Chapter 3
Lane
Close or Far
My older brother watched me out of the corner of his eye as we sat on the back deck of his house. Sutton had moved his family close enough to the ocean that I could hear the rhythmic sounds of the water lapping against the shore. Every breath I inhaled held the flavor of the sun, salt, and sand. It was calming in an entirely different way than the vast quietness and stillness of Wyoming.
I could see why Sutton loved it here. He’d found his place and his peace. He even looked like he fit in with the laid-back California vibe that seemed to be everywhere. His sandy hair had lightened a couple of shades, making it gold where it hung long and shaggy around his face. He’d traded his boots for a canvas pair of Vans, and his too-tight Wranglers were nowhere to be seen. Instead, he was wearing loose board shorts that he’d paired with a plain white wife beater. He looked like he was ready to catch some waves and nothing like the guy who taught me everything I knew about roping and riding. But it was more than just the clothes he wore that had changed; there was something different about him…something more settled and less chaotic than he’d always been.
He also looked happy.
But at this moment, there was deep concern shining out of his dark green eyes as he continued to watch me sip the beer Emrys brought out to me a couple of minutes ago. She also brought Sutton a can of soda and a kiss. The brush of her lips was partly because they couldn’t keep their hands off one another, but I could sense the apology in it as well. Sutton wasn’t drinking, not now, and not for the foreseeable future. It was a new development, one that was necessary and drastic, but we’d almost lost him to the bottom of the bottle and demons that didn’t want to be exorcised. I couldn’t hide how thrilled I was that he didn’t so much as glance at my beer longingly.
His attention was focused solely on me and my reaction as he asked pointedly, “You sure you’re up for this, kiddo? That’s a long ass drive with just the two of you, and you’ve barely been able to be in the same room together for the last decade.” That was more on me than on her. I didn’t know what to do with the Brynn who turned me down when I asked her to marry me. I had no idea how to navigate her being my stepmother, even if it was just a technicality. So, I dodged and deflected to avoid dealing with the inescapable truth of our circumstances.
The truck was packed, and we were ready to go after a long weekend of rest and relaxation. Brynn spent most of her days helping Emrys get ready for the baby. They shopped more than I knew was possible. She spoiled Daye rotten and did a good job pretending she hadn’t just walked away from a man who would have given her everything. At night she would disappear, and no one commented when she came back to the house with her face tearstained and her feet covered in sand. A midnight stroll along the beach was as good as anything else when it came to helping deal with the onslaught of emotions she must be feeling.
But, Sutton was right. Not once when she slipped out the door did I get up and follow her. I didn’t ask her if she was okay or what I could do to help because I knew I was part of the problem. I figured she didn’t need the guy who ruined everything good in her life trying to make amends. She had enough on her plate, and I hoped with this spontaneous road trip back home, we could finally get back to the place where she shared every morsel from that plate with me without stopping to think. When we were younger, what was mine was hers without question, and vice versa. It hadn’t been until we got older and our friendship changed that we started picking and choosing which parts of ourselves we were going to share with one another. I missed having all of her, and I was sick and tired of hiding all the parts of me that were hurting and damaged from our history from everyone, including her.
I used my thumbnail to pick at the peeling edge of the label on the bottle in my hands. “Brynn’s always been my best friend, Sutton. She gets me in a way no else ever has. I miss being able to talk to her about anything. I miss knowing I have someone at my back and on my side no matter what.” I blew out a heavy sigh. “She’s always been the most important person in my life, even if I didn’t treat her that way. I’d like to fix our friendship if nothing else, and I think this trip can do that. We’re not going to have anyone else to talk to but each other.” And I had a lot to say. An entire lifetime’s worth of apologizing to do. I needed the time with her to figure out if I could risk losing her by asking her for more than I’d ever asked from her before.
Sutton used one sneakered foot to push off the deck and rocked his chair up onto two legs. He pulled his gaze away from mine with a scowl. “You know Cyrus and I have your back no matter what, and we’re both going to be on your side forever. You’re never alone when you’re a Warner. You don’t need to drag Brynn halfway across the country to know that.”
