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“How d’ya find me?” My chest drops into my stomach when I open the door and see Garrett standing on the other side of it. I’ll give him his dues, I never thought he’d find me here.
“You’ll have to do more than switch off your tracker to avoid me.” He shakes his head in disappointment as he barges into my shoulder and lets himself inside.
“You never heard the rules about returning to the scene of a crime?” His eyes glance around the hallway of the Bambrook home while he waits for an answer. We killed all three brothers and the buddy that helped them bring their dogs to slaughter some of our herd here a few weeks ago. “Ya wanna tell me what the fuck ya think ya doing living in it?” He looks back at me furiously when I offer him no explanation.
“I ain’t livin’ here, just stayin’ a while. Someone had to feed the dogs.” I glance out the door toward the kennel full of dogs that have been born and bred to kill.
“That’s a piss poor excuse and you know it.” My brother points his finger at me.
“How is that a piss poor excuse, Garrett? Their owner’s dead and no one knew they were out here. I wasn’t gonna let ‘em starve to death. Nothin’ they did was their fault.”
“You fuckin’ killed the people who lived here, Cole, what the fuck were you plannin’ on doing when someone noticed them missing and came out here looking for ‘em?”
“That ain’t gonna happen.” I shake my head and move back toward the kitchen to finish hacking up the carcass I picked them up from the slaughterhouse earlier this morning.
“And how can you be so sure ‘bout that, wise guy?” Garrett helps himself to a seat and rests his hat on the table.
“Because the Bambrook brothers had no other family. Just each other. They weren’t liked by anyone, so who's gonna care?”
“That don’t mean people won’t notice they’re gone. I could bet my life on the fact they got scores to settle, and debts to pay.” Garrett makes a valid point.
“Well, let ‘em come lookin’, I could use a fight right about now.” I don’t mean that to sound like a threat, the last thing I wanna do is fight with my own brother, but Idoneed him to respect my need for privacy.
“You need to come home.” He gets to the real reason he’s here, staring me dead in the eye and proving that this ain’t just a friendly visit.
“Ain’t gonna happen.” I shake my head back at him defiantly.
“I know you blame me for what happened to Dalton, and believe me when I say, I blame myself too. But I can’t lose another brother. I need you.” Garrett drops his wall enough for me to hear the weakness in his voice and I hate the way it fuckin’ sounds.
“I’m the last person you need.” I saw through the bone a little more aggressively. Garrett doesn’t have the first clue why I’m out here, if he did, home is the last place he’d want me to be.
“Why don’t we just be honest with each other and admit that the real reason you're out here all alone is because you’re avoiding Savannah.” He watches for my reaction and I clench the saw in my hand, fighting real hard not to give him one.
“It ain’t about her,” I manage, keeping my eyes focused on the bone I’m hacking so he don’t see the hurt in ‘em. Hell, I can’t even hear that woman’s damn name without feelin’ splinters dig inside my heart.
“Ya know I’ve had to listen to her cryin’ for a whole fuckin’ week. My wife is too busy comforting her to get any healing done herself.” The fury builds up in his voice.
“I never made the girl any promises.” I know that it ain’t a good enough excuse and yeah, I feel ashamed of myself. That’s all I ever feel these days.
“Cole, I get it.” Garrett takes a much softer tone as he stands up and comes toward me. “I understand why you don’t wanna get involved with someone after Aubrey, bu?—”
“You don’t get it, Garrett.” I shove away the hand he places on my shoulder. “You ain’t ever gonna get it, and, God, I’d never want you to.” Tears prickle behind my eyes when I think about Aubrey. How can one man get so much fuckin’ wrong? “Get outta here, head back to your perfect little life and quit tryin’ to save me. I don’t wanna be fuckin’ saved.”
“Perfect life?” Garrett shocks the hell outta me when he shoves me back into the wall and grips at the front of my shirt.
“Perfect fuckin’ life?” he repeats with a sarcastic laugh. “Cole, I got a man who I know jack shit about threatenin’ my family so I become this town’s mayor and his fuckin’ puppet. I got a wife who cries herself to sleep every night because she thought she was gonna lose our little girl. Our mother is god knows where breathing air she don’t deserve to be breathin’, and the little brother who none of us ever got the chance to show how important he was, is getting buried tomorrow because I trusted that woman to come back into our lives. My life is far from fuckin’ perfect right now. I feel lost, and out of control and Ifuckin’need you.” He hisses that last part through his teeth andI feel the hand he’s gripping me with start to shake from all the tension in his body.
“I can’t.” It hurts me to let him down, but I don’t have any strength. Being back at the ranch, and having to continually look my brothers in their faces would be too hard. They wanted Mom gone, not fuckin’ dead, and I proved that night that I’m different to them. I’m soulless.
My brothers and Savannah deserve more than a soulless man.
“I get that you're mad at me, but don’t make Wade suffer. He can’t lose another brother.” Garrett drops me from his hold and picks up his hat before heading back for the door.
“So she’s sticking around?” I curse myself for calling after him and asking the question that's been eating me up inside.
“Yeah, she’s sticking around.” He stops in his tracks and slowly turns back around.
“And what about the fiancé?”
