“For some of us more than others.” Brandt stomped his feet into his boots and clapped his hat on his head.
“What the f**k’s that supposed to mean?” Dalton demanded.
“Grieving over Luke hasn’t stopped you and Tell from getting all the pu**y you possibly can every goddamn weekend, has it?”
Tell and Dalton stood simultaneously.
“Just cause you can’t get the pu**y you want—Jessie’s—don’t mean you can take it out on us,”
Dalton said hotly.
“There are plenty of women around here who’d take you on if you’d take the f**kin’ blinders off,”
Tell said.
“Like the skanky bar rats you two are screwing on a regular basis?” Brandt shot back. “No thanks.”
“Fine. Jack off all alone in your trailer until your goddamn hand falls off, thinking about your precious Jessie. But I can guaran-damn-tee she ain’t sitting around home, thinking about you,” Dalton sneered.
Kane intervened. “Enough. Everybody sit down and calm down.”
“Shut up, Kane. This don’t concern you,” Tell said.
“The f**k it don’t. I won’t sit here and watch brothers cut each other down to the bone just because you can. Just because you’re all hurtin’. Jesus. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to lose Kade.” He gestured to Bennett and Chase. “I’d bet they feel the same way about Quinn. For Christsake, our fathers can still turn on one another in a heartbeat. Don’t make their mistakes. Don’t do something or say something you can’t undo.”
Silence.
Dalton spoke first. “Will you at least help us talk some sense into him? Bein’ at Jessie’s beck and call ain’t good for either of them. Jessie needs to learn to do things herself.”
Kane looked at Brandt, slumped against the door. “Come clean, cuz. Do they have a reason to be concerned about this?”
“Do we have a reason to be concerned about you and Colt takin’ cheap shots at each other every chance you get? Jesus. What’s goin’ on with you two?”
I don’t know. They’d never gone this long without trying to patch up their differences. Kane pointed at Brandt. “This ain’t about me. So I’ll ask you again. Do your brothers have a reason to be concerned?”
Brandt didn’t answer immediately. Finally, he said, “I don’t know how to say no to her. The hell of it is, I don’t want to say no to her. I wanna be there for her because Luke never was. I f**kin’ hate that she only sees me as the guy who’ll change her battery, or help her haul feed, or fix her goddamn pipes. I shouldn’t care about her so damn much. She’s my brother’s wife.”
No one corrected him that she was now Luke’s widow.
“Your brothers are right,” Bennett said. “You have to find out how Jessie feels. Maybe part of the reason she’s callin’ you all the time is because she wants you. Havin’ you do ‘man stuff’ for her is the only way she can get you to come over.”
“You really think so?” Brandt asked.
Heads nodded. None of them really believed it, but they were too conscious of Brandt’s difficult position to point it out.
“Look, sorry I was a dick. I appreciate your concern and I’ll think over what you said.” He gave his brothers an apologetic look. “All of you.”
Then he was gone.
Beer was consumed in the quiet. Kane changed out all the poker chips on the table for real money, just to have something to do.
“Well, that was fun… not,” Tell said.
“Good strategy, bringing it up in front of witnesses when we weren’t out feedin’ cattle or something,”
Dalton said to Tell. “He’da put us both on the ground and beat the livin’ shit outta us.”
Chase looked back and forth between them. “Seriously?”
“Uncle Carson’s kids ain’t the only ones to settle sibling matters with their fists.” Tell drained his beer. “Christ. Brandt and Luke used to get into a knock-down, drag-out fistfight at least once a month.
Me’n Dalton let them have at and stayed on the sidelines. It never solved a damn thing anyway.”
Yeah, Kane understood that reaction but it’d never seemed to matter to him or Colt. They tended to let fists fly first and then worry about the talking bullshit afterward.
“Were their fights about ranch business?”
“Sometimes. But mostly, in the last year, they were about Jessie.”
“I tell you what. I ain’t ever gonna be at the beck and call of any woman.”
“Amen, brother.” Dalton and Tell high-fived. As did Bennett and Chase.
Fools. He’d love to be at Ginger’s beck and call. He’d just be goddamn happy if she called him at all.
It’d been two days since he’d heard from her.
Dalton stood. “I ain’t really in the mood to play poker anymore.”
Tell followed his lead. “Me neither. Thanks, cuz. Keep the beer cold for next time, huh?”
“You got it.”
Chase and Bennett were also donning their winter clothing.
“That was a bit of a buzzkill,” Bennett said.
“Chase, you gonna be around in two weeks?”
He shook his head. “Hitting the event in Memphis.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
After he picked up trash and shoved the remaining beer in the fridge, he plopped on the couch. Too early to hit the hay. He snagged the remote and started flipping through channels. About ten minutes into mindless surfing, his cell phone trilled. He looked at the caller ID. It read: private caller.
Ginger.
Kane answered on the fifth ring. “Hello?” His smile dried. “No, it’s okay. I told you to call me. I’ll be right over.”
By the time Brandt reached Jessie’s trailer on the outskirts of Moorcroft, he’d lost the edge of rage his clueless brothers’ comments had invoked.
Few people knew about his temper. Brandt took great pains to keep it hidden, as it was an embarrassing trait he’d inherited from his father. He scowled. He’d rather have male pattern baldness than sudden bouts of fury with no outlet besides taking it out on the people he cared about.
He sat in his truck and counted to one hundred before he got out.
Jessie answered the door in pajamas. Not sexy ones. Flannel. No lace. No frills. Which described Jessie to a “T”. She still looked damn sexy. It made Brandt feel like a f**king pervert to wonder if Jessie had worn skimpy lingerie in the two years she’d been Luke’s wife.