THE CORBIN BROTHERS: The Complete 5-Books Series

by Lexie Ray

  “I saw that thing the other day, but I didn’t know it still worked.”

  I looked up toward the barn to see Amelia leaning in the open frame. I didn’t know what to say to that, or if I needed to say anything at all. I just pumped a little more, ducking my head under the stream, soaking my short hair. I probably wouldn’t be wet for very much longer. This kind of heat evaporated the water even faster, as demonstrated by the river, which had slowed to a trickle, dead minnows carpeting what used to be the sandy bottom.

  “Why have you been ignoring me?”

  When I looked up again, Amelia had strode forward, and was now less than a yard away from me, her hands on her slender hips. She squinted up at me, forced to tilt her head upward and into the sun, until she relented and shielded her eyes with one hand.

  “I’ve been busy working,” I said, and I realized it was the first sentence I’d uttered to her since the tense little moment out with the herd as Avery had been showing her around. My voice felt foreign to my own ears.

  “Everyone’s busy working, all the time,” she countered. “But they always take the time to talk to me. Not you, though.”

  “I’m busier than most.”

  “Oh, bullshit,” she said, obviously unimpressed. “You just roam around. You don’t have a specific job, like everyone else does.”

  “That is the job,” I said, shifting my shirt from hand to hand, wondering if an acceptable way to extricate myself from this awkwardness would be to simply stop talking and walk away. I’d just said a handful of words to the woman, and already my anxiety had spiked. Why couldn’t I just get used to seeing her around here? She’d fit in seamlessly with everyone else. I was the one who had become the odd man out.

  “You just get to flit around all day?” she asked dubiously.

  “To see where I’m needed. To monitor the ranch hands. To fill in at jobs that need an extra hand. To be Chance’s eyes and ears when he can’t get out here to see things for himself.”

  Amelia had lowered her eyes, and she stared blankly in front of her, not choosing to respond. Had I assuaged her questions so completely that she’d decided not to say anything else?

  Then I realized that she wasn’t just staring at nothing. She was staring at my stomach.

  I looked down myself, saw the pair of ugly little dimples puckering the skin on my abs, and felt an unreasonable shot of anger.

  “Want to see the one on my arm, too?” I demanded, shoving my bicep in her face, causing her to stumble back a few steps. “Is your curiosity satisfied?”

  “I … didn’t mean to stare.”

  “Did you think I left the police force just because I couldn’t handle cases anymore?” I asked, not relenting a bit, even though I could tell she was stunned, thrown off whatever game she’d been playing.

  “No, I … They told me you’d been injured. I knew that you were hurt. I remember that you didn’t move when you fell. I thought you were dead until I felt you breathing.”

  Now I was the one who didn’t want to hear it, backing away from her, shaking my head. “Stop. Just stop talking.”

  “I was glad you were breathing, but you’d half crushed me,” she said absently, like she couldn’t stop herself, lost in some kind of trance. “After a while, I couldn’t breathe. And the smell of your blood, that copper in the dirt … that’s something that still wakes me up. I hate it.”

  “And how do you think it makes me feel?” I asked her, advancing again, denial swinging back into anger. “I’d been doing just fine until you came along. Now I get to think about that night every single day, without fail. I used to be able to get a whole week thinking life was normal before something reminded me of it.” That something was usually digging fence posts, or burying cattle that died of suspicious causes. I didn’t like seeing the earth overturned.

  “You got a whole week?” Amelia laughed humorlessly. “I can’t even get a whole hour without thinking of it. I was so afraid I was going to die, at first. Then I was afraid he was going to keep me alive. I have to admit … I was a little disappointed when you showed up. I thought everything was finally over.”

  “I wish I’d never shown up,” I said, astounded to realize it was true.

  “You wish I’d died.” Amelia lifted those gray eyes to me, gauging my reaction to that statement.

  “I wish someone else had found you,” I corrected her. “And that you were there with them now, waltzing down memory lane like this, having a grand old time.”

  “It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to talk about these kinds of things,” she said, scowling up at me. “But I don’t squirm away from it. It happened. I’m not like you, pretending that it didn’t.”

  “You think I have the luxury of just pretending it didn’t happen?” I asked, slapping the scar tissue on my stomach. “These two shots went right through my vest — cut it like butter. That was reality enough. And the fucking nightmares…” No. I was done talking. I wasn’t about to give her more ammunition for whatever she was doing.

  “I have them too, don’t you see?” she asked, plaintive, grabbing at her short hair. “We could help each other — we should be helping each other.”

  “This is a very one-sided relationship,” I said. “The only thing you’ve done since you got here is make my life a living hell.”

  “We could talk about things,” she tried. “We could help each other work through them. I had a really hard time getting the right kind of support afterward. A lot of therapists turned me away because they weren’t qualified to handle the kinds of questions I was asking. I disturbed them — isn’t that funny? I was too disturbing for some therapists to even help me.”

  “Just stop talking.”

  “I think we need to start talking. That’s the only way any of this is going to get any better.”

