“To make it special,” Brody said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Because that’s how it is. I care about her.”
“Damn,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah, neither do I. I didn’t plan this. You have to know I wouldn’t. It was never my goal to end up in this situation. It just is. So...”
“Right. You in love with her or something?”
The words shocked him. Like a bucket of ice-cold water over the top of his head. And he couldn’t help but laugh.
“Well,” Brody said, “glad you think it’s funny, but I just kind of figured if a man was willing to risk life and limb—and other appendages—to be with a woman because he thinks she deserves something special, he must be halfway in love if he wasn’t already there.”
“What does love even mean?” Hunter asked.
Brody just stood there for a moment. “Fair enough. Can’t say I know the answer to that. I know what it’s not.”
“No shit,” Hunter said.
“What do you feel for her?”
And he couldn’t seem to separate that from memories of screaming and violence and just utter sadness. Broken vows and kids who were caught in the middle.
He had never been able to.
Because everything related to him and family was like a shattered mirror, and when he looked into it, he couldn’t get a clear picture of who he was or where he fit.
And he sure as hell couldn’t look at all that broken mess and figure out the feelings.
Had his dad loved anyone?
Had he loved their mother once?
Had he thought he’d loved them?
Had she?
Had Hunter loved either of them? Both of them?
Did he still?
That was the problem. It was all just fragments, and he couldn’t work out a damned thing.
It made all this splintered too.
“I don’t know,” Hunter said. “I’ve gone out of my way to never have feelings for a woman. You know how it is. You know what we saw. You know.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I remember it. A lot better than I’d like to. Hell, I remember it better than things that mean a lot to me. Things I wish I remembered better. Learning how to ride a bike. Touching a woman’s breast for the first time.”
“Sure,” Hunter said, snorting.
“The thing is,” Brody said, “maybe love isn’t real.”
“Well, that’s a cheerful perspective,” Hunter said.
“I’m serious. I just think it comes down to...what you choose to do or don’t. I mean, you could choose her. Who the hell cares what you call it? You’re never going to choose to be Dad.”
“I’m not afraid of that.”
“That’s not why you avoid relationships?”
“Is that why you avoid them?”
Brody’s face went to stone, a rarity. His brother’s infuriating grin was a staple on his face. A face that had never once felt their father’s fist. That hard look coming from him was something next to devastation. “No. I avoid it because I can’t see a scenario in which anyone ends up happy.”
And like that, Brody had said it better than Hunter ever could have.
“No. I can’t imagine it either. And I wouldn’t wish that kind of thing on any woman. If I can’t imagine what it looks like to be happy with somebody for six months, let alone six years, sixty years? What’s the point. All I can see is this ranch. All I can see is this life. I can see a couple of really nice days with Elsie Garrett. And I want them.” That sounded anemic. Insufficient. He felt right now like he’d die if he didn’t have them. “Because I have a chance to give her something good, and I want to do that. And maybe I...maybe I want something good too.”
Brody nodded slowly. “You should, Hunt. There’s nothing wrong with being happy for a while. Whatever that looks like.”
“I don’t know if I have anything more in me than a couple good days, though.”
“I hear you,” Brody said.
“Don’t tell anybody or I’ll kill you,” Hunter said, climbing up in his truck.
He didn’t want anyone stopping him. He’d take the consequences if they came down later.
But later.
“I believe you,” Brody said.
“I know you do.”
“Good.” He started his engine, then drove the truck straight to Elsie’s.
She appeared, quickly scampering out to the car with extreme verve. She got into the truck and looked over at him, her eyes wide.
“Nothing has to happen, Elsie,” he said, his heart suddenly thundering hard.
How did she do it? How did she make him feel like the virgin?
“Oh, I’m not nervous,” she said.
“You’re not?”
“No,” she said. “I—I’m excited.”
“Good.”
They started out on the road, and his breathing was labored. And damn, he wanted her. This was...this was insane.
“So, is there anything I need to know?” Elsie asked when they were about twenty minutes away from Four Corners.
“Well, we’re getting three of the horses...”
“About sex,” Elsie said. “You taught me everything I needed to know about flirting. Is there anything I need to know about sex.”
His stomach went tight.
“I mean, I don’t know. I think you—you probably know well enough the kinds of things that happen,” he said.
“Do I? I’m glad that you’re confident.”
“You said you did,” he pointed out. “You said you were clear on the logistics.”
“I did, I did. But now I feel like there might be more.”
“Well, what do you think you need to know?”
“What you like?”
“You,” he answered. “I like you.”
And he hadn’t meant to answer back quite so sharply, or definitively.
He sneaked a glance at her, and she was cherry red. “Me?”
“Yes, you. You little termite.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t I tell you? You’re beautiful. But you know, you’re also infuriating. You’re a massive pain in the ass. I have known you since you were a small pain in the ass, you make me crazy. You make me take my life in my own hands by carting you off property to hook up with you when I know full well that Sawyer and Wolf would have an honorary Game Day using my dead body as the football if they ever found out. So I guess the thing is...I want you even though I shouldn’t. I want you because I can’t not want you. And I think you’re the sexiest woman on God’s earth. At least the sexiest one I can remember ever seeing, because I can’t remember anyone or anything else. And I want whatever it is that’s going to happen between us. I want you to realize that. This isn’t choreography you need to learn. You do what you want. Whatever you want to me.”