Wild Ride Cowboy

“Not that it’s your business, but yes.” There was no reason for him to be short with Cain. But since his older brother was an extreme hard-ass and didn’t seem to care, Alex didn’t see a reason not to be.

“Good,” Cain said. “About time for you to man up.”

“Thanks. Next time I need your opinion on my masculinity, I’ll ask. Right after I finish polishing my dog tags and disassembling my AR.”

“We could save time and you could just whip it out and measure, Alex. I’m not threatened by that.”

“What are we measuring?” Finn, Alex’s other older half brother, chose that moment to walk out the front door.

“What do you think?” Alex asked.

“Wow. Okay. I think I’ll pass on this brotherly bonding experience,” Finn responded, clearly picking up on the tone of the conversation without further hints.

“You weren’t invited,” Alex said cheerfully. “And I’m starving.”

“You’re in luck. Lane cooked.”

Finn’s fiancée usually did cook. She owned the specialty food mercantile on the main street in town, and had a passion for not only spreading good food around, but for elevating the eating experience of the Donnelly brothers—or at least trying to.

If she had seen what Clara was eating tonight, she probably would have force-fed her some kind of specialty cheese.

Alex walked up the steps with Cain behind him. Then the three of them filed into the house. Whatever Lane was cooking, Alex could smell it already. Something warm and comforting. Something that smelled like home. Not Alex’s childhood home, but the way he had imagined other people’s homes had smelled.

Or maybe, it smelled like this home. This was the longest he’d been in one place for a long damn time.

It was strange just how easy it had been to get used to it. Living here with so many people. When he walked into the kitchen, Liam was there already, the only brother he’d been raised with. He was sitting at the counter, making conversation with their niece, Violet. Or rather, he had a feeling Liam was doing his best to harass Violet, since she was looking mildly perturbed and more than a little amused.

Cain’s fiancée, Alison, was busy cooking with Lane, both women wearing aprons as they dashed around the kitchen. It was like Alex had fallen into some kind of manic 1950s dream.

Violet, who was sixteen and more than a little surly, grabbed a potato chip out of the bowl that was sitting on the island and crunched it noisily.

“This is bad for feminism,” she announced, talking around a mouthful of chip.

“How so, Violet?” Lane asked, turning and putting one hand on her hip.

“Cooking for the men,” she returned.

“Maybe if we were doing it out of obligation, but Lane and I like to cook,” Alison said. “In fact, our chosen careers center around food.”

“Mmm,” Violet made a musing sound.

“I cook,” Lane said, lifting a brow, “your uncle Finn does the dishes, which I don’t like to do, and it works for everyone. But most importantly...”

“We choose to do it,” Alison finished.

“I choose to sit and eat potato chips,” Violet said, clearly also choosing to remain unmoved on her position. And unmoved in general.

“I’ll help,” Liam offered, standing up and slapping the countertop.

“You absolutely will not,” Lane said, turning around and pointing her spatula at him. “I haven’t forgotten the great over-salting incident that happened last time you helped.”

“I’ll help by sitting here,” he said, grabbing a chip out of the bowl.

“Smells good,” Alex said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Thanks,” Lane returned.

“Where have you been?” This time, it was Liam who asked the question.

“It’s really touching how concerned you all are about my whereabouts,” Alex responded.

“I wasn’t concerned, jackass. I was mad because you got out of doing your evening chores.”

“Wow, Liam. Maybe you should tell me about your childhood.” Alex leaned in and stole a chip. “You seem to have some issues.”

“You were there for my childhood. That’s possibly why I have issues.”

Alex snorted. “I’m pretty sure our dad is the reason we both have issues.”

Finn snorted. “I think he’s the reason we all have issues.”

Their father had done one thing well—made children he wasn’t particularly interested in raising. Cain and Finn had different mothers, with Cain being raised in Texas and Finn in Washington. Though Finn had come to live on the Laughing Irish ranch with their grandfather when he was only sixteen.

Liam and Alex had grown up with their mother in a different part of Washington than Finn, and had spent sporadic summers in Copper Ridge.

