The Luxury of Being Stubborn (The Stubborn Series Book 4)

by Jeanne Arnold

  He squatted in the grass, ran his hand over the weeds, and shook his head. Then he fell backward and kicked up his knees. “Well, if it isn’t the mothertrampin’ ringleader. I call bullshit.”

  Four

  “She left her calling card,” I told Gabe as we headed to Lane’s to discuss the newest dilemma.

  “Rachel Merriweather didn’t leave her calling card, Av’ry. She left her proverbial middle finger in the middle of my field.”

  “She’s only one person. For a minute I thought there were going to be hordes of protestors. There’s nobody on the road,” I said. I couldn’t stop him from getting in his truck and driving to his brother’s house. Still I was grateful he had something to focus on besides the motorcycle incident.

  “That’s because she’s organizing the troops. She was up all night making signs.”

  “She wants to get a reaction out of you. Don’t give it to her.”

  Gabe hit the gas as soon as we cleared a seemingly endless string of tractor trailers hauling giant drums. I handed him a piece of the granola bar I grabbed on the way out. I was hoping he would forget about his mission and stop for breakfast.

  The garage was open when we parked in Lane’s driveway. His motorcycle was resting flat on the ground in the empty bay beside his pickup truck. Caleb was sitting on the front porch wearing his paramedic uniform, drinking out of a full-size coffee pot.

  “Did you come to get undressed for me again?” he asked after Gabe entered the house ahead of me.

  I shook my head and climbed two steps so I could look him in the eye. I had only seen him dressed for work once before. He looked like an improved version of himself; however, the uniform did nothing to temper his tongue.

  “Don’t bring that up. I don’t want to be here. I made Gabe promise to behave. Same goes for you.”

  I stopped inside the doorway to scan the living room and had to cover my mouth. Caleb’s coffee carafe should have tipped me off that the house was a mess. A mountain of clothes was piled in a baby playpen, and dirty dishes and beer bottles covered every surface. The smell was almost as foul as the sight. I took a few more steps into the trench and found Gabe.

  “Move,” I heard Lane say in the hallway. That’s when I saw his back hit the wall. Within a split second Gabe came barreling backward down the hall and knocked into me.

  “Stop it!” I shouted as his brother chased him into the kitchen and tackled him to the floor. “Stop!”

  I moved out of Caleb’s path as he dashed in to help. He held Lane against the counter by his throat while I grabbed Gabe’s arms so he couldn’t take a swing.

  “Leave me alone,” he said hotly. He jerked out of my grip and lunged at Lane. Determined to stop him, my hands wrapped around his waist, and I wrestled him back to the living room until we fell into the couch.

  “My shoulder,” I moaned.

  Bottles rolled around on the carpet. Gabe jumped up and charged into the kitchen without acknowledging me. I snatched his T-shirt until it stretched across the room like a rubber band and snapped. Caleb caught Gabe’s arm before he could touch Lane again. He managed to hold him back.

  “You almost killed Av’ry,” Gabe hissed at Lane.

  “Sit down and shut the hell up,” Caleb belted at his brother and pointed to the couch with his chin. Lane covered his eye and crumbled against the wall.

  Gabe flopped onto the couch, and I sat on his lap to keep him still. “Why did you bring me here? We came to get help.”

  I was crushed with disappointment. I couldn’t get past the fact that he harbored so much anger. I wish he hadn’t seen the motorcycle in the garage.

  “For the love of Mother Freedom,” Caleb said. “Now I’m late for work because of you two weenies.”

  “That’s for him being a total dickhead,” Gabe shouted childishly. I leaned into his heaving chest to keep him from jumping up. My shoulder was killing me.

  “I apologized,” Lane said as he slid down the wall and hit the ground. He stretched out his legs and held his head in his hands.

  Caleb shoved his hand down his pants to tuck in his uniform then he straightened his collar. “Have at it. What do I care,” he drawled and stepped outside. “Legs, don’t call me unless an eyeball rolls across the damn floor.”

  “You could use some ice on your face,” I told Lane as I started to get off Gabe’s lap. He folded his hands around me and held me back.

