
When Micah asked for the thirty-seventh time—yes, thirty-seventh, she’d counted—to go to the Tyler ranch, before she’d even finished her coffee, Cora decided the whole thing was stupid.
Micah had gotten up voluntarily at five in the morning and was currently begging her to go do grunt work. Her child wanted to do chores, and she was refusing him because it might mean they were spending too much time with the Tylers?
It was idiotic, and this whole thing was Shane’s fault for bringing it up last night anyway. He could listen to her kid yammer on and on and on all morning. She was going to . . . do something somewhere quiet. So damn quiet.
She texted Shane that they were coming over, then got dressed while Micah stood outside her bathroom door, going on and on about the different horses he’d been allowed to ride, Boone’s fantastical rodeo stories, a barn cat that had curled up in his lap one afternoon.
She loved her son more than anything. Beyond sun, moon, earth, universe, and so forth. And it was beautiful he was so excited about something to the point of chattering.
God, she wished she could tape his mouth shut. Just for a few minutes so she could apply her makeup in peace.
But Micah did not stop. Even when she handed him a bagel to eat on the way in the hopes she could enjoy the pretty drive out to the Tyler ranch in some semblance of morning stillness. But Micah just kept talking through mouthfuls of bagel, all but bouncing in his seat when they crossed under the archway for Tyler ranch.
Even though Micah’s constant chatter had set her on edge, the edginess eased here. Oh, she was so screwed. Too wrapped up in Shane and too wrapped up in this place far too quickly and easily.
But hadn’t that been what Lilly had felt when she’d started working at Mile High Adventures? And look how that had turned out.
You are not your sister.
Cora pushed the nasty voice away. No, she wasn’t Lilly, and she’d never be quite like Lilly, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make some good happen in her life. For Micah. For herself.
She pulled to a stop in front of the house, glanced at her excited, exuberant son. It swelled in her chest, that they could make it to this point, and she wanted to embrace this. Nurture it. Prove to Micah he could be enthusiastic about something without the fear it’d be ruined or taken away. “Before we get out, you have to do one thing.”
“What?” Micah asked, craning his neck toward the stables.
“Look me in the eye, and tell me how much you love this.”
Micah flopped back in his seat, glaring at her. “I’m not doing that.”
“Then I’m driving us back home.”
“Mo-o-om,” he whined.
“Just look me in the eye, and say, ‘Mom, I love ranch stuff. It’s the best, and I want to do it every day. And if I ever change my mind about that, I’ll tell you, and explain why.’”
Micah rolled his eyes so hard it had to hurt. “Yeah, all that, whatever.”
“Look me in the eye, Micah, and say it.”
He huffed out a breath and scowled at her. “I love this and if I stop I’ll tell you why,” he grumbled, dramatically folding his arms across his chest. “Happy?”
“If you are, baby.” She reached over and cupped his face with her hand. Again, he rolled his eyes, but he didn’t pull away. “I hope you know that’s all I want. For you to be happy.”
He pulled away from her hand and reached for the door. “You should be happy too, Mom,” he mumbled before scurrying out of the car.
Cora inhaled deeply and looked at the house, where the three Tyler men stepped out onto the porch, along with Molly. Maybe she didn’t belong here, and maybe she never would, but she’d take the slice of happy it offered while she could.
She stepped out of the car, Micah already to the porch. Yeah, this was good. This was happy.
Molly walked up to her. “Hey, I’ve got some horse stuff to do, but then I’m heading over to Lou’s to help with some flower stuff. Shane said it’s your day off. You want to come? Em will be there for a bit. A fun little girl’s day . . . with weeding. But also ice cream.”
Cora smiled. It was hard to find friends, and ever since Tori had gotten engaged Will was always trying to interrupt their girl-only time. Tori usually told him to shove off, but it was nice to be the one getting invited to do something. And something different. “That sounds great.”
“’Kay.” Molly glanced at her watch. “Give me about an hour. If you don’t want to hang out with the boys, Grandma’s inside polishing her swords.”
“Right.”
Molly laughed. “Don’t we seem so normal from the outside? Then you get to know us and . . .” She made an explosion noise before clapping Cora on the back. “See you in a bit.”
Cora walked the rest of the way to the porch where Micah was looking up at Boone, rapt with whatever he was saying. When her gaze moved to Shane, she hurried the rest of the way toward him.
“What happened to you?” she demanded, reaching out to gently rub the spot next to his busted lip.
“Uh . . .” His gaze slid to Gavin, as if Gavin would answer, but Cora spoke first.
“Oh my God. What happened to you?” Gavin’s eye was puffy and bruised, and there was a bruise on his jaw as well.
“You should see the other guy?” Gavin offered hopefully.
Shane’s fingers curled gently around her arm. “Why don’t you come inside, and I’ll explain everything.”
She looked over at Boone, but his face didn’t boast any new injuries added to the fading ones he’d always had.
“I’ll take the kid up to start the shit shovel,” Boone offered, nudging Micah toward the stairs.
Shane opened his mouth, but Boone waved him off. “Save your orders, Cap. I’ll keep on schedule.”
“I’ll make sure,” Gavin said quietly to Shane after Boone left the porch. Gavin turned to Cora, his cowboy hat in his hands. “Look, everything was one hundred percent my fault. Shane was just trying to keep me out of trouble.”
She nodded at Gavin before he t
ook the stairs down into the yard. Slowly she turned to Shane, something in her chest feeling weird and jittery—and not in a good way. Bruises and cuts and . . . It was a little sickening to be reminded of how well she knew that morning-after feeling.
“What happened?” she managed.
“It’s a long story,” Shane said sheepishly. He gestured to the porch swing. “Want to sit?”
“Do you have work to do? I don’t mean to—”
“Gavin and Boone can handle it for now. You look . . . shaken.”
Yes, she felt that. She blew out a breath, feeling silly. It wasn’t the same, but Shane had said all those things about violence the other day and . . . She went ahead and sat on the porch swing, her gut twisting in knots.
“Did you two get in a fistfight?”
“I wish,” Shane replied. He stretched back and then placed his arm behind her shoulders. Slowly, carefully, as if he expected her to bolt.
She felt uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to bolt.
“So, after the pizza place, we went to a bar. Sort of a welcome home to Boone.”
“A bar? You don’t seem like the bar type.”
“I’m not. In fact, I don’t think I’ve been in one in something like a decade. At least, not that kind of bar. But, Gavin saw this guy he has a weird history with and . . .”
“Was he drunk?”
“No.” Shane shook his head. “We’d barely sat down when the other guy threw a punch and . . . Well, I tried to break it up and got a split lip for my trouble.”
“You didn’t hit back?”
“I tackled back. Busted the guy’s jaw. He deserved it though, after what he did.”
Cora had to breathe deeply against the hard wave of nausea. You deserved it. If you did what I asked, I wouldn’t have to hit you. If you cared more. If . . .
“Cora?”
She shook her head, leaning away from Shane’s body. “I’m sorry I just . . . I don’t like that word. Deserved. No one deserves to be hurt like that.” She couldn’t bear to look at him. He’d see too much. She knew for a fact he’d see far too much.
“I agree with you to an extent, sweetheart. But this guy was partially responsible for Lou’s fire, Lou’s injuries. He can stand a busted jaw.”
