I sucked in a breath and did a quick check of how I felt now. Fine. Normal. Whatever that had been was gone and didn’t seem to be coming back. It might not have been wise or smart or cautious, but looking into my husband’s anxious face, which looked one answer away from breaking, I forced a smile.
“Indigestion,” I said in that calm, even voice I’d perfected ten lifetimes ago. Faking one emotion for another . . . Spiderman could scale sky-scrapers, I had that. “That’s what’s going on.”
Jesse shook his head hard. “You’re lying.”
Lily sucked in a tiny breath beside me.
I weaved out of Lily and Colt’s holds and stepped toward Jesse. “You just called me a liar.”
“I said you were lying, not that you are a liar.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“No, it’s not.” Jesse rubbed at his temples. “That’s like saying you took a paperclip from the bank, so you’re a klepto.”
Fine, he had a point, but I wished he didn’t. I couldn’t keep arguing circles around him and distracting him from what was important if he proved his point in one succinct statement.
“Are you going to tell me what happened just now? Or do I have to haul you to the emergency room and have the doctor on call there tell me what happened?” Jesse stopped rubbing his temples long enough to give me one of his sweeping inspections. His gaze lingered on my stomach.
I didn’t want to go to the E.R. I wanted to stay right there and enjoy the night and our friends and family and each other. I didn’t want to ruin Garth and Josie’s special night because my body had done something a little crazy and my husband had taken that whole crazy thing and run with it. I didn’t want to be treated as if I was hanging from a thread and everyone was holding their breaths, waiting for it to snap. I didn’t want my husband to hold me at arm’s length in some areas while he held me so close I felt like I was suffocating in others.
I didn’t want to leave.
“I already told you. Indigestion. Too many taquitos. Too few Tums.” I paused to take a breath because damn if it wasn’t exhausting being pregnant in a hot barn smashed to capacity with people while I tried to convince my husband for the one millionth time that I wasn’t seconds away from taking my last breath. “I’m fine.”
Jesse was looking at me like I was anything but fine. Colt was too. Lily though? There was warmth in her eyes and a smile on her face. She was on my side. Two against two. That might have been even in a different situation, but this was two men versus two women. The very same women they loved, cared for, and got their making out dot, dot, dot needs satisfied from—or at least had until Jesse had gone all old-school monk on me—so we weren’t tied. No, Lily and my vote won. The guys knew it too.
“I think I need another bottle of water,” I said to Jesse.
He gave me an exasperated expression that said he knew exactly what I meant—he needed another bottle of beer.
“Walker,” Colt cut in, like Jesse and I weren’t in the middle of a hydration stand-off.
Jesse’s eyes cut to Colt—long enough to express some serious displeasure—before landing back on me. “Mason.”
I lifted my eyes to the barn ceiling. I didn’t know why they even acknowledged each other if that was how they did it every time they ran into one another. Puffing out my chest and narrowing my eyes at Lily, I channeled whatever gruffness I had. “Walker.”
She giggled but managed to stifle it quickly. Lifting her head, Lily rolled her shoulders back and settled her hands on her hips as Colt had them. “Sterling-Walker.”
My eyes widened before I nodded at Lily’s seriously impressive talent at playing the part of a twenty-something guy. “That was impressive, Lily. You win that round.”
“Really?” she said, going back to herself seamlessly. “I thought it was a tad overacted. You know, the sneer thing might have been a bit much.”
I made it a point to inspect both Colt and Jesse’s faces. “Eh, no. You nailed it.”
Lily and I were in the middle of high-fiving when Jesse and Colt shook their heads.
“We don’t sound, look, or act anything like that,” Colt piped up first, flinging his finger between Lily and me.
“Yeah, you pretty much do.” Lily patted Colt’s arm in an attempt to console him, but when his frown only grew, she just shrugged.
“Nothing like that,” Jesse added, though his eyes were still zeroed in on my stomach.
“Everything like that,” I argued.
Jesse sighed, but he was clearly already over the disagreement and ready to get back to why I’d nearly done a back-flop into Colt’s arms.