Until recently, the half brothers had all spent a limited amount of time together. Though, truth be told Alex and Liam hadn’t spent all that much time together either, since Liam had left home at eighteen.

As soon as he could, Liam had gone off to school. And he didn’t return home. Two years later, Alex had enlisted in the military, and he’d done the same—left it all behind.

Liam had gotten a scholarship that had paid his way through, and as far as Alex knew, was the only one of them to get any kind of higher education. Liam didn’t talk about it much though. He never had. And whatever work he had gotten into afterward, he wasn’t doing it now.

Damn. They really were dysfunctional.

“So, what were you doing?” Liam asked, clearly not content to let the subject drop.

“I had to go and handle that property I’m responsible for,” he said, “like I told you guys a month or so ago.”

“What’s the situation with that?” Finn was the one who posed that question, and Alex wasn’t particularly surprised. His brother would need to know how it would impact the work that was happening around the ranch. They were all part owners of the Laughing Irish now, but Finn had bled for this place since he was a teenager.

They all loved it in their own way, but nobody loved it like Finn. That was another thing Alex paused to marvel at for a moment. The fact that they were all getting along as well as they were. Claiming their part of the inheritance, rather than taking a payoff. Finn had been less than amused when they’d first showed up, but gradually it had all started to work, and he’d come to see them as more of an asset than a burden.

Mostly.

“I’m going to be doing some work on it,” he said. “For up to a year, I have decision-making power on the place and then it will pass to Clara’s possession. Right now, it’s part of Jason’s estate, and I’m the executor. And if I end up dropping the ball here, I swear I’ll hire somebody to pick up the slack. And I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket. But this is something that I have to do.”

“I’m not sure I know this story,” Alison said, opening the oven and taking out a pie.

“It’s not a feel-good one,” Alex said. “An army buddy of mine was killed in action about six months ago. He left me his ranch.”

Alison’s eyes went wide. She set the pie down on a trivet on the counter. “Really? I’m so sorry.”

“Yes. His sister isn’t very happy about it, but he did it to help her.”

“You’re talking about Jason Campbell and his sister Clara,” Alison said, “aren’t you?”

“Did you know them?”

Alison shook her head. “Not Clara. I kind of knew Jason in school. Not well. But I saw him there, and around town over the years. I was sad to hear about his death. I met Clara when I started doing some work with Grassroots Winery.”

Alex cleared his throat. “Jason kind of...left her to me. She doesn’t have anyone.”

“And you’re supposed to drop everything and help her?” That question came from Liam, his voice surprisingly hard. “You have your own life. Didn’t your friend consider that?”

“As he was considering his death at the time, I suppose he figured I could take the inconvenience. You know, since I’m above ground.” Clara was mad at Jason for his decision. His brothers clearly thought it was crazy too. It made Alex feel defensive of his friend. The fact that Jason was willing to do anything—even inconvenience Alex—to protect his sister, to make sure that she was taken care of, was a mark of what made him such a good man as far as Alex was concerned.

He and his brothers had been self-sufficient from the beginning. There had been no alternative. They also hadn’t been raised to be close. He and Liam were close enough, but it wasn’t that same caregiver relationship Jason had had to Clara. He had been ten years older, and they’d lost both of their parents. He’d felt responsible for her in a way Alex had never felt responsible for anyone.

“Sorry,” Liam said. “You’re supposed to hire someone to cover for you here? Why not just hire someone to work at the Campbell Ranch?”

“It’s not just about working on the ranch,” Alex said. “Clara isn’t functioning on her own. She’s not paying her bills. And I think Jason was afraid that might happen. He wanted to make sure she had... Another older brother around to look after her.”

Something inside of him—deep inside of him—rebelled at the thought of being Clara’s older brother. It didn’t sit right.

She was just so damn pretty. That was a fact, and one he’d never been blind to. Of course, there was a difference between realizing a woman was pretty and wanting to actually touch that beauty. Clara was off limits. She always had been. But now more than ever before.

He thought of her extreme, ridiculous and unintentional double entendre earlier. About him getting too close to her hive.

Yeah, she was beautiful. Blond hair, full, pink lips. Skin that looked so soft any man could be forgiven for thinking about brushing his fingertips against it.

