Brothers of Miller Ranch Box Set

by Natalie Dean

  As he was going to swing himself up onto his horse, he heard a soft, lilting sort of sound. One that almost sounded ephemerally impossible as it drifted through the night wind.

  Turning, Benji listened hard for the tiny notes. After a moment, he thought he caught what direction the sound was coming from and slowly walked that way, almost wondering if he was hallucinating after a long day’s work.

  No, the more he followed, the clearer it became. A pretty, dulcet sort of melody with a decided underbelly of melancholy to it. The kind that filled a listener with hope, but also a deep, aching sort of sadness.

  After several minutes, he rounded a corner to see the Touhey girl perched up on the fence, dressed in nothing but her nightclothes, which consisted of a very long T-shirt and soft shorts that barely poked out from underneath her top.

  He watched as her mouth moved and more of those beautiful, haunting notes came out of it. He realized she was saying words, but he had no idea what language it could be. The syllables were all drawn out as her voice floated up and away into the night air, and it almost felt like some sort of tragic aria.

  He stopped dead in his tracks, not making a sound. He had a feeling this was a moment he was not supposed to see. It almost felt like something no mortal should be privy to. And while he didn’t believe in magic or witches or anything, it was hard not to see the siren in front of him, bathed in moonlight as she was, and not be enchanted.

  She looked so different than the last time he had seen her. Her copper hair was loose down her back in thick curls that caught the gentle wind every so often. That scowl was gone, replaced with an expression so tremulous that Benji wanted to simultaneously reach out to comfort her and also slip away as quietly as possible.

  But he didn’t do either of those things. He just stood there and watched.

  It was like someone had taken the image he had of the girl in his head and turned it upside down. Instead of the rude, bitter harpy he had met, he only saw vulnerability and a soft, feminine sort of beauty that wasn’t popular these days, but he had always been drawn to. Her shoulders weren’t up by her ears anymore in defense and her features were wide open. Defenseless.

  It was only then that Benji spotted the burns along her arms and hands. Some parts were still bandaged, but he could see the top of what was sure to be scars. Had she been in the fire too? He hadn’t really heard as much.

  But if she was hurt, why had she been out in the middle of the day? The sun was terrible on burns, and he was pretty sure she shouldn’t be digging ditches with bandages still on. Maybe… maybe there was more to the acerbic woman than he had initially thought.

  Who knew how long he stood there, staring, feeling both confused and enraptured? The Touhey girl sang and sang and sang, the minutes all bleeding into each other, until suddenly she wasn’t singing at all, but instead crying into her cupped hands.

  Now that Benji had definitely not been expecting, and he found himself stuck in another decision. He was clearly eavesdropping on what was meant to be a private moment. If he knew what was good for him, he would turn around right where he stood and head back home.

  And yet another part of him couldn’t stand to see someone in so much terrible pain. She was so clearly hurting, and each sob from her stabbed through him like a knife.

  Before he could figure out either way, she let out a sniffle and then hopped down from the fence. Quickly straightening her clothes, she padded back toward the main family house, leaving Benji to wonder why it felt like his world had just been turned upside down.

  7

  Benji

  Benji looked over the many bags of chips in front of him, his mind not on his task as he tried to shop for all the bachelor snacks Ma refused to buy for him.

  As much as he loved her, it was the one thing his good ol’ Ma would never budge on. If he wanted to buy nutrition-less stuff like chips and dip, or popcorn, or other junk, he’d have to do it on his own. She’d always have a home-cooked meal ready for him, but none of that over-processed trash.

  And it was trash, but that didn’t stop Benji from liking it. He didn’t know how he had gotten both the sweet and the salt tooth out of all of his siblings, but sometimes he just craved the worst food.

  However, at the moment even all of his favorites couldn’t hold his attention. His mind was elsewhere, refusing to focus on the colorful bags in front of him.

  It was back at the Touhey ranch, watching a young woman sing into the night like a siren that had been plucked right out of the ocean and placed atop a fence post.

  Really, it was impressive that she had been comfortable up there. He hadn’t really noticed in those shapeless overalls she wore, but the woman had a pair of thighs on her that were… abundant, to say the least. It would be easy to think plenty of disrespectful thoughts about it, but Benji’s Ma had taught him better growing up. People were always people first and should be respected as such no matter how attractive they were or weren’t.

  Sighing, Benji reached out and shoved an armful of bags into his cart then kept on to the refrigerated aisle where hopefully he would feel more inspired by the dip. He only made it to the corner, however, before a familiar voice caught his attention.

  No.

  It couldn’t be.

