Shane stood at the bottom of a ladder in their dad’s old barn in an unused pasture behind the house. They called the building their father’s “Tinker Barn” because he’d filled it with work benches and shelves and tools and places to tinker. It still stood even though his father had been gone for years.

He called up to Cade a second time but got no answer. Tinny music blared through the speakers of the radio Cade had had since they were teenagers. How that thing still worked, Shane didn’t know. He could also hear the sound of Cade’s fists hitting one of the heavy bags that hung from the ceiling.

When they were teenagers, their daddy had turned the loft of his tinker barn into a gym of sorts for Cade and Shane. There were weights and two heavy bags and a couple of striking bags suspended from the ceiling. It was a place for his boys to blow off steam when they needed to, and both Shane and Cade still used it from time to time. From the sound of it, Cade needed it today.

Shane gave up calling to Cade and climbed the stairs.

Cade’s face was blank as he threw punch after punch. Shane shut the music off but Cade didn’t stop for a few minutes. When he finally did, his shirt was drenched through with sweat. He walked over to one wall and slumped down, resting his arms on raised knees and letting his head fall back to the wall.

Shane grabbed a bottle of water and put it by Cade’s side and then sat against the wall, legs kicked out in front of him…and waited. There wasn’t anything to do but wait. Cade may have been the more even-keeled of the brothers, but when he did blow, he blew hard, and Shane had learned you just had to wait for Cade to calm down before you talked to him. When Cade was ready, he’d tell Shane what happened.

Cade pulled the gloves from his hands and unpeeled the tape from around his knuckles before he finally spoke. “Mom got Laura to talk. They didn’t know I was in the house. They don’t know I heard the whole thing.”

Shane didn’t say anything. He and Cade had both known whatever story Laura had to tell would be a bad one. He didn’t know if he really wanted to hear what Cade had overheard. He was pretty sure he didn’t. Cade had seen and heard a lot of things because of the work he did with animals. For something to hit him this hard, it had to be bad.

“After her dad spent a lifetime treating her like crap, she meets this guy she thinks is Mr. Wonderful. He’s all respectful and careful with her, and she thinks he’s the one who’s gonna save her from her father. She thinks he’ll take her away and treat her right, that he’ll cherish her. He didn’t even try to get in her pants before the wedding. So even though her dad says he’ll disown her if she marries Patrick, she does.”

Cade swallowed down the rest of the water in two large gulps. “You want to know why he never tried to touch her before they got married?”

Shane didn’t answer. He didn’t want to know. But he couldn’t get the word “no” out. The pain etched on Cade’s face had Shane frozen in place. He tried to swallow the painful lump in his throat and get something out. Anything that would stop what was coming, but he couldn’t.

“You know why? Because he couldn’t get it up if he wasn’t hitting her. She didn’t say it quite like that. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s what it came down to. She was a virgin, and her husband raped her because that was the only way he could perform. So, she thought something was wrong with her. Can you imagine? She thought it was her fault. She said she didn’t, but I could tell she did. Could hear the truth of it in her voice.” Cade buried his head in his arms again and Shane wanted to do the same thing.

Laura was so tiny, so fragile looking. He couldn’t imagine what it would do to her to have a grown man beating on her. Just picturing it made Shane feel as sick as Cade looked.

“You wanna know the first time he beat her so badly she couldn’t leave the house for a week?” Cade asked.

“No,” Shane managed to say this time, but Cade wasn’t listening. He was staring at the wall like he was seeing the story he was telling, and he was too trapped by the power of it to see what was around him or hear Shane’s voice.

“When her brother died. She wanted to go home to the funeral, but her husband had a business dinner she needed to attend. She had the nerve to ask him to postpone it so she could fly home for her brother’s funeral. The irony was, she couldn’t go to the dinner with him anyway. After the beating he gave her, she couldn’t be seen in public for over a week, so she missed the flipping dinner anyway.”

The brothers sat together without speaking for a long time. There was nothing to say. Shane couldn’t imagine the fear Laura must have been living with every single day, the threat of having the person you thought you loved and could trust turn on you like that.

“I wish he wasn’t dead,” Cade said. Shane didn’t have to ask why. He was thinking the same thing. If her husband wasn’t dead, they could hunt him down and have the satisfaction of teaching him what it was like to be hit by someone so much stronger than yourself—to live in constant fear.

“Do you think his family knew? She said they lived right near them and saw his family every weekend. Do you think they knew?” Shane asked.

Cade nodded. “I don’t see how they couldn’t know.”

They sat quietly brooding for a minute before Cade went on. “No wonder she ran. Even though he’s dead, they can’t get this baby. We can’t let that family get this baby, Shane.”

“I know. I’ve already started looking into the legalities of it. In a fair fight in court, they’d have very little chance of getting the baby, but it’s likely she’ll have to allow them visitation. Of course, with the Kensington family, who knows if the fight will be fair? I think when they put out the news that she was mentally unstable, they were already gearing up for a custody hearing. I think they’ll try to show she’s an unfit mother,” Shane said.

“Then we need to help her make sure she’s on her feet and providing for the baby when they find her. We need to make sure she has a shot at this,” Cade said, pulling himself up and going to the fridge. He pulled out a beer and tossed it to Shane before pulling out one for himself and an icepack for his knuckles.

“Are you gonna tell her how you feel about her?” Shane asked, causing Cade to freeze, bottle halfway to his lips.

Cade eyed him and took the sip he’d postponed. “Heck no. Another man is the last thing she needs in her life right now.”

“You’re nothing like her father or her husband.”

Cade didn’t budge. “Doesn’t matter. That’s not what she wants or needs now. And, it’s not what I need. I don’t need another woman who—”

“Who what, might have to lean on you from time to time? Who might not always be strong on her own?”

Cade glared but didn’t answer.

“Don’t let Lacey do that to you. What she put on you isn’t fair and you know it. It isn’t your fault she tried to kill herself. She would have done that whether you broke up with her or not. She was sick and she needed help and you know it. Letting her put that on you is just you being a damn martyr,” Shane said. He was tired of watching Cade’s ex-girlfriend drag him down over and over again.

“I know what Lacey did wasn’t my fault, but that doesn’t mean I need to go out looking for it to happen again. I’m just saying, Laura isn’t what I need right now, and I’m not what she needs right now.”

Shane let it drop.

“Do you know what her brother’s name was?” he asked instead.

Cade frowned. “James. I think her maiden name was Lawless. James Lawless. Why?”

Now it was Shane’s turn to shrug. “I just thought we could see where he’s buried. She might like to visit his grave or at least send flowers or something. If she didn't get to go to the funeral, maybe she’s never been able to say good-bye to him. It’s something we could do for her, that’s all.”

Cade threw Shane a hard look, but Shane put up his hands in defense. “Hey, I only have friendly feelings toward Laura; I swear. I’m not planning on stepping into your territory.”

Cade growled. “She’s not my territory. She’s nobody’s territory.”

“Touchy, touchy,” Shane said and headed down the stairs. Someone would have to run interference for Cade. If Mama took one look at Cade, she’d know something was up and Shane knew Cade wasn’t going to want to talk about this.

“I’ll tell Mama you’re having dinner at your place tonight so you can watch the game. She’ll buy that,” Shane said over his shoulder. Cade lived above the horse barn but he ate most of his meals up at the house with Mama. “Get yourself together by tomorrow morning, though, or you’ll have to come up with a better cover story yourself.”