“What’s going on?” he asked again, lowering his voice.
“Nothing.”
He shook his head and set his jaw. I shouldn’t have looked away when I answered him. That was standard procedure for what a person shouldn’t do when attempting to lie.
“Rowen . . .”
That tone made me bristle a bit more each time he used it.
“Come on, Jesse, ease off,” Lily said. “She’s okay now. Why don’t you enjoy the party?”
“I was enjoying the party until you two showed up and my wife looked like she was about to pass out.”
My eyes went wide at his words. Jesse had always been gentle to a fault with his sisters, Lily especially. I knew his words came from a place of worry and were directed at Colt’s presence, not hers, but still . . . the hurt on her face went deep. She wasn’t used to masking her emotions like some of us were.
“Hey, Walker. Back off.” Colt stepped forward, putting Lily just enough behind him to look like he was ready to protect her from a firing squad.
Jesse didn’t miss it either. “My sister doesn’t need you to take care of her, Mason. She’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”
“I never said she wasn’t.” Colt’s hands fell from his hips down to his sides, his fingers curling into his palms. Jesse’s had been curled in the same way since Colt had shown up. “Rowen’s pretty damn capable of taking care of herself too, you know. She doesn’t need you calling the cavalry and playing hero every time she trips on something.”
Jesse’s jaw ground together. Then he stepped toward Colt. If either of them took another step, they’d be bumping chests. Jesse and Colt were built the same: tall, wide shoulders, muscular, although Jesse’s were the kind developed from hard work and labor whereas Colt’s had been hewn in a weight room. I didn’t want to see either of them get in a fight with anyone, least of all each other. While I knew neither was predisposed to testosterone-fueled fights, nothing about that day had gone with the flow.
“Back off, Walker,” Colt said, though his feet stayed in place.
“Lily’s my sister. I’m her brother. I’m not backing off. You are.”
Lily and I exchanged another look. Where was Garth Black when I needed him? He could ease the tension by yapping some lewd comment before sending them on their separate ways or if they did get into it, act as a scrappy enough referee to tear them apart.
“I’m her boyfriend.” Colt’s chest went out a bit—the whole scene reminded me that Freud was right on so many levels. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You and Lily have been dating for all of five minutes. Don’t make grand proclamations you can’t be certain you’re capable of keeping.”
I wasn’t used to seeing Jesse so confrontational. I wasn’t sure I liked it. Was this side of him brought on from the stress of the pregnancy? Or would this be the norm for him no matter which of his sisters’ boyfriends was standing in front of him? I didn’t know. All I did know was that I needed to drag Jesse away from Colt, or Lily had to drag Colt away from Jesse. Those two wouldn’t be friends anytime this decade.
“We’ve been dating almost six months, and I have every confidence I can back what I just said.” Colt reached for Lily’s hand, not blinking as he stared down Jesse. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Before Jesse could snap back with anything else, I grab
bed his hand and pulled him away. “We’re going somewhere though. Somewhere else.” I waved at Lily as I continued to wrestle the wall of determination away from the future scene of the crime. “Anywhere else,” I added when I noticed how tight Jesse’s fists were curled.
Thankfully, he didn’t resist much or I wouldn’t have been able to tug him into the far side of the barn.
“You don’t want to alienate your sister, right?” I asked when we stopped. I felt the stirrings of a side-ache from the effort it had taken to haul Jesse halfway across the barn.
Jesse’s gaze flickered to where Colt and Lily were starting to mingle into the crowd. It took a minute, but he finally shook his head. “No. I don’t.”
“Then you need to change the way you behave around her when Colt’s around because you going all crazed ape, pounding your chest and grunting, is going to alienate her a bit more every time.” I rubbed at my side to ease the tension pulling my muscles tight. I hadn’t experienced a side-ache like this since I’d had to take the dreaded mile test in gym class.
