Broken (Brody Brothers Book 4) Page 27

  Oh, boy. “I can drive you to the hospital while D and Celia work the phones.” Then she hit herself in the forehead. “Scratch that, I can’t. Des disabled my car, and Fin made me swear I wouldn’t try to leave the ranch while Des is at work, but I think he’d be okay with this exception. Did you come here in your own vehicle, or were you dropped off by Fin?”

  “Dropped off, because Fin needed the truck to haul horses out to the jump-off point some fifteen miles out,” she murmured, rising up on her elbow to frown at her. “Why did Des disable your car?”

  “Because I found out he’s been having my family’s lake professionally surveyed during the time we’ve been getting together, even though he swore he didn’t give a damn about that lake. Like an idiot, I believed him when he said that I was the only thing that mattered to him.” Then she rolled her lips between her teeth and bit down. Now was not the time to gush out her wounds. A dry thunderstorm was bearing down on them and Lilah was about to drop the newest Brody into the world. “There’s got to be some sort of vehicle around here that we can borrow. I can ask around—”

  “This is my second pregnancy, Win. I’ve been through this before, so calm down. I was in back labor with my son Donovan for thirty hours before my water finally broke, so this baby’s not going to be coming any time soon.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Believe me, this is like the first inning in a long, long ballgame. Now,” she went on, pushing to a sitting position so she could search Winnie’s face. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what happened.”

  Not sure if she should trust a Brody wife—but not seeing any logical reason why she shouldn’t—Winnie told her everything. Airing out the facts wouldn’t change them, after all. When she was done, Lilah was frowning, but that could have been because of the spasming muscles she was trying to awkwardly massage.

  “Getting a survey of your family’s land without your permission is a very Brody thing to do,” Lilah said, shaking her head. “When they’re interested in something, they make sure they do their homework. I know what it might look like from the outside—that he was playing you. But that methodical thoroughness is how they win everything they’ve set their sights on.”

  Winnie’s mouth flattened. “I’m a Smiley, remember? The feud between the Smileys and the Brodys go all the way back to the 1850s. You’re not telling me something I don’t already know.”

  “Actually, that’s my point. I think I am telling you something you don’t know.”

  Winnie frowned. “Sorry, you’ve lost me.”

  “Des disabled your car because he wanted you to stick around, no matter what.” With a stifled groan, Lilah bent forward over her lap filled with her massive baby bump, and again tried to rub her back. “I’ve known the Brody brothers my whole life. Des is like a brother to me, so believe me when I say that I know him like I know myself. If he really does want that lake, pissing you off by disabling your car isn’t the methodical way to go. More to the point, you even gave him the tools to get the lake from your Granny just to get him out of your hair. So if all he wants is Smiley Lake and nothing more, why was he so intent on trapping you here?”

  “I don’t know.” Compassion got Winnie moving, and she sank down onto the edge of the bed beside Lilah so she could try to help work out the muscles in the other woman’s lower back. “Honestly, Lilah, you should be pissed off at Des just as much as I am. He’s effectively trapped us here without a working car. Normally I doubt that would be much of a problem here at Green Rock, but I think just about every vehicle is gone, with everyone running around trying to batten down the hatches.”

  “Now’s not the time to worry about that.” The blonde woman took in a slow breath and let it out through her mouth, before glancing back at her. “Not yet, anyway.”

  Oh, man.

  “I’d forgotten how much I hate these things.” Ry made a face as he choked down one of the energy bars that had been packed in all their saddlebags. “Tastes like a peanut butter-covered dog turd, if you ask me.”

  “So you know what a dog turd tastes like, do you? This is my not-surprised face.” Reins in hand, Des watched the herd Ry had brought in from the western grid to join the herd he and about a dozen ranch hands had gathered from the southern grid. It was after three in the afternoon, and it had taken this long just to get their two sections together, with Killian flying overhead to coordinate all the teams on the ground. “Man, I wish you hadn’t mentioned food.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d just about give my left nut for some real food right about now.” Des’s stomach growled, souring his already crappy mood. “Skipped breakfast, now lunch. Dinner’s looking like it’s going to be more beef jerky, dog-turd protein bars and piss-warm Gatorade, so don’t mention fucking food.”

