THE CORBIN BROTHERS: The Complete 5-Books Series Page 27

  But the other part of me was worried. She was almost always home by this point. Had something happened? She hadn’t called me. I entered the house not sure of why I was tiptoeing until I entered the living room of the big house.

  Paisley was sitting in the dark, not doing a damn thing but drinking beer as the lightning illuminated the space in flashes. It took seeing her like that, seeing the room like this, lit in purple and pain, for me to appreciate the ache of beauty in the space. Every window looked out toward the land, and sheet lightning brightened the knolls and meadows. There was a savage allure to the way Paisley looked out upon it, queen of it and slave to it, sacrificing every single thing that had been important to her to keep it going. It wasn’t fully hers anymore, and perhaps it never had been. But she had reached a compromise that had seemed acceptable to her, or at least that was what I understood now.

  “My father’s dead,” she murmured, but it sounded like a shout, highlighted with the lightning. “Think this’ll bring some rain?”

  Her father died and all she could hope for was rain? That showed me just how much of a rancher she really was. Instead of wishing for a time machine or a cure or at least a little more time with the only man who understood her, Paisley was wishing for rain to help save our operation.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” I asked, making a move to switch a lamp on.

  “Leave the light off,” she said, toying with her beer bottle. “I want to watch the storm.”

  “I don’t know if there’s going to be much rain,” I said, looking out over the ranch with her. “Paisley, look at me.”

  She didn’t for the longest time, and that was her right. I hadn’t been fair to her, she’d just suffered a massive loss, and there was no telling just how many beer bottles she’d dumped into herself to try and eke out some comfort.

  When she did, my heart broke for her. She was doing her damnedest to stay strong, to keep her poker face in place, but she was devastated. I knew she was.

  “Why didn’t you call me when your father died?” I asked her again. “I would’ve come to be with you. I would’ve helped you with the arrangements at the hospital.”

  “I didn’t need any help,” she said. “And you didn’t need to be bothered.”

  “I would’ve come.”

  “It’s fine. You didn’t have to.”

  “I didn’t at all because you didn’t tell me about your father.”

  “You made such a big damn deal of coming out to the hospital the other day,” she said. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you’d made it a big deal again today. That’s why I didn’t call.”

  Thunder boomed and it distracted both of us — Paisley more than me. She studied the windows while I was busy feeling like a big bag of shit.

  “I’d like some rain out of this,” she said. “I’m afraid it’ll be a wildfire.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Better to prepare than ignore.”

  “There’s no preparing for a wildfire, Paisley. We’d lose everything.”

  “Maybe.” She sounded like it didn’t seem so bad to her anymore, losing everything. Maybe she already lost everything with her father dying and the last of her pull over the Summers side of the ranch evaporated in her eyes.

  “You could’ve called me,” I told her. “I would’ve come. I … I understand, what you’re going through. I know what it is to lose someone you love.”

  “Poor Corbins.” She stood up abruptly and moved closer to the window. “Everyone knows your family’s story. Biggest tragedy this town has ever seen. Hell of a loss to the ranching community. And yet you still kept it afloat, somehow.”

  “Losing our parents was hard …”

  “Save it.” She still didn’t turn around, even with the hard edge in her voice. “Your tragedy isn’t mine, Avery. You have no idea what I’ve lost.”

  I did, but I didn’t know if the wisdom Sam had given me the other day was meant for sharing or if I was just supposed to keep it to myself. Paisley didn’t seem like she would accept hearing the words of her deceased father right now, but I had to tell her I at least understood a little bit.

  “Your father told me —”

  “Don’t!” she said, whirling around, glaring at me. “Don’t you even dare.”

  “I think it would maybe bring you some comfort,” I said, holding my hands out at my sides like I did when I was trying to approach one of the herd that was spooked away from the rest. It took patience and time, but I could always get the creature back where it belonged. Could I back Paisley away from whatever precipice she was teetering on?

  “My father wouldn’t tell me what he told you,” she said, audibly grinding her teeth. “He said it was for your ears only.”

  “I can’t imagine that felt very good.”

  “Yeah, well, it fucking didn’t. And I don’t want to hear it now.”

  “I think it would make you feel better.”

  “My father just fucking died. There isn’t any feeling better after this.”

  “Except that there is.” I studied her standing there, flashes of lightning making her blond hair shine extra bright, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. “You’re going to wake up tomorrow and feel like shit, and the next day’s probably not going to be any good, either. The funeral will be the hardest of all, putting on your brave face for everyone in this town turning out to see a spectacle, and the day after will be the first bit of relief you’ll feel. Then you’ll feel guilty because you felt relieved, and then you’ll feel shitty all over again. But one of these days, maybe weeks or months from now, you’ll wake up, and it won’t cut as deep, losing your father. It’ll hurt, but there’ll be a scab over it. And even when that scab does heal over, and you can talk about him and smile without feeling sad, there’ll always be the scar there.”

