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“But—”
“Now,” Duke said.
My body turned cold with the malice in that single word.
Duke didn’t wait for Tanner to heed his warning. He stood, fluidly and rather gracefully for a man of his size. But that didn’t really help with the pain.
He winced with my sharp intake of breath and walked quickly toward the house.
“Duke, you can’t kill your brother,” I said through the pain. “It was an accident.”
“When a man throws a punch, he knows where it’s gonna land,” he clipped. “It lands on a woman, he’s responsible for that. In every fucking way.”
I rolled my eyes. Or tried to. The gesture itself hurt. “And when a woman tries to stop a fight between two macho-men, she should factor in the fact she might get punched.”
Duke’s jaw stiffened even more. “You need to stop worryin’ bout that shit now, baby.”
I tensed. “What’s with all this baby?” I snapped. “I’m not your baby.”
He glanced down. “Oh yes, you are.”
I didn’t get time to argue with him, since we were at the house, and he was explaining to his family why his brother punched his girlfriend in the face.
“Outside. Now.”
Everything went silent in the living room with Duke’s words. I glanced up to see Tanner standing in the doorway. He was focused on my face. Well, what little he could see beyond the wall of Duke, who’d leapt up the second Tanner had entered the room.
His father stood now too, eyeing his two sons, the ones that were at odds because of me.
Well, to be fair, their animosity had been brewing for much longer than I’d been in the picture, but I didn’t think it would be this dangerous had Tanner not punched me.
Anna, who was sitting beside me, grabbed my hand and squeezed. She looked between her boys with pain and concern in her eyes, but also with a weary acceptance. Harriet was in the corner, sipping her margarita, amused. Not just amused, though. She had some of Anna’s pain dancing around in there too.
Despite this, both of the strong, outspoken women stayed silent. They didn’t try to interrupt what I was guessing would be a brawl.
I stood, grabbed Duke’s hand that was clenched into a fist. “Duke, no.”
“Stay out of this, baby,” he clipped, not looking at me.
I narrowed my eyes, throbbing head or not, he was totally not talking to me like that.
But I didn’t get time to educate him on this, since Tanner had nodded once and was already walking out the door. Duke had shrugged off my hand and was following.
“Oh shit, I wish I’d made popcorn or something,” Harriet muttered, leaping up and following them.
I did the same, though not as quickly as the dynamic matriarch.
The two men took off their hats, laid them on the gate into the property, and started to circle each other.
Both of them were already at blows by the time I’d made it down the porch steps. I was ready to try and break them up, despite what had happened the first time. A hand on my wrist stopped me. Andrew was looking at his sons, then to me.
“They need this, honey.”
He didn’t seem glad about this. Resigned.
Anna slipped her hand into his, and he leaned into her.
Harriet outstretched her hand to offer me a sip of her drink. I took it, not taking my eyes off the two men.
“I didn’t mean to hit her,” Tanner said, fists up.
“I know,” Duke replied. “But you did anyway. You want to work your shit out, do it now. Before, I might’ve held back, since I deserved a lot of it. Now, I won’t.”
Tanner nodded once.
Then there were no more words, only thuds of fists on flesh.
“Was that really the most civilized way to go about working out your shit?” I asked, pressing the ice to Duke’s swollen cheek. The fight wasn’t exactly even. I totally thought Tanner was holding back because he thought he deserved the beatdown. He held back for the first part of the fight, let Duke give him bruises to match mine. Then he started hitting back, because he also was looking for an opportunity to punch his brother. For whatever reason.
Duke grabbed the ice and pulled me down onto his naked chest.
We were in bed.
After the fight, each man went their separate ways. I shared a beer with Harriet on the porch—I had intended on going after Duke, but she informed me he needed time to “lick his wounds” and she needed someone to “talk about their form with.”
So we did that, though she didn’t tell me the origin of the hostility between the two brothers, which I guessed she thought was Duke’s story to tell.
By the time I finished my beer—the first one I’d had in ten years—and walked to the cabin, Duke was just getting out of the shower, hair still wet, body still taunting me with its scarred perfection. How I had managed to keep myself from pouncing on him this past week, I had no idea.
