Slow Burn Cowboy Read online

  Except, apparently, when his grandfather died and left the land to his brothers. That felt much closer to losing his foundation than he would have liked.

  “I don’t know about that,” Lane was saying, pulling their food out of the microwave. “I don’t actually think you’re as grumpy as Mark is.”

  Lane turned around and nearly ran into him. Finn reached out to steady her, gripping her shoulders and holding her there. Her shirt was soft, and so was she, and it made it hard to pull away as quickly as he should.

  He cleared his throat, releasing his hold on her. “Maybe I’m just not as grumpy with you.”

  The moment extended, her blue eyes locked with his, then slowly, a tight smile curved her lips, slackening as the air between them seem to clear. Some of the tension loosening. Then her expression turned amused.

  “If that’s the case, I really would hate to see you with other people. You might not be as cranky as Mark, but you’re not exactly rainbows and sunshine.”

  “If I were rainbows and sunshine you wouldn’t like me. Anyway, without a thunderstorm you wouldn’t have a rainbow.”

  “You are my very favorite thunderstorm, Finn.”

  He ground his teeth together, still feeling the effects of his earlier lapse in self-control. Still feeling the impression of her warmth beneath his fingers. She did not seem similarly affected. “Happy to be the dark cloud in your life.”

  “Stop scowling at me. I’m making you dinner.”

  He did his best to relax the muscles in his face and to give her something that looked a little bit less surly. He would only ever do that for Lane.

  Right when Lane took his plate out of the microwave, there was a knock on the door. He let out a heavy sigh. “If it’s another casserole...”

  “Who else is bringing you casserole?” Lane asked, her tone full of mock offense. “I’m just kidding,” she said, smiling. “I know that no one else is bringing you casserole. At least, no one under the age of eighty.”

  “Maybe I like older women,” he said, lifting a shoulder.

  She arched her brow. “To each his own, I guess.”

  His scowl returned and he walked out of the kitchen, heading toward the front door. He jerked it open without bothering to look and see who was on the other side. And when he saw, he froze.

  “Hi, little brother. It’s been a while.”

  As Finn stared at his older brother, Cain, he had to concede that it had probably been more than a couple of years since they had seen each other. Cain’s dark hair was longer than the last time he’d seen him, his face a little more lined. Around his eyes. Around his mouth.

  When a girl who could only be Cain’s daughter started to make her way toward the door from the car, her expression sulky in that way that only teenage girls could accomplish, Finn amended that timeline to way more than a couple of years.

  The last time he’d seen Violet, she had been a little girl. This half-grown young woman in front of him was definitely not the child he remembered.

  Her hands were stuffed into her sweatshirt pockets, the hood pulled up over her head, her shoulders hunched forward. She came to stand beside her dad, looking incensed.

  “It was a long drive,” Cain said.

  Finn looked past his two relatives to the beat-up truck with the Texas license plates that was parked in the driveway. He hadn’t realized Cain was going to drive. The very thought of driving halfway across the country with only a teen girl for company made Finn want to crawl out of his own skin.

  Though, actually, the idea of driving halfway across the country with his brother made him feel that way too.

  But more concerning than any of that was the trailer hitched to the back of the old truck. Suspicion lodged itself in Finn’s chest.

  “Why didn’t you fly?” he asked.

  “Wanted to have the truck.” Which didn’t answer the unspoken question about the trailer. Cain looked past him. “Aren’t you going to invite us in?”

  As if it were an option to leave him out there on the porch. A large part of Finn wished it were.

  Finn fought against the desire to say something confrontational, and focused on the reality of the situation. No matter how he felt, Cain had a right to be here.

  But that didn’t mean he had to like it.

  “You own exactly as much of this house as I do, Cain,” Finn said, the words sticking in his throat on the way out. “You don’t really have to ask my permission.”

  “That’s how it is then,” Cain said, walking past Finn and into the house.

  Violet remained stubbornly rooted to the porch.

  “Violet,” Cain said, his tone full of warning. “I thought you were going to like, freeze to death. Maybe you should come inside so you don’t die of exposure.”

  Violet rolled her eyes and crossed the threshold into the house. She pulled the phone out of her pocket and immediately busied herself by tapping her thumbs on the touch screen.

  “Say hi to your uncle Finn.”

  Finn had never gotten fully used to the idea that he was somebody’s uncle. But then, it was difficult for him to believe that his brother was a father. Actually, it was even stranger now that Violet wasn’t in diapers.

  The last time Finn had seen her she had been maybe seven or eight, looking at Cain and at all of her uncles like they were gods. And Cain had still been married. Maybe that was another reason this was so strange. Seeing Violet as something other than the bright-eyed imp who worshipped the ground her dad walked on.

  And being treated to her total and complete ambivalence when before his very existence had made him as unto a god.

  He supposed he didn’t really have a right to feel much about that either way. It wasn’t like he had been very involved in her life.

  Though in fairness to Finn, Cain hadn’t made much of an effort to involve him.