When he watched Lily with Colt again, he seemed to appraise them with a different set of eyes, ones that weren’t prejudiced but investigative. His face flattened as he studied his sister and her boyfriend like they were any other couple in the room. Of course that was when Colt dropped his hands to Lily’s hips, drew her close, and lowered his mouth to hers. His mouth stayed there for a while too.
After about five seconds, Jesse took a step in their direction again. “He’s crossed the line now. I’m going to remind him where that line is.”
Before he could take another step, I snagged the back of his shirt and kept him in place. “Kissing your girlfriend of six months is crossing the line? Really?” I gave his shirt another tug when Jesse lunged forward when Colt’s hand wove into Lily’s hair and pressed her closer to him. “Because if that’s the case, what do you consider what we did in that attic bedroom of yours before we were even ‘official’? Pole-vaulting over the line? Being fired out of a cannon over the line? Lighting a stick of dynamite and obliterating the line?”
Jesse’s shoulders lowered before he glanced back at me. “I knew I loved you. You knew the same. We didn’t need to ascribe a title to it to know that. I made love with you that night because I loved you.”
My stomach fluttered a little. Brooding and anxious and everything in between, and he could still manage to say just the right thing. “And you don’t think Colt and Lily love each other?”
Jesse snorted as if the concept were preposterous. With the way they looked at each other, paired with the way they didn’t seem to notice anyone else when they were together, it didn’t seem so outlandish to me.
He thrust his hand in their direction, where they were still kissing. “She’s seventeen. He’s, like, thirty. That’s a recipe for a felony, not true love.”
His back was still to me, so I rolled my eyes. “Lily is seventeen for one more month. Colt’s your age, and if you’re thirty, then damn, I married a sugar daddy.”
I could just make out a smirk forming on Jesse’s face. “Well, for one more month, it’s illegal.”
“It’s not illegal to love someone. No matter the age difference.”
Jesse’s back went rigid. “He doesn’t love her.”
“Alienation. Just say no.” Lily loved her brother, but I knew how teenage girls worked. If Jesse made her choose between him and Colt, Jesse would be in for the shock of his life.
His flames were starting to stifle. He didn’t look like every muscle in his body was one flex away from bursting through his skin.
Of course that was when Garth jogged up to us with a pissed off expression, his thumb pointing over his shoulder. “Would you rather me kick his ass or throw his ass out, Jess? Your call.”
“Hi, Garth. Great to see you. Impeccable timing.” I folded my arms. “I’d just managed to talk Hulk out of his green skin, and now he’s quivering and mottling green again.”
“Seeing him with Lily makes my skin crawl. Maybe if his face isn’t so pretty, the spell she’s under will be broken. My vote’s for the ass beating.” Garth shouldered up beside Jesse as if the two were deliberating how best to get a herd of cattle to forge a river.
“Lily isn’t some shallow girl who goes all wobbly-kneed over a pretty face. She’s not into him because he’s hot.”
Two heads twisted back to look at me.
“Are you saying you think Colt Mason’s ‘hot’?” Garth asked, already inspecting me like I was a traitor.
“No. I’m paraphrasing what you said. You’re the one who called him hot.” My side hurt again, but I couldn’t grab at it with Jesse looking at me.
“I did not call him hot.”
“It’s okay. You can think he’s hot. I won’t judge.” I raised a shoulder and focused on keeping a straight face. It was a rare day when I could get a reaction out of Garth Black, and I wasn’t in a hurry for it to pass.
Garth turned around to face me straight-on. “If I was into dudes, I know for a fact pretty-boy, pansy-ass Colt Mason wouldn’t be my type.”
“What would be Garth Black’s type because this, I’ve got to hear.” I leaned into the wall and waited.
Garth shifted before whacking the back of his hand into Jesse’s chest. “This guy. A true blue cowboy who doesn’t know about things like facials and Paleo and all things of a metro nature.”
“What’s Paleo?” I dusted off the spot on Jesse’s chest that Garth had thumped. “And please refrain from touching my husband in any sort of way—whacks, smacks, slugs, and handshakes included—after spilling about you jumping his bones if you pitched for the other team.”