  “Celia got me going this morning with the best damn chorizo and egg breakfast tacos you’ve ever tasted, along with her homemade roasted-pepper salsa,” Ry announced so smugly Des considered shoving him out of his saddle. “She was taught how to cook by Pauline Padgett and an abuela who knew that top-notch cooking was a surefire way to win a man’s heart. She could give Winnie cooking tips, if you want.”

  “I have no idea if Winsome can cook, because unlike you, you human garbage disposal, food isn’t the way to get to my heart.” At the mention of Winsome, he scowled out at the gathering sea of lowing cattle as they moved roughly east across the yellowed terrain. God, he didn’t want to be there, where the sun kept trying to cut through the heavy gray clouds, heating the atmosphere just enough to make the dust-filled air downright oppressive. He didn’t want to be where sweat and dust stuck to his skin while the scent of warm horse, cow and man rose up to clog his senses.

  He wanted to be where Winnie was, breathing in her sweetly floral scent and finding a way to make her not want to murder him.

  “What exactly is the way to your heart, little brother?” Ry wanted to know, his attention split between him and the ragged edge of the herd ahead of them. “Has Winnie figured that shit out, or what?”

  Jesus. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

  “I’m asking point-blank if she’s the one, or if she’s just the one for now. And before you say it’s none of my fucking business, I know that, but I don’t give a shit. You’re my brother and I love you, and I want you to be happy like me and Cel. But I also don’t want you to settle into a serious relationship just because you need a replacement for the life you once had on the rodeo circuit. So if that’s what this is—”

  “I was getting tired of the circuit before I got injured, Ry,” he interrupted, nudging his mount to pick up the pace to get a meandering bulge in the herd back in line. “Tired of the grind, tired of not having any point to whatever it was I was doing. Even when I won, I felt like I was failing at life because I was alone. I didn’t even have you guys to share my triumphs with, because you and Fin were doing what I wasn’t—getting yourselves a life that was something other than Green Rock Ranch. When you married Celia, I’ll straight-up admit it—I envied you.”

  “Bullshit.” A faint scoff escaped his brother before he unhooked a length of rope and spun it in a vertical circle, a visual deterrent for a handful of cows looking to make their own way in the world. “This, from the man who’s knocked boots with more buckle-bunnies than there are buckles? It’s hard to believe you’ve been nursing a secret hankering for the family way of life.”

  “Every man’s got a need to belong somewhere, Ry. That’s what family is—belonging to the people you choose to have in your life. Buckle-bunnies aren’t that.”

  “Is Winnie Smiley?”

  He didn’t even have to think about it. “Winsome is the only person on this earth who’s made me feel like I’m completely home. She understands me, even the bad parts, just as I understand her, because we’ve had to endure a lot of the same shit as we’ve moved through life. I never knew how important that was, that soul-deep understanding, until she came along. Though,” he added with a quick grin, “s
he didn’t exactly come along. I’ve had my eye on her for a while—probably since I was a senior in high school.”

  “Sounds like me and Celia,” came the laconic answer. “I remember her when she was the captain of the cheerleading squad. There I was, coming home from grad school on winter break just hoping to get a glimpse of her in her kickass little uniform with the short-short skirt and her hair up in a high ponytail… shit.” He chuckled and shook his head. “I do not give any fucks if that makes me a dirty old man. I knew she was the one for me, just like you know Winnie’s the one for you. All you have to do now is convince her of it. Still have her spark plug?”

  Her touched his shirt’s chest pocket. “Yep. Here’s hoping she doesn’t get Dallas to fix it for her before we get back.”

  “Dallas is like Celia—she likes Winnie for you. We all do, so just tell Win to get over whatever the hell’s got her back up and get busy with the making-up part. That’s where the fun begins.”

  How well he knew. “You’re saying you can just order Celia to get over being pissed at you? And it works?”

  “Hell, no, it doesn’t work. Doesn’t stop me from trying, though.”