  “That doesn’t sound anything like better,” she said. “That doesn’t sound like anything I want to do at all.”

  “But you will do it. You’ll do it because you have to do it, and because you need everyone to see how strong you are — even now.”

  “I hate you so much.”

  I didn’t know where it came from, but I accepted it, took that barb right into my heart and contemplated it there.

  “If that makes anything any easier for you, then you just go ahead,” I said.

  She advanced on me like she was going to slap me, and I forced my arms to my side. She could hit me all she wanted. She could get rid of all that sadness and torment on me. She could beat the hell out of me for ignoring her and screwing around and not giving her the respect she should’ve received from everyone, especially her husband.

  But she didn’t slap me. She kissed me — hard — and I found my hands gripping her waist of their own volition, pushing her backward until she was up against that window, bolts of lightning sidewinding across the night sky in blues and violets, slid us over until my hand was on the door and we were out in the long, dry grass just in time to feel the first of the big, fat drops of sweet rain. It had been such a long time in coming. Way too long.

  We yanked our clothes off of each other, practically shredding them in the process, letting the drizzle pepper our nude bodies, kissing like we had something to prove, and maybe we did. We all had something to prove. Paisley’s was that she could run a ranch just as capably as her father. Mine was that I could be something or someone beyond this place, that I could figure out just what the hell it was that I wanted. I dragged my hand down her back, cupping her rear and squeezing, hungry for her in a way I simply hadn’t been, refusing to think about what, exactly, that meant for us.

  She jumped up and hooked her legs around my waist before jerking her body backward in some kind of crazy, sexual wrestling move to take me down. I landed hard on my knees, thankful I’d missed whatever rocks were hidden by the grass, laying her down and entering her in one smooth motion. She squirmed for a minute, getting used to me, getting used to the idea of me, or maybe even just trying to get away fro
m whatever was digging into her bare back, and dug her heels right into my ass cheeks. I started to thrust as the rain continued to patter down on us, doing little to cool the dry land or parch our thirst.

  “Harder, you fucker!” she screamed at the sky, over the rumble of thunder, and I wasn’t sure if she was trying to command the rain or me. I thrust harder just in case it was the latter, just in case I was failing her in this along with everything else, and she clawed at my back like an animal, like I was hurting her, like she was trying to take me my entirety inside of her body, as if that would solve all of her various problems. If only she could be a Sam Summers Jr., then she’d never have to become a Corbin just to keep her dream alive. Because wasn’t it all about dreams and making them come true? Everyone I knew had one, every single fucking person in my life, except for me.

  She clung to me and I clung to her, the rain never coming down any harder, the lightning sizzling from cloud to cloud. Maybe the whole place would burn down. But as I thought that, I knew I didn’t want that to happen. This place was the dream of so many people, the woman I married included. She needed it, and somehow, I needed her. I belonged to her. She was the place where I belonged.

  Paisley arched her back and howled at the storm like a coyote, her body bearing down on my cock, making me come with a shout, rocking against her, cradling her to me even as her fists rained blows on my back and she cried and cried.

  Paisley was my home.

  I’d finally found where I belonged, and it was with her.

  Chapter 8

  We put Sam Summers in the ground on a Sunday morning, the entire town turning out after church let out for the graveside services. I sat at Paisley’s side because that was expected of us, not necessarily because that’s what she wanted me to do. She was composed, folding her hands over her lap, probably causing a glut of gossip with her nice black trousers and black button-down shirt. I could imagine the scandalized whispers of some of the old ladies in town — couldn’t that Paisley at least wear a skirt to her own father’s funeral? What good was that husband of hers if he couldn’t even buy her nice things? Why won’t he whip her into shape? Paisley didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of her. With the contract creating Corbin-Summers Ranch, she had what she wanted. If only I could be better for her, she could’ve had everything — that fairy tale she thought was out of her reach.

  All of us sweated in black and the nicest shirts and jeans we could find. Funerals were getting much more common than they should’ve been, old ranchers dying off just as quickly as our way of life was. People just didn’t bring their children up like our parents had been dead set on doing for us. Ranches were getting snapped up by big oil, or bigger, commercial ranching operations like Bud Billings’ outfit. Funerals should’ve been something we were used to for people and ranches, and here we were, weeping over one of the last good men in ranching. Sam Summers had been a force of nature in the ranching world, and nobody seemed to know or care that Paisley was his heir through and through.

  The minister droned on and on about fidelity and hard work and perseverance, all qualities embodied by the late Sam Summers. Paisley watched her hands dispassionately, peered up at the sky, looked everywhere except for the box that contained her father, and the hole we were all preparing to place him in. I wanted to put my hand over hers, to try to offer some sort of comfort, but I was pretty sure she would reject it.

  The ceremony ended and people stood from their chairs, Paisley rising automatically, moving away from the gaping of the ground, from the abstraction of death and the horror that brought, away. I followed her because I thought that was what I was supposed to do, what Sam Summers had wanted. Paisley seemed placid, but I knew just what level of turmoil churned under the surface of that calm face. I knew it very well.

