I open the door and feel his presence before I see him sitting on the bench beside the front door. “What are you doing here, Connor?” I ask, annoyed at his refusal to take a damned hint.

“You’re not answering my calls, mom’s asking after you, and we need to talk.” Connor’s wound up tighter than a tinker toy, and I want to turn him the other direction so he’ll click-clack right off my porch.

“I’m a busy man.” It’s not a lie. But the look on his face as he glares up at me is enough to run my blood cold. There’s an icy fury in him blazing white hot. He blames me for everything. And maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s all my fault.

“What do you want?” I ask, tired of all the drama and long-buried hatred.

He stands, straightening up all six feet four inches of his height. Eye to eye, toe to toe, we stand. Staring one another down like rival wolves, we stand silent. “Call your fucking mother,” he growls, the sneer on his lips telling me exactly what he thinks of me.

He moves in closer until only inches separate us. “You’re not too damn busy for her. Pull your head out of your ass and remember where you came from. Who you came from.”

A cold, hard smile tugs the corners of my lips. “Fuck you, Connor. Get the hell off my porch.”

He doesn’t move, though, and I cross my arms waiting for him to man up and walk the hell away. Connor’s not a fighter. Our youngest brother is the one more likely to throw a wicked right hook. But he’s not here right now.

“You won’t stop until you kill her too, will you?” Connor asks, his ice blue eyes freezing over.

And I break. Blinking, I look away from him and toward the front door, praying Olivia is up in her room, far away from the conversation taking place here. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say finally, my gaze flicking back to Connor.

He nods his head, a mocking expression on his face. “Of course. Nothing is ever your fault, right? Perfect fucking Kieran Knight. Hey, I think I saw a bench in town without your face on it. Should I send the location to your PR department so they can fix it?”

I’m tired of this fight. He’s my brother. My blood. My family. We weren’t always at each other’s throats like this. We were best friends as kids. We hid from dad’s rage fueled episodes together. We stood up to him and protected mom from him together. We took beatings so she and our youngest brother wouldn’t.

But now we might as well be mortal enemies.

“That son of a bitch deserved what he got,” I say.

Connor’s eyes widen. He’s quick to wave a finger in my face. “How dare you? That man was your father.” He’s dangerously quiet.

“That man,” I say with as much derogatory hatred as I can muster, “beat our mother. He wasn’t a man. He was a fucking piece of shit coward woman beater. How can you be so loyal to him?” It baffles me. We grew up together. We saw what he did. We felt his wrath.

But Connor feels bad for the fucker.

Connor seems to take a second to gather himself. His answer is so poised I find myself listening. Really listening, perhaps for the first time ever.

“Dad was sick,” Connor says, placing his hands on his hips as he speaks. His expression is far away, somewhere over my shoulder, perhaps focused on ghosts I can’t see. “But you turned your back on him. You didn’t try to help him. You let him down.”

“Don’t pin that shit on me,” I snarl. “He made his choices. He chose what he did.”

Connor fixes me with an unnerving stare. “He didn’t choose to be sick. He didn’t choose that.”

“Why did you come here?” I ask, ready for him to just go and leave me and my family alone.

“Cami is trying to find you.”

My heart sinks to my toes. Connor seems to see the panic I feel and he speaks quietly. “I didn’t tell her anything. But I thought you needed to know.”

“Thanks.” The word is less hollow than I feel, but Connor shrugs it off like I’m just saying it out of habit.

“Call mom,” he says, straightening up the lapels of his charcoal suit as he turns to walk down the steps like he owns the place.

“Connor,” I say and he stops, pivoting on his heel to face me. “I owe you one.”

He winks. For a second, it feels like the old days. The days before everything in my life fell apart. The days where I called him friend as well as brother. I watch him go and pull the phone from my pocket.

Dialing the number from memory, I wait as it rings.

“Kieran!” Mom sounds deliriously happy and I can’t help the smile she brings to my lips.

“Hi mom. How are you?” I ask, keeping my tone as upbeat as possible. Across the road, Connor pulls his truck off the road and honks as he speeds down the drive.

“It’s so good to hear your voice,” she says, and I sit on the porch, ready to devote the next few hours to her. It’s the least I can do. Connor’s right; I can’t forget where I came from.

* * *

“Daddy! Daddy!” Olivia bounces around with every word over her lips.

“Yes, yes, we’re going.” She’s been like a crazy puppy the last few days. Waiting for her first lesson riding horses has been the hardest thing she’s had to deal with for the last week. All the crushing boredom she’s feeling not being in school and not seeing her friends has transferred to me.

Still, as I grab my keys, I feel a sense of excitement welling up in me. It’s not unlike the feeling I’d had as a young boy feeling my first crush. That excitement to see her face at school had made my heart beat fast, made my flesh tingle, made my mouth dry up like the Sahara.

I’m excited to see Emma again.

It’s odd. Women don’t create feelings like this within me. Not for years. Women are wonderful, I love them, until I’m done with them. But they don’t revert me to that young boy experiencing my first crush.

Which is confusing. She hated me. I don’t like her. She’s stubborn and unreasonable. I mean, I offered her exorbitant amounts of money for her land. Yet she’d stuck to her guns for some insane reason. Twenty million is more than she’ll bring in in a lifetime, I’m sure. More than that damn ranch will make for her, absolutely. So clearly, she’s unreasonable.

And I don’t have room for stubborn, unreasonable women in my life. Especially not ones who eye me with the same distaste I often feel for myself.

“Daddy!” Olivia tugs at my sleeve and I resist the urge to tell her not to do that.

“Are you ready?” I ask her, scanning the house one last time. Somehow it feels like this day will change everything, and I’m desperate to remember how it is before I go. For comparison. Soon I’ll have a new stretch of land to make us millions. Soon my fortune will grow. Onward and up.

What had mom said? You’ve always been driven. Just don’t forget to respect the people who make everything possible.

Well, mom didn’t meet Emma.