His Wicked Mouth

by Jessica Mills

  The other two brothers slid their eyes over to him, but I knew he was just speaking the words they were thinking.

  “Nothing like that happened,” I said. “I just ran into an old friend who made me realize it was time to come home.”

  “Which old friend was that?” Sawyer asked.

  I waved him off, having no intention of telling him I hooked up with Annabelle. That was most definitely not a conversation for the very first night I walked back into my home after so long. The fallout would be huge, and Sawyer would be furious. I didn’t want to start up again with one of my brothers already wanting to rip my throat out.

  So I played it cool and blew off the concern, laughing over the seemingly endless stream of questions surrounding my unannounced return.

  “How long are you staying?”

  “When did you get here?”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Are you seriously not in trouble again?”

  “Where did all those bruises and cuts come from?”

  “Are you still picking fights everywhere you go?”

  I handled the questions carefully, answering the ones that needed to be answered and deftly avoiding the ones that didn’t. Where I had been was one I avoided. I didn’t want to tell them I was in Vegas. For a multitude of reasons, but one being I didn’t want them to piece together that Annabelle and I had met there.

  As we talked, I wandered over and poured myself a drink. I didn’t want to have any alcohol while I was on the plane or in public, but that didn’t extend to me being home. Sitting down on the couch, I kept up with the questions, musing about how good it was to be home. And how annoying it was at the same time.

  Part of me was glad to be around family, but another part of me wished they weren’t asking shit like this and were just happy to see me. Then again, I did understand their skepticism. It was well deserved. I was more trouble than I was worth before I left. Their lives probably got easier once I drove away and didn’t look back.

  It made sense they would want to know what could have happened to lure me all the way back there.

  Chapter 16

  Annabelle

  One of these days, I was going to get a new computer. I waited while the processing system caught up to me and the words I had already typed finally showed up on the screen. That seemed to require a monumental effort on the part of the machine, and the fan turned on. It screamed and hissed, sounding like a tiny plane getting ready to take off.

  Buying the old, used laptop made me feel fancy when I first found it in the computer-repair shop a couple of towns over. I had been looking for something to replace the ancient desktop that sat in my father’s little office at the back of the house. That computer had helped us run the farm for years.

  My father wasn’t exactly eager to jump into the technology age and start using a computer. He always said his father and his father before him didn’t use computers. They used good old-fashioned pen and paper, and that did them just fine. Of course, that didn’t help when supply companies went digital and expected orders done online or through email.

  It took a couple of the other farmers telling him they had gotten computers for him to take the plunge. What he didn’t catch onto was the need to upgrade technology on a fairly regular basis to make sure it stayed effective. Which would be why I quickly learned that using that old desktop for my side job writing articles wasn’t going to be the best choice.

  Buying a laptop was the perfect solution. I would be able to write in between chores on the farm or while I was cooking. I could pick it up and take it with me anywhere. I had visions of the glamorous writer life, being able to jot out my thoughts whenever and wherever they struck me.

  Then I got the massive reality check of just how much good quality laptops cost. I had been searching for one for weeks before Sawyer recommended I check out a computer-repair shop. According to him, people often traded in their old laptops or sold them to repair shops when they got new ones. I might be able to find one at a good price.

  The only one I was able to get within my budget was fairly old and definitely well used. But I dreamed of one day being able to invest in something newer and better quality. I was squirreling away little bits of money every month to go toward it.

  I was looking forward to that purchase more than ever that day as I sat in the living room trying to finish up my most recent batch of articles. They were due that night and I still had quite a bit of work to do on them. I was in between farm tasks, and my father was out doing his thing, which left the house quiet. It was the perfect time for me to get a lot of work done.

  If only my brain would cooperate. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t concentrate on the boring task in front of me. This was one of those days that definitely took the shine off being able to say I was a writer. I really enjoyed being able to do something other than just work on the farm, and the money was helpful, but it wasn’t like I was churning out the great American novel.

  The articles weren’t even about topics that fascinated me all that much. This was a particularly repetitive set of how-to articles on winterizing your swimming pool in preparation for colder weather. Considering my idea of swimming was going out to the creek on the Montgomery Ranch and it pretty much winterized itself by freezing over, I couldn’t exactly connect with the information.

  That meant dull research and tedious hours of trying to find new ways to say the exact same thing over and over again. It was lost on me why companies would want so many articles, blog posts, and lists that gave the same information just in different formats. They paid me whether I thought the articles were interesting or useful or not, so I did the research and used every vocabulary word and creative sentence structure to make it work.

  Only that afternoon, nothing would come to me. No matter how many times I tried to come up with the next sentence, I ended up deleting it and staring at a blank page again. I managed to type out a few meager, straggling sentences, but it was looking like this was going to be a long, drawn-out effort.

  I kept checking the clock and noticing time was slipping past. My writer’s block was eating up the afternoon and it wouldn’t be too long before I needed to go back outside for my late afternoon chores and then get supper started. I wanted to get as much as I possibly could done so I didn’t have to try to chase my deadlines that night. But it just wasn’t happening.