But that... That crazy bee thing. And the fact that she seemed to think it wasn’t completely transparent she had a crush as deep as the Pacific Ocean on that ridiculous barista in that equally ridiculous coffee shop, all spoke of not only their decade-wide age gap, but the gap they had in life experience.

He shook his head, banished any thoughts of her skin or her lips from his mind, and focused on the brother thing. Or, if not brother, then at least the fact that he had been entrusted with protecting her.

There were any number of women with soft skin in Copper Ridge—he assumed—and if he was starting to think in that way, he was going to have to find one of them.

He had really enjoyed harassing Cain and Finn about their celibacy before they’d found their respective fiancées, and implying that he himself was getting a lot of play. But the truth of the matter was all he’d done was a little flirting over at Ace’s bar.

He enjoyed that. Spending a few hours blowing smoke and telling tall tales. Having a group of women look at him like he was interesting, funny and not... Well, what he was.

He preferred the joke, every time. Because the fact of the matter was when he was alone, there wasn’t much to joke about. There were just endless images of the kind of carnage he had witnessed during war. The darkness serving as a reminder for what it was like to hunker down for hours in a bunker and wait out threatened attacks.

To watch your best friend bleed out in front of you. A guy who had someone depending on him.

Unlike Alex.

Well, now he did. Now Clara was his responsibility. And dammit all, he was going to take care of her. He didn’t have time to sit around and feel sorry for himself. Didn’t have the luxury of feeling like it had been the wrong man’s blood that soaked into the desert sand that day.

Jason was gone. Alex was here.

End of story.

“Whatever you need to do,” Cain said. “Do it. We can cover it here. Unless Liam can’t pull his weight.”

Liam shot their older brother a look. “Maybe some of us like having a life off the ranch.”

“You don’t have one, though. No matter how much you try to make me believe it. Anyway, some of us like our lives right here on the ranch. Don’t ask me to feel bad about that, because I don’t.”

“Glad to have your support, Cain,” Alex said, cutting off the bickering between the two of them. “Of course, I was going to do it either way.”

“I figured as much,” his brother said. “I also thought that this was a great way to come out looking benevolent.”

Finn laughed. “Yeah. That’s what they say about you, Cain. That you’re extremely benevolent.”

“As dictators go, he’s not that bad,” Violet offered as she jumped down from the stool and grabbed a handful of chips before wandering out of the room, looking at her cell phone.

Alison made a squeaking sound. “I don’t mind taking orders from him,” she added, the words coming out quickly. “That was difficult to hold back, but I was not going to say it in front of his daughter.”

Cain grinned, and Alex wanted to punch him. He imagined this was exactly what Cain had felt like for the past few months while he and Liam gave him endless hell over his lack of success with women. Now he was smug. And Alex and Liam were celibate.

“You could also not say it in front of his brothers,” Alex said.

“You’re adults,” Alison remarked. “You can deal.”

“Some of us have already dealt with enough trauma,” he returned. “I’m a soldier. I fought for this country. I’ve been through enough without being exposed to insinuations about my oldest brother’s sex life.”

He didn’t actually care. But he did like a joke. Especially one that worked to make his past less serious somehow. That made him feel like maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal. Like maybe it was a movie or something that happened to somebody else.

“Thank you for your service,” Alison said drily. “But it does not exclude you from being treated like I would treat any of my brothers.”

He couldn’t even be irritated at her. Because he knew that Alison had had a difficult life. He also knew that she didn’t have any siblings at all. Family. That’s what they were. That’s what they were becoming anyway. More seamlessly than he had imagined was possible.

“Okay,” Lane said, turning away from the stove. “Everybody quit bickering. It’s dinnertime.”

* * *

CLARA FOUND HERSELF dragging at work the next day. She’d had a near impossible time sleeping, and that was making it difficult for her to keep a smile pasted on her face in the tasting room. Summer was drawing to a close, the wind whipping down from the mountains taking on a sharp edge that spoke of the coming fall.

