by Lexie Ray
“I did a lot of thinking. I had moments of clarity.”
“Since I left you at the hospital in Dallas this morning,” she said, dubious. She had every right to be. It seemed to be too convenient to be true, but that’s just what it was. I hadn’t been able to control when I’d come to an understanding about loving Paisley and what my role in the ranch should be. If I had, I would’ve taken care of it a long time ago and saved everyone involved a bunch of angst.
“Paisley, I love you. I want to be with you. I recognize that I haven’t been the best husband in the world, and that I’ve said and done hurtful things to you. If you still want to maintain the separateness of our marriage, if that still makes sense to you, then I accept that. You told me to do whatever I needed to do to stay in this marriage, and that’s how all of this happened.”
“This marriage isn’t something that we have to do anymore,” Paisley said. “I gave you the papers. I had the lawyers remove the stipulations about divorce. It doesn’t matter anymore, Avery. We can both be happy now. We don’t have to force anything.”
“I have no intention of forcing anything,” I said, “but I’m not signing those papers. I don’t want a divorce from you.”
Maybe it was overdramatic, but reaching into my pocket, withdrawing the documents Paisley had drawn up to orchestrate our permanent separation, and tearing them to bits made her snap her mouth shut, made her listen in a way she hadn’t been before.
“Don’t you see?” I asked. “I understand things now that I didn’t understand before. I love the ranch because you love it. I love the ranch because you hold it in your heart, and I love your heart. I would do anything for you.”
“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do,” she said, looking just as frightened as she did when Joe Durham loomed over her all those years ago at recess. “I’ve always loved you helplessly, loved the way you carried yourself, loved your family. You all support each other, and I’ve never really had that. Maybe I was selfish for loving you so much, for wishing myself into your family.”
“I’d say you’re just a goal-oriented person,” I said, with a smile. “The road was a little rocky, but you’re in now, aren’t you? You’re a Corbin, even if you did keep your last name.”
“I just don’t understand what the turn around was for you,” Paisley said. “I left you, and you had decided to leave the ranch for good. What was it that changed your mind?”
“I went to the airport, but no other destination seemed like home,” I said. “I want to travel, but I want you to travel with me. I’ve always felt like the ranch was my own personal prison, but I suddenly understood that it could be the exact opposite if I gave things a chance. What if I could give people a chance to experience just how magical our ranch is?”
“What do you mean? How?” I’d piqued the interest in Paisley’s business mind, but I knew she was still pretty unsure about things.
“What if we expanded the ranch in a kind of unexpected way?” I suggested, my eyes lighting up. “We could have a functioning dude ranch, which would educate people about ranching and bring in significant cash flow at the same time.”
Paisley’s lips parted, her tongue darting out to moisten them as the wheels and cogs in her brain churned. “It would be a big investment up front,” she said slowly. “A lot of capital, at first.”
“But it would pay for itself in both brand recognition and the amount of people willing to pay a lot of money to get off the beaten path and see how a ranching life would be.”
“How did you think of this?” Paisley asked, eyeing me. “What kind of brain wave were you surfing? Should Chance and I be taking painkillers to try and have ideas like this to further the ranch?”
“I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that,” I said. “It was just the idea of if I wanted to travel away from the ranch, there had to be people out there wanting to travel to the ranch. People who loved the idea of ranching, the principle behind doing hard work the right way. People who would love this ranch just as much as you, enough to invest in it and other properties like it. Enough to keep ranching alive for generations to come.”
“I think it’s an incredible idea,” Paisley said. “I’d have to run it by your brother, of course, but you have the ear of one CEO.”
“Just the ear?” I asked, smiling.
I thought she’d smile, and maybe she almost did, but she held back. “Avery, if this thing between us is going to work …”
“Our marriage, you mean.”
“Yes, that.” She seemed a little flummoxed. I understood that this was a lot to lay onto her right now. “Things have to be different between us.”
“I know they do.”
“You have to respect me,” she said. “No more going out to the bar just to escape me. I’d hope there wasn’t a reason to escape me anymore.”
“I don’t want to escape you.”
“I bring a lot to this ranch and this relationship,” Paisley said. “Maybe you’re beginning to realize that, or maybe you still need time to get to know me. But I’m smart and strong. I’m capable. I like looking good, but that doesn’t make me a princess. I can do all of those things and not be shuffled into one label or the other. I’m just myself. I’m just Paisley Summers.”
“You’re all that and much more,” I said. “You’re my wife.” The first time I’d said that, it had been an accident. I’d been angrily defending her and the memory of her father from Bud Billings. The slip had surprised both of us. But now, saying it like this, and meaning it, felt so right.
I dropped on one knee, ignoring the jolt of pain it sent bolting through my shoulder, every ounce of my attention focused on the woman in front of me.
“What are you doing?” she asked, hiding her mouth behind her hand. “We’re already married. You don’t have to do that again.”