  My mind was somewhere else. Specifically in a hotel room in Las Vegas. I couldn’t stop thinking about the night I spent with Garrett in that hotel. Even though I remembered every single detail in sharp clarity, it still seemed like I was remembering a dream or thinking about someone else’s life.

  It just didn’t seem possible it had actually happened. How had any of that happened? Starting with agreeing to go to lunch with him and then just letting it stretch out into an afternoon exploring the city together.

  Better yet, why had I let it happen? It wasn’t like he was a stranger. Somehow, that might have made more sense. At least then I could have blamed it on the romance and excitement of Vegas. But that wasn’t what happened. I knew Garrett. I knew him well. More than that, I knew who he was.

  In all honesty, he was a good man. He was a Montgomery man, which meant he was strong and resilient. But he was also trouble with a capital T. I had more stress in my life than I could handle as it was at that point. I didn’t need to add getting all wrapped up in a man like him to it.

  Part of me regretted what happened. Another part of me regretted it had only happened once.

  A sharp knock on the front door snapped me out of my thoughts. Before I could stand up to answer the door, I heard it open and someone came into the house.

  “Annabelle?” Sawyer called. “Are you in here?”

  “Sawyer?” I said. “I’m back here in the living room.”

  He came into the room and I jumped up from the chair. It had been weeks since I saw my best friend and I was thrilled to see him. I rushed across the room and jumped into his arms
for a hug. He squeezed me close and laughed.

  “It’s so good to see you,” he said. “I was starting to think you didn’t exist anymore.”

  “Me too,” I said. “Come on in. Sit down. Can I get you some sweet tea? I just made it.”

  “That sounds good,” he said. “Do you have any of your lemon sugar cookies?”

  “Of course, I do. Do you think I would offer you sweet tea and not have a cookie to give to you?”

  He smiled and sat down on the couch. I went into the kitchen and took the pitcher out of the refrigerator. Setting it on the table, I took two glasses down out of the cabinet and filled them with ice. The tea made the ice cubes crackle and pop as it poured over them. Once the pitcher was back in the refrigerator, I went into the pantry and got the cookie jar off the top shelf.

  I felt bad hiding treats from my father. He wasn’t a little boy. But there were some things he just had a weakness for, and as much as I wanted to be able to give him a treat or two every now and then, I knew full well I couldn’t just leave them sitting out or he would eat all of them at once.

  I got a plate out and filled it with the light-yellow cookies. The coarse sugar across the tops were like tiny versions of the ice cubes, sparkling in the sunlight streaming from the window over the kitchen table. I put the glasses and the plate on a tray along with some napkins and brought it into the living room.

  Setting the tray down onto the coffee table, I sat down in the corner of the couch and picked up my glass, then leaned back against the cushions, turned diagonally so I could look at Sawyer.

  “Thank you,” he said, reaching for one of the cookies first.

  They were his favorite. I learned to make them when I was a young teenager and he was the guinea pig for all my practice batches. Now that I had mastered them, he would happily consume a batch or two on his own.

  “How have you been?” I asked.

  I settled in for a long conversation. It meant I was going to be up late working on my articles, but I didn’t care. I had missed my best friend so much and it was great to see him. I wanted to just relax and enjoy his visit.

  “Things are good,” he said. “But I heard you went gallivanting off to Las Vegas last week. I want to hear all about it.”

  I laughed. “You make it sound like I just woke up and decided to go test my luck on the roulette wheel,” I said. “I went for a bachelorette weekend.”

  “Did you wear sparkly clothes and a lot of makeup?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Did you drink and act silly?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And did you dance and run around on the Strip?” he asked.

  I laughed. “Yes.”

  He held up his iced tea. “Sounds like gallivanting to me.”

  “All right, well, maybe I did gallivant a little bit. But it was nowhere near as crazy as you might think.” At least, not in the way he would ever imagine.

  “Well, that’s good to know,” he said. “Tell me about it.”

  I told him all about the flight and Kaitlyn arranging for the special VIP treatment for us for the night we got there and our last day. He laughed when I told him the girls wanted to go out to the outlet malls to go shopping, knowing that wouldn’t be my first choice of activity no matter what city I was in.

  “The Titanic exhibit was actually really interesting, though,” I said.

  He gave me a questioning look. “Titanic exhibit?”

  “Yeah. It’s a museum on the Strip. It has artifacts and stuff from the actual ship. The listing for it was in the guidebook in the hotel room, and it caught my attention, so I decided to go see it on Saturday.”

  “I thought you went to the outlet mall,” he said.

  That was when I realized I’d gotten caught. Or was at least very close to it. I needed to scoot around the edge and stop myself from revealing more than I wanted him to know. “The girls went shopping, but I didn’t want to. I stayed behind.”

  “Oh. Yeah, that sounds like you. It was brave to go out wandering around Vegas by yourself, though.”

  I shrugged and he reached for another cookie.

