Slow Burn Cowboy

“I take it that did it?” he called.

“Success,” she called up. “Now get down here before you get eaten by spiders.”

“I don’t think you have man-eating spiders,” he said, making his way back down the ladder. “I think you had wire-chewing raccoons.”

“Raccoons?” she called back.

“Possibly possums.” He made his way from the hall into the kitchen.

Lane was standing in the middle of the room and both of them were all lit up. A wide smile stretched across her face and when she spun around in a circle, he couldn’t help but notice the way the light caught her dark hair. For some reason, it put him in mind of what it might feel like if he reached out and let those glossy curls sift through his fingers.

“Possibly possums,” she said. “Great. Attic possums.”

“Better than man-eating spiders, all in all.”

“Sure. Thank you,” she said, sighing happily. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

He shoved his hand in his pocket. “You’re welcome. Anyway, now your food won’t go bad, and I won’t have to listen to you cry about it for the next two weeks.”

She scowled. “Is that an implication that I am dramatic? That I perhaps don’t let go of things as quickly as I should?”

“Take it however you want to take it, Lane. I’m just saying.”

“I take it with umbrage.”

“Well, that’s a quick change of heart. Turning on your food savior already.”

“Hey, buddy. It doesn’t benefit you to have my food go bad either. Who would feed you?”

“Damn straight. And I’m going to need more food than usual, apparently.”

“Why is that?” she asked, looking concerned now.

Without waiting for an invitation—because he didn’t need it, not in her house—he moved to the fridge and took out a beer. If he was going to stay and talk, he would allow himself one beer.

He popped the top off using the edge of the counter, then made his way across the small space and into the living room, where he sat down on the couch. “Cain is staying.”

“I kind of heard some of that,” Lane said, grabbing her own beer before joining him in the living room.

She didn’t sit next to him, and that didn’t really surprise him. They were friends. Platonic friends, and always had been. But there was a definite line of reserve when it came to physical contact.

She settled into the armchair, lifting her beer to her lips. He looked down at his. “Well, that’s basically it. He wants to stay. He wants Violet to go to school here. He wants to get involved with ranching. Basically, I think my brother is having a midlife crisis at the age of thirty-seven.”

“He’s divorced?”

“Yeah. It’s been a couple of years, but it was ugly. I mean, from what I understand.”

“I see why he’d want a change, then.”

He frowned. “Don’t you dare take his side.”

“I’m not taking sides. I’m saying it’s understandable. When you go through something like that... You just want a clean slate sometimes. And it sounds to me like he muddled through where he was for as long as he could. But eventually, it gets obvious that the problems aren’t going to be fixed if you stay where you are.”

“I will turn your lights off again.” He wouldn’t. “I will leave you in the darkness.”

“The ranch is big. The house is big.” She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Will it kill you to have them living there?”

He set the beer bottle down on the table by his couch without any delicacy. “The ranch is mine. That’s the point.”

“I get that you feel that way, but you sound like a jackass.”

“What the hell kind of friendship is this? You’re supposed to tell me what I want to hear.”

Lane rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry. If that’s the kind of conversation you want, you need to tell me before we actually start talking. Otherwise, I’ll assume you want some honesty. And if you want honesty, then this is what you get.”

“I don’t want honesty. I want you to tell me that it’s egregious that somebody who never gave a damn about the ranch before now considers himself entitled to it.”

“But he is entitled to it,” Lane said, her tone gentle, which was more annoying than her previous harshness. “It’s his ranch. Legally. Your grandfather wanted him to have part of it, and it isn’t really up to you to say that he can’t.”

He shook his head. “It never occurred to me that he would want it. He has a life in Texas.”

“Apparently, a life he doesn’t like.”

That made him pause. The whole situation with his brothers was difficult. It always had been. They had a bond—that was undeniable. When he looked at them, it was like looking at himself, with features and coloring rearranged and slightly different. There was no denying they were brothers. Same dark hair, all over six feet tall. Though the youngest brothers had green eyes instead of blue. Still, there was no mistaking they were related. Because that damn Donnelly blood was just so strong.

Finn looked like his grandfather. They all did. They also looked like their terrible jackass of a father who’d had children he didn’t particularly care about with women he cared even less about.

That was the bond, though. And that was it. Other than Liam and Alex, they had only spent snatches of time together growing up. Cain had mostly been raised in Texas and had a little bit of a drawl as a result, while the rest of them had grown up on the West Coast.

They were as much different as they were alike, and while there was no denying they had a connection, Finn liked it best when the connection was distant.

“And that sucks for him,” Finn said, knowing he just sounded petulant now.

“You don’t have to like it,” Lane said. “I mean, you might want to get over yourself eventually. But I understand why it makes you mad.”

“Why is that, Dr. Jensen?” he said, his tone dry.

“You don’t like anyone else to have control. You like to have all of it. And if you actually have to share space with your brothers, you’re going to have to give up some of your control.”

He shrugged. “Well, who doesn’t want control?”

“Hell if I know.” She took another drink of her beer, and his gaze dropped to her lips. To where her mouth wrapped around the bottle.

Dammit.

He might want control, but he was beginning to wonder if he had it.

Silence stretched between them, long and tense. He felt it creeping up his spine, up his shoulders, his muscles growing tight. He was very aware just then of the fact that they were all alone. Of the fact that it was late, and that he was a man and she was very much a woman.