River's End (River's End Series, #1)(73)

“What?”

“Are you all right?”

Was he all right? No. He hadn’t been okay in years. Not since his wife died and he had to raise three boys alone, two of whom needed his help accepting the death of their mother. All the while, he had a business to run and money to make for a family name that extended further back than a century. No pressure there. Except there was. All of it was like a pressure cooker he could never escape. He felt his neck tightening now, just by thinking of Joey leaving, and what could happen to him. Just another thing to stress over.

And now Erin. He couldn’t get her out of his head, or his gut. He hated that and almost hated her for it sometimes. He knew she’d be trouble since the first time he ever laid eyes on her. Little did he realize the kind of trouble she’d become to him. The kind that set his body on fire, all the while he pictured her naked with his brother.

She walked closer and stood where Joey was, leaning her small butt against the porch railing. She seemed to glow against the darkening twilight.

“Leave me alone, Erin.”

She stared at him, tapping her fingers on the wood post next to her. He found it annoying.

“He’ll be back, Jack, he just needs to know that the world out there isn’t any better than here. He’ll discover that, and come straight back home.”

Jack glared up at her. “Really? Did he tell you that in one of your post-coital moments?”

The skin around her small mouth tightened into a frown, and her jaw moved back and forth. “Why do you do that? You can be the kindest man sometimes, and at others, the cruelest.”

No one ever accused him of being cruel before; although no one ever accused him of being all that kind either.

“Well, isn’t it true? Isn’t that how you know my little brother?”

She turned her face, then her whole body to stare off into the darkening yard. “Yes. We were down on the beach, right after I arrived here. I told him this place was beautiful, and he said it was, but he wouldn’t know any differently because he’d never been away from it. I just think he needs some time to find himself, away from here, away from you, even, but I feel sure he will be back, and when he does return, it’ll be for good.”

“Oh? So now he needs to get away from me?”

“You cast a long shadow here, Jack, and you know it.”

“I know my brother doesn’t like you living here.”

She tipped her head and he heard her sigh. “That again? I thought you said…”

He sighed in his own right, and stood up, gulping the rest of the now warm beer. He swayed on his feet and was starting to get drunk. “I said you have a home here. I just didn’t expect it to keep being so damn hard.”

She didn’t pursue the conversation or ask him why. She knew exactly what he was talking about. “Joey just needs some space.”

He hated that she knew Joey so well. As well as she could possibly know him. He hated not being able to control his reaction to her, and wanting her more than any woman he’d met in the last five years.

He leaned his elbows onto the railing near her. “Space, huh? I wonder what that’s like? To choose what you want, and where you get to be. Or how you get to be.”

“It doesn’t matter if you were allowed the same space; you’d have ended up right here, being who you are, and doing what you do. The family was lucky you were the oldest, because no one else could have fulfilled the roles that needed filling. You wouldn’t have left, even if you could have.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

She shrugged. “Because I’ve never met anyone who was so where he was supposed to be and doing what he was supposed to be doing. I’ve never spent one day feeling as fulfilled as you do on each of your days. So yeah, you’ve had a lot of responsibility for a long time, but then again, we both know you were built for it. Joey wasn’t. At least, not yet.”

For someone who should have been a bit of fluff and annoyance, Erin wasn’t. She was thoughtful, sentimental, and sweet. Sweeter than anyone he’d met in years. So many years, her softness and tender emotions called to him far more than the alcohol he swallowed, or the sex he got whenever he was out of town.

The problem was: she screwed his brother. She was as close in age to his son as she was to him, and the least appropriate woman he knew to even contemplate having a role in his life that could be construed as anything close to motherly for his sons. She was completely inappropriate for him, and perhaps, that was why he so wanted her. He’d always been appropriate for his entire life. He never got to sow his wild oats or explore anything that wasn’t for his greater good or that of his family. He never got to run off and see the world because he wasn’t ready to grow up yet.

“Couldn’t he have found a safer way to get out of here?”

Erin looked up at him and finally smiled. “I don’t think he thinks of it like that. At twenty, you’re immortal, and nothing can happen to you; the danger is never real. You surely remember that.”

He held her gaze and stood up straighter. He finally whispered his tone nearly guttural, “Why Joey? Why did you choose Joey?”

She didn’t look away or pretend to be clueless about what he was asking. She licked her lips and whispered, “Because I didn’t know any better.”

They were quiet. The crickets made a loud background of constant noise and darkness surrounded the ranch. A soft breeze pushed some stray strands of hair towards her shoulders. He looked away to avoid getting the urge to run his hands into her thick, tangled, mass of shiny black hair.