  “Don’t help him,” he sneered.

  I pushed off his lap when the skin on my shoulder and arm burned. “Don’t tell me what to do. I got on the motorcycle. I already told you he didn’t make me.”

  “That’s bull,” replied Gabe.

  “Oh piss off, little brother,” Lane said. “Leave her out of it.”

  There was no ice in the freezer. There was no food in the refrigerator. I ignored the bickering and went to town scrubbing the kitchen after I found a bottle of aspirin and took two pills. There were enough unused cleaning supplies under the sink to prolong my avoidance of their idiotic behavior. It would take me three times as long to clean with one arm.

  Their fights were as common as lightening on the North Dakota plains. Eventually, the quarreling stopped.

  “Come on, Av’ry. We’re leaving,” Gabe shouted.

  I didn’t turn around or answer him. The front door slammed. He left without me. He would be in one of his moods until he settled down. I was safer with Lane.

  I continued to play housekeeper after Lane retreated to his bedroom. When the pain overpowered me, I collapsed onto the love seat. I must have nodded off. The smell of Lysol woke me with an unpleasant memory of the morning.

  A warm breath moved from my shoulder to my neck. The skin on my face tightened when his finger brushed my hair behind my ear and caused a chill to roll down my back. The buzz of his electric lips tickled at the brink of my mouth and then gently pulled my bottom lip into his. I didn’t have the brain function to slip out of his persuading influence. He stopped and did it again just enough to make my whole body react.

  I sat up tall and forced him to move. I opened my eyes and spotted the bandage on his temple. “Lane?”

  My chest tightened, and I licked my lip automatically. I held my breath. Lane closed his mouth and offered a blank stare as if he were debating whether to go through with kissing me or not. He backed out of my space and sank onto the cushion beside me. His finger was stroking my ankle. I couldn’t move.

  “You’re plum tuckered out, Cinderella.”

  “You need to leave.” My head was splitting with pain while my lips were on fire.

  “I live here,” he said in his distinct Texas drawl.

  I rubbed my eyes and moved my foot out of his reach.

  “Why’d you clean my house?” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me with his heavy hazels.

  “I have to go. Gabe should be back from where ever he went,” I said as I sat up. I didn’t get very far. My arm and shoulder were stiff and sore from cleaning. I returned to the position I was in.

  “We’re a sorry pair,” he said.

  “No, you’re the sorry one. I feel bad for you. You should know better.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he muttered.

  “What if I hadn’t woken up?”

  He bit his lips and didn’t answer. I had to look away. There was something about his lips.

  “Everybody thinks you need help. I was trying to help you.”

  “Y’all don’t know what I need,” he countered.

  “I know this isn’t what Gabe needs. He needs stability and support. At least he has Judson now.”

  Lane grunted. “I hate to piss in your Kool-Aid, but Jud’s the shadiest one of all.”

  I leaned back on the cushion. “What are you saying?”

  “He’s a part-time bounty hunter. Where does he get cash to fly all over the world and pitch in at the ranch? And why’s he so interested in Gabe’s land anyway? Read my lips, Avery. There’s stuff he doesn’t want anybody
to know. He fathered two kids and claimed he had no knowledge.”

  I heard what Lane said, yet all I could think about was how things would never be the same. He wanted me. I was glad Gabe didn’t get around to asking him to help with the injunction. “I can’t trust you,” I said quietly.

  “I want what you have.”

  “A hotheaded boyfriend?” I knew he was referring to my relationship with Gabe and what he couldn’t have with Molly.

  He sighed and set his hands on his knees. “I loved the idea of her.”

  My thoughts jumped to Judson and Gabe’s response when I questioned him about landing in Oklahoma instead of Tennessee.

  “Last winter you told me Judson had nothing to do with oil because he didn’t care about it. You said your father and your uncle did their own thing.”

  “The lieutenant won’t let his own brother work for HalRem. Someday I’ll be the successor CEO of Halden-Remington if anything happens to the lieutenant. Right now I’m in line for COO in the next ten years. He’s holding a penthouse office for me in Halden Tower. I’m taking online business classes. I’ve got an engineering degree with less than five years in the field—and he trusts me over Jud.” He touched the side of his bruised eye and stood up. “I’m sorry you can’t trust me.”

