Anders stared at his oldest brother. He’d always admired Axel. He’d hero-worshipped him since he could remember, but he was just too damn perfect. Too everything a man should be. He’d never have lapsed on birth control, and if he did, the girl wouldn’t turn him down. Ever. She wouldn’t accuse him of faking anything, and it definitely wouldn’t occur to her that Axel would cheat on her. He was as honest as a man could get.
So, what did that say about him?
Or was it only Tinsley who felt him so lacking?
And was that on him or her?
He couldn’t even tell Axel about any of it. Too humiliating. He’d made a child with a woman who didn’t want him and didn’t respect him. There wasn’t much lower a woman could shove a man down.
“You want to talk,” Axel stated mildly as they rode into the main stable. He dismounted and uncinched the saddle, in one graceful movement, hefted it up and braced it against one of his broad shoulders.
Anders followed suit, but guilt and frustration weighed him down. He felt out of sync with everything, including himself and his body. His moves were short and jerky, and he tossed the saddle down on its place on the rack.
“Hey now,” Axel caught his shoulder, his large hands easily spanning and holding him in place.
Just like a big brother should.
Guilt, grief, anger, so many things hit Anders at once that he stilled, unable to sort through half of them.
“You’re off your game. It’s going to translate to the animals, and if you bring it to your work next week you’re going to get hurt.”
That was Axel. Cutting to the heart of it all. His command to talk wasn’t uttered, but it was there in his expression, and Anders felt a weird burning sensation behind his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” He squeezed the two words out—not what he’d been planning to say.
“For what?”
So much Anders realized in a stab of clarity that he usually avoided. His brother had been a bull rider—second year on the tour and top of the leaderboard. He’d already had some enthusiasts comparing him to some of the legendary best. And then their father had unexpectedly died, and Axel had come home so Anders could finish his junior and senior years of high school.
Axel had taken over running the ranch and raising his youngest brother, and he’d never once complained, nor had he seemed bitter of his youngest brother’s success.
And now with Tinsley’s well-placed comment about him putting himself in danger with his job and the biggest blow that she didn’t want his kid, he suddenly realized the sacrifice his brother had made. And with a clarity that froze his blood, he knew he might have to make the same one.
Only he’d gotten six years to live his dream. Axel only two.
“You left the tour because of me.”
Axel’s expression—open, searching—closed down, but his hand maintained contact with Anders’ shoulder.
“Of course.”
“That’s it? Of course? You sacrificed a career, a dream job, hundreds of thousands in potential earnings and sponsorships and that’s all you say?”
“Nothing to say.” Axel gave his shoulder a squeeze and let go. He picked up the grooming tools for his horse. Anders grabbed the currycomb and followed where both horses stomped a little impatiently—ready for their reward after their afternoon of work.
Anders followed Axel, feeling like he no longer fit his skin.
“I never thanked you,” he said gruffly as they started brushing down the horses after their long ride. Nocturnal, a horse Axel had purchased and trained a few years ago intending to sell until Anders had taken a shine to her, nuzzled his neck.
“No need.”
Axel meant it. He harbored no resentment. None. While Anders had been seething with it since Tinsley’s angry announcement about being pregnant. He thought he’d been dealing with it, being practical, doing what a man needed to do, but he’d been a dick. Throwing down orders. Not listening. Not making any attempt to understand her feelings at all.
“That’s what families do, right? Sacrifice?”
“If it’s for family, it’s not much of a sacrifice,” Axel said, his deep voice quiet. He snuck his horse, Sundown, a carrot and then another.
“Did you…?” Anders pressed his lips together. Of course his brother would have missed the tour, the challenge, the freedom, the life. And then with a thump, he realized Axel had been about his age when he’d had to walk away from bull riding.
He jerked upright, staring at his brother, who continued grooming Sundown, a new horse he was still working on training as a ranch horse. His movements were smooth and practiced. He didn’t falter or look like anything unusual was happening. And it most definitely was. They were talking.
“Do you think I should quit the tour after the finals?”
“That’s for you to decide.”
Axel did look at him then, and he scratched Sundown’s chin. The horse whinnied and arched into the contact, stomping his hoof, and a smile ghosted Axel’s mouth.
“Lots of riders have families to come home to,” Axel said, and his hand slipped down to hold the bridle to still Sundown’s head bobs. “No more carrots for you.” He scratched the horse’s forelock. “Tinsley want you to quit?”
No judgment. Just a question. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never match Axel’s quiet strength. Ever.
“She wants to get rid of me,” Anders said, feeling the burn all over again, but this time it felt darker, colder. “She’s not sure she wants to be a mom.”
“I’d imagine lots of women find themselves in that position initially. How are you helping her with that?”
“I told her I’d be there for her and the baby. I said we should get married. I’m getting paperwork in order so that she and the baby are financially taken care of,” Anders said, feeling a bit defensive. “You would have done the same thing—taken responsibility. You taught me that. A man is responsible for his own actions.”
“Yes, but there’s more to it than that,” Axel said softly. He’d paused in the grooming, and Sundown stomped his left front hoof. Axel stroked the horse’s neck.