  “Hi, Uncle Finn,” Violet said, not looking up from her phone. “My, how you’ve grown.”

  Her response stopped him short. “I wasn’t going to say that,” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “I wasn’t,” he returned.

  Finally, Violet looked up, a long-suffering expression on her face. “They all do.”

  Not him. He was thirty-four years old. He wasn’t somebody’s elderly relative.

  “Do I have a room or something?” Violet asked, directing the question at her dad.

  Finn could tell that Cain was about to lecture her for being rude, but as far as Finn was concerned getting rid of the teenager as quickly as possible was optimal. “Up the stairs. First room on the left,” he said.

  It had always struck Finn as odd that his grandfather had designed the house to hold so many people, when the old man had few friends and little contact with his family in the broad sense. But the place was big enough to house a small army.

  Most of the bedrooms had gone unused since the house had been built five years ago. And when Finn had gotten a look at the will after the old man had died, he’d wondered if they’d been put there for this purpose.

  Which had made him feel like a damned idiot. Thinking any of this was for him. Was for a job well done. Hell no.

  He’d busted his ass, worked his fingers to the bone—literally in some cases—and they would reap the rewards.

  “Thanks.” She shoved her phone back in her pocket and tried to force something that looked vaguely like a smile before walking up the stairs. It was strange to see somebody come into the house for the first time and not be completely awed by the sheer scope of it.

  The custom-built cabin, with its high beam-crossed ceilings and breathtaking views of the misty green wilderness, was usually enough to stop people in their tracks.

  Apparently, that reaction did not extend to surly teenagers.

  After Violet d
isappeared, Finn turned to his brother. “Well,” he said, “she’s gotten—”

  “Impossible?”

  “Not what I was going to say. But, you’re the expert.”

  Cain pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not an expert on anything, just ask Violet. But that’s not really relevant to why we’re here.”

  “Okay,” Finn said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You’re here because?”

  “Why do you think? It’s not like this is some random appearance you weren’t expecting. Our grandfather died.”

  “And per his wishes there was no service. He wanted his money to go back into the ranch, and his body to go back to the mountains. I spread his ashes and didn’t make a deal out of it, just like he said to do.”

  Cain set his jaw. “Grandpa left part of the ranch to me, and I’m here because I want it.”

  Tension crept up Finn’s spine. He’d known his brothers would come for their inheritance. Hell, who wouldn’t? But he’d imagined they would be discussing money. Finn had been prepared to issue payouts—or make arrangements for them anyway.

  What he hadn’t thought was that anyone might want their share of the ranch itself.

  “In what capacity, Cain? Because you’ve never paid much attention to the ranch or what goes on here before. In fact, you never even came to visit in the past eight years. It has to have been that long. The last time I saw Violet she was a kid, now she’s...that.”

  “I’d apologize to you about that, Finn, but I was kind of in the middle of dealing with my life, which hasn’t been easy for the past few years.”

  Finn knew that his brother had been going through a hard time. With the divorce and all of that, but he’d also figured if Cain was having trouble handling it, he would have said something.

  He wasn’t sure why he’d figured that, since he would rather die than go to one of his half brothers for help.

  Which made him feel like a jackass. He resented that something fierce. Feeling like a jackass in his own damn living room when he was the one being invaded.

  “Right,” Finn said, unable to make his tone anything other than hard.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Cain’s issues. It wasn’t that he didn’t have some sympathy. It was just that it was all buried beneath the mountain of resentment he felt over this situation.

  Cain shrugged. “Now I figure I’m going to deal with it here.”

  The sound of a feminine throat clearing caused both men to turn. “Hi,” Lane said, a sheepish smile on her face. She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her hands clasped behind her back.

  “Cain,” Finn said, doing his best to school his voice into an even tone, “this is Lane.”

  “Is she your...”

  “Oh, no,” Lane said, a note of incredulity running through the denial. “I’m just his friend. I came to bring casserole, because I knew that you would be coming. At least, I assume you’re the person that I thought would be coming. You’re his brother, right? You do look like him,” she said, rambling now at that full-tilt pace that he had only ever seen Lane accomplish.

  Cain looked slightly surprised by the avalanche of words he had just been subjected to, but then he seemed to recover quickly enough. “Hi,” he said, “I’m Cain.”

  Lane looked at Finn as if she was waiting for additional information. Well, Finn didn’t have any. At least any he felt like giving. The silence stretched on, and he could sense Lane getting increasingly twitchy, since silence was an enemy she typically made it her mission to defeat.

  “Cain and Lane,” she burst out. “That’s funny. And you probably won’t forget my name.”

  She stood there, looking no less uncomfortable. As uncomfortable as Finn was starting to feel.

  “How long are you staying for?” Finn asked.

  Cain glanced around the room, studying the surroundings intently. And then his blue eyes fell back to Finn, looking far too serious for Finn’s liking.

