THE CORBIN BROTHERS: The Complete 5-Books Series

by Lexie Ray

  “How are you feeling, buddy?” I asked as Toby gingerly examined the now-dry cast on his arm. He’d gone with plain white bandages, even though he had his choice of colors, because of the prospect of drawing on it — as if it were a blank canvas.

  “I feel okay,” he said. The doctors had given him simple, over the counter medication for his pain, and he didn’t seem to be any worse for wear. Kids were pretty resilient, apparently.

  “Your cast looks pretty cool,” I said. “White is very fashionable.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t want to be fashionable.”

  “Right, you’re going to be a real badass — I mean, a really cool person once we get those drawings on that cast.” I grimaced inwardly at my slip of the tongue.

  Toby laughed at me, which was disconcerting. “Mama says those kinds of words all the time. You don’t have to worry.” He was right, but that did little to ease my discomfort. His mama was on her way to the hospital by now, I was betting, with a mouthful of “those kinds of words” specifically for me. I was certain they’d sting extra sharp.

  “You know, I think the doctor left his pen around here somewhere,” I said, reaching for the tool in question on the countertop. “Should we start working up some sketches for that cast? What kinds of things are you interested in sporting for the next month or so?”

  “You don’t have to practice,” Toby said, making me pause from ripping out paper towels from the dispenser. “I know whatever you’re going to draw is going to be good — even if you say you’re not a good artist.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Don’t you have any requests?”

  “I trust you,” he said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to do. “I know whatever you put is going to be cool.”

  Toby and I studied each other for a good while, my blue eyes trying to gauge just what was behind his dark ones. It might’ve seemed like a simple thing, a child entrusting an adult to drawing on his cast, but it meant something different to me. Toby was literally putting his next month in my hands. He’d already called me his father casually, to a stranger. This was somehow more personal, entrusting his cast artwork to me. I should’ve done something to keep him from falling from the loft, but I hadn’t. All I’d done was scoop him up and see him to the hospital after he’d already been injured. I was a piece of shit father, and yet he still trusted me. Children were so stupid, even if they were inherently good. I wasn’t worth anything to Toby. He didn’t have to trust me, and yet he did.

  “Draw something awesome,” he said finally, and I put pen to plaster.

  I thought about Toby as I lightly sketched something out, taking into account everything he’d been through, everything he tried to do and be. He deserved a brighter future than the one he was currently chained to. He deserved a family, life in a place where everyone supported him and lifted him up and encouraged him. He deserved everything that was possible for a boy like him. He deserved a good father. He already had a good mother.

  “Wow,” Toby gushed quietly.

  “Wow, what?” I asked, lost in my pen strokes, intent on finishing something I hadn’t quite started very effectively.

  “Wow, your drawing,” he clarified. “That’s so cool.”

  I stopped sketching and leaned back to see what had come out of the pen I’d been scratching away with. I was probably more surprised than even Toby. I’d drawn a horse with wings, and a little boy with haunting similarities to Toby riding astride it. The figure’s arms were raised in triumph, and one of those little arms raised was encased in a cast. I’d basically drawn Toby frolicking around in the skies, complete with a warm sun and puffy clouds. It was a scene of complete and perhaps misplaced optimism. It was what I wanted most for Toby, for him to embrace dreams instead of accept reality.

  “Do you like it?” I asked, my words so insecure, like a child asking another child for his opinion.

  “I really like it,” he said. “That’s me, right?”

  “That’s you,” I confirmed. “Riding off into the sunset on a flying horse, which helps you a lot since you proved today that you can’t fly.”

  “I guess not,” he said a little sadly.

  “Yeah, you guess not,” I said. “But none of us fly, except on airplanes.”

  “Or magic horses.”

  “If you ever find one, sure. On magic horses.”

  “Toby?”

  Both of us looked toward the hospital hallway, remembering where we were and what exactly had happened as Zoe appeared in the doorway.

  “Hi, Mama.”

  She was leaning against the open door to the hospital room — there was no telling how long, exactly she was been there — and the expression on her face was hard to read. I expected her to be furious, stomping in here and cussing up a storm, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Instead, she smiled at Toby and walked in, her hair disheveled the only sign of the panic she’d probably driven here in.

  “Let’s see the damage,” she said, holding her hand out and smoothing her palm over the cast. “You already have quite the masterpiece going on here.”

  “Chance did it for me,” Toby said. “It’s awesome, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Zoe agreed generously. “We’ll have to get a permanent marker and go over it when we get home, won’t we? We don’t want that masterpiece fading anytime soon.”

  “You’re not mad, are you?” Toby asked suddenly, the look on his face saying that he probably thought he should’ve led with that question.

  “Are you going to be playing up in the hay loft anymore?” she asked, raising her eyebrows at him.

  “No way.”

  “Then it looks like you’ve learned from this, and I’m not mad.” She ruffled his hair before planting a kiss on top of his head. “Can you hold down the fort in here while Chance takes me to talk to your doctor? Here. See if you can transform these gloves into balloons for me before we get back.”