  * * *

  Gabe’s truck was parked in front of Lane’s house when I went outside to text him. He was leaning against the passenger door with one of his boots kicked back against the bottom panel looking like he had no cares in the world. He was wearing the hat Judson gave him. Deliah crawled over the seat and got in the back of the cab as soon as he opened the door for me.

  I wanted to give him the silent treatment for fighting his brother and leaving me, but I wasn’t feeling very disciplined. He knew how I loved it when he struck a pose like that. He was acting all gentlemanly. He even handed me my seat belt.

  “Miss me?” he said with a hint of a drawl.

  I shrugged as if I wasn’t interested. “Where have you been? How long have you been out here?”

  “Thirty seconds,” he said as he drove to the corner and stopped. He motioned to Lane’s house in the rearview mirror at the same time he held my hand down to weave his long fingers through mine. “Let it go.”

  “I can’t let it go, Gabe. I’m disappointed in you. I’m disappointed in everybody,” I said under my breath.

  He released my hand and popped a fireball into his mouth. Deliah grunted.

  “Why are you so quiet?” I asked her.

  “She saw your flowers from Romeo.”

  “Shut up, Gabe,” she snapped.

  I rolled my eyes in the window and stared at my reflection. She was just as sulky as her brother.

  “Meggie needs you to babysit,” Gabe told me.

  “My mother said they were going shopping out of town, but I thought she would give me more notice.”

  “They’re not shopping. Your ma took your sister to a play date and went to look at a house. Meggie needs to run out or something. She said to fetch you and bring you over. Emmie has a fever, and she doesn’t want to leave her with Mona Moody.”

  Deliah kicked Gabe’s seat.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Burn the injunction. My new windows arrived this morning. They have to be sorted out.”

  “How did you pay for them? You needed a lot replaced,” I said. “That had to cost thousands and thousands of dollars.”

  Gabe gave me a questioning look. “Jud covered it.”

  “What if you can’t pay him back?”

  He chewed and swallowed his fireball and unwrapped a new one. “What if I can?”

  When we got to Meggie’s, we stopped on the road and waited for a HalRem tanker to unblock the driveway. The coop was busting at its seams. Meggie’s yard was an industrial parking lot.

  “Let me out here,” I said as I unbuckled my seat belt. “I wish you had thought to bring our dirty laundry.”

  “This sack?” He reached behind the seat and lifted the drawstring bag and set it on my lap as I opened my door. Then he grabbed my neck and stopped me from sliding off the seat. He leaned in and kissed me with his fireball tongue. The candy moved around his mouth while he gripped the back of my head and forced me to reciprocate. The sweet heat burned my lips. It tasted wonderful, though I held back my enthusiasm. I was annoyed with him for going after Lane. But I was really more annoyed with Lane.

  “Gag me,” Deliah said.

  Gabe pulled away, and the side of his lip pushed into his cheek.

  I stepped onto the ground and strung the laundry bag over my good shoulder. “Aren’t you coming?” I asked Deliah.

  She climbed over the seat and sat in my spot. “No. I’m sick of babies.”

  Meggie stood on the porch watching me with her fists on her hips as I walked to the house. I could feel my cheeks burning. “I’m glad your mom didn’t see that little display,” she said. “Where’s Deliah going, kiddo?”

  “To the ranch with Gabe.”

  “Good. This heat is unreal.” She fanned herself with her hand. “I need you to listen to Emmeline while I run out. Leave the vaporizer on. She’s coming down with something. Okiedokie?”

  I stood in the grass and stared at the porch swing where Gabe and I had spent a handful of nights wrapped in a blanket, watching the sun go down over the canola fields.

  “Avery, honey, what’s wrong? I have to run,” she said as she grabbed her purse from inside the doorway.

  “I found a man’s skull in one of Gabe’s fields, and he punched Lane in the eye, and then Lane tried to…it’s nothing…but I fell off a motorcycle and hurt my shoulder, and Caleb fixed me up, but Gabe still blames Lane, and it wasn’t his fault. Now Rachel’s back and causing trouble. She drives Gabe crazy. I can’t stand how aggressive he gets with his brothers. I can’t stop him when he gets like that.”