  “Well,” he said slowly, “I figured we would be staying for good.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  MAYBE SHE HAD demonstrated a little bit of cowardice in leaving Finn alone with his invading family. But Lane hadn’t really seen what she could contribute to the scene. She loved Finn to pieces, and he was her best friend in the world. But he was gruff and he didn’t share his feelings easily. He was the kind of guy who led with angry, then made up for it with grand gestures, like the time he’d come to her house and built a deerproof fence for her new garden. Or the time he’d spent an entire day clearing away all the thick brush around the cabin, and forging a path for her that led into the woods so she could more easily access the berry bushes that grew around her property. Or when he’d rebuilt the dock at the lake by her home so that it was larger and didn’t have any soft, damaged boards.

  Yeah, Finn was more hammer and nails than hearts and flowers. He had a soul of gold beneath his general cranky exterior.

  That didn’t mean she wanted to hang out and witness the ensuing crankiness, though.

  And anyway, she had standing plans to meet up with her friends Rebecca Bear and Alison Davis.

  She was just going a little earlier than necessary. And if they could make it at the new time, all the better. If not, she would just sit there and eat French fries while she waited. Since she hadn’t stayed for dinner at Finn’s, she was officially starving to death.

  And here she had given him a hard time about his palate. But she, Lane Jensen, known foodie, also had a soft spot for really greasy food. And when she wanted that, Ace’s bar was the place to go.

  “Hi, Lane,” Ace Thompson said from his position behind the bar. “French fries?”

  Ace had made women swoon across town for years. And he still did, but the wedding ring on his left hand put a damper on things. He was lumbersexual hot. But he was also a one-woman man since marrying Sierra West and starting a family with her.

  “You’re like my dealer. And yes. Regular, not sweet potato. I’m not in the market to pretend that there’s any nutritional value involved in this.”

  She breezed through the dining room and took her place at the counter-height table that she and her friends typically occupied on their nights at the bar.

  She sighed, picking up a menu and examining the dinner column, even though she knew exactly what was served at Ace’s. Just in case he’d added something new.

  Ultimately, she decided that she was going to order a hamburger. And when the server came with her basket of fries, she did just that.

  “I was able to get one of the girls to close up for me.” Lane looked up and saw her friend Alison approaching the table. Her red hair was disheveled, dark shadows beneath her eyes. “I think I might need a vacation.”

  “You definitely do. I think you’ve been working more than overtime getting the bakery stable over the past couple of years.”

  Alison took her seat across from Lane and immediately stuck her hand in the basket of fries. “True. And I also lost two of my long-term employees last week, so I’ve been scrambling to try and fill holes in the schedule. I haven’t had anybody approach me for a while about a job. Which is good, I guess. Since I have a reputation of hiring people in dire circumstances, I can only suppose that there isn’t anybody hanging out in a dire circumstance. But I’d be more grateful if I wasn’t working my fingers to the bone.”

  “That’s not a very appealing visual. Considering that your fingers touch baked goods.”

  Alison made a scoffing sound. “Why did you order those pale, anemic fries?” she asked, as she took another one.

  “Oh, you mean real fries instead of your imposter sweet potato nonsense?”

  “They’re better. That’s just a fact,” Alison said, reaching into her purse and pulling out her phone, checking it quickly.

  “Wh
at? Who are you? What is our friendship?”

  “Rebecca said she’s almost here.”

  As if on cue, Rebecca walked into the bar and crossed the room, heading straight for the table. “Sorry. I tried to get here sooner but Gage was at the store helping me close.”

  “I imagine that’s relationship code for doing something that is absolutely not helping you close your store,” Alison said.

  Rebecca turned bright red. “Possibly.”

  Lane tried to ignore the stab of jealousy in her stomach. She had been single going on way too long now. It was getting old.

  It was incredibly petty to have any sort of jealousy regarding Rebecca’s relationship with Gage West. It had been hard-won, the obstacles between them seemingly impossible to overcome given the fact that Gage had been at fault for an accident that had caused Rebecca serious scarring—inside and out. If anyone deserved happiness, it was Rebecca.

  However, her friend’s happiness certainly highlighted Lane’s own aloneness. Granted, to a degree it was a choice. She didn’t exactly have the time or energy to devote to a relationship right now.

  Too bad her discontentment had nothing to do with rationality. She knew that she didn’t want a man in her life at the moment—not in a romantic capacity—it was just that her bed felt very empty sometimes.

  And looking at Rebecca, who fairly glowed with satisfaction, it felt very, very empty indeed.

  “Gross,” Lane said, not thinking it was gross at all. In fact, she thought it was downright enviable. “Do you need to order? Because Alison and I didn’t wait for you.”

  “I called it in,” Rebecca said, “mostly because I knew neither of you would wait.”

  Rebecca’s hamburger ended up arriving before Alison’s or Lane’s, which seemed unfair on top of everything else. Not only had she very recently had some sex, she was also indulging in a hamburger a full five minutes before her friends. Her single, celibate friends.