But that didn’t mean tourism in Copper Ridge had abated any. The weather was mild on the coast when the rest of the state was dry and hot or buried beneath snow, which made it ideal pretty much all year round. Though, once it got into October, the fog would start to linger longer and longer, stretching into the afternoon then rolling back in as the sun went down. That would last all through the winter, though there were still people who came to visit during those months.

Especially those who found the low, gray sky atmospheric. Or who just liked getting away from other people.

Even inland, at the winery, it was much cooler than it was down in the southernmost part of the state, and people had migrated upward en masse to escape the last gasps of summer heat.

The sky was bright and blue today, and customers were out in force. Locals who had a day off, coming in to order a flight of wine and a tray of cheese, mixing in with the tourists.

The large, converted barn was full today, the tall tables made from wine barrels all taken up.

And Clara was doing a pretty poor job serving everyone, and she knew it. She slunk behind the counter, hoping she could extricate herself from customer service, that Sabrina or Olivia might take a hint and leave any kind of straightening up to Clara while they handled the guests.

She could only hope that Lindy, the owner of Grassroots, didn’t come in. Lindy had been extraordinarily gracious to Clara, both in offering her the job, and in training her. Lindy had gone through a nasty divorce a year or so ago and she was very sensitive to the fact that Clara was grieving a loss. Much more so than most bosses would be. Much more so than any boss had to be.

But it had been six months. And a sleepless night wasn’t the best excuse for shoddy work. Not only that, it wasn’t fair. Wasn’t fair to her coworkers. And it certainly wasn’t fair to Lindy.

Clara sighed and put her head down, then squatted behind the counter, hunting for a bar towel so that she could wipe down surfaces and look busy.

“Are you okay?”

Clara looked up and saw Sabrina leaning over the countertop, staring down at her. She and Sabrina had forged a pretty strong work friendship in the months since Clara had started at Grassroots. She had a feeling it could be more than just a work friendship if Clara ever took Sabrina up on her offers to go out after work.

She should, really.

Sabrina Leighton was Lindy’s sister-in-law. And Clara had never really felt comfortable prying into the particulars of all of that. Or asking why Sabrina and Beatrix—Lindy’s ex’s sisters—still hung around the winery instead of siding with their brother. She was curious. But if she asked, then Sabrina would have the right to ask how Clara was doing. To want real details. And Clara...didn’t want to get into real details.

“I’m fine,” she said, lying.

“You seem distracted.”

Darn Sabrina. Couldn’t she be more tunnel-visioned like their other coworker, Olivia?

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” she said, going with honesty. “Actually, I think I’m kind of an ogre today. Would you mind handling the customers? I’ll do any and all grunt work.”

Sabrina smiled. “That’s fine.”

She was too nice. It made Clara feel like a jerk.

“Thank you.” She retrieved a towel and stood up.

“Is anything going on... Or...”

Clara sighed. “It’s complicated. And I’m sure you have things to do.”

It wasn’t really complicated. And she didn’t have a reason not to tell Sabrina about the situation with Alex.

“Everybody seems settled right now. Tell me about complicated.”

“It’s not interesting.”

“Is it a guy?”

“Well, yes.” If Sabrina were an antennaed creature, said antennae would’ve been pointing straight upward. “Not in that way,” Clara added, her cheeks starting to feel hot.

“In what way?”

“I’ve been avoiding dealing with Jason’s lawyer,” she said, keeping her voice quiet.

“I understand that,” Sabrina said. “I get it. Legal stuff is terrible and my only experience with it is as an observer. Lindy and Damien’s divorce was just...so toxic. And the fight over the winery and whether or not the prenup meant Lindy got it... My parents were horrible to her. Damien was horrible. I never want to talk to a lawyer again. Anyway... This isn’t about our drama. It’s just to say I understand why that must be completely overwhelming on top of everything else.”

“Except it turned out the lawyer was calling me for good reason. My brother didn’t leave the ranch to me.”

Sabrina’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Apparently, he left it to Alex Donnelly. Well, I mean, not for...forever. But he’s in control of it for a year, before it passes to me.”

She had entertained the idea of contesting it...for about a minute. She could hardly manage to open her mail. And anyway, it was only for a year. A year of Alex. But there was an end point. She could handle anything for a year.

