Rough Edge

by Landish, Lauren

  As long as she can fix the truck, it’ll be just fine. And I won’t even have to see her again. Hell, I’ll send Mark to pick it up and not even have to see her then.

  The bartender walks over, looking hesitant to interrupt, but he knocks on the bar in front of me like it’s a damn door. I meet his eyes and he lifts his chin toward the door. I turn and see Katelyn waiting for me.

  She raises one eyebrow in question. “You still need a ride?” that eyebrow says.

  “Gotta go,” I tell Lil Bit, or the bartender, or maybe no one, I don’t know. I pick up my beer and chug the rest of it. “Keep the change.” That was to the bartender for sure.

  Lil Bit pouts, her bottom lip poking out in a move that has probably gotten her what she wants countless times. “Already?” She takes the liberty to trace a short-nailed finger along the tattoo on my bicep, so much in those three syllables.

  I blink, looking at her and remembering her earlier. And just like that, I forget Lil Bit ever existed and my cock agrees whole-dickedly.

  I get up from the bar, walking toward Katelyn without a word.

  Katelyn looks over my shoulder. “Who’s that?”

  “No one. Let’s go.” I hold an arm out, motioning for her to walk in front of me because I’m a damn gentleman despite the tattoos, rough hands, and fuck it attitude I wear like badges of honor.

  Katelyn says quietly, “Looked like someone to me. She was eye-sexing you when I walked in, and she watched every swaggering step of you leaving. I think you’ve got yourself a fan, Brody Tannen.”

  * * *

  “What’d you do?” Mark’s growl would stop most any bar fight in its tracks.

  He’s a big motherfucker and has a presence about him that says he’d just as soon knock your head off your shoulders as look at your stupid face. In most cases, that’s true. Much as I hate to say it, it’s one of the things I like best about him. We’re two peas in the same pod, and because we understand each other, we do our best not to step on each other’s toes.

  Not too long ago, I would’ve told you that me and the oldest Bennett being anything but enemies was damn near impossible, that it’d be more likely for my cows to sprout wings and start flying around the field like birds than for us to be cordial, much less friends.

  I’d have lost that bet.

  The transition when the Bennetts bought our ranch wasn’t all rainbows and cupcakes, more like fists and insults, but the cows are still mooing and Mark’s a good friend now.

  That don’t mean the accusation doesn’t sting like a bitch, though.

  “Not a thing and you know it.” My growl back is equal in measure, one of the things I think Mark likes about me too. It took awhile for him to get used to someone calling him on his shit because he was accustomed to his word being law as the oldest. Well, except for one person, who rides herd on us all.

  Damned if I’m not the same way, both of us having spent years running our family ranches. We were like two bulls ramming into each other for a while, but we’ve got a good stasis now. It’s just a whole lotta fun to test it sometimes.

  Luckily, in this family, it’s just another normal evening, so those bar-fight-stopping growls don’t give anyone the slightest pause. The swoosh of a beanbag against wood keeps right on sounding out in the evening air as Brutal and Cooper play cornhole on the set they built as a father-son project.

  I should’ve seen that coming as soon as Brutal told me his girl, Allyson, had a son, but I hadn’t been prepared to add a smart-mouthed nine-year-old to our family. But we did, and Cooper’s just another one of us now. A tiny version, but family. Brutal, my monster of a brother, is like the hard-shell coating on an ice cream sundae, totally ooey-gooey messy underneath that tough exterior, and he’s taken to fatherhood like it was his life’s purpose all along. His latest fascination is teaching Cooper all about hand tools, hence our newfound evening routine of cornhole after dinner.

  “Sit down and tell us all about it, Brody.” Mama Louise’s kind offer of a chair beside her is topped off with a glass of her special sweet tea. It’s special because it’s got more bourbon than sugar, and if you’ve ever had sweet tea, you know it’s got a shit ton of sugar. I make a note to take it easy because we’ve all had Mama Louise’s tea set us on our ass unexpectedly. It goes down so smoothly, you’re drunker than a skunk before you know it. And I’m already three beers in tonight.