“I helped raise you best I could,” Axel said. “But I was fourteen when Aurik died, and then Mom passed soon after, and Dad was pretty worthless after that. He worked hard, but he stayed away from the house, from us.”
“You were like both parents to me and August. He fought you all the time.”
“We can only now be in the same room without him going nuclear on me.” A grim smile touched Axel’s mouth. “Cruz and Catalina help us to communicate better. I helped raise you, Anders, but I didn’t help you with the more civilized communication skills. Not my strong suit.”
Since Axel had always been known as the strong, silent Wolf, these words were an amusing understatement, but nothing seemed funny to Anders right now. He was still reeling, off balance, and no amount of time standing on the medicine ball was going to right him.
“I protected you. I tried to protect both of you,” Axel said softly, leaning into Sundown’s neck as if for comfort. “To try to make up for not protecting Aurik.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Anders said reflexively. “You nearly drowned pulling him out of the river.”
He didn’t remember any of it. He’d been too young, but people in the town talked about the tragedy still. There were claims that the infamous creek that regularly flooded on their property was haunted still by Aurik’s frantic cries and his dead mother’s grief-stricken moans as her ghost wandered creek side searching for her lost child.
“People in town talked about our family a lot. We have a colorful history, and we’ve had more than our fair share of tragedy. I didn’t want you to have to deal with all the gossip. That’s why I…” Axel paused and sucked in a deep breath and squared his shoulders like he was going into battle. “Dad killed himself, Anders.”
“Wait, what? It was a heart attack. It…he…” He shut up. He remembered waking up to go to school. He’d had a t
est in biology and another in calculus.
Axel had been home, which was shocking. Axel had looked serious and asked him if he had anything important going on at school that day. He’d told him about the tests and the presentation in his civics class. Axel had made him pancakes and driven him to school. He’d picked him up at the end of the day, and on the way home he’d said their dad had died.
Anders had been stunned into silence.
“The coroner said heart attack,” Anders said. “But I thought it was the drinking.”
“You knew about that too.” Axel looked regretful. “He never managed after Mom died.” Something twisted Axel’s stoic features, but then his expression smoothed out. “Hanged himself.”
Anders stared in disbelief.
“He called me to come home. Immediately. I didn’t want to leave before the final, so I rode. I won that one and was feeling high, but instead of celebrating I drove all night to get back to the ranch. Found him when I walked in the front door. He hadn’t bothered to wait for me.”
If Axel had left immediately for home when his father had called, would their father have still been alive? Would Axel have been able to stop him? He must have wondered that a million times. Alone.
“Jesus.” Anders found himself sitting down next to his horse—not a smart place to be. Nocturnal turned to look at him, expression curious and irritated.
“I didn’t want you to have to deal with all the crap from kids at school and the gossips of the town. The coroner was kind. The police chief kinder. For years people kept talking about Aurik dying, haunting Fury Creek. Then Mom died only months later, overdosing in the house.” Axel paused and closed his eyes, and Anders realized in dread that Axel had probably found her too. She’d closed herself off in Aurik’s room, and their father had taken to sleeping in the barn.
“People in town talked about hearing her ghost wandering down in the hollow along the creek calling out for Aurik. Last thing you needed was a hangman story following you around your last couple years of high school.”
Axel paused looked at Anders, opened his mouth, then shook his head and turned back to his horse.
Axel had hated the tragedy and ghost gossip surrounding their family. August had loved it, making up even more haunting stories. Anders had never seen a ghost and hoped to keep it that way.
“We never talked like this before,” Anders said, almost marveling despite the revelations that made him feel dizzy. His dad had left them first in a bottle, and then finally by his own hand. And Anders had let him. He hadn’t reached out to his father at all. He’d felt it was his father’s duty to protect his family and he hadn’t. He’d left it all to his eldest son. The entire burden. He held out his hand, needing the contact.
Axel reached out a large hand and hauled him to his feet like he weighed the same as a bag of oats.
“That’s on me,” Axel said. “I was in survival mode for years. After you left to chase the pro rodeo and then got your ticket to the AEBR the next year, I cleaned out the house, locked it up, even nailed shut the front door,” he said. “Too many ghosts.”
Anders hugged his brother hard. Axel stiffened and then hugged him back, then embarrassed they both moved back.
“Thank you for being my brother,” Anders said, “but you don’t need to protect me anymore. I want to share your burdens. I want to contribute to the family and the ranch.”
“You do,” Axel said. His attention was back on his horse. “You’ve invested in the ranch since you started earning, and August tells me you were his initial investor for the distillery. You pull your weight, Anders.”
“When I’m finished with the tour I was planning to move back home. Work the ranch. Expand into breeding bucking bulls. I’ve talked about it with Kane Wilder. He and his family have an expanding operation in Montana.”
“Working with you will give the Wilders more reach with less traveling stress on the bulls,” Axel deduced. “Smart. You got the capital.”
“Not all. Thought I’d have five more years to earn and invest,” he said.
“You made up your mind to quit?”
Everything inside him rebelled, but he tried to squelch his reaction.