  But it wasn’t going to get any better. Not with Amelia here. I was even starting to doubt that it would get better once she left. It would be like trying to recover my mind all over again.

  “We could sit down in the morning, or the evening, or whatever time you like. We could talk about whatever comes to mind — just talk. I have questions about Oscar Green, about the other victims. You could help answer them for me.”

  “Just shut up.”

  “Tucker, please.”

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

  She wouldn’t listen to me. I just wanted her to be quiet, to go away, to leave me alone. Why in God’s name would she want to revisit all of that? If she had questions, she could just watch that fucking documentary Emmett and Peyton had been harping on. I had a funny feeling that she already had watched it and found its pertinent details lacking.

  Amelia shrank away from me, and I realized I was still shouting at her to shut up. It was compulsive, a release of built-up tension, and I could no more stop it than I could stop my heart from beating. She ran for it, and I still shouted after her.

  It reached such a crescendo that finally, Chance yanked me inside of the barn. I hadn’t even realized he was around. Such a thing never would’ve gone unnoticed before. I was a different person. I was losing my instincts.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I protested, shrugging off his grip.

  “I’m asking you the same thing is what I’m doing,” he said, quietly furious. “What is wrong with you? I saw everything.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with me,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Everything is just perfect. Living the dream right now, let me tell you.”

  “You’re not acting like yourself.”

  “I’m acting in the only way I know how to act,” I said, and that, at least, was the truth. I didn’t know how else to get myself through the day. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have actual work to do.”

  “Stop.” Something in Chance’s voice made me halt in my tracks, even when the only thing I wanted to do was get out of that barn and onto a horse and far away from here.

  “Say whatever you think you have to say,” I said.


  “You have to get your shit together,” he told me. “That’s what I think I have to say.”

  “Get my shit together?” Something about that struck me as hilarious, and I threw my head back and cackled at the sky. “You’re the one that started this shit. You brought her into our family’s home without so much of a thought as to how it might affect other people living there.”

  “Everyone likes Amelia,” he said. “Everyone except for you.”

  “I have a reason, don’t I?” I didn’t like where this conversation was going. I knew I was in a bad place, and Chance was the one who’d made all of this happen.

  “You don't have a single reason in the world to hate Amelia for what happened to you,” he said, his expression hard. “It’s not her fault.”

  “She didn’t have to come here,” I said. “And you didn’t have to let her.”

  “I’m surprised at you,” Chance said. “You usually step up to the plate on stuff like this.”

  “There isn’t ever stuff like this,” I growled. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Then tell me. Tell me what we should be talking about. Because I’m about sick and tired of you like this. You’ve affected everyone with the way you’ve been acting.”

  “That’s what you don’t understand!” I shouted, shoving him hard. “I don’t want to tell anyone about what happened. I shouldn’t have to! You all should just accept the fact that it was the worst part of my entire life and leave it at that.”

  “Worse than Mom and Dad?” Chance asked quietly.

  “Why would you even bring that up?”

  “Because that was the worst time of my life.”

  “Just stop with wherever that’s going.” I pressed my hands into my eyes, only belatedly realizing I was still shirtless. I pulled my shirt back on, shuddering at the sweaty fabric. I looked up to see if Chance had given up on me and wandered away, but I wasn’t that lucky.

  “Whatever you’re feeling … I can’t pretend to understand it. But you need to stop treating Amelia as if she’s the cause of it. She’s not. I know it, and you have to know it. If you want to be angry at anyone be angry at Oscar Green.”

  “All I wanted to do was be a rancher again,” I said, throwing my arms up in the air. “Not a cop. I wanted to leave all of that behind me because after the Green case, I was afraid I was going insane. Losing my goddamn mind.”

  Chance was silent, absorbing that information.

  “Are you happy now? Happy that you’ve forced me to confide in you?” I spat on the ground beside me, disgusted. “You feel better now knowing your brother’s going fucking nuts?”

  “You’re not going crazy,” he said finally. “You’re just under a lot of stress, and who wouldn’t be?”

  “If you understand that, then what are you confronting me about?” I asked, exasperated.

  “I can accept your stress, but I can’t accept you making Amelia’s life hard around here,” Chance said. “Zoe said she hears Amelia crying at night sometimes. I’d hate to think you were the cause of that.”

  “It’s probably just the nightmares,” I said, then flushed.

  Chance peered at me. “Nightmares? Like the ones that have been keeping you up, too? You both have them?”

  I gave a half shrug and hoped he wouldn’t press me on it. “Like you said. I’m under a lot of stress.”

  “You all could be supportive of each other, at least,” he said, looking at me balefully. “You’ve shared a similar experience. You understand each other.”

  It was just what Amelia had been telling me earlier, and I hated Chance for bringing it up as well.

  “The only thing similar about our experiences was Oscar Green,” I said. “She has one experience, and I have the rest of them. He’s the only connection, and that’s not something I’m about to bond over.”

  “She told me about the grave.”

