Braydon(31)

“Yeah.” Jessie didn’t need to explain the threesome arrangement to her sister because Kylie was married to two men who were married to one another. At least in a figurative sense. The difference was that in Jessie’s situation, Brendon and Braydon were only in it for the woman. Period.

Jessie never wanted to admit to anyone that she had wanted Braydon from the beginning. Just him. And maybe, just maybe, she had settled for both of them just so she could be close to Braydon.

And that’s how she knew this was all her fault.

She had let Brendon seduce her. Of course, Brendon had insisted that Braydon be there when they were intimate. At first it had been intriguing, she had to admit. But then it became a little off-putting. As though Brendon didn’t want to be alone with her. After a while, she had accepted it for what it was. Naked entertainment. And then it just got more complicated because Jessie actually wanted Braydon because . . . Because she had fallen for him.

Granted, she didn’t get the same vibe from Braydon that she did from Brendon. Of the twins, Braydon didn’t have the ability to hide his feelings. He wasn’t prone to pretending there weren’t feelings there. She knew, if given half a chance, she and Braydon could be together. Alone. But where would that leave Brendon? And that was why all of this was so convoluted.

There were emotions involved, although she’d made a promise to herself that she wouldn’t want anything more from them than just sex. All of this was supposed to be a brief escape from her reality, from her life back in Dallas, from all the mistakes she had made in her past.

But then she’d fallen in love with Coyote Ridge, the people she met, seeing her sister every day, and she didn’t want to leave. She still didn’t want to leave, but now that Braydon was home, she wasn’t sure she could stay.

Kylie was right. Jessie loved him, and the thought of him with someone else was too much to bear.

“You still haven’t talked to him?”

“Nope,” Jessie answered. She didn’t want to, either. Not yet.

For now, she just wanted to be content with him being home. She didn’t want to think about him being with other women while he was away; she didn’t want to think about all the heartache she’d endured while he was gone. For three months she’d put herself through hell worrying about him, and it was obvious that he hadn’t given her the same consideration.

“You want to get out of the house? I’ve got a few hours before I have to worry about getting ready for dinner.”

Jessie knew that sitting around the house wasn’t going to do her any good. And she loved hanging out with Kylie. It didn’t matter what they did.

“How about this? I’ll call V and Zoey. We’ll all go to lunch and then spend a couple of hours at the mall. A little shopping therapy.”

Jessie smiled. It was forced, but it helped all the same. “I’d like that.”

“Get yourself cleaned up. I’ll call them right now.”

Pushing up from the couch, Jessie tried to smile for real. At first it didn’t work, but then she felt a little lighter. She couldn’t let this weigh her down. She’d gotten what she’d been praying for. Braydon was home where he belonged. The sad part was that he had clearly moved on . . .

Which meant it was time for her to do the same thing.





chapter SEVEN

When it came to family dinners, Braydon was familiar with the logistics. They would all get together at his parents’ house; his mother cooked, the women helped, and the men were responsible for cleaning up afterward. No one complained about it. Dinner was a chance for them to catch up on everything that was going on in each other’s lives. They were an extremely close family, and Braydon attributed that to his parents and their efforts to keep them all linked together all the time.

What he wasn’t familiar with was being the main focal point of the event. Tonight’s conversation had been all about him. Where he’d been, what he’d been doing, how Tessa and Cooper were, and everything in between. He rarely managed to change the subject to put one of his brothers in the spotlight, and even when he succeeded in shifting the topic ever so slightly, they would quickly turn it back around on him.

So, for the last two and a half hours, he had explained that for the last three months he had lived and worked at the equestrian center, shoveling horse shit while taking care of the animals, ignoring as much modern technology as he could, and having meals with Tessa and Cooper because they felt sorry for him. All while everyone paid close attention to everything he said. It was as though they thought he might just fall apart and admit that he’d had an untimely breakdown.

They’d be waiting a long damn time if that was what they expected.

Even if it was true.

Braydon wasn’t about to admit defeat. At least not to anyone other than himself.

But even he was beginning to question whether he was down for the count.

The knowledge that Brendon and Jessie weren’t actually together had brought about a renewed sense of hope. However, that hope had nearly fizzled out completely when Braydon arrived at his parents’ to find that Jessie wasn’t there. Everyone seemed shocked by that, which meant she had spent many Sundays right there with his family, even while he’d been gone. So her absence tonight had been felt by them all, but, probably for his benefit, no one made a big deal out of it.