  I sit down beside Mama Louise, take the offered tea, and have myself a healthy swallow before I say a word. I take the moment to look over my glass at our mish-mash, motley crew of a family.

  The Bennetts. Mark, Luke, and James, the three boys who were once enemies and are now pseudo-brothers, though I’d deny that if asked, and Mama Louise, their mother by birth and ours by forced adoption when we were grown—but the woman won’t take no for an answer—are sitting around the yard in old handmade wooden chairs.

  And the Tannens. My brother, Bobby, and my sister, Shayanne, are watching Brutal and Cooper play as Allyson watches on like only a mother can. Pretty sure they’re all cheering for Cooper at this point, and Brutal’s shit out of luck.

  Katelyn’s gone to sit on Mark’s lap since we got here, where she is half the time you lay eyes on them. And Sophie, James’s wife, has a full-sized goat in her lap, mindlessly scratching under its chin, which means their daughter, Cindy Lou, must be inside asleep already.

  It’s not the family I ever thought I’d have, but I’m damn thankful for it. There’s a saying about family, something about it giving you roots and wings. That’s what this right here does for me. I’ve always had roots—to this land, to our herd, to my family. But for a while, I had no wings. I was as landlocked as my cows are. Weighed down by Dad, by bills, by expectations.

  When we’d been forced to sell our ranch to the Bennetts in the wake of Dad’s death, and came on as the hired help, I’d fought stubbornly against it. I’d been so arrogant and prideful. Don’t get me wrong. I miss being the one to shine if it’s all good, and even the one to rage if it all goes to hell, but it’s been nice to just work and go home, rinse, and repeat. It’s freeing in a way, finally giving me those wings in a way I didn’t expect.

  Mark’s eyeing me, telling me to get on with explaining what happened. If Katelyn wasn’t running her fingers through the hair at the base of his scalp, he’d probably still be growling. As it is, with her magic, he’s almost purring. And glaring, but purring and glaring is a damn sight better than growling and glaring.

  I take one more sip of my tea before I start, just to irk him because I like stomping all over that line where he goes from okay to aggravated. “Did Shay’s deliveries, had old ladies telling me all day that I was too skinny.” Mama Louise snorts, probably because she’s the one who makes food for all of us and knows how much we can put away in one meal. “I know, right?” I pat my flat belly in confusion. “But Bessie was doing fine until she wasn’t. Felt like the transmission, but I made it to a mechanic shop. They’re going to look at it and call you with an estimate before they do any work.”

  Mark grunts. Could mean ‘good job’, could mean ‘I’m gonna beat the shit out of you behind the barn later’—no way to tell for sure. I choose to take it as the former.

  Katelyn smiles, never missing a loop on Mark’s hair. “He’s skipping the best part.”

  Mark leans in and acts like he’s whispering to her, even though we can all hear him just fine. With an amused tilt of his lips, he asks her, “What’s the best part of my truck needing a couple thousand dollars’ worth of work, Princess?”

  “Where’d you go after the mechanic’s, Brody?” I swear, she’s almost sing-songing the question.

  “Resort bar.” Another sip of tea.

  “What’d you do there?” More singing. She might as well be turning into a damn Disney princess—Princess Katelyn of the Redneck Ranch, coming soon to a theater near you.

  “Drank beer. Ate a burger. Watched the game.” Too soon to take another drink, but I lick my lips and press them
together, telling her she’s getting nothing out of me.

  “And who was your friend?”

  “Ain’t got any.”

  Mark scoffs at that. “Think again, asshole. Look around you.”

  Mama Louise points. “Language.”

  Mark apologizes to Mama Louise with a good-natured dip of his chin, but his eyes say he meant what he said. “Who’d you meet at the bar?”

  Shit. Damn nosy cowboys, worse than gossipy hens. Katelyn threw me under the bus on this one, probably karmic retribution for my using Shay as an excuse earlier. And a quick scan tells me that everyone’s listening now. Even Cooper has stopped tossing his beanbags to listen to me explain my ‘not friend’. Guess my protesting was a bit overplayed.

  “Just some woman who was chatting me up. No big deal.”

  But the women scent blood in the water. My blood.