  Des shook his head. “That woman must love you something fierce, to put up with all your shit.”

  “I love her back, so thankfully that seems to get counted in my favor. What about you and Winnie? Are you there yet?”

  Des grimaced, because talking about his feelings was about as familiar to him as the surface of Mars. “I am not having this conversation with you.”

  “Uh-huh. So in other words you’re both pussyfooting around and not talking to each other. Been there, done that, and it was a fucking waste of time. Just jump to the part where you tell her you love her and that she’d damn well better love you back, and that’ll be that. Problem solved.”

  Again, Des had to admire his sister-in-law’s fortitude in dealing with Ry. “She’s got demons in her, Ry. Thing is, they’re my demons too. I know firsthand how hard they are to overcome. And as for trust…” He grimaced and glanced up as a small fixed wing plane buzzed overhead. “Let me put it this way—when you grow up surrounded by people who’re supposed to love you but instead do nothing but fuck you up, you never fully learn how to relax. To trust. At least I had you and Fin, and even Killian to keep me from closing myself off completely, which is great. You balanced the bad shit out. Winsome was all on her own. It’s harder for her to believe that anyone would want to be in her life without some shady ulterior shit behind it.”

  “Trust can be a bitch even when it comes to rock-solid couples. The best advice I can give—and feel free to ignore it, because I hate assholes who give advice—is just show her time and again that you’re not going anywhere. It may take a while, and you might feel pretty fucking unappreciated from time to time, but proving that you’re someone she can depend on when shit gets real is where that trust gets built. You build that, you have the world by the shorthairs.”

  Des nodded and opened his mouth to respond just as their all-weather phones sounded. Ry exchanged surprised glances with Des before he plucked it from its holder on his belt. “What the fuck. It’s Kill on Facetime.”

  “On the computer while flying a fucking plane.” Des plucked up his phone, hit the right button, and watched as his oldest brother’s headset-wearing image popped up onscreen. “What the hell, asshole. You’re going to wind up just like Dad, doing a header straight into the damn ground trying to work a fucking laptop and flying all at the same time.”

  “Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” came the irritated response, with Killian’s voice sounding tinny over the headset’s microphone. “I’ve got everything on voice command, and Facetiming was the quickest way I could reach all of you simultaneously. Besides, Des, it’s not like you’d fucking miss me, so pipe the hell down.”

  “Fuck you, you’re the heart of our family. I wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for you standing guard over me all those years while we were growing up, so you bet your ass I’d miss you.” Des heard the angry words come out of his mouth and wondered if everyone else was as stunned as he was to hear them. Probably. “We all have to live through this shit so I can invite you over to my place for a beer and a cookout. Apparently you have a thing about that, so do me a favor and don’t be a total fucking dipshit and crash, okay? Just stay focused on what you’re supposed to be doing, you moron. Jesus.”

  Fin’s image, one of four blocks, came to the fore as he laughed out loud. “Damn, son, tell us how you really feel.”

  “About fucking time you said something like that, little brother,” Ry remarked to him, not bothering to talk into the phone he held, and instead locking his smirking gaze right on him. “Winnie must be working her magic big-time on those demons you were talking about.”

  “Demons?” Fin wanted to know, frowning into the camera. “What demons?”

  “Ladies, if we could keep the gossip down to a minimum while I’m trying to get our fucking work done, that’d be greeeeeeat,” Killian said, and Des wasn’t sure if he was near-yelling because of the roar of the plane’s engine, or because when all four of them got together yelling was simply a thing that happened. “I’m calling you guys to let you know the storm’s moving a helluva lot faster than first reported. New ETA for our area is around nine o’clock tonight, and we’ve still got about ten miles to go.”

  “Fuck,” Ry muttered, looking grimly into his phone. “So much for midnight. I thought we could just stroll in on this.”

  “There’s no strolling in ranching, just like there’s no crying in baseball,” Kill drawled. “Fin, your herd’s only about half a mile northeast from Lawrence’s, so keep pushing southwest—you can probably see the dust cloud they’re making as they head your way.”

