Family dinner. The concept should have been thrown out of American tradition along with indentured servitude and child labor. The only thing Met felt when he walked through the front door of his parents’ huge home on the outskirts of Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood was the need for a drink. In fact, he had to shove his hands in his jeans pockets to stop them from shaking.

“Oh, Met, it’s just so good to see you!”

Leave it to his mother to overwhelm him with her love and unconditional acceptance. Sort of. There was something very odd about Avery Hernandez’s demeanor. Met could not put his finger on it, but he could feel his siblings’ and their significant others’ gazes on him as though they were just dying to see what his take on this was.

“Hi, Mom.” Met put his arms around his mother and gave her a squeeze. “How have you been? Any good shopping trips lately?”

“Oh, you!” Avery swatted his arm. “You were always such a charmer. It’s so good to see you though. You never come home for Christmas anymore.” Avery’s lower lip pooched out. “We’re going to have to have a big Christmas dinner this year. What with all of the grandkids and the weddings and the excitement! It will just be magical!”

Oh boy. Met had not heard his mother talk about a family Christmas since the debacle the year he left home. In the true tradition of the prodigal son, Met had picked Thanksgiving as the perfect time to drop out of school and run away. He hadn’t come home for Christmas that year, and his mother had supposedly cried buckets over it. Had she forgotten? Or was forgetting just her way of dealing with what Met had seen that had driven him to run away to begin with?

“Dinner is almost ready.” Avery patted Met’s cheek. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen and help me? Jesse would rather stay with her brothers, you know.”

Met glanced at Laredo. His brother was waving him on as though he really wanted Met to go have a nice conversation with their mother and figure out what the hell was going on. Met sighed. He hated the kitchen. He hated helping. He hated all of the crap that had been dumped on him as his mother’s youngest child and her substitute daughter until Jesse had come into their family as an eleven-year-old.

Avery was already talking a mile a minute by the time Met made it into the kitchen. Her kitchen was huge. It was a lot bigger and far more well stocked than the ranch kitchen had been. The place had state-of-the-art appliances and all the latest gadgets.

Met could remember when his parents had moved into this place in Denver after leaving the main ranch camp for his brother Cal to occupy. His mother had wanted to live “in town” for decades. She had been so excited about the big seven thousand square foot house with all of its bedrooms and bathrooms and places for her family to come and stay. Of course, that wasn’t what had happened, but it had been her dream.

“So, Mom, how have you been?” Met decided he might as well treat this as he did any other interaction with a woman. Just get her talking about herself.

“Oh, you know, it’s been grand with all of your brothers back in town. Darren is here, you know,” Avery gushed. “He’s met a wonderful woman, and he got custody of his son too. It’s just like a fairytale!”

“Wow.” Met had heard about Darren from Laredo, but he hadn’t realized just how much it would mean to his mother to now have two grandchildren to spoil. Apparently, the grandchildren thing was a big deal to women her age. Who knew? “So, I hear Cisco is getting married too, huh? How is that?”

“Oh, it’s just amazing!” Avery apparently had nothing in her life right now that was not amazing. She was thrilled with everything and excited. That was good. Sort of. Except that Met got the feeling this was all a big cover-up for something else.

“Mom, how is Dad?” Met reached out to take a huge platter of brisket from his mother’s hands.

The change was almost immediate. His mother’s smile disappeared, and her eyes grew hooded. She focused intently on the salad she was putting together. “He’s fine. You know your father.”

“Actually, I want to know what you think about him. I don’t care about what he has to say about it.” Met wondered if his mother was really going to pretend that this was all right too when it so obviously wasn’t.

“He’s your father.” Avery gave a careless shrug. “He’s overbearing and rude, and he treats all of you like crap. I’m tired of his bullying and his lying and his constantly pretending that his shit don’t stink.”

At that point, Met was pretty certain that he was going to faint dead away right there in his mother’s kitchen. First of all, his mother had just used the word “shit.” That was not normal. Met could safely say he had never heard that out of her mouth before in his life! Second of all, his mother did not say bad or negative things about his father. It just didn’t happen. She was the quintessential rancher’s wife. She was as supportive as the day was long. And there were some pretty damn long days in the ranching life.

“Mom,” Met began slowly. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Well, if I could divorce your father, I think I would.” Avery dropped that bombshell as though it were just another fact that the whole world knew.

Met felt his mouth fall open. “What?”

“He’s been cheating on me for years now,” Avery said baldly. “I’m tired of it.”

“Cheating?” Met wanted to scoff, but the truth was that he couldn’t. He could not forget the memory of seeing his father bent over another woman on a cold night in a snowstorm all those years ago. “Why would you say that?”

Avery gave Met a very long look. Then she gestured to the platter. “Take that out to the table, would you please? I really appreciate your help, sweetie.”

Sweetie. Right. Met was such a sweetie that he wasn’t going to tell his brothers what their mother had just said about their father. Not now. Not yet. Not ever? It was hard to say. He could not imagine what would make all of this right. He didn’t want to know these things. He didn’t want to think about his father being unfaithful.

Met carried the platter of brisket out to the long dining room table. The room had windows overlooking a huge golf course. Neither of his parents actually played golf. But they could not stand the thought of looking out their windows and seeing nothing but houses. In the city, that meant you lived on a golf course. And since the Hernandez Land & Cattle Company was extremely lucrative, the Hernandez family could afford that sort of property.

“Need any help?” There was just enough teasing in Laredo’s voice to poke at Met.

“Don’t talk to me,” Met told Laredo. “Don’t even look at me. I might be tempted to put my boot in your ass.”