Sabrina’s entire demeanor changed. Her usually cheerful mouth went flat, her blue eyes turning cool. “Alex Donnelly?”

“Yes,” she said. “Is that...significant in some way?”

For some reason, she imagined Sabrina and Alex together. Together, together. It made her throat feel tight.

“I’m not a fan of the Donnelly brothers,” Sabrina said, her tone stiff. “I don’t know Alex that well. I just can’t imagine him being less of an asshole than Liam.”

Her lips looked pale all of a sudden, her expression strained.

“Well. I’m kind of stuck with this one. Unfortunately.”

Clara had a feeling there was a lot more to the story about Liam Donnelly. And she also had a feeling it absolutely was in that way. Clara didn’t have any heartbreak like that in her past. She’d experienced too much heartache in the form of death, loss and grief. Putting herself out there romantically hadn’t seemed worth the effort.

Until Asher. He was...well, it was difficult to explain, even to herself. But he was just so fascinating. So unlike her. So unlike everything in her life. He felt like hope. Like the possibility of something new.

She didn’t like to think that Asher could end up replicating in her the strange heartbreak-induced facial expression that things with Liam had clearly provoked in Sabrina.

Clara had been through enough.

She needed something good. She deserved something good.

“Alex isn’t going to come up here, is he?” Sabrina asked. “I mean, the Donnellys aren’t going to start hanging out here?”

“He’s not my guardian,” she said. “It’s not like we’re close or anything. Or like he’s taking care of me. Although, I think that is maybe what Jason was thinking.”

Her stomach clenched tight. It was so easy to feel mad at Jason, but the anger made her feel guilty too. And she knew that regardless of how she felt about him going back into the military after their father died, no matter how much she wanted to second-guess all of it, she couldn’t demand answers of a dead man. But why couldn’t he simply have stayed with her? Why had he felt compelled to test fate like that? If he didn’t care about himself, the least he could have done was care enough about her.

Then again, she supposed whatever this was with Alex...it was Jason caring in his way. Through somebody else. By not being here. By sending a check. In this case, he was sending a friend.

She gritted her teeth. She wasn’t being fair. She knew that. She was just in the anger stage of grieving, wrapped somewhere around denial. Angry denial.

“I mean, of course if they come up here it’s fine,” Sabrina said, forcing a smile. The color returned to her cheeks, to her lips, and she seemed to be grappling now with feeling embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It’s really stupid. The whole thing about me not liking the Donnellys. It was a long time ago. A lot has changed.”

“Is there a meeting I don’t know about?”

Olivia Logan had walked across the dining room, and was now standing behind Sabrina looking, well, smooth and implacable and impossible to read.

It was difficult to say whether Olivia liked them or not. She wasn’t unkind at all, she was just extremely focused. On work, on her boyfriend. And there was a kind of natural aloofness to her demeanor. But then, her ancestors were quite literally the founders of Logan County, the namesakes. It was entirely possible she perceived Olivia as being slightly uppity for that reason alone.

“No,” Sabrina said. “We were just talking about family stuff.”

Olivia’s mouth tightened into a firm line. “Oh.”

“Do you need help?” Sabrina asked.

“Oh, with all the guests? Actually, no. Everything is handled.” Olivia was a funny, efficient creature. She was nice enough, but sometimes seemed like she didn’t quite understand how to make light conversation. She was intense and goal-oriented, which made her good at every job she set out to do. But made her not so great with small talk.

Not that Clara was an expert in it.

“Do you guys want to hang out tonight?” Sabrina looked so hopeful. And it made Clara feel slightly guilty.

Olivia looked surprised. “Me?”

“Yes. All three of us.”

“I can’t,” Clara said, feeling like a jerk. Because she actually could. And she maybe even should. “I mean, Alex is at the ranch. He has been all day. And I need to see what he’s thinking about doing. But once I get settled... Once everything is a little bit more settled I think maybe I can go out sometime.”

Sabrina turned her focus to Olivia, slightly less hopeful-looking now, but clearly still eager.

“I’m closing tonight,” Olivia said. “It will be really late by the time I get out of here. So I shouldn’t.”