  She tossed a few latex gloves at him from the counter, then grabbed my arm and practically marched me outside. It was the most nervous I had felt all day.

  “You’re not made at me, are you?” I asked in a conscious parody of Toby’s question.

  “That remains to be fucking seen, doesn’t it?” she snapped, out of range of her son’s room. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this happened?”

  “When he fell, all I could think of was getting him to the hospital as fast as I could while distracting him from the pain,” I said.

  “I’m not talking about that,” she said, cutting me off with a sharp slash of her hand through the air. “Why did I have to find out about this from Hadley?”

  “I called her for medical advice,” I lied, lowering my gaze. “So I could try and understand what the doctors here were saying.”

  “I’m not a dumbass, Chance,” she said. “Don’t you dare treat me like one.”

  “I’m not trying to — I knew you were going to be angry. I just thought maybe you’d be less angry if Hadley told you instead of me.”

  “I don’t think anger quite describes it,” she said, her eyes practically smoldering with rage. “Scared was the first feeling. I knew my kid was hurt. Confusion was the second. Why was I hearing this from Hadley? Why had you called her first? And I guess confusion even beat out fear, at that point, driving to the hospital, eating away those miles while I was so goddamn bewildered I couldn’t even see straight. Were you hiding something from me? Had something gone wrong that you didn’t want me to see? And that’s when I suppose anger set in.”

  “I’m sorry for not calling you,” I said, feeling like the idiot I knew I was. “I’m a coward.”

  “I don’t even know what to do with you,” she said. “One minute I’m so sure of what I want to do with my life and the next minute I don’t know anything.”

  “It was stupid for me to call Hadley instead of you,” I said. “I just didn’t want you to be angrier than you already are with me. I’ll sign the divorce papers. I’ll do
whatever you want. I’m just sorry.”

  Brow furrowed, Zoe paused for a moment to consider what I’d said. “You haven’t signed the divorce papers?”

  “No, but I will. Sorry it’s taken this long.”

  “Why did you wait?”

  I wished she would just yell at me for being and idiot, but a new quietness had replaced all that rage. It was thoughtful. She lowered her eyes and stared at the floor. I knew she was waiting on me to answer.

  “I just couldn’t,” I said finally. “I couldn’t sign them.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love you too much. Because I didn’t want to give up on us. Because our marriage meant more to me than just a means to an end with Forrest. Because I thought I could figure out something to do to make you love me again and take me back. Because I thought that, magically, one day I would find someone to tell me how to be a good father to your boy, and you would let me back into your arms, back into your family.”

  “You fucking idiot,” Zoe said, tenderness in her voice tempering the insult. “Nobody tells you how to be a good parent. People might write mountains of books full of bullshit trying to explain it, but you don’t know how to do anything until you’re actually doing it, living it, in charge of a little human being.”

  “That’s the thing I’m trying to explain to you,” I said. “Toby has a broken arm because of me, because he was trying to get me to pay attention to him and I didn’t. That’s not father material. I’m not cut out for it.”

  “Here’s something,” she said, shaking her head at me. “You’ve been father material your whole life whether you realize it or not. You want to know how I know?”

  “How?”

  “Your parents might’ve died too early, when you were still a kid, but then you stepped up.” Zoe took a step closer, poking her finger hard into my chest. “You were a mother and a father to the rest of your brothers.”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t. I was just mean to them until they did what I was telling them to do.”

  “That’s a parent.”

  “It’s not,” I argued. “I didn’t raise them.”

  “You did. You had a responsibility to keep your brothers all together after your parents died so child services wouldn’t split you up. You made sacrifices. That’s what a parent does. You are father material, Chance. Look what you did for Toby today.”

  “I’m scared to death of being a father,” I confessed to her. “What if something really bad happened? Hell, something really bad did happen. We’re here at the hospital, and your kid is in a cast.”

  “Kids are messy, and bad things happen all the time,” Zoe said. “You just learn to roll with the punches, be ready for anything and everything. Chance … you were a good father today. Better than any of the likes Toby’s seen, father-wise.”

  “Forrest isn’t much of a father figure to compare me to,” I said, pursing my lips with distaste.

  “I’m trying to tell you that you can be a good father, if that’s what you want to be. Do you want this family to work?”

  I swallowed hard. “I want it to work. I want to be a good father. I just don’t know if I will be.”

  “Do you think the moment I knew I was pregnant with Toby I knew right off the bat I’d be a good mother?” She shook her head emphatically. “Fuck, no. I was scared all the time. I didn’t have a good support system, and I knew Forrest was a piece of shit, too. But what could I do? I had to have this baby, and the only thing I could do for him was the best I could do. So be certain of that. You can always just do your best.”

  “I didn’t sign the divorce papers because I wanted there to be a way to make everything work,” I said. “Because I love you so much, and because I want to do right by Toby.”

  “Well, I think this is a good place to start.”

  I heaved a laugh. “In the hospital? With Toby’s arm broken?”

  “Everything has to start somewhere.”

  I put a cautious arm around her, and pulled her close when I sensed it was safe to do so.

