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Cole turned, irritated at the line of questioning. “Yes.”
“Yeah, I’m not really threatened by you,” West said bluntly.
It didn’t matter what his brother said. Cole saw the danger, even if West wanted to be an idiot. “Maybe you should be.”
West startled at that.
Cole grabbed a pair of old castoff jeans folded up in the corner, hoping against hope that they didn’t belong to their old man because his were worse off than Cole’s. Still, he was desperate to end the conversation. Cole made a beeline for his room.
West hunted him down. The guy could never take “no” for an answer… which was probably why Cole couldn’t put his heart into anything, not when he’d been wrestled down into doing all the things he didn’t want to do.
West, on the other hand? His manipulation took him far in life!
“She’s going to be your sister-in-law,” West said. “You’re going to have to be alone with her sometime. Stop being such a prim little princess.”
“You’re not really helping your case.”
“I’ll pay you,” West said. His hand landed on the door so that Cole couldn’t slam it on him.
Seeing that his brother wasn’t about to give him any privacy, Cole dressed anyway, having every intention of bolting out the door as soon as he was done. Sleipnir would be waiting for him out in the barn to help him make his escape. “I’m not interested in your money.”
“You sure about that?”
Cole hesitated. What kind of money was he talking? Did it matter? No!
He threw his foot into the leg of the castoff jeans in his rush to escape West’s forked tongue. As soon as he wrenched them up to his waist, he realized that they were his dad’s oversized overalls. It was too late to go back now.
West sneered when he caught sight of them. “You’re wearing those?”
Cole didn’t answer. He’d grabbed a shirt from the laundry room too, but he saw it was from Nash with the sleeves cut away. As a rule, Cole generally liked more protection on the ranch than his brothers did. He dragged the desecrated shirt on anyway.
“Just for today,” West said. “You can take her along with you to go check on the cattle or–or the calves. She’d like that. You have any more baby chicks for her? You could work together on that pumpkin patch. I don’t care as long as she’s happy.”
At least West seemed to care about that. Cole was beginning to wonder if his brother had a heart. He found his boots.
West closed the door to his room. He lowered his voice. “She shouldn’t be on her own, and the way I see it, you’re the key to whether she has a good time this Thanksgiving or not.”
“Me?” Cole’s head popped up from his boots. “Me? No, you, West. It’s up to you. Why can’t you actually spend time with your own fiancée? A normal person would want to.”
“I do! I have to work. My hands are tied.”
Were they? Or was this about something else? Suspicion ran a burning trail down Cole’s neck. “Are you trying to get Eva to dump you so that you don’t have to do it? You think her daddy won’t blame you if she’s the one who gets cold feet?”
A pregnant silence followed that.
Cole didn’t expect West to confess the innermost workings of his mind, but in the next moment, his brother sneered. “You think her daddy won’t make me suffer no matter who calls it off? Trout happens to be my paycheck, but he can do far more damage than that, so no, you’ve got it wrong, Sherlock. I’m not getting her to dump me.”
Cole’s shoulders tightened. He wasn’t surprised, really, though he wassomewhatsurprised at his own disappointment. A part of him had hoped that Eva meant more than just money and power to his brother. “Well, what a relief.” The anger welling up in Cole came out as sarcasm. “Your happy home is saved again.”
“Knock it off. Just hear me out. I can’t leave her alone for any reason. You got that? There are other things happening that I can’t talk about… but if you could just show her a good time this Thanksgiving. That’s all she wants, and it’s allIwant. I can’t have her tattle on me to her daddy and getting everybody all riled up.”
“I can’t help you.” Cole pushed past West to get out of his room. This time West let him go. It felt like a black cloud followed him out to the barn anyway. He thought Thanksgiving was going to be bad, but this felt worse than he imagined.
And it had only been a day!
Cole opened the door to Sleipnir’s stall. The paint let out a gentle snort at seeing him. The horse was a docile animal, but with enough energy to take Cole as far away from the house as possible. Cole would go to the north side near Funches’s land at the swamp by the old, abandoned Burro Mine. He’d been meaning to take down beaver dams over there and herd out whatever cattle had wandered too far from the herd.
Lizardman trotted over, looking curious. One fuzzy ear flopped over his head—another poor creature that had been abandoned by West’s carelessness. At least Cole could take the puppy along for an adventure without fearing what might happen.
