“I don’t know!” Dalton bellowed. “Was she drunk?”

“Fuck off, Dalton.”

Tell said, “Guys—”

“This is why we wanted you to stay away from Jessie, Brandt. You two keep hurting each other over and over and neither of you even realizes you’re doin’ it! Goddammit, do you know what it’s like for us to have to watch you both miserable—”

Landon started to wail, scared by the raised voices. Before Brandt could pick him up, Tell pulled the boy onto his lap. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re just a little freaked out by you and this whole situation. But we’re gonna do everything we can to make sure your needs are met above anyone else’s.”

No surprise Tell looked right at Brandt when he said the last part.

Tell said, “I don’t know if you’ve got some warped version of happily ever after floating in your head, bro, but even if you and Jessie do spend all this time together in close quarters taking care of Luke’s kid, you do know she ain’t gonna fall in love with you, right?”

Hurt, resentment, denial swelled up inside Brandt to the point he thought he might explode. But he tamped it down; refusing to lash out at Tell or give into the hair trigger temper he’d inherited from their father.

“More likely than not, when it’s all over, she’ll hate your guts for forcing her hand.”

The thought of Jessie hating him had bile crawling up Brandt’s throat.

Dalton added, “Hate to agree with Tell, but I don’t see it endin’ up any other way, Brandt.”

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Silence.

Then Tell, the peacemaker, said, “What was up with Uncle Carson givin’ Keely and Jack some land as a wedding gift?”

“Think Dad knew about it?” Dalton said.

“Probably. Typical that he didn’t tell us. But it doesn’t fit that he ain’t throwing a shit fit about it. He’s always insisted the McKay land trust won’t allow for pieces just to be handed out. Not even to the next generation. It has to be a unanimous decision.”

“Yeah, if I thought we could get part of our land parceled out to us and away from Dad’s control…”

Brandt snorted. “It’ll never happen. Dad’s gotta have something to lord over us.”

Dalton looked at both his brothers. “Think he’ll see Landon as something you’re tryin’ to lord over him?”

Brandt hadn’t considered that. God. He wasn’t like his father. Not everything he did was some sort of power play.

“We’d better get goin’, if we’re takin’ Landon over to Mom and Dad’s,” Tell said.

“The carseat is in my truck.” Brandt pushed to his feet. “Look, you guys can call me names, think I’m the biggest ass**le on the planet, question my end game, but I’m askin’ that we at least pretend we’re on the same page in front of Dad.”

“Yeah, Dad will definitely home in on any weakness.”

“Do we let him know about Jessie helping out?”

“We have to. There’ll be hell to pay if he hears about it from someone else.”

“True.”

Brandt swung Landon into his arms. “Let’s get this over with.”

The meeting with his parents went about like Brandt expected. Rage on his father’s part, mostly directed at the woman who’d dared to keep Luke’s child a secret from his family. His mother cried a lot while she carted Landon around, enticing him to eat, then chasing him through the house. She looked happier than he’d seen her in years.

When Brandt relayed Landon’s childcare arrangements during the months he’d have guardianship, his father accused Jessie of trying to keep the boy from his real family out of spite. That was the last straw for the visit. Brandt pried Landon out of his mother’s arms amidst his father’s threats for legal action.

Dalton and Tell were quiet on the way back to Brandt’s place. They kept the boy entertained while Brandt loaded up Landon’s things and double-checked everything since he’d be gone for five days. After they agreed to meet at Dalton’s house to figure out the week’s work, Brandt made the forty-five minute drive to Jessie’s.

Something stirred in him when he saw Jessie sitting on the front steps with Lexie by her side. The afternoon had warmed up from the bouts of snow flurries earlier in the day and the wind blew random strands of her reddish blonde hair across her appled cheeks. She looked young, fresh and wholesome.

Which made him feel guilty as sin for the direction of his impure thoughts.

Landon kicked his feet to be let out of his seat. Brandt set him on the ground and the kid took off toward Lexie with a squeal of delight. When the dog cowered beneath the deck, Brandt plucked a plastic ball from one of the bins of toys in the back of his truck and tossed it into the yard. Landon held the ball, dropped it, threw it, moving as fast as his legs could carry him.

“Looks like he’s got some pent-up energy,” Jessie remarked.

“I figure it’ll be good for him to run around, get some fresh air, maybe he’ll sleep better tonight, bein’s he’s in a strange place.”

She scooted over, making room for him to sit beside her.

“How did it go with Skylar?”

“She’s one hundred percent on board with it. Probably more so than I am.”

Brandt said nothing.

“Sorry. It’s just… God, it’s really freakin’ weird, okay? I’m sitting here watching Luke’s kid run around, and I had such a close connection to Luke, but I also feel like I didn’t know him at all. I look at the kid and I don’t know what I feel. It didn’t help Skylar started saying all these things about how I should be nominated for sainthood for opening my heart and home to Landon, and I couldn’t take it. I had to leave.

And then, your mom called about a half hour ago.”

“What’d she say?”

“That she was sorry about how everything played out after Luke died, but she had no say in the matter since she had nothing to do with the McKay Ranch.” Jessie turned her head to look at him; Brandt had no choice but to meet her gaze. “Joan cried, Brandt. She broke down and basically said she can’t imagine how hard this is for me, but at the same time she feels like she’s been given a miracle.”

Dammit. “If she said—”

“No. That’s it. She said she wouldn’t fight her husband when it came to ranch matters, but when it came to matters involving her sons, she’d fight that mean bastard tooth and nail.”




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