  “Enough about me and my trip,” I said. “Tell me something about you. I feel like it’s been forever since we talked.”

  “It has,” he said. “There’s been a lot happening actually. Colt came home for a visit.”

  “Really?” I asked. “That’s fantastic. I know you’ve been missing him since he’s been so busy competing.”

  “And so did Garrett.”

  That stopped me in the middle of my breath. “Garrett?”

  “Yep. The infamous one himself. Just showed up at the house last night like he hasn’t been totally disconnected from us for all this time.”

  “That’s… wow,” I said. It was all I could come up with.

  “He wants something,” Sawyer said darkly. “He always wants something. That’s the only reason he would come back.”

  “Maybe he just misses home,” I said. “And you guys?”

  Sawyer shook his head. “You know which brother we’re talking about, right?”

  I winced and tried to play it off like I knew he was right. It wasn’t like I could tell him I knew for a fact he was back because he missed the ranch.

  Sawyer would be furious if he knew Garrett and I had hooked up in Vegas.

  Chapter 17

  Garrett

  After getting home late Monday night, Tuesday was still spent a little bit in a daze. I was still trying to get used to the idea of being back on the ranch, and everybody was trying to get used to having me there. I spent the day Tuesday roaming around on the ranch and occasionally interacting with the brothers I ran into.

  We didn’t get into any deep conversations, which was for the best. After all this time, we needed to take things slowly and ease our way back into our relationships. I slept in late on Wednesday. Even though I went to bed at a perfectly normal time on Tuesday, it was like my body was still trying to recover from all the time I’d spent on the road.

  Built-up exhaustion and the need to rebuild and recover kept me in bed long after my brothers had gotten up to work on the ranch. None of them had mentioned me helping out yet. I was expecting them to. That was one of the things I was depending on. Not that I was exactly chomping at the bit to get back out there doing chores. But at least it would feel familiar and like I was actually back.

  But none of them had even suggested I help them. Even when I was out walking around on the grounds and found them, none of them asked for my help or suggested I do anything with them.

  When I walked down the stairs into the quiet house, I thought I was there completely alone. I took a few minutes to just breathe it in. It didn’t look exactly the same as it did when we were younger but definitely close enough. Little had been drastically altered, and it still felt every bit like home.

  Memories of being a child and spending time there with my parents and my brothers rushed back to me as I walked through the room. If I concentrated hard enough, I could even hear their voices. My heart felt warm thinking about those moments, but it also made me sad. That was so long ago. Maybe too long and too far separated from the present for me to ever find anything close to that again.

  As happy as it had been to reunite with the brothers who were in the ranch house when I got home, everything didn’t feel exactly right yet. It wasn’t like we just picked up right back where we left off. There was tension, distance between us. I would have to try to find my way back to what it used to be.

  I walked into the kitchen, intending to make myself a cup of coffee to break through the lingering fog. I stepped inside and realized I wasn’t actually alone in the house. Cassidy was making a sandwich at the butcher’s block island in the middle of the room.

  “Oh,” I said, slightly startled when I saw him. “Sorry. I didn’t realize anybody else was home.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t have to say you’re sorry. This is your house, too. You can come int
o the kitchen.”

  I let out an awkward laugh and nodded. “Right.”

  It felt a little uncomfortable standing there with my oldest brother. It felt like he could look at me and see through everything, like he already knew everything I had gone through and all that I had done in the time I’d been away.

  “Want a sandwich?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yeah. That sounds really good.”

  He reached for the loaf of crusty bread sitting on the cutting board beside him and cut two thick slices with the bread knife. He gestured toward it with the tip of the blade.

  “Shannon Daley brings fresh bread over every couple of days,” he said.

  “Yeah, I heard she and Jesse are back together.”

  As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. I waited for him to ask who I heard it from and tried to come up with an explanation. Instead, his eyes just lifted to me and he raised one eyebrow slightly. There were a few seconds of awkward silence. Then he looked back down at the sandwich fixings in front of him.

  “He is,” he said. “The two of them hooked back up pretty quick after he got home. I don’t think anybody was really all that surprised about it.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I wouldn’t think so. They were always so perfect for each other. It stunned the hell out of me when he left and didn’t take her with him. I was sure if he was ever going to jump ship, he would scoop her up and they’d go together.”

  “That’s what everybody thought,” Cassidy said. “Including Shannon. But everything worked out for the best and they’re doing great. They’ve been traveling around a lot recently. They both said there’s no doubt they’re going to come back here to stay. Her father is here and he’s still working the ranch. She just wants to see what’s out there before they settle down.”

  He finished up the sandwich and handed it over to me.

  “Tell me about Clayton,” I said.

  “Well, he’s got it bad, too. She’s a nice girl. Kind of showed up in town out of nowhere. At the time, she was traveling with her friend Darcy, but Gia decided Green Valley was what she wanted for her fresh start in life, and Darcy decided there was more out there to look for. So, Gia stayed here with her little daughter, Gabby, and Darcy continued on her way.”