  “Yep. I’ve already been in touch with him and his crew. He’s hating the rough terrain, but he’ll make it.”

  “Good deal. Once you get the two herds together, push ‘em hard for the Nueces River pasture, then get your asses home. Ry, you and Des already have your herds combined, so drive hard to the nearest body of water, which is Smiley Lake. Rufus Wright and Gus Anders have spent the day cutting down the barbed wire all around that area, and they’re doing what they can now to bolster the wooden fencing around the property line. It’s going to be close, but I think you can get your herd there around the time the storm hits. Maybe.”

  “Did I hear you right?” Fin demanded, while Ry stared first at the screen, then at Des, his shock evident. “Did you say Smiley Lake?”

  Killian nodded. “Wonder-boy Des sealed the Smiley Lake deal before his ass hit the saddle this morning.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to Kill about right after I stole Winsome’s spark plug,” Des explained with a shrug. “I had to ask for that time away from you all in order to have a little chinwag with Winsome’s granny.”

  “So you did it,” Fin said, and he looked like he sounded—stunned, with a side helping of unhappiness. “You really fucking did it. You got the lake through Winnie.”

  Asshole. “If you weren’t my best friend and brother—not to mention twenty fucking miles away from me—I’d deck your sorry ass right the hell now.”

  He heard Ry’s teeth click together. “Now’s not the time, you two.”

  “Damn straight it isn’t,” Des gritted out, then glanced up at the ominous sky when the faint rumble of thunder rolled across the plain. “Fact is, I had to have a serious face-to-face with Heavenly Smiley anyway, all right? To get the lake, yeah, but there were several other things I needed to straighten out with that lady, and I needed to do it right away.”

  “Like what?” both Ry and Fin wanted to know.

  “Shit, Kill, you’re right,” Des muttered, pissed off and not caring who knew it. “They really are a bunch of old busybody gossips, aren’t they? They’ll probably start doing each other’s hair next.”

  “Kiss my ass,” Ry said promptly.

  “What he said,” Fin added, looking disgusted.
“Besides, my hair’s fucking perfect, yo.”

  “Like I said, you idiots,” Killian griped at them, “focus on getting the job done and we’ll all get done that much sooner. Unless y’all are happy with the thought of getting caught out here in the middle of fucking nowhere when the storm finally hits.”

  “We’re on it,” Des assured him and nudged his mount into a trot.

  The sooner he got home to Winsome, the better.

  *

  “Thanks a lot, Winnie.” Pacing the length of the kitchen darkening with the setting sun, Lilah had her hands on her hips and back, looking like she wanted to take a bite out of the world. “The one thing I didn’t want was to make a big deal of things.”

  “You’re welcome,” Winnie shot back without missing a beat. Finally making the choice to go over Lilah’s head by reaching out for medical help was just what she needed to lower the anxiety level that had been creeping up throughout the day. No way was she apologizing for it now. “And if you think my calling for a doctor to check you over now is a big deal, just wait. If your water breaks while I’m on baby-watch, I’m calling in the freaking Coast Guard to deal with that situation.”

  “Calling me in for a wellness check was the smartest thing you could have done.” Dr. Payton Pruitt-Sharpe packed up her doctor’s kit and clicked it shut. “Lilah, you’re definitely in prodromal labor—pre-labor, but so far, your dilation is less than three centimeters. Braxton-Hicks contractions are hit-or-miss right now, with as much as an hour separating them. Your blood pressure is perfect, and the baby’s heartbeat is strong and steady. There’s not much to do at this point but try to remain calm and wait.”

  “So,” Lilah said, still looking pissy, “in other words, I’m exactly as I said I was—perfectly fine.”

  “You’re on the verge of becoming a new mom out here in the middle of nowhere, without transportation, thirty minutes away from any major medical facilities, and a vicious storm is bearing down on you.” Dr. Sharpe picked up her bag and nailed Lilah with a stern look. “If I were you, I’d be thanking your friend for calling me in to check you over. It’s nice to know you have people around you who care about you so much.”