  Meggie mumbled something and dropped her attention to her phone. She wasn’t listening to my confession. She answered the call. It had to do with Mr. Halden’s surprise party.

  “Aunt Meggie?”

  “I’m sorry, kid. I’ll have Joel deal with Rachel. He’s got her folks on speed dial. We’ll talk when I get back. Maybe you could ask your mom for help.”

  My head jerked back. She had to be kidding. My mother would pack me up and ship me back to New York in a box if I told her what happened.

  Meggie left in a tizzy after running back inside for something she forgot. I did a load of laundry and helped myself to a slice of apple pie. I took a picture of a shredded speeding ticket I found in Gabe’s jeans and texted it to him while I listened to Emmie wheeze in her baby monitor. The house was otherwise quiet. I studied my sister’s drawings on the refrigerator. It wasn’t a coincidence that every picture had a man wearing a cowboy hat. I glanced at Meggie’s jury duty questionnaire. She had forgotten to send it in.

  Upstairs I rocked Emmie back to sleep after she woke up crying. The poor thing was congested and miserable. She eventually quieted on my good shoulder when I walked her in and out of the bedrooms.

  “There you are,” Meggie said as she tossed a plastic grocery bag and a bottle of water on her bed and sat down. She was out of air.

  “Did you run home?” I asked. “You look flushed, like you ran a marathon.”

  She shook her head. “No, but I should’ve gotten a ticket for speeding. I put those boys to shame. Uff-da.”

  I started to hand over Emmie, but Meggie stood.

  “Give me fifteen minutes, kiddo. I need to take care of something, and then I’ll drive you home.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Gabe or my mother to run to the store for you?”

  She snatched her grocery bag and held it to her shirt. “No reason.”

  “Are you stressing out because of the birthday party? I was supposed to ask if you needed my help.”

  Meggie returned to the edge of the mattress, dropped the bag on the floor, and rubbed her eyes. Her sandy hair was pulled back into a slick twist. She
kept the new color since Mr. Halden’s ground breaking ceremony. I liked it a whole lot better than the bleached look.

  “I’m not ready for your mom to know.”

  I sat down next to her and rubbed Emmie’s back. “You can tell me whatever it is. Did Joel find out? Caleb bet Gabe two hundred bucks he would.”

  She shook her hair out of the clip. “I’ll have to thank him for the vote of confidence, but no.”

  “Did something happen to Josh at camp?”

  She looked up and smiled wearily. “No. Josh is super-duper. He was bumped up to a junior counselor this week. Gosh. You’re both so grown up,” she said as she set a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. I flinched and bit the inside of my lip so I wouldn’t cry out. “Avery, what was that for?”

  “Nothing,” I lied and tried to keep my voice level. “I have a small bruise.”

  “Why do you have a bruise on your shoulder?”

  I kissed Emmie’s head and wished I had kept my big mouth shut.

  “Is that what you were telling me earlier? Joel told me about the skull you kids found. Does it have anything to do with that?”

  “Not really. I fell off Lane’s motorcycle. Please don’t tell my mother.”

  “Avery Ross—oh my stars. Why does Lane have a motorcycle?”

  “You had one, Aunt Meggie. My mother has a picture of you riding it in your uniform.”

  “That was a long time ago. They’re very dangerous.”

  Emmie stirred on my shoulder. Her warm face stuck to my skin.

  “Why don’t you take her out on the porch for some fresh air? I’ll be down in a little while. It’s a rare occasion I have this house empty.”

  I scooted off the bed with Emmie still asleep in my arms. Meggie swiped her purchase off the floor, and a pink box fell on my foot.

  “Oh dear,” she whispered as I stared at my boot. I couldn’t reach for the item, so I tapped it and flipped it over before she grabbed it. My tongue twisted into a knot as I processed what she was planning to do. She opened her bathroom door, reached in to toss the bag on the counter, and shut the door without turning around.

  “Aunt Meggie, is that for you? Can that happen?”