  “My condolences, Ms. Summers.”

  We turned to come face to face with Bud Billings, cane in hand, dressed in the nicest suit by far at the funeral — nicer even than the one Paisley was burying her father in. I noticed with some satisfaction that he was in the process of sweating right through it. Not even Bud Billings could escape the heat of the sun.

  “Thank you, Mr. Billings,” she said, perfectly polite even as I bristled. He held out his hand and she took it, but instead of shaking it, Bud lifted it to his lips and kissed her browned skin.

  “Or, and I’m sorry, is it Mrs. Corbin now?” he asked, glancing at me, not releasing her hand.

  “It’s still Summers, as in the Corbin-Summers Ranch,” she said. “Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

  “Your father was a good man, Paisley,” Bud said. “A smart man. Hell of a rancher.”

  “Yes, yes he was.”

  “You were lucky to have him to advise you on managing the ranch.” Bud was talking to Paisley, but he kept his eyes on me. “That’s the reason this new ranch has been relatively successful — so far. But the Corbin boys didn’t inherit their parents’ ranching acumen. They’ll run their half of the ranch — and yours — into the ground before your father’s cold in the ground.”

  “That’s the last time you get to talk about our parents like that,” I said, inserting myself between Bud and Paisley. “Mind your own ranch — and your manners — when you’re speaking to my wife.”

  “No disrespect meant, Ms. Summers,” Bud said, smirking at me, clearly implying that disrespect was meant to me and my family. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

  “Move along, Bud,” I said, watching him until he walked away, swinging his cane.

  I turned back to Paisley, who had a funny look on her face.

  “What?”

  “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever called me your wife,” she said.

  “How, um, how did it sound?”

  “Strange.” She looked up at the sky, then back toward her father’s open grave as the backhoe began to push earth into it. “A shame it took my father dying for you to start doing it.”

  “Paisley, it just slipped out.”

  “So calling me your wife was an accident.”

  “I’m not trying to antagonize you. I’m sorry for offending you. I really am.” How did I blunder into this kind of idiocy? There had to be some kind of reward for it.

  “Just — just forget about it. I don’t mean to snap. I’m tired.”

  “I know you are. Are you ready to go?”

  “Let me just watch them put the dirt on my father.”

  “Paisley, I don’t think …”

  “It’s closure, Avery. That’s all.”

  I sat with her as the afternoon deepened into evening, watching the backhoe operator complete his work, on a couple of metal folding chairs the funeral home saw fit to leave us even as workers loaded the rest into the bed of a truck and paused a respectful distance away.

  She waited until the backhoe was loaded and taken away before standing up, walking to the grave, and observing the work done.

  “What makes the mound of earth on the grave go down?” Paisley asked absentmindedly, kicking at a clod. “We can come back in a month or two months or six and it’ll be flat again. Why?”

  “I don’t know, sweetheart.”

  “Oh, first wife and now sweetheart?” she asked, smiling at me. “Did that one just slip out, too?”

  It had. I felt such tenderness toward her. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Paisley. I’m right here with you. Whatever you need.”

  “I need to go home,” she said with a sigh. “Sorry I’m acting crazy.”

  “You’re not acting crazy. You just buried your father.”

  “If you say so.”

  We rode back in silence, Paisley’s head bobbing with every dip and curve in the road. I thought she’d gotten all her grief out last night, but grief was a funny thing, different for every single person and every single experience they had. She seemed all emptied out right now, but I didn’t know how to fill her back up, or whether she would even want me to try and pull her back into herself. Tragedy had a way of turning ev
erything inside out.

  “What do you want to do tonight?” I asked her as we pulled in to the driveway and I turned off the truck.

  “Just sleep,” she said dully, looking out the window.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’m tired.”

  “All right. Your body knows what you need.”

  But when I went upstairs later to check on her, she was pulling on jeans and a T-shirt, braiding her hair away from her face like she did while working on the ranch.

  “What’s up?” I asked her.

  “I’m going out,” she said, the same tonelessness in her voice as before.

  “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “What for?”

  “Just to go,” I said, because it was better than “to watch you and protect you and surround you with as much love as you need to go.” Paisley didn’t seem like she’d tolerate any sap right now, even though I was trying to support her like I’d promised her father I would do.

  “I want to be alone,” she said.

  “Can I drop you off?”

  “No.”

  She took the truck, and I knew she was going to the bar, the distraction of merriment and free drinks from those sympathetic to the bereaved a welcome thing. I knew what it was to strive for distraction. I just wished she would’ve let me driven her and picked her up.

  One o’clock rolled around, and then two. I worried for a while, then decided to do something about it. I fired up an old motorbike I found in the gaping garage, wobbled around on it until I found my balance, and rocketed off in direction of town.

  I found her perched on my barstool, her head in her hands, the bartender clearing a long line of shot glasses from in front of her.