Axel led Sundown back toward his stall, and after a moment when Anders considered the merits of hard kicking one of the planks of the arena but decided it would be immature and likely spook Nocturnal, he grabbed the bridle and led Nocturnal back to her stall farther down the row.
“Was it as hard on you as it feels now to me?” Anders found the courage to ask. “Because I feel gutted leaving.”
“Then don’t leave yet. I didn’t have a choice,” Axel said. “You’ve got Tinsley and time. You’re smart. You’ll know what the best course is for yourself and for the child when the time comes. When I made my decision, it didn’t really seem like a choice.”
“Tinsley doesn’t seem like she agrees with me about anything. She keeps shoving me away saying I can be involved—” he air-quoted the word with a sneer “—as a dad as much as I want to be when the baby’s born, like it’s some part-time gig I’m going to do when the mood strikes.”
Then he did kick part of the arena fence. The board split.
“Well, there’s your answer for what you’re going to do next,” Axel said staring at the split wood.
Anders swore under his breath. “She says she doesn’t need me.”
And she doesn’t want me.
His chest ached at that.
“She doesn’t want to need you,” Axel translated. “Why?”
“What?”
“Why doesn’t she want to need you? Why is she avoiding talking about the future? She’s smart. She knows it’s going to come. She knows you’re a good man. Find out what she’s afraid of.”
Axel walked out of the barn like he hadn’t just dropped a bomb.
*
“I thought I understood why August was so determined for you to run the tasting room and help us brand our wine after I met you at our wedding and saw the sales figures for Cowboy Wolf Whiskey,” Catalina said that evening as she and Tinsley stood outside on the transformed back patio of Verflucht. “You are a visionary and an organizational genius. And you don’t take no for an answer.”
Catalina surveyed the yard behind the tasting room that earlier this morning she’d dismissed with “I’m not exactly sure, maybe a patio” this morning when Tinsley had asked.
Tinsley had pulled out the ideas she’d been working on, the research she’d done, and the sketches. She and Catalina had divided the work and then had been non-stop on the phone and online placing orders and arranging deliveries and labor.
What had been a large patch of dirt this morning with a sagging, jerry-rigged fence was now was re-fenced in the old style of wood post and wrapped wire, and each distressed wood post had a grapevine planted in front of it, which as it grew would be trained to wrap around the wires.
Ten galvanized feed bins had been delivered from the local feed store, and then the hardware and gardening store had delivered a mountain of potting soil, a fig tree, two peach trees and seven olive trees from a local grower. Catalina had texted two cellar workers to help, and between them, they’d drilled holes in the improvised, fairly cheap planters, positioned them for maximum visual impact and then planted the trees.
Outdoor furniture had been ordered and delivered, and two ranch hands had been dispatched to San Antonio to pick up two eight-foot-long gas fireplaces that would serve as focal points for two larger seating arrangements.
“And you persuaded August to have a pizza oven built out here,” Catalina said. “I feel like we are opening a restaurant.”
“Nope. We are creating a tasting room but also a wine bar,” Tinsley said. “The tourists and locals wanting to taste and learn can start inside the tasting room—which reminds me, I’d like to discuss different seating there now that the patio is nearly done. Customers can join our wine group, buy a bottle or two at a membership discount, order one of our snack plates made
with locally sourced ingredients, and picnic and drink on the patio. We’ll pair the food with the wine and rotate the menu seasonally to feature different local farmers as well as food from Ghost Hill—you did mention that you wanted to restore the original garden and also create a garden up near the East Barn.”
Catalina wrapped her arms around Tinsley and hugged her hard.
“I am so, so, so excited,” she said fiercely. Tinsley felt a little startled—both by Catalina’s strength in her small, wiry body and the intensity of the hug.
Tinsley had been an only child. Her parents had been demanding, exacting—not warm or loving or fun. She had a nanny for that—well, many nannies. And tutors and teachers for everything from music to dance to riding and jumping and later dressage, and of course for her school subjects. She hadn’t needed academic help—her classes had all been honors, AP or college prep, but her father and mother had been adamant that she be tutored up. They had wanted her to attend a top-tier university.
And until five years ago when she’d left everyone and everything behind, she hadn’t disappointed. Nor had she objected. And it occurred to her that despite all her so-called success and polish, no one had ever been happy to see her like Catalina and August had this morning. Her parents had never hugged her for a job well done. John’s eyes had never lit up because she walked into a room.
Tinsley slowly hugged Catalina back, not quite sure if she was overstepping. She felt awkward and wasn’t sure what to say. Then she saw one of the men she’d met this morning at the winery rolling in one large olive-colored umbrella. Another deliveryman followed.
Tinsley showed them where to place the heavy-based umbrellas. She liked the splash of color the umbrellas would provide during the day, and they’d mitigate the heat of the sun. Heat lamps would warm cool evenings, which would start soon, according to Catalina. Those were being delivered tomorrow. She and Catalina had been discussing the merits of adding on a covered outdoor space.
“What if we had the boys build on to the existing structure?” Catalina asked, turning her back on the transformation of the outdoor area to look at the three-story former small granary with the original silo restored on top of the apartment.
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