  Zoe looked up at me. “Chance?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t pull this shit again.”

  I didn’t even have to ask her what shit, exactly, she was talking about. I knew it was about not being man enough to call her outright once we were at the hospital.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I’m going to make you make it up to me.”

  “I’d do anything for you.” And I would. It just felt like I was going to start owing huge favors to just about everyone on the ranch at this point.

  “I want a real wedding.” Her dark eyes lit up excitedly, almost like a little girl’s. “I’ve never had one before. One like Amelia and Tucker’s.”

  “Does this mean everything’s going to be okay?” I asked hesitantly.

  “Are you going to hide things about Toby from me?”

  “Fuck, no.”

  “Do you think we can really do this, then?” She bit her bottom lip. “Because if you think we can, I want to. I really want it. I just want a good family for Toby to grow up in. For him to be happy.”

  “Toby’s an amazing kid,” I said. “Did you know he didn’t cry — not once? Tough little guy.”

  “He’s been around a lot of strong men lately, and one in particular,” she said. “Lots of examples to mold himself after.”

  I fell to my knees in front of her, determined to do things right this time.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, her eyes darting around. “Did you step on something weird?”

  “Zoe Corbin, I know things didn’t go right the first time.” Passers-by had stopped to witness whatever spectacle I was making of myself, but I did my best to block them out.

  “Chance, you’re being an ass.” She hated all the eyes on her, on us, on this, but I didn’t care. She was the one who wanted a big Corbin wedding. I was the one preparing to give it to her.

  “Let me be your ass,” I said, then spluttered with laughter at how badly that sounded. “Incorrect. I’m already your ass. An ass, I mean. This isn’t going like I planned it.”

  “It doesn’t look like you planned anything at all,” Zoe said, hauling me forcefully up to my feet. She was so strong for her size, but then, I knew that. I knew that so well.

  “You know, I didn’t, and maybe that’s just the nature of us,” I said. “Things aren’t pretty and perfect in this relationship, but they’re real. They’re raw. I’d take that over pretty and perfect any day.”

  “Let’s just get Toby and go home,” Zoe urged.

  “We will,” I promised her. “I just want you to marry me again. In a real ceremony this time. As romantic as you want it.”

  “Romance,” she snorted. “You’re right. I’d prefer real love over perfection any day. That realness … it is perfect for me. For us. I don’t need a big Corbin wedding. I’m already yours.”

  I kissed her for as long as she’d let me in the bustling hospital.

  “I’m going to give you everything you need — things you don’t even need,” I promised her. “Everything you want. Whatever you want.”

  “Careful, Corbin,” she said. “You might spoil me.”

  “I’m going to spoil you rotten,” I vowed. “You just wait.”

  She didn’t have to wait long. Within the week, I’d bought her the biggest ring I thought she would wear, and arranged for a massive party at the ranch. If she didn’t want a big Corbin wedding, she was at least getting an enormous Corbin reception. That would, hopefully, get Hadley, Paisley, Peyton, and Amelia off our backs about the wedding planning they missed out on.

  I even invited a cadre of kids from Toby’s class — ones he had the chance to approve beforehand — and ordered a metric ton of Happy Meals from McDonald’s to satisfy their fast food cravings.

  Everyone loved it, and everyone had fun. The booze flowed, the music boomed, and for just one night and one night only, the ranch faded into the background for me. In front of me wa
s my family, all of us happy, and Zoe was officially a part of that.

  When the party was at its height, I stole Zoe away from everything and brought her to the house, which was quiet, for once.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, flushed with excitement from being the center of attention. I’d encouraged her to wear whatever she wanted, but the other women had captured her and spirited her away for dress shopping. She was bedecked in a beautiful white wool dress, perfect for the cold night. Each of the women had gifted her with accessories to compliment it — a glittering hair comb from Hadley, a warm wrap from Paisley, earrings that crept cloyingly up each lobe from Peyton, and brand new cowboy boots from Amelia. She really did look like a Corbin princess, and it suited her. She was the queen of this ranch.

  “I wanted to do something a little bit special,” I said.

  “What else can there be, Chance?” she asked. “This is already all so special.”

  “Just a little romance,” I said, and the judge stepped out.

  “You kids doing okay?” he said, his face shining.

  “Of course we’re doing okay,” Zoe said, covering her face and laughing. “Have you been out there this whole time? There are so many people that I can’t even keep track of who I’ve said hello to.”

  “I’ve only been here a short time,” the judge assured her. “I heard about the arrest.”

  “Yes, indeed,” I confirmed. “Thank God for security cameras.”

  “And for vigilance,” the judge said. “And love, of course.”

  “And romance,” Zoe joked.

  “So, you’re here to renew your vows,” the judge said. “That’s pretty darn romantic, if I do say so myself.”

  “Is that what we’re here to do?” she asked, cocking her head at me.

  “Well, that was the surprise,” I admitted. “Sorry. I thought it would be a surprise.”

  “Oh, sorry for spoiling it!” the judge exclaimed.