Randy rocked back in his easy chair, stretching uncomfortably before offering a smile. “I hope you don’t expect us to catch you up on everything that happened while you were gone, because my list of complaints would take a good three months to go through, and ain’t nobody got time for that.”
“Really? You’re going to complain about something?” Mike tilted his head with a grin. “I’ll let Blake know.”
Randy immediately straightened. “Hell. Don’t you dare.”
Mark thought it through quickly and put two and two together. He turned to Mike with a laugh. “I met your oldest boy this afternoon. Is Blake doing all the work scheduling these days?”
“Yup.” His oldest brother eased back and put his feet up on the coffee table, damn near gloating as he glanced across at Randy. “Trained that one up right. He follows our da’s example of sweating the complaints right out of a man.”
It was such a flashback to their growing up years. Their father, Royce, had been a man with endless energy in spite of his pain. He never made any of them suffer to the point of physical danger, but he did encourage his sons to keep a positive attitude and their butts in gear. Any complaints were met with a chore list guaranteed to make a man sleep solid. “Trevor said having the ranch back together is working well.”
Mike nodded, his expression going thoughtful. “I guess I messed up on that one.”
“Nah,” Randy said. “When you divided things up, it worked. And when it stopped working, we put it back together.”
“Thanks.” Quiet, but obviously sincere. Mike looked around the room. “Mom would’ve love this. Seeing us together again.”
“She’d be heartbroken George isn’t winding her clock,” Randy offered, dodging the pillow George tossed at him. “What? She loved that thing. It’s supposed to be cuckooing and ticking and making such a racket that a man can’t sleep past five a.m. even on the coldest, darkest morning in the middle of winter.”
“Which is why I don’t wind it anymore,” George said dryly. “Consider it wall art, not practical. That should help your delicate sensitivities.”
“I think the unending racket was the only reason Mom actually kept the clock,” Mike said. “I think it amused her.”
“Something about it made her happy, and that was the most important thing to Da.” George was staring at the clock now. “He kept that thing going religiously the two years after she died before he passed away.”
“Coleman men love hard,” Mike said.
“Ben didn’t.” The words snapped out of Mark, and while he regretted breaking the fragile peace, he didn’t regret having let it slip.
Especially when silence swept in like a tangible thing.
He peered at his brother’s faces, seeing guilt on Mike’s, regret on Randy’s. In that moment, Mark was immensely grateful that Laurel had said something. He wanted answers. Wanted to know why.
“Is it true what I heard? That Ben was far less loving than he should’ve been?”
George was the one who shocked them all. He shook his head, sadness etched on his face. “Ben loved so hard, he broke.”
The shock of it made Mark inhale sharply, air cutting like a knife. “What?”
“When he lost his son.” George spoke softly but clearly. “When that happened, something snapped, and he never went back to being right. No matter that he saw he was on the wrong path, he couldn’t get his feet under him enough to make a change.”
Some of the bluster Mark had inside was smothered in a cloud of sorrow. He’d been ready to lift fists and make George see sense like they’d done too many times when they were teens.
But his brother lifted his head, gaze fixed at a point somewhere by the familiar cuckoo clock that had hung on the wall in their family kitchen growing up. The acorns on the winding mechanism hung low, the hands stilled. George spoke again in a quiet, earnest tone. “When I lost Sally, I did the same thing in a way. I stopped listening to what was right there in front of me. I let the fear that swept in take charge, and it tied me up nearly as hard as Ben’s sorrow.”
“Not the same,” Randy assured him. “You were never anything like Ben.”
“You see my girls here in Rocky? You see them working at my side, happy to be under my roof?” George shook his head. “This isn’t about me, but at the same time, you all need to know. I screwed up big time with my kids because I was so damn afraid to lose them. I’m the one who loved them so hard, I damn well broke our relationship to try and keep them safe.”
Mike spoke then, softly, his voice filled with regret. “Ben did break. And he made wrong choices. And so did Randy, and George, and me. All in our own ways. Just like you, Mark.”
“But my mistake hurt nobody but me. Can you say the same for Ben?”
Randy shook his head. “Leaving must’ve hurt like hell, but don’t kid yourself. We felt it. For years, it was like an aching spot right in the middle of our hearts. The empty places at the table were wrong, so don’t go thinking you were the only one who felt the pain when you left. We felt it too.”
Before Mark could pull the topic back to Dana, Mike took it there.
“Every time I spoke to Ben to try and get him to see what was happening, I warned him there was a line he couldn’t ever come back from. He never crossed it.” Mike met Mark’s gaze straight on. “But the truth was, when things started to go wrong, Dana came to me first. Said she had made a promise, and she meant to keep it. She had to keep hoping that the man she married would find his way back.”
Mark could just imagine her. Sweet, stubborn optimist. “I’ve already told her this, but I’m here for Dana.”
His brothers blinked at the sudden change of topic.
It was Randy who smiled first, his amusement overpowering the shock. “Knew you liked her.”
“Dear God, this is going to devolve into one of those conversations that my granddaughters have, isn’t it? But does he like her, like her?” George rolled his eyes. “You’re serious about this?”
“Dead serious.”
Only Mike hesitated.
“You don’t think I should go after her?” Mark asked even as he planned to ignore his brother’s protests.
Mike shrugged. “I’m more concerned about the bit where you already told Dana you plan on making a play. With a Coleman woman, sometimes it’s best to have the advantage of surprise. Not to mention, if you told her, it’s likely that by now at least a half dozen of our daughters-in-law know, which means you’re either going to be chaperoned to the eyeballs every time you try and make a move, or if they decide you’re not worthy in the first place, you can kiss your idea goodbye.”
“Well, shit.” Mark had been gone for too long. He’d forgotten how much sway the ladies held in this kind of situation. Add in that the female population had blossomed in the years he’d been gone, and he’d just lit a bonfire in the middle of a field of grass.
Good thing he loved a challenge.
In the meantime, though, tonight had been one solid foundation block in his return to not just Rocky but to the family. He looked around the room as general conversation resumed and let hope sweep in.