Instead of squirming in his boots as I hoped he would, Garth slid a little closer to Jesse and batted his eyes at him. “Why? You jealous, Sterling-Walker? Can’t take a little healthy competition?”
“Whatever that is”—I motioned at Garth about to drool while still batting his eyes at Jesse, who was not-so-subtly edging away—“unlike Paleo, there is nothing healthy about it.”
“I thought you didn’t know what Paleo was.” Garth fired off one especially salacious wink at Jesse before going out of hots-for-Jesse character and back into hots-for-Josie character.
“I live in Seattle, where so many carrots and sweet potatoes are consumed, people walk down crowded, dreary streets looking like orange-faced oompa loompas. Of course I know what Paleo is.” Not that I followed it, because this girl might be able to give up most kinds of meat, but do not ask me to drop sugar. Wasn’t happening. “What I want to know is how you know what Paleo is.”
Garth shifted in place. Of course talking about some diet would make him uncomfortable when acting like he was nursing a semi for his best friend wouldn’t. “I don’t know. I probably read about it in some magazine in some doctor’s office. I spent enough time waiting in those aptly named ‘waiting’ rooms to become an expert in which haircuts are best for a person’s face shape, how to pick the right red lipstick for your skin tone, and what little black dress is best for your body type . . . and other useless shit like that.”
I leaned in, scrutinizing his lips or, more accurately, what was sparkling on his lips. “I don’t know about the red lipstick thing, but you really nailed the right shade of pink lip gloss. Nailed. It.”
The back of Garth’s hand was wiping and patting his lips so quickly, I’d have thought I’d just told him they were on fire. “That’s Josie’s lip shit. Not mine.”
“Sure, it isn’t, Brokeback. Sure, it isn’t.”
Jesse exhaled and shook his head—standard procedure for when Garth and I got into it like this.
Garth slid in my direction, pinning me to the wall with his unblinking stare. “You can call me Brokeback all you want. I’ll smile and take it while calling you little Ms. Pregnant-and-Barefoot Suzi Homemaker.”
“Ouch,” I said, reaching for the place where the sharp pain in my side was stabbing me.
“‘Ouch’ is right. You’re not the only one
who can break out the name calling, Sterling-Walker.” Garth was grinning in victory, not getting it, but the lightness fading from Jesse’s face gave away that he had.
Another stab hit me, doubling me over. “Ouch.” This time I sounded more like I’d just taken a wrecking ball to the gut. I would have fallen to my knees if Jesse hadn’t swooped in and saved me, only further securing his spot in the Hero Hall of Fame.
Only when Jesse had to save me from face-planting did Garth get it. “Holy shit, I’m an asshole.” He rushed toward us, his arms moving like he wanted to help but wasn’t sure how. “What can I do?”
“Go get my truck!” Jesse hollered, gathering me into his arms while I attempted to grit my teeth and not cry out when another stab attacked me.
“Shouldn’t we call 9-1-1 or something?” Garth sounded about as flustered as I’d ever heard him as he started to clear a path through the crowd. Thankfully we were close to one of the exits, so it wouldn’t take long to get outside.
“No paramedic can get here then to the emergency room quicker than I can. I know every way to get to the hospital from here, and the quickest way based on the time of day. Or night,” Jesse added as he rushed through the barn.
“That relict of a truck of yours belongs in a museum, Jess, not speeding down a maze of dirt roads toward a hospital thirty minutes away when your wife looks like she’s dying.” Garth grimaced when Jesse and I threw him looks ranging from irritated to irate. “Figuratively speaking, of course.” He shoved a couple of guys out of the way, shaking his head. “I’m not only an asshole—I’m an insensitive one too.”
“You can’t have one without the other.” I had to concentrate on taking a breath before I could add anything else. “Don’t feel too bad.”
As Jesse carried me through the big barn doors, he glanced at Garth, who was keeping pace with us. “Can you tell my parents what happened and where we’re going? They’ll worry when they realize we’re gone.”
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