“Bella?” Darren pushed open Laredo’s front door and pulled his key from the lock. He glanced to the wall on the right of the entryway and noticed that the alarm was not set. “Bella, it’s Uncle Darren and Ms. Brown. Are you all right?”
“Uncle Darren?”
Bella’s shaky little voice came from the hallway to the right of the entryway. She was dressed in silky bright-blue PJ’s with white puppies printed on the fabric. Her slippers were fuzzy, and she was hugging a giant white rabbit to her chest.
“Bella, where is your dad?” Darren asked gently. “I need to go help him. All right?”
Bella pointed toward Laredo’s office. Darren didn’t even wait. He absolutely trusted Maggie to help Bella. In fact, there was no better person to help Bella right now. Maggie was most definitely qualified to be in that position. And at this point, she knew more about their screwed up dysfunctional family than anyone else not intimately involved.
As Darren had suspected, Laredo had fallen out of his desk chair. He was facedown on the floor of his study in a puddle of vomit. It was good that Bella had called Darren. If Laredo had aspirated any of that, he could have killed himself. As it was, Darren had to pull his brother out of the puddle of puke and onto a clean section of carpet. He put him on his side.
Laredo immediately began to cough. That was good. Darren remained kneeling by Laredo’s side for several moments before he was sure his brother wasn’t going to puke again. Lord knew they’d all been there a time or two. It wasn’t like Darren was above the occasional binge and pass out. He’d just never done it with a nine-year-old kid in the house.
There was a carafe of something on the opposite corner of the desk. Darren reached for it, thinking it was water. Unfortunately, it was vodka. Making a last-minute decision, Darren heaved Laredo’s body up onto his shoulder. The man smelled like vomit and alcohol, and the movement nearly caused Darren to collapse in pain as his knee was forced to support Laredo’s weight as well as his own.
Darren hadn’t been having as much trouble with his back and his knee lately, but that was no doubt because he’d stopped torturing his body with football. Carrying Laredo around was bound to be something he was going to feel in the morning, and Darren put that on the list of stuff he was going to use to poke at Laredo later.
For now, Darren carried his brother into the master suite. He went directly to the bathroom and carefully balanced Laredo’s body on his shoulder before reaching in to turn on the shower. The water was cold. Good. Darren all but tossed his older brother inside and adjusted the spray to hit him right in the face. Groping along the wall, Darren turned on the light inside the shower just to make things even more uncomfortable for big brother dearest.
Laredo sputtered and coughed. He tried to move away from the spray. That just made Darren readjust his aim until once again the water was hitting Laredo right in the face. The man was going to get a mouthful of water until he opened his eyes and acknowledged his stupidity. At least that was pretty much Darren’s plan for the moment.
“Hey!” Laredo swiped at his face as though he were trying to brush the water away.
Darren wiggled the sprayer to get the water around Laredo’s fingers. “Hey nothing, you ass. Do you have any idea how badly you scared the crap out of Bella?”
“Bella?” Laredo managed to open his bloodshot eyes.
“Yeah. Your kid?” Darren struggled to understand what was really going on here. Obviously, it had very little to do with—well, with anything. This wasn’t Laredo’s style. “What is going on with you?”
“I can’t do it anymore,” Laredo mumbled. “I can’t keep Dad’s secrets.”
“Dad’s secrets?” Darren was starting to get a pretty sick feeling in his stomach. “What in the hell are you talking about? Dad doesn’t have secrets. He freaking shouts his business from the rooftops so everyone knows how amazing and successful he is.”
“That’s only what you think,” Laredo slurred. “That’s why he wants the Collins ranch so bad. That’s why he thinks he can’t let Jesse take control of her inheritance.”
“Because there are secrets buried out there?” Darren snorted. “Man, I’ve been out there dozens of times. Cal and I used to swap off riding with Jesse out to her parents’ place because she was so damn homesick those first few years. After that, I bet she went out there plenty of times. What is it that Dad thinks she’s going to find after all of these years?”
Laredo looked mystified. His head was sort of bobbing up and down. His eyes were wide and he looked positively ill. Although it was entirely possible that the ill part had more to do with the alcohol than the conversation topic. Still, Darren didn’t know what to think about this crap with Jesse Collins.
Finally, Darren shut off the shower sprayer and squatted down so that he was eye level with Laredo. It seemed odd to be doing this bizarre ritual in a bathroom filled with imported Italian marble that looked like it was straight out of a decorating magazine. It always seemed so odd to Darren that Laredo’s wife had run off with a ranch hand. If you looked around the home that she and Laredo had built together, it reeked of money. Now she had none. The woman was nothing more than a poor rancher’s wife. And yet she seemed happy enough with that. What was it that made some women like Carly do everything that they could to wring the last penny out of a guy, and other women like Bella’s mother not give a damn about net worth? Or was Darren just fooling himself and they all cared about money?
