“I need you to text the Bodines—just the brothers,” I said to Jonah without preamble when I stormed through Gran’s door.

“Okaaaay.” He drew out the word and put down his sandwich.

“Text them and tell them to get their cowardly asses over here now.”

I stomped into the living room and dumped the stack of papers I’d promised Scarlett I’d scan for her and then headed for my bedroom. I needed to shower off the dust and mustiness of Jonah Bodine’s house. And I needed to calm myself down before I told three grown men who weren’t afraid of a little violence that they needed to grow a collective pair and stop dumping shit on their sister.

She’d been exhausted when we left her father’s house. Had even begged off on lunch saying she just wanted to take a nap. She was shaky and overwrought, and I placed the blame squarely on each pair of broad Bodine shoulders. They shouldn’t have made her see to their father’s house on her own. It had obviously taken a toll. We’d no sooner finished going through the trunk than she’d collapsed in on herself. I’d driven her home—with no argument from her—leaving her truck there.

I stepped under the stream of hot water from the shower head that Scarlett had replaced herself. Just because the woman could do it all didn’t mean that she should be expected to do it all. I let the anger simmer. Anger was a welcome change to what I’d felt when I’d first come here. There was strength in anger.

Ten minutes later, I was dressed and pacing the living room when the first car pulled up outside. Bowie didn’t even bother knocking. He rushed in through the kitchen door. “Is Scarlett okay? She’s not answering her texts.”

“No thanks to you,” I snapped. “Sit down.” If he was surprised by my tone, he didn’t show it. I caught Jonah trying to sneak down the hallway toward the stairs. “You too, Bodine.”

Jonah slunk into the living room and, shooting me a curious look, took Gran’s favorite wingback.

“This better be fucking good,” Gibson drawled when he came through the front door. Jameson was behind him. Both were dressed as if I’d interrupted them at work.

Bowie sniffed the air. “Is that burnt arm hair?”

Jameson shrugged. “Phone scared me.”

“Sit,” I said, jerking my thumb toward the living room.

“What the hell is this, McCallister?” Gibson demanded.

“This is about the three of you acting like chicken shits and dumping everything on your sister.”

“Now just a minute here—” Bowie began.

“No. I talk. You fix it. I just came from your father’s house with your sister. As you may recall, you dumped the settling of your father’s estate on her. Just like you saddled her with the responsibility of his care. She took him to doctor’s appointments, filled his refrigerator, drove him to work. What did you three cowards do?”

Gibson rose from the couch, his hands clenched into fists. “This is none of your fucking business. You don’t know what it was like to grow up with him.”

I stood in front of him, daring him to take a swing. “No. I don’t. But your little sister does. And you’re too busy holding onto grudges with a dead man to act like a fucking family.”

Gibson narrowed his eyes at me.

“Go ahead,” I shrugged. “Take a shot at me, but you know it’s true. You know that you three washed your hands and saddled your sister with a responsibility that never should have been hers alone.”

I think Gibson was growling at me. But I was going to say it all.

“I just drove her home from your father’s house where she was so overwhelmed by memories that she was too upset to drive herself. And which one of you was there for her? Not a single one of you.”

“I feel like this is a family thing—” Jonah said, starting to rise from the chair.

“You are family,” I told him. “You came here to see what your brothers and sister were like, and here it is. Your brothers are selfish, negligent assholes who expect someone else to clean up their family’s mess.”

“Scarlet never said she didn’t want to do all that,” Bowie argued.

“That’s not true.” Jameson scratched the back of his neck. The room went silent. “She told us all the time. Asked us to run him to appointments toward the end. Wanted us to check in on him when she was working long days and he wasn’t with her. She sure as hell didn’t want to clean out his house by herself.”

Bowie swore quietly and looked at his hands.

“You all think she escaped your collective childhood unscathed? She didn’t. She’s just the only one of you with the balls to face it and to forgive. And if you keep using her to do the dirty work, you’re all cowards.”

“She should have come to us rather than sending you—”

I laughed a dry, humorless laugh. “You think she knows I called you all here? You think she wants to ask you to help her? She’s tired of being disappointed by you. You’ll stick your noses in her love life, but you won’t lift a finger to help her take care of your own father. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

They sat, stewing in silence.

“You want to hear the ironic part? The only one of you who volunteered to help her was Jonah. He’s also the one with the best reason for not lifting a damn finger. So why don’t y’all think about that and get the hell out of my house and fix this for Scarlett.”

It was my first official “y’all,” and I embraced it.

They left, jaws tight, eyes dark, anger snapping off of their bodies. But not a single one of them bothered trying to defend themselves.

“Man, you must have been one hell of an attorney,” Jonah said from his chair.

“Still am. Want a drink?”

“Hell yeah.”

I grabbed a couple of beers and headed out to the deck. Summer was slowly sliding into Bootleg, one toe at a time. It was in the mid-seventies today, and the lake was busy. Fishing boats, pontoon boats, floating decks lazily motored past Gran’s deck. People were out enjoying their Saturday without a care to what was going on within the houses that dotted the lake.

I wondered what other secrets, what other skeletons existed in this little lake town.

Jonah joined me on the deck. “That was quite the verbal ass-kicking you gave them.”

I opened my beer. “They deserved it. They expect her to take care of everything because they think she wasn’t hurt by any of it. But she was the only one of them strong enough to deal with it.”

“Think they’ll apologize?” Jonah asked.

My lips quirked. “In their own stupid, ineffective way. And maybe Scarlett will finally lay into them like they deserve. And then maybe things will change at least a little bit.” My thoughts shifted to my own family. Had I ever really stood up for myself, or had I let myself be pushed down a path I didn’t want? Did I even know what I wanted?

“What’s all this?” Jonah asked, looking in the tote I’d carried in from the car.

“Scarlett wanted you to see some family history. I think she wanted to look through them with you. But she was pretty worn out and told me to show you.”

I saw his hesitation. But Jonah didn’t seem like the kind of guy who backed away from discomfort. He pulled the first album out of the bag and settled back in the deck chair. “Is this Scarlett?” he asked, a smile tugging at his lips.

I pulled up the chair next to him and looked. The little girl in pigtails and a pink dress sat astride her father’s shoulders, grinning for all she was worth.

For the next half hour, we sat in silence and paged through another family’s history.