I cringed not thinking that his older brother instincts would hone in on that. “I know you do, Sutton. Both of you have been there for me whenever I needed anything, but it was different with Brynn. Whatever I did, whatever mistakes I made, she never made me feel like I was letting anyone down but myself. She let me be me, not the impulsive little brother, or Boyd Warner’s youngest son. She stood by me because she wanted to, because she believed in me. Not because of familial obligation. She forced me to see that Mom leaving and continually finding fault with everything I did was about her, not about me.”
Knowing I had someone to lean on like that had gotten me through my oldest brother leaving for college, my mom appearing and disappearing for the entirety of my childhood, and finally my dad’s illness. When Boyd Warner told his boys he had stage four prostate cancer, and the prognosis wasn’t good, his oldest had immediately shifted gears to get his ass home. His middle boy had shut down emotionally but effortlessly stepped into the role of ranch foreman with no question. And me as the youngest, the one who was his happy, jokester son had pulled on a brave mask and taken on the part of family cheerleader. No one was allowed to wallow and be fatalistic and grim. I took it upon himself to make sure his father’s last days held nothing but good memories, laughter, and cheer. But underneath that mask, I was a wreck. I was shattered. I cried every night alone in my room and wondered what I was going to do when my dad was gone. He was my hero. My mentor. I was lost and so alone, not wanting either of my stoic brothers to see the way I was breaking inside. I tried to hold my family together, but Brynn, she was the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
She let me cry on her shoulder when no one else was around and didn’t make me feel weak for breaking down. She made sure we all stayed fed and that Boyd never once missed a doctor’s appointment. She was the one who tried to make me laugh when I was exhausted beyond measure trying to do the same thing for everyone else. She was the person who stayed hopeful and optimistic, even as it became apparent the end was getting nearer. And possibly the most important thing she did was remind all of us every single day that our dad loved us and that even when he was gone that love would remain forever.
Brynn knew. She never let me wear the mask around her. She held all the ugly jagged pieces of my broken heart in her hands, holding onto them for me until I was strong enough to put them back together. There was no artifice with Brynn, and I missed that. I couldn’t hide behind my smile and charm with her. She saw how angry at my mother I was and how devastated I was by the inevitable loss of my father. She knew how desperately I wanted to live up to the expectations set by my brothers before me, and how I struggled to find my own identity coming up in life behind the both of them. She never underestimated me or discounted that I could be as ruthless and merciless as my older siblings when it came to protecting mine and those I was loyal to. She was there right alongside me as Boyd raised me to be a man who knew what was important and how to fight for the things that mattered. Defeat wasn’t in the Warner vocabulary, which is why I was determined to use this trip home to repair all the damage that we did to our relationship over the years. I couldn’t take the divide anymore.
Sutton’s chair rocked back even farther. “Brynn is family.”
I knew that.
Brynn being family is what ruined us in the first place. “I know that. She went from being mine to protect and care for, to all of ours.” Maybe I wasn’t good at sharing, after all, I was the youngest. I grinned at the thought and turned to look at him. “I want to fix things between us. I don’t want to go back to the ranch and have it feel like we are opponents facing off in the ring anymore. Neither one of us is going to win that fight. We both belong on the ranch.” We were so close day in and day out, but so, so far away from each other in all the ways that mattered. We lived lives that ran parallel to one another, never crossing and never connecting, but somehow always intertwined. That gap was steadily widening, and soon there would be no way for either of us to reach across to touch the other.
Sutton grunted in agreement and pointed his colorful can in my direction while keeping his gaze trained out on the horizon. “You gotta know that if it isn’t Jack or the next cowboy who comes calling, that eventually there will be someone who comes along and gets her to look at them the way she’s only ever looked at you. They’re going to see those legs and that hair and refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer. They’re going to find out how sweet and caring she is, and they’re going to hear about her nightmare of a childhood and move mountains to give her the kind of life she deserved from the start. Brynn might belong on our ranch, but she deserves the kind of love and the type of life that she might not be able to find if that’s the only place she ever is.” He tilted his head to look at me, his expression stern and thoughtful at the same time. “She doesn’t think she’ll fit in anywhere you aren’t, Lane. You’re her anchor, and it’s up to you to keep her steady and safe in the waves, but you have to realize you can also sink her so fucking deep she’ll never sail anywhere. I’m all for you making an effort to fix your friendship with her, that’s been a long time coming, but do not use the ties that have bound you together for so long to trap her when there is so much more out there for her. You’ll hate yourself if you take those opportunities away from her, and eventually, she’ll hate you too.”