  With Bobby and me being the only single ones left in our group, the women have decided to take us on as projects. They’ve tried matching us up for blind dates, which I refuse, of course, accidentally running into people when we’re in town and I suddenly remember that I need wire from the feed store, and trying to give us quizzes from some magazine website. That one was actually fun because I answered truthfully and it’d all but said that I was going to die alone. I’d celebrated, not the being alone part, but that I’d fucked with the girls’ big plans to find my soulmate or some shit.

  Truth be told, I don’t want that.

  Shay had it tough when Mom died, but she was young enough that I tried my damnedest to protect her from the worst of it. But me? I was the oldest, the one who had to deal with everything. I saw Mom and Dad, deep in love and happy one day, and Dad absolutely gutted the next.

  The day Mom took her last breath, our whole family died too. She’d been the glue and we’d all been too young and stupid to notice. Until she was gone.

  Dad crumbled, but he didn’t go down easily. No, he crash landed, taking out as many innocent bystanders as possible. Mainly me. I lost count of the times I had to go pick him up at the bar, the casino the next county over, or a few times, at the jail for drunken and disorderly charges. Hell, I had to add a bail line item to the family budget, though I called it a contingency fund so Shayanne wouldn’t know what I used the money for when she balanced the books.

  And he was angry, so fucking angry. I’ve been in a lot of fights in my life, but I’ve never thrown fists like Dad did. And usually at me. I don’t know why he chose me to take out his fury on because I certainly hadn’t gone easy on him in return, once punching him in the gut so hard I’d had to drive him to the hospital to get checked out. He’d insulted my wimpy-ass punch the whole way, and the nurse had rolled her eyes at his bruised gut and my swollen jaw. I’d felt guilty, and he’d felt righteous that I should’ve somehow magically adjusted the market price on cattle so he could get the money he needed to pay his gambling debts.

  That’s what love does to you—gives you false hope and happiness and then rips it away, absolutely ruining you.

  Even Mama Louise, a woman I admire for her strength, still walks around talking to her dead husband like he’s sitting here on the porch with us. And that’s supposed to be considered a healthy coping mechanism?

  I don’t get it, don’t want it.

  I’ll keep my heart locked away behind my chest, take care of the physical side when I need to, and get back to doing what I do best—getting up before dawn, working my ass off all day, raising my family and crops, and keeping all the animals healthy to get to market.

  Rinse and repeat.

  I sit here, looking at the happy couples all around me, feeling like they’re ticking time bombs about to go off at any minute and knowing I won’t ever willingly strap one of those explosives to myself.

  And definitely not with Lil Bit, the Presto Change-O woman.

  “What was her name?” I don’t even know which of them asks because they’re like a hive mind right now—one will, one way.

  “Dunno.”

  “Did you like her?” Shay asks that one, at least having my best interests in mind, I think.

  I think about that. I did like Lil Bit at the shop. She seemed fun and challenging, even badass. Definitely interesting, but not interested. But at the bar? She was fine, but not for me.

  For most guys, I suspect it’d be the opposite. A woman flirting pretty hard-core, wearing barely a stitch of clothing, and looking gorgeous should be a slam dunk. But no.

  I think about how to answer. “At the bar? No.” See, the truth, just a little slick.

  “So you’re not going to see her again?” Katelyn asks that one, and I know she’s wondering if she’ll see the dark-haired woman. Since Katelyn works as the event planner at the resort, and the area has grown so much, so fast, with tourists coming in and out, she sees a whole different crowd than we do way out here in the country.

  The only way I’d see Lil Bit is if I go get the truck, but I can work my way around that. ‘Busy, busy, busy with the cattle and goats, can’t go to the far side of the mountain today. Sorry, Mark. Send Brutal.’ I frown. That’s a good plan, actually. I don’t consider why I want to send my scary as fuck brother who’s head over heels for Allyson and not my single brother, Bobby. Nope, don’t think about that at all.

  “Nah, won’t see her. Just a bar conversation.”

