Come Back for Me (Arrowood Brothers #1)(4)

Jacob answers. “Removing half the feather will make the arrow curve and alter its course, which is why sticking together matters.”

“Mom would be disappointed in us,” Declan says. “No women, no kids, nothing but jobs.”

“We have each other,” I pipe up. “We always have, and she would’ve wanted that.”

Declan stares out the window. “She would’ve wanted us to have more . . .”

“Yeah, well, it’s hard to have more when you grow up the way we did.”

Jacob’s voice is quiet and full of sadness. “We made a pact. No marriages, no kids, and never raise our fists in anger. She would’ve understood. She would’ve wanted us to stand by each other and be nothing like he was in the end.”

Maybe she would, God knows that’s what we hoped for. I like to believe that if she’s watching, she has seen it all and would understand that her boys made this choice for a reason. I had her the least amount of time, but I think she would’ve respected the desire to protect others.

If we came from a man like that, surely it was inside us too.

Declan looks at Sean, the brother who was by far the closest to her. He has never forgiven himself for the night she died. “Drive, brother. It’s time to go forward.”

Sean slams his hand on the steering wheel before putting the car in drive and slowly accelerating down the path to hell.

None of us speak. I know that I can’t gather a thought long enough to say a word. There are memories everywhere.

The fence that lines the driveway where my brothers and I would sit and watch the cows, dreaming about running way. I spot the tree that’s on the left side of the property where we made a ladder with scraps of wood so we could climb into the branches, pretending we were hidden and safe.

Dad could never reach us up there.

He was always too drunk to get up more than two of the rungs.

Over to the right is the archery course where my brothers and I spent hours imagining we were Robin Hood or other great men who did right.

I can hear the four of us arguing over who shot better, all the while knowing it was Sean. The bastard always had the best form and aim.

And then what once was my home comes into view.

“It’s like a fucking time warp,” Dec comments. “Nothing has changed.”

He’s right. The house is exactly the same as it was when I left. It has two stories, and a big wrap-around porch with a swing. The white paint is faded and chipping, and the black shutters are missing on one of the windows and hanging off another. While it may be the same structurally, it’s not the home the four of us remember.

I clear my throat. “Only now it’s a damn mess.”

“I don’t think the old man did a damn thing after we left.” One of my brothers says from behind me.

There’s no way we’ll sell this house for what it’s worth. Although, the house has never been the prize, the land has been. Over three hundred acres of some of the best cattle land in Pennsylvania. A winding brook flows through it, the grass is premium for the cows, and it’s picturesque.

“How could he?” Declan snorts. “He didn’t have his workhorses to tend to things while he was drunk off his ass.”

I nod, feeling a new type of anger toward him. At least he could’ve cared about the farm.

“What about the animals?” Sean asks.

“We’ll need to do a full inventory and see what the hell we’re walking into,” I speak up.

My brothers agree, so we divvy up the tasks. It’s time to see what else he destroyed.





The farm is a mess, that’s all I keep saying to myself. It’s a nightmare. He hadn’t maintained a single thing other than the dairy equipment, which he would’ve had to keep up and running if he wanted to make enough money to buy his liquor.

Still, the fact that he let the land go, is unbelievable. What could’ve been a ten million plus inheritance is worth half that at best. It’s going to take a hell of a lot of work to get it close to what we’d want to sell it for.

I’m walking in the field out to the left of the creek, the place that I would come to hide. The first time my father drank himself into a rage, I was ten, and Declan took the beating, shielding all of us and telling us to run and hide.

I didn’t fully understand what had happened, just that my brother, who I loved, was screaming for me to go.

So I did.

I ran. I ran so hard that I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop. I ran until my lungs struggled to get air. I didn’t stop until I was where I thought no one could ever find me because Declan had something in his eyes I had never seen—fear.

I’m standing here, on the edge of the creek, looking up at the platform I built in the tree where I spent so many days and nights hiding from the hell that was in my house.

What a fucking mess.

Being here is the last place I want to be, but there’s nothing I have to hide from anymore. I’m no longer that scared little boy, and there are no more monsters hiding in the house. Yet, I can’t help but feel the pit in my stomach.

The quiet is almost loud as I stand here listening to the creek that used to lull me to sleep. The farmland is beautiful. I can’t help but see the lush greens and deep pink hue of the setting sun in the sky, illuminating the clouds and making them look like cotton candy.