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So when Emberleigh put her foot down with everyone and explained what it meant to be a Ranger, I was a bit taken aback. Mostly because she was exactly right. But also because she called Brax on his bullshit.
And because he listened.
I scratch my fingers into my beard—a new tic or habit that I use when I want to buy time. “I like the beard.”
“It’s very—” He uses his hands to gesture for fat or billowing. “Unruly.”
“Fitting,” I mutter.
“Yeah,” he says, though mostly to himself, as he sits in the chair to my left. It seems my brothers, consciously or unconsciously, have taken my weak side as a flank. I wonder if it’s intentional. I wonder if they know I’ve noticed.
He looks at an alert pinging on his phone. “So I did a thing. And I don’t know how you’re going to take it.”
I whip my head over my shoulder to look him square in the face. His chin is set, but his eyes show trepidation where there is typically none.
“What does your thing have to do with me?”
I pull on the ends of my beard near my chin, clumping the hair there together, making the too-full scruff pointy. It’s only for a moment because it’s going to do what it wants to do… just like everything else in my life.
I hear the gravel in front of Pop’s house crunch under tires and the big engine of a diesel truck shut off.
“I did for you what I would want done for me, in hindsight at least. And that thing…? Well, it’s just arrived.” He stands and walks to the front door, pulling it wide, stepping out onto Pop’s wide wooden porch.
I’m so sick of being the kid, the helpless one, the one who doesn’t know what’s best for himself, the one who needs someone else to fix my problems.
Or, more accurately, the problem that someone else needs to fix.
“What did you do?” I stand, anger fueling me as I move to the open door. To my horror, I see Emberleigh behind the wheel and next to her is… Livy. Pix exits Braxton’s truck, bypassing the step and sliding down onto one foot, where she hops a little and reaches back to pull open the rear passenger door.
Kyle lumbers out, releasing a howl when he does, and heads to the nearest tree to christen it, snuffling around the big oak.
“Pix? Kyle?”
Both turn in unison, but Kyle is faster. He takes several long strides, tail sailing wildly, and leans into me. I reach down to stroke his head and see a bandage the size of a postal envelope behind his front shoulder. “What happened, boy?”
Livy takes a set of crutches from Emberleigh and looks up at me. Her face is discolored and her eye is swollen. What the fuck?
I hobble down the stairs, fighting what feels like ripping in the muscles in my left hamstring, until I’m in front of her. “What happened?” I reach up and brush my middle finger over her cheek.
“Let’s just say I may be small, but I’m mighty.” She smiles and bites her bottom lip.
“You’re both. Always both. But you didn’t say what happened. And…”
I turn to look at my eldest brother, the light finally dawning. My eyes are hard. His are hard back. “Later,” I spit. He nods and slides an arm over Emberleigh’s shoulders, dropping his mouth to hers to give her a kiss.
Livy runs a hand down my forearm, leaving fire in its wake. “Hi, Layton. It’s been a while.”
As always, the woman in front of me draws my attention every time she’s near me. “Too long, Pix. I’ve had some things going on.”
“Yeah. I heard.” She looks around me to the porch and the duo there. “Why do I get the feeling Layton is surprised to see me?”
Braxton shrugs, and Emberleigh turns her face up to her fiancé. “You didn’t talk with him?”
“He’s been—”
“Braxton Ranger, you didn’t!” She shrugs out of his hold and marches down to us. “Livy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
Turning to me, she says, “Layton, I thought you knew. But since that’s obviously not true…” She turns to give a death glare over her shoulder at my brother before turning back. “We hired Livy. She’s agreed to work with you in your rehabilitation.”