I wanted to tell him he had no idea what he was talking about, but the truth was he knew better than anyone else what it felt like to be trapped in obligation and responsibility. Neither Cy nor I had noticed what our father’s legacy was doing to Sutton until it was too late. He had drowned right in front of me, pulled under by the weight of expectation and the fear of the unknown.
My hands curled around the bottle, and I lowered my head to look at the deck between the scuffed toes of my boots. “I don’t want to hold her back.” But I couldn’t say I didn’t want to hold her down because I did, preferably while she was naked and I was pounding my cock as deep inside her as I could get.
Sutton sat forward, the front legs of the chair thumping loudly on the deck. He reached out a hand, and the familiar feel of the work hardened palm on the back of my neck and calloused fingers squeezing me there pulled a relieved sound out of me. He might look like a new and improved version of Sutton, but at his core, he was still the older brother who let me follow him around and showed me everything I would need to know to be the best rancher I could be. The parts of him that I loved the most were still there under the new packaging. “I’m not saying you’re holding her back. I’m telling you that you might not be the one who can give her what she wants and if you recognize that, then you need to do the right thing and let her go once and for all.” He gave me a little shake like I was a misbehaving dog that made me scowl at him. “Cy called and told me what happened at the engagement party. You hightailing out of there when you saw that ring tells me you were scared shitless she was going to say yes. That tells me you want to be the guy who gives her what she wants, but you don’t know how.”
I was scared, terrified that everything I knew about her and me was going to change. “I tried to give her what I thought she wanted when I asked her to marry me a hundred years ago. I got it wrong then, how am I supposed to know I’m getting it right now?”
I still felt her rejection deep down inside of me. It used to throb and ache incessantly. Over the years the pain had dulled to a low hum until someone randomly bumped into a memory that triggered it. If she belonged to someone else, for real, not just in name, maybe I could finally let the simmering attraction and prickly want that crawled under my skin go. If she were no longer a Warner, I wouldn’t be torn between the way I felt for her before and the way I felt about her after she let my dad sacrifice everything for her.
He made a noise low in his throat. “Brynn’s not going to say yes to anyone who isn’t the right person. Not after what happened the last time she said it. She may have gained a family and a safe place to call home, but she lost her best friend and her dream of a happy ever after. You have to know as scared as you were when Jack whipped out that ring, she was just as scared when she heard you took a bullet to the chest. No one is that scared for another person without a little bit of love being involved. You’re the most important person in her life too, Lane. Don’t take that lightly.”
I watched as Sutton absently rubbed the spot in the center of his chest where the bullet he took while trying to save Emrys from being raped and tortured had ripped through him. That was another thing about Sutton that hadn’t changed. He had a hard time letting go of every mistake and misstep he made along the way, with his family and the woman he loved.
I lifted my hand and pressed on the spot on my side where my bullet wound was still healing and tender to the touch. “Does it ever stop hurting?” I wasn’t talking about the injury so much as the memories of how we each ended up with the marks in the first place. I could still see Daye screaming and struggling in the arms of the man who shot me. She was crying, screaming her head off for her dad and me. All I could do was keep my head above water as the bastard who took her dragged my bleeding, barely conscious body into the river. I was supposed to protect her, and I failed. The knowledge of that burned worse than any of the surgeries I’d needed to fix my punctured lung and shattered ribs.
He pushed even harder on the mark that was peeking over the collar of his wife-beater. It was still red and raised even though it was long healed. It was a constant reminder that he risked his life for the woman he was going to love.