  Katelyn sags, pouting. Mark looks at me like I kicked his puppy. He doesn’t even have a puppy, but he’s pissed at me for making Katelyn sad. I swallow the rest of my tea in one smooth gulp, knowing I’ll regret it at five a.m.

  “I got winner,” I call to Brutal and Cooper.

  The boy hoots so I know exactly who’s winning. He always wins. At first, we let him. Now, he’s just that good. Like one of those kids who can do angles and arcs and wind drag in his head, and adjust his throw accordingly.

  I get up and make a show of stretching out my arms, windmilling them back and forth. “You’re going down, kid.”

  He stands as tall and wide as his skinny frame will allow. “Bring it on, Uncle Brody.”

  He does a damn fine impression of Brutal’s low grumble. Hell, of any of us. We’re cowboys, the real deal, through and through. And though Cooper might not have had a father for a long time, he’s got a hell of a one in Brutal and a herd of uncles who are making sure he’s flush with male role models. Maybe not the best ones, but he’s got ’em, nevertheless.

  “It’s on.”

  “My money’s on Cooper.” James’s shit-eating grin says he knows exactly who’s going to win this game. And it’s not me.

  “Nobody’s gonna take that bet, Son. We all know Cooper’s a shoo-in.” Mama Louise laughs at James, but I hear her instruction to me as clear as if she were the mob boss of a redneck mafia . . . the boy wins one way or another. She’s a Grandma-Bear, that one. Definitely glue, which scares the shit out of me. I already lost one mom. Can’t bear to lose another.

  Chapter 3

  Brody

  “How did I end up getting stuck with this job? Should’ve sent Brutal.”

  I know the grumbling makes me sound like a whiny ass, but when Shay radioed that someone from Cole Automotive called and said Bessie was ready, I went into defensive mode. Unfortunately, Brutal has plans with Allyson tonight and woman trumps truck. Asshole.

  I’d tried James without luck, but before I could attempt a sweet-talking deal with Luke, the girls had figured out there was something I was trying to get out of and Mark had stuck me with the assignment. He’d said it was because it was my fault Bessie was on the other side of the mountain, but I’m near certain Shay was conspiring.

  And she doesn’t even know about Lil Bit. But she knows me.

  So here I sit in the passenger seat of Sophie’s big brown truck, heading to the far side of the mountain. She got wrangled into this fair and square, at least. She’s delivering a foster goat back to its owner. Right now, Vincent van Goat is in the back of the truck in a kennel cage large enough that he could stand up and pranc
e around, but he’s curled up in the hay, enjoying the wind in his hair.

  “Vincent doing better?”

  Should be an easy enough question, but Sophie looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “This what we’re doing? Talking shop?”

  I pull my hat off, curl the brim, and put it back on again, which must be some kind of tell because Sophie smiles like I just spilled my deepest, darkest secrets.

  “Vincent’s doing fine. His ear’s all healed up, and he’s ready to get back to his herd. Thankfully, he seems to be hearing just fine.” She chuckles at her own Van Gogh-slash-goat joke.

  Vincent van Goat came to us a couple of weeks ago after a coyote got onto his owner’s land. Vincent’s ear had been the only serious injury thanks to the rancher’s herd dog, but it’d been pretty serious at first. If Vincent hadn’t been the rancher’s daughter’s pet, he probably would’ve been sent to greener pastures, but Sophie promised the girl to save him, and somehow, she did.

  “You did good with him.”

  “Thank you. I felt like it was a bit of a test, but Doc seems proud and I think Vincent is going to dance around when he sees his girls.”

  Sophie only recently finished veterinary school and became official, but she’s been Doc Jones’s right hand for a while now. She’s good with animals of all sorts, humans included. So as we get closer to Cole Automotive, I decide to tempt fate.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “No, you’re not my favorite Tannen. That’s Shay, followed by Brutal because have you seen him with Cooper? You and Bobby are tied for third.” I grunt, not amused. Or at least not letting her know that I am. “Fine, sorry. Ask away.”

  “It’s about you girls.” She clears her throat pointedly. “Sorry, women. But I don’t get my feathers ruffled when you call us ‘the boys’ even though we’re all men. Except for James. Always goofing off and doing something stupid.”