“It wasn’t very special, that first time, was it?” I mused, taking her hand in mine and kissing it. “Paisley Corbin, you married me once for reasons neither of us was particularly excited about. Would you have me again, as your husband, but this time for all of the right reasons?”
Her eyes sparkled. “What are the right reasons, Avery Corbin?”
“I’d be your husband and you’d be my wife because we love each other,” I said. “It’s that simple. I love you for who you are and respect your passions. If you can do the same for me, if you agree to go on this adventure with me with your heart open, then I think we should stay together, stay married, for now and for the rest of time.”
“You want this?” she asked. “You’ve decided that the worst thing in the world wouldn’t be to be married with me?”
“Paisley, the worst thing in the world to me right now is to go out into it without you by my side.”
She fell on her knees in front of me, took my face in her hands, and kissed me.
“We will always be together, then,” she said. “Full partners in both love and business.”
“Why do you always have to bring business into it?” I teased, and she playfully punched my shoulder.
“Marriage is a business — at least, that’s how ours started out.”
“I’m glad it isn’t staying like that,” I said. “You don’t know how glad.”
“I think I do.” She crept closer to me on her knees until she was practically sitting in my lap. “So where should we go first on this delayed honeymoon? Is there anywhere in particular you’ve had a hankering for?”
I tucked her hair behind her ear, tangling my fingers joyfully in her hair, and kissed her again. She moved against me like she knew exactly what to do, exactly what I wanted the most.
“I have just the destination in mind,” I murmured, taking her into my arms as best I could with a bullet wound in my shoulder, thankful that it was the worst injury I’d had in all of this, aware of the fact that I was an idiot and stubborn and a fool and any other insult a person might fling at me, but so lucky that it blew my own mind.
I was so lucky Paisl
ey Summers was my wife. It was a union I’d never look down upon again. Not when I knew that all I had to do was open my heart and let my wife in, show her my love, involve her in all aspects of my life. In a way, everything became more joyful — from saddling up the horse in the morning to a week in the Caribbean, facing the world together.
I wouldn’t have it any other way than to have my wife by my side.
Epilogue
There was something about the sheen on the coat of a well-groomed horse that made me happy. I spent a lot of hours making sure our horses were both healthy and well kept in addition to the rest of my responsibilities at the ranch.
Did anybody thank me? Hell, no.
Did anybody so much as notice that their horse’s mane and tail were free from tangles and brambles and all imperfections every morning when they set out for a full day’s work on the ranch? Probably not.
For us Corbins, cattle had always been king. The horses we used to take care of the herd? Second tier.
There were possibilities that my brothers didn’t take into consideration, things that we could do to make our family’s name and legacy even brighter now that we were one of the biggest cattle ranching operations in the entire state of Texas.
We needed diversification if we wanted to continue to grow. Otherwise, we would always be in danger of stagnating.
I had ideas for that — I always had ideas — but being the middle Corbin meant that with two older brothers and two younger brothers, I was always overlooked, always slipping through the cracks.
I knew more about horses than any of my brothers — probably more than anyone in the entire county. I’d never studied their care in any sort of formal nature, instead skulking around horse farms in my spare time, or rodeos, or livestock shows, watching people care for their animals, memorizing the movements and tools they used, perfecting my craft. I’d been doing it since I was a boy, and I had a love for horses that was only surpassed by my brothers’ love for all things cattle.
I didn’t not love the herd. It was important to us, our bread and butter, the principle on which this ranch was founded. But I knew enough about horses to know that our enormous ranch could easily support a herd, and that herd would bring us tons of money. Especially if we sold to horse enthusiasts, or racing enthusiast, or any person who genuinely loved the equine life.
It was a good idea. I just needed to make my voice heard.
I walked gingerly up to the house from the barn — Hadley was saying I needed more rehab without the knee brace before I could resume work on the ranch — with the intention to clean up around the house a little. With me out of commission on the ranch, Chance had thought it’d been a good idea to give Zoe a break from cooking and cleaning. That was fine with me. I would fill in wherever I was needed, the grease that was required but unseen to keep the engine running properly. No one seemed to take notice of me when I was doing everything right, but my presence would be missed if I ever stopped doing the little things around here to keep the place going.
The ancient phone — heavy enough to probably kill someone if swung properly — rang from the laundry room, the de facto office of the ranch. Maybe I could convince Chance to use the trailer Avery had vacated as an office, though I doubted he’d listen to me. He never listened to any of my ideas about how to run the ranch. I was easy to ignore, I guessed. The phone rang and rang, and I knew it was probably a business call. We all had cellphones, sure, but it was too hard to list five different numbers as business contacts. Well, six if we were counting Paisley, which we were, now. Seven if Hadley and her various services were included. Eight with Zoe on the payroll. The house phone worked for business contacts who just wanted to get in contact with a Corbin for ranching business. More often than not, it went to the answering machine, but if any of us was in the house when it rang, we were expected to answer.
Dammit. Wasn’t anyone else going to answer the phone? I knew I couldn’t have been the only person in this entire house listening to the phone jangle. Did I really have to do every single thing around the ranch?