  That simple statement made me want to punch something. I just hoped it wasn’t going to be my older brother’s face. My entire pursuit of the Green case was a horrific experience, but the grave was the crystalized moment of abject terror that continued to actively haunt me. There were a lot of things to say to that, and many more that I almost did say, but the words that finally fell out of my mouth were perhaps the worst I could’ve chosen.

  “I think you should be more concerned with Amelia’s desire for attention,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “Don’t you feel like it’s pretty shameless for her to be blabbing on and on about everything?”

  Chance stared at me for several long moments before he shook his head. “You know, I can see right through you. When you’re feeling threatened the most, you act like the biggest asshole imaginable, trying to protect yourself.”

  “All I’m saying is that she should at least have the courtesy of being discreet and not scarring everyone for life with her stories.”

  “Why don’t you spend a few nights with Avery and Paisley?” Chance suggested, but his hard blue eyes told me it was a lot firmer than a suggestion. It was an order.

  “Are you seriously going to kick me out of my house?” I asked slowly.

  “Our family’s house, and yes,” he said. “You don’t want to see Amelia? Fine. Go stay somewhere else for the time being — and don’t come back until you think you’re ready to be a man about all of this.”

  There were a lot of things I wanted to do right now, and bloodying Chance’s nose for him was right there at the top of the list. Instead, I walked breezily around him and toward the house. He’d given me an out. I’d forgotten that Avery had already offered me the opportunity to sleep in one of the many rooms over there, especially with how bothered Paisley was by the entire situation with Amelia. Maybe that was really what I needed — a chance to cool down and not have to live with the knowledge that she was just a few feet away from me as I slept, or tried to.

  I walked upstairs and into my room with the intention to pack a bag with a few changes of clothes, when I heard a ruckus from Emmett’s old bedroom — the room where Amelia was staying. I dropped the duffel bag I’d pulled out from under my bed and went to investigate, fearing the worst.

  But it was just Amelia, red in the face, shoving clothes and other items into a suitcase of her own. She jumped as she noticed me looming in the doorway, then continued her haphazard and angry packing.

  “What do you want?” she demanded, ripping open another dresser drawer and flinging its contents into her bag.

  “To know what you’re doing,” I said after a beat.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m leaving.” She gave me a searing glare. “I expected you to start jumping up and down for joy.” When I didn’t, and simply stood there, watching her, trying to analyze the jumble of feelings inside of me, she spat a stream of vitriol again.

  “What are you even doing, just standing there? Would you like to help me pack? I’ll get out of your life even sooner. Why’d you come in here?”

  “I thought there was someone in here,” I said.

  “Of course there’s someone in here,” Amelia said. “I’m in here. Getting my things so I can leave.”

  “No,” I said, rubbing my face. “I thought someone else was in here.”

  “Who the hell else would be in…” She trailed off and sat heavily on the bed. “Jesus Christ. You thought he was here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, that’s something you won’t have to worry about anymore,” she said, looking sick and unwilling or unable to resume her packing. “I’ll find somewhere else.”

  Neither of us knew what to say after that, and neither of us moved. I stood in the doorway, struggling with myself, and she sat on the bed, also struggling with herself — and with me. Chance was right. That smug asshole was always right. It wasn’t Amelia who was my problem. She reminded me of my problem, and it wasn’t as if that was her fault.

  “Don’t go,” I said suddenly, and she jerked her head up to look at me.

  “What di
d you say?”

  “Don’t make me say it again,” I grumbled. “Stay. You’re welcome here.”

  “Am I?” She looked so small sitting there on that bed, with her cropped hair, that she almost seemed like a war refugee, displaced from her home, forced to live in an encampment that would never be home no matter how hard she tried to make it so. With a jolt of recognition, I suddenly understood that a refugee was exactly what Amelia was. She was a refugee from a terrible period of time with Oscar Green. I didn’t have to like her, but it was a dick move if I antagonized her even further.

  Even if her very presence antagonized me.

  “My brother told you that you could stay, so you can,” I said roughly. “Unpack your suitcase.”

  “You don’t want me here,” she said, her voice small.

  “That doesn’t matter. You’re staying.”

  I crossed the room in a couple of steps and started scooping great handfuls of her clothes and stuffing them back into the drawers. I probably was getting them all mixed up, but I didn’t care. I was making a point, or trying to, trying to get her to stay put on the ranch. If she left because of me and something happened to her, I would never forgive myself. Hell, it was more likely than not that my family wouldn’t forgive me. Letting Amelia stay here was the only thing we could do.

  “That’s fine — fine, Tucker,” she said, her voice going up a little shrilly. “I can do the rest.”

  I paused. “So you’re staying.”

  Her face was beet red. “Yes. I’m staying. For God’s sake. Just get out of here.”

  I looked down, trying to figure out just what had her panties twisted in a bunch when I realized I was cupping a literal handful of her panties. It was my turn to blush as I fumbled with them, fragile little scraps of lace and satin. Did I deposit them in the drawer with the rest of the clothes? Dump them back in the suitcase? Return them to their rightful owner? Let them fall from my fingers and on the floor?