It took five more trips in and out of the kitchen to get all the food onto the table to his mother’s satisfaction. Met didn’t care. It gave him something to do and kept him from hitting the liquor decanter on the sideboard. He wanted a drink. But that wasn’t going to help. If he started drinking now, he was going to keep drinking until he passed out.

“Dinner!” Avery Hernandez called out. “Dinner for everyone!”

The dining room went from feeling cavernous to feeling cramped in less than two seconds as the whole family piled into the room. Bella and Jaeger sat together at the far end of the table and were already speculating about dessert. Darren and Laredo took seats by their offspring with their women beside them. Cisco was there with the woman who had only recently, and apparently reluctantly, agreed to become his wife—Melody—and then Jesse and Met were left to bring up the rear.

It was obvious to Met that Jesse was doing her best to bury herself somewhere not within talking distance of Joe, but she wound up sitting right across from him anyway. Met felt her pain. The two of them sat next to each other as they had for so many years when they were teenagers. There was probably slightly less animosity now than there had been back then, but it was still awkward as hell.

“Laredo?” Avery called down the table. “Can you say grace please?”

The whole table froze. Joe had always said grace when the family sat down to meals. Apparently, their mother was making her feelings known in every subtle and digging way left open to her. Great. That put them all in the middle of a war.

“I’ll say it, Avery,” Joe said gruffly.

“No.” Avery pointed at Laredo. “Our oldest son is a wonderful father and will make a dutiful husband. I think he gets to say it.”

There were a lot of surreptitious looks and throat clearing around the table. Laredo finally bowed his head and started talking in a loud voice just to cover up the awkward silence. But it could not be missed that Joe Hernandez neither bowed his head nor closed his eyes during the prayer. It wasn’t like the Hernandez family was particularly religious to begin with. It was more of a family tradition than anything else.

“Amen!” Laredo said in an overloud voice.

Jesse was smirking beside Met. Her leg was pressed up against his, and he could feel it shaking as she laughed silently. “Yeah, amen,” Jesse agreed.

The eating began with an even more pronounced awkward silence. It felt as though Met was trapped in the worst soap opera scene ever. People were talking and laughing, but it was all fake. They were all fake. It was so obvious. Did nobody feel it but him?

“So, Jesse,” Joe finally said loudly. “How is the ranch coming along?”

Jesse bared her teeth in a sweet and somewhat aggressive grin. “It’s coming along just fine, thank you. I’ve had the stock inspector out every single day to prove that all of my stock belongs to me since it’s been tainted by association with you.”

Dead silence. Met sucked in a breath and nearly choked on the brisket he was trying to eat. He hadn’t tasted a single piece of it. He was pretty sure it was good because his mother was a really great cook, but the barbeque sauce could have been sawdust for all he cared.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve got that all straightened out,” Joe told Jesse. “I spent a lot of years keeping that place solvent, you know. I would hate for you to screw it up now.”

“Yeah.” Jesse snorted and stabbed a piece of meat so hard with her fork that the whole table could hear the tines smacking the plate. “I’m so likely to screw up, you know? It’s so odd, but every time I ask Cal for advice, he tells me to go with my gut because it’s a lot more accurate than anything any of you could share with me.”

“Cal is a fool,” Joe said quietly. Then he pointed his fork at Jesse. “And you would do well to stay away from him.”

“Excuse me?” Jesse dropped her fork with a clatter. “Meaning what? He’s my friend. He’s a good man. He’s helping me out, and I’m trying to help him out in turn since your livestock is currently stashed on my land because you’ve got some petty war going with the Flying W.”

“You need to find a man your own age, settle down, and let him run the ranch.” Joe grunted and seemed to be staring into space. “That’s what your mother would have wanted.”

Oh, shit! Met wanted to crawl under the damn table. He could not believe that his father had gone there! And yet Jesse was not the one with the most anger on her face. Met could not stop staring at his mother. Her cheeks were red. Her smile was forced. And her eyes were glittering with rage.

Jesse stood up so quickly that her chair flipped over backwards. She pointed her finger at Joe. “You’re lucky there are kids present here. That matters to me. So, I’m not going to say what I’m thinking. But let me tell you something, Joe Hernandez. You do not get to say what my mother would have wanted. You didn’t know her. Not really. Being my dad’s best friend doesn’t mean squat after more than a decade. The Collins ranch is mine because I am a Collins. And you’d best remember that!”

Jesse stormed off. Aria got up quickly to follow. Bella and Jaeger were still speculating about dessert, and Met’s other brothers were too busy trying to calm their father down to even pay attention to their mother. The woman looked as though she were about to pass out. Her taut features were frozen. She stood up suddenly and went into the kitchen. Met followed because he had to know what was wrong. He had to know what was going on that nobody else seemed to want to see.

“Mom?” Met stepped through the butler’s pantry into the kitchen. “Mom, are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” His mother was scrubbing the stove. Not just scrubbing, but really going after it. “Everything is fine.”

“Everything is not fine.” Met touched her arm. “Mom, talk to me.”

“You don’t want me to do that, sweetie. Not really. You don’t need to know what happened all those years ago.”

Met was afraid that he knew enough to put the pieces of the puzzle together. But what really scared him was the possibility of the picture they would make. It wasn’t good. It was horrible.

“Mom, please let me help you.”

Met felt a strange pull to help his mother and make all of this better. He hated that. It was what had driven him to run away all those years ago. He could not fix his parents. He could not help anyone. He was just a drunk rodeo cowboy too broken to ride anymore and too stupid to do anything else.

“My sweet boy.” His mother gently cupped her palm against his cheek. “Always trying to help. You need to help yourself. That’s what you should be focusing on right now. Just get yourself together. I want to see my children settled and happy before I blow this family right to hell.”

Oh God, what else is coming?