“Eventually I started to remember that every single day I get to wrap my arms around her and hold her close instead of seeing the look of terror on her face when it all went wrong. It takes time, but sooner or later you focus on the fact the person you tried to save is still here and not on the fact you almost lost them. The pain of watching someone you love suffer never goes away, but ultimately it’s a good reminder to stay vigilant and to make sure you cherish the people who matter most because you can lose them in the blink of an eye.” Like Daye lost her mom. Like we lost our dad.
I shook my head and bent to put the empty bottle down on the deck by my feet. “I would never be able to look you in the eye again if anything had happened to Daye. I can’t imagine forgiving myself for letting that psychopath get the drop on us. I should have done more, been more vigilant.” It was a sore spot that I hadn’t stopped picking at since the day I woke up in the hospital and Cyrus gave me a rundown of what happened at the river that day.
A smile pulled at my brother’s mouth, and the curled hand around the back of my neck gave the tense muscles there a squeeze. “We all could have done things differently, Lane. You don’t get to take all that guilt on yourself. That is too heavy a burden for one person to carry alone. My little brother and my daughter got to go home, and the man who hurt them will never see the light of day again. It was a hard-won victory, but it’s a victory nonetheless.”
He cleared his throat and dropped his hand. Emotion made his voice thick and deeper than it usually was as he told me, “I’m proud of you, Lane. You are an amazing brother, a fantastic uncle, and you are a good man. You have the best parts of all of us in you, which is why I know you will do right by Brynn, even if it means staying to face all your fears.”
Any time one of my brothers told me that they were proud of me and appreciated the man I had become, warmth spread throughout my chest, and my heart swelled double in size. All I wanted was to be like them and to be the kind of man they were honored to have stand with them. Their praise made me feel like I had taken everything my father taught me and put it to good use. I wasn’t letting my dad down if I had Cyrus and Sutton’s approval.
It was my turn to clear my throat and battle back the clog of emotion that was threatening to choke me. “I’m proud of you too. I’m so glad you finally found what you needed to be happy. That’s all I ever wanted for you.”
His answering smile lit up his entire face, and for a second all I could see was the carefree teenager I used to play football with in the pasture behind our home, and the guy who taught me how to chase girls and what to do with them when I caught them. “Got a lot of reasons to be happy now, and one on the way. It’s hard having all of that here while you and Cy are back home, though.”
His grin dimmed just a fraction so it was my turn to reach out and clasp the back of his neck so I could give him a reassuring squeeze. “Your happiness is so big, so immense, we can feel it all the way in Wyoming, Sutton. The distance doesn’t matter, what we fill it up with does, and our distance is full of good shit. We don’t have to be in the same state to share all the great things happening in your life. Though, we both know there isn’t a chance in hell Leo is going to let Emrys bring that new baby into the big, bad world alone.”
That got me a snort and a nod. “Trust me, I know. Em already told me if only one of us is allowed in the birthing room, it’s gonna be Leo.” He didn’t sound upset at that, but then again, he probably knew his pregnant woman was kidding. Sutton was a wonderful dad and a committed partner. He wasn’t letting any baby of his come into the world without being the first person there to whisper soft words to them and comfort them, all the while ensuring that Emrys was well and healthy and that Daye welcomed her sibling into the world right along with them.
Leo Connor was Emrys’s best friend, a former California girl as well. She was a fiery redhead with a savvy business mind and my oldest brother’s fiancée. She was the glue that had filled in all the cracks where we Warners had fractured.
I hadn’t realized how much I missed her smart mouth and meddling ways until I brought her up. I didn’t recognize how much the world around me was changing until I called Leo Cy’s fiancée in my head and teased Sutton about the upcoming birth. One brother was getting married, another one was having a baby, and here I was stuck in the same old rut. Caught between what I wanted most and what I told myself I could never have. Could I really risk loving someone the way I wanted to love Brynn from the start, knowing there was no guarantee she wouldn’t eventually walk away? That old fear was thick and hard to cut through, but I was starting to see all the good things on the other side of it.
It was time for something to change.
It was time for me to change…and not just because I was trying to keep up with, or trying to prove something to my big brothers. No, I needed change so I could have what they had… happiness.