“All right,” Laredo groaned. “I’m awake.”
“Funny, but I didn’t really give a shit about whether or not you were awake.” Darren stood up and reached for a fluffy coffee-colored towel hanging on a nearby rack. He lobbed it at Laredo. “It isn’t about awake, you idiot. That little girl was terrified. She called me sobbing and screaming because she thought you were dead. She couldn’t get you to move. That’s bad, Laredo. Bad, like I can’t leave you alone tonight bad.”
“I’m fine.” Laredo struggled to his feet. Unfortunately for him, his tooled high-heeled boots slipped on the wet tile floor inside the shower and he went back down with bone-crushing finality.
“Yeah, you look awesome,” Darren said sarcastically. “You’re really ready to see your daughter and make her feel better about Daddy’s condition? You’re going to bed. I’m going to tell Bella that Daddy is just sick with the flu. And then tomorrow you can make it up to her. And you can stop drinking too.”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you!” Laredo snarled. “How many beers have you had tonight? Did you drive over here drunk? I bet you’re over the legal limit right now!”
For some reason, it was unbelievably satisfying to be able to tell Laredo the truth and be in the right for once. “Actually,” Darren drawled, resting his forearm on the side of the shower and holding out his hand to offer help to his brother. “I had half a beer, which you interrupted because you interrupted my date. And I didn’t intend to have any more beers because I was driving and I wouldn’t want to risk anything happening to this woman.”
There was a long pause. Laredo was still sitting in the bottom of the shower. He stared up at Darren for what seemed like forever. Then he suddenly started laughing. The sound echoed off the shower walls and around the hollow tile of the bathroom. It sounded almost maniacal. The noise lifted the hair on the back of Darren’s neck and made him feel both defensive and pissed off all at the same time. It was not a good combination.
“It’s the teacher, isn’t it?” Laredo finally asked. Then he waved his hand around, which was more of a flop. “Or I guess she’s actually the guidance counselor. Right? That’s perfect, Darren.” Laredo laughed so hard he snorted and started to slide back down to the bottom of the shower floor. “You need therapy. She can provide it. I’d say the match is pretty damn near perfect for you! Of course, I don’t think she’s going to get much out of the deal. After all, you’ve got more skeletons in the closet than a haunted house. But maybe she’s into that.”
“You’re talking out your ass,” Darren said bitterly. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Bullshit I’m talking out my ass.” Laredo flopped onto his side and started dragging his body out of the shower. He was soaked, his white dress shirt clinging to his muscular shoulders and his pants making a creepy squelching noise as the water was squeezed from the fabric with each movement of his body. “You’ve got that Carly bitch trying to shake you down for money every time you turn around. You’ve got a kid you’ve never met. You haven’t held a job since—well, let’s just say ever. And now you’re going to be an elementary school gym teacher?”
When Laredo put it like that, then yes it sounded as though Darren was really dumping his horrible situation right into Maggie’s lap. Was that how she thought of it? Darren had been feeling pretty good because Maggie had been so supportive in that idiotic confrontation with Carly. What if that had just been an act? Or what if Maggie felt sorry for Darren and was just trying to help him out with his custody issues? As much as Darren needed Maggie’s help to get his life together enough to be a part of Jaeger’s world, he didn’t want to impose on Maggie. That wasn’t what he wanted. Not now. Not ever.
“See,” Laredo said, turning the verbal knife. “Now you’re worrying about it. I get it. It’s pretty easy to stand there and judge me. But it’s not so easy to judge yourself.”
“You’re the judgy one,” Darren shot back. He shook his head. “You’ve always been that way. Maybe that’s why you’re so eager to believe that Dad is hiding some secret out at the Collins ranch.” Darren sucked in a deep breath. He needed to get out of here. He needed to get away from Laredo and get his brain back together. For some reason, his brother was always top-notch at taking all of Darren’s fears and dragging them into the light. “You can stay in here and deal with your own problems. I’m going to go check on Bella and make sure that she’s not the one having to suffer because you’re weak and you let Dad push you around.”
Oh, Laredo didn’t like that. He cursed and tried to struggle out of the shower, but his body wouldn’t quite obey any direct commands from his nervous system. “You need to remember that I’m the one standing between the rest of you jackasses and Dad. It’s me taking all his crap for you. Remember that the next time you judge me, Darren. Remember.”
The last words were delivered in a mumble. Darren realized as he shut off the shower light that Laredo had sort of passed out once again. He was tilted on his side at least. That meant if he threw up again, he wasn’t going to choke on his own vomit. And as for the mess in the study? Darren was going to happily leave that for Laredo to clean up himself. There was nothing like alcohol puke on a ten thousand dollar hand-woven rug to drive home the real consequences of stupid behavior.