“Corbin Ranch,” I drawled. “What can I do for you?”
“Who is this?” It was a male voice, one I didn’t recognize, low like it was trying not to be overheard while making the call.
“You’re speaking with Emmett Corbin.” And this would usually prompt a “who?” Everyone knew there were five Corbins, but I was never on anyone’s radar.
“Emmett Corbin,” the voice repeated.
“That’s right,” I said, beginning to become a little puzzled. This call was kind of weird.
“Do you live on the Corbin Ranch, Emmett Corbin?”
With that, we’d gone straight from kind of weird to downright disconcerting.
“I’m a Corbin,” I said. “Of course I live on the ranch.”
“A word of advice, Emmett Corbin.” I was starting to regret telling this guy my name. I didn’t like the way he sounded repeating it.
“Who is this?” I demanded. “Why are you calling here?”
“Take your loved ones and leave,” the man said. “If you don’t, things are going to get very ugly.”
I scowled even as my blood ran cold. “Listen here, asshole. If you think you can get off with calling here and making threats, I’ll have you know —”
But there was no one on the other end of the line. Whoever it was who’d called had decided that the threat he’d given was sufficient notice to us that things were about to get very difficult here on the ranch.
That was the thing, though. Even without phoned-in threats, it was a hard life.
One of my brothers had already been shot protecting this place.
What else was going to happen to my family?
We needed a plan to deal with this threat, and I was pretty sure I had an idea.
Now I just needed my brothers to take me seriously for once.
~~~
EMMETT
Chapter 1
What the hell was it going to take for me to get noticed in this family?
I didn’t hate my brothers. I didn’t hate the ranch. I loved everything so much that I gave it my all, but did anyone ever stop for a moment to thank me? Oh, thank you, Emmett, so much, for everything you’re doing?
Of course not.
In the dead middle of a family that could be the starting lineup for a basketball team — if basketball were the preferred Corbin sport, which it wasn’t — was the forgotten place. My place. And maybe it was easy for my brothers to forget about me because I was the most reliable one out of all of them.
There was Hunter, the war hero, Avery, whose marriage had saved the ranch, Tucker, a highly decorated veteran of the police force, and Chance, the most lauded of all us Corbins, the one who had given up everything to keep this family together and the ranch going.
There really wasn’t room for me in this family. That was just the truth of the matter.
With so many big personalities and even bigger deeds — Hunter came back one leg short from Afghanistan; Avery found love in a marriage that started out as a business merger — I supposed that falling through the cracks was just going to have to be my role in this family.
Except that I was done doing that. It was my turn to make my mark on the Corbin Ranch, just as the rest of my brothers were allowed to do.
“Emmett, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times,” Chance was saying, papers spread over the surface of the folding table he’d shoved into a corner of the laundry room. “Money is just too tight right now to do what you’re asking to do.”
“That’s right, you’ve been too busy telling me and not listening to me,” I said, thoroughly irritated. “It’s like the time I told you that you should move the office out to the trailer. Avery’s not in there anymore. Do you like the smell of freshly laundered denim to accompany your accounting?”
“I’m too busy for any of that,” Chance said, waving his hand at me. “You just don’t understand what it takes to run this ranch
anymore. It’s twice as big as before.”
“That’s true,” I said slowly, patiently, like I was talking to a younger brother instead of my oldest brother. “But we also have twice the people, now. Twice the success. Paisley’s on the other end of this operation. If you’re having trouble keeping up, maybe you should let her shoulder more of the weight.”
Paisley Summers was the Summers side of the newly minted Corbin-Summers Ranch. It was her and Avery’s wedding that cemented this deal, expanding our families’ ranches by putting a gate on the fence that used to divide the property line. It had been enough to stave off a foreclosure by the bank on the Corbin side of business — and it had helped Paisley remain in control of her side of the ranch. Everyone seemed to be pretty happy about the state of things, except for Chance, who never really seemed happy about anything, and me.
Me because my ideas about how this operation could be bolstered were always ignored.
“Emmett, we’re in the middle of construction for the barracks of the dude ranch project,” Chance said. “Why do you always bug me right when we’re busy doing something else?”
“We’re always busy doing something,” I argued. “That’s the nature of the business.”
“Exactly.”
“But you made room for Hunter and Hadley’s rehab business,” I said. “Then you made room for the Corbin-Summers merger. And then Avery’s idea about the dude ranch.” That was what the barracks were for — rich people who wanted a taste of the ranching life as some sort of niche experience, something quaint to chat about over pricey cocktails with their equally sheltered social circle. It had been a way to diversify the family business, something that both Chance and Paisley — CEOs of their respective sides of the ranch — had been able to throw their energies behind. The drought wasn’t letting up, and we were still rotating night shifts to keep watch over the cattle after a spate of thefts.
“What you’re asking for is a lot more than just building a barracks and inviting people to come stay for a couple of nights on the ranch, pretending to do work,” Chance said.
