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“You don’t get to determine who I’m with, Braxton Paul Ranger! You don’t get a vote in who I take to my bed—” Her hands are flying, stained red from my blood.
“Enough.” Pop’s command slices through the weird menage playing out in the front yard.
“Brighton Alexandra, you may be a woman, but you’re still my little girl. Never use the words “take to my bed” in front of me again. Ever.” He shakes his head as if trying to fling the words from his mind. “Get Eli some ice for his face.”
“But-”
“Now.”
Kimp turns to me. “Wait right there.” His words pin me to the spot. Grown man or not, when the man who’s always been a father figure to me gives that kind of command, I do as I’m told.
He turns his back on me, but I don’t miss that he’s planted himself directly in front of me, toe-to-toe with Braxton.
He throws his arms low and wide. “You want to take a shot, Brax? Here.”
He looks over Kimp’s shoulder to me before staring down at his dad. He’d never hit his old man.
“What? You don’t want to fight?” Pop asks, baiting him.
Braxton glares at me before speaking to his father. “He betrayed me. He’s using Bright. He…”
“He—” Pop hitches a thumb over his shoulder at me. “Asked for my blessing and received it.”
There’s an uncomfortable pause as Pop lets that sink in. Brax looks like he’s trying to compute complex math in his head.
“He didn’t tell you at my request.” Kimp emphasizes the word, wreaking havoc on the moment. “You want that shot, son? It’s right here.” Pop thumps his own chest.
“Elias has been fighting for us for months. For our family—for our legacy. You—” Pop pokes Braxton in the chest. “Have been busy, distracted, and working so damn hard. But he has too.”
Kimp steps aside, no longer protecting me, but including me. “Eli has been a brother to you for damn near two decades. He will be long after I’m gone. Fucking treat him like one.”
Braxton drops his gaze to his boots, his toe making a divot in the shallow earth. The brother has replaced the barbarian, and the thinker has replaced the fighter.
Pop turns on his heel and claps a hand to my shoulder as he makes his way back to the house.
“Get back in the damn house. We have a lot to be thankful for, boys.”
Boys. We’re both nearly forty years old, but we’ll always be boys to Kimp.
I turn to watch him walk away. He intercepts Bright on her way down the steps, turning her and guiding her with an arm around her shoulders back into the house.
“How long?” Braxton demands, hands on his hips, eyes staring toward the ranch gates.
“A while.”
“More specifically.”
“Kimp gave me his blessing when I told him about the conservancy… the week Colt arrived.”
Braxton’s sharp eyes shift to mine, challenge still dancing in them.
“And you couldn’t find a time in the last six months to have that conversation with me?”
“There’s been a lot going on.”
He remains confrontational with me. “Like you breaking your promise to me.”
“Like me finally meeting my match. Finally finding someone who challenges me, fights with me, fights for me. Like me finally allowing myself to fall in love.” I hold his gaze, my left eye nearly swollen shut. “I’m in love with her, Brax. I’m going to marry her and have babies with her. I’m going to grow old with her and spend every day of my life fighting to give her the life she deserves. You’re like a brother to me, and since I don’t have one by blood, I take that seriously. Don’t make me fight you for it too.”
