Page 90 of Silver Brewer

“It’s a free country because of men like me,” I slur, rousing myself from thoughts of Letty. I went off to fight for America. James decided to do service Stateside. Search and rescue was his calling, and he became a ranger in the Smoky Mountain area, saving people on terrain more familiar to him than the dry, arid desert was to me.

“Thank you for your service,” he mocks, rapping on the bar and then holding up two fingers. This place isn’t their secluded club. It’s open to the public who might want a little taste of danger and maybe a one-night stand. I’m contemplating both, but then Letty pops into my thoughts once again, and I know it isn’t true. I’d never have a one-night stand again.

“What brings you here?” My younger brother’s rugged tone matches my own.

I hold up my low glass and jiggle it for him. The amber liquid inside sloshes from side to side like my stomach. I’m trying to ignore the ache in my heart.

Selfishly, I saw a baby only for myself.

She was lying. She wanted it all, and I was willing to give it to her.“I’m having a shit day,” I mumble. A shit week. A shit month. A shitty few months. So much shit.

James snorts next to me. The bartender brings him a few fingers of whiskey in a lowball glass like mine and slides another in front of me. James taps my glass with his before lifting it to his lips. “To women.”

I huff and stroke a hand over my beard. I need a trim.

“Lost my girl,” I mutter, shocked to admit the words out loud to my absentee brother. Being closest in age compared to my other siblings, he was my best friend as a kid. Two years younger made no difference. Then I went away. Life got in the way.

His head swivels, and he stares at the side of my face. I don’t need to look over at him to know he understands me—what I feel and what I’m thinking. He’s lost many women in his life.

He exhales. “Damn, I liked her.” He doesn’t mean it in any other way than he was impressed by her when he met her that one time up at the old ranger station on the mountain. She held her own against me even with him as an audience. The time reminds me…

“What were you doing up there? At the station last fall?”

James turns his head forward, staring at the glass bottles along the opposite wall while I face him. His profile is similar to mine yet not the same. He has more gray hair—silver actually—despite being younger than me. A scraggly patch of hairs circles his mouth and lines his jaw, heaviest on his chin. His blue eyes are as sad as I feel, but the edge to his cheeks tells me he’s keeping it in. Maybe we aren’t so dissimilar after all.

“Camping.” He’s lying, and we both know it. As he told me, the station isn’t a campground.

“We heard shots.” I pause, giving my brother time to explain himself.

“That was target practice.” Sarcasm drips from his voice.

“That’s what you told Charlie. Want to tell me the truth?”

James’s lip tweaks at the corner of his mouth, and he stares back at me, his eyes admitting he knows I know he’s lying. “You always were the smartest of all of us.”

I chuckle without humor. “You know Charlie is the smartest.”

James snorts. “Let’s get back to your girl. What happened?” His voice shifts, and I hear the familiar sound of him buried beneath the tough exterior he’s built over the last few years. The voice of my brother, the best friend, who could read me and my silence better than most. He doesn’t typically chat with us as his real family, resigning himself to the club as his brotherhood, but I’m grateful for a moment he’s acting like the brother I once knew and still love.

“It’s a long story, but the short of it is, she adopted a baby, and she didn’t want me to be part of it.”

I want to adopt Finn with you.

Then what?

“Ouch,” James mumbles. Talking about a child is the last thing I want to do with my brother, but he continues to question me. “Why’d she adopt?”

“A number of reasons,” I say, not wanting to give away all of Letty’s secrets. “But I think most of all she just wanted a family after a jilted relationship.”

“How do you fit in there?” He scoffs.

“I was the next guy.” My attention turns back to my brother, and he stares at me, pain resonating in his eyes. He’s the only Harrington with blue eyes.

Was I some kind of transition man for Letty? I don’t believe it for a second, but still, I have my doubts. What were we doing all those months besides playing house? I thought we were building something, biding our time until time passed, and we could take the next step.

James nods next to me, knowing all about “the next guy” syndrome.

“Women sure do know how to sock a punch,” he mutters, giving away his only weakness as he turns his attention to the liquor in his glass. He stares at the whiskey before taking a deep swallow of the burning liquid. “I’m sorry, man.”