  What kind of bizarrely impossible chances would allow for the Touhey daughter to be in the same store as him, at the same time, just an aisle over?

  Well, he supposed that it helped that there was only one grocery store in the entire town.

  Still, he pushed his cart to the side and peeked around the endcap full of tortilla chips. Sure enough, she was standing there with her back mostly to him. She was in another pair of oversized, patchy overalls that spoke of all the hard work she put in on her family’s ranch. If he hadn’t seen her the previous night in her simple nightclothes, he would have had no idea of the killer, soft figure she had underneath her practical clothes.

  “Do you remember if you guys were low on caffeinated or decaf?”

  She was talking to someone, the slender girl beside her he guessed. He recognized the brunette from the church. She ran a lot of the extra services, if he recalled right. Keiko… maybe? Her and Chastity seemed to roll together a lot despite their age difference. Strange to see such a soft-spoken, sweet woman paired up with the bristliness of the Touhey girl.

  “Just get one of each. Goodness knows parishioners go through coffee like it’s holy water.”

  The Touhey girl let out a harsh bark of a laugh and did as Keiko asked, palming a canister of ground coffee in each hand. Benji was struck again by his uncertainty of what to do. It was weird to creep around the corner of a display, he knew that, but he didn’t exactly want to talk to the woman either. What would he even say? Besides, in the light of day, the girl looked more like her harsh, dismissive self rather than the mystical enchantress he had seen the previous night.

  Maybe she had a twin? One who was less… growly?

  The women moved down the aisle, and for a moment he was sure he would be caught, but they stopped in front of even more coffee. They seemed to be silently viewing the selection before Keiko cleared her throat.

  “So how are your brothers?”

  Even Benji could see how the Touhey girl visibly stiffened and Keiko quickly backpaddled. “You don’t have to answer that! I just—”

  “No, it’s okay. I know everyone is curious.” Suddenly the gruffness faded from the young woman’s voice while her shoulders slumped. She went from looking ready to hip-check someone to barely hanging on. “They’re uh, they’re doing as well as can be expected, I suppose.

  “They’re both in the best hospital in the city. The doctors have been keeping them medically sedated. Apparently—” Her breath hitched and Benji’s chest ached at how pained she sounded.

  He didn’t understand how this wounded, worried woman was hiding within the rude worker he had run into. Sure, he’d met plenty of standoffish people, but she had been beyond that.

  “Apparently th
ose kinds of burns are so painful that they can send them into shock and tank their health entirely.” She paused to breathe deeply and Keiko reached out to rest her hand on her friend’s shoulder.

  “You don’t have to keep going.”

  “N-no. It’s good. I should talk about it.”

  “What? The impervious Dani admitting that she might actually need help?”

  The Touhey girl—Dani—let out the weakest little chuckle that called upon every protective instinct Benji had in his body. “I know. The world must be ending.” She paused, her voice tremulous when she spoke again. “Or… at least it feels like mine is.”

  “Goodness, Dani,” Keiko said softly, pulling her shorter friend into a hug. “You’ve always been so stubborn about never showing anybody else you could possibly be human.”

  A snort sounded from the tight embrace. “Yeah, because people like to use your weaknesses against you. I thought we both learned that in high school.”

  “Fair enough.” They parted, and Keiko gently wiped Dani’s round face of her tears.

  Benji could see why Chastity talked so highly of her. The pale woman certainly seemed to have kindness down to her very bones.

  “But if you can’t trust most people, surely you could talk to your parents. They’re going through the same thing you are, after all.”

  “I know,” Dani sighed, pulling away and straightening herself. Just like that, the same impervious girl was standing there, shoulders straight and posture defensive. “But I feel guilty adding anything more to their plate. It’s my fault anyway—”

  “Hey, slow down there. I know you’re not about to try to blame yourself for the fire that a literal arsonist, a criminal set.”

  “Of course not,” Dani said with another snort. Now she sounded like the original image Benji had in his head. Good golly, this girl was a rollercoaster of an experience, even from twenty feet away. “But it’s my fault my brothers got hurt. I was just so stupid!”

  Dani’s tone was borderline malicious by the end and it seemed Keiko wasn’t having it. Immediately, both of her hands were on her friend’s thick shoulders.

  “Hold on there. That’s my friend you’re talking about. Now tell me why you think it’s your fault?”

  “Because it is.” Her voice wasn’t fragile now, barely clinging onto the edge before devolving into sobs. No, it was full of anger. Of barely checked rage. This woman ran the entire gambit of human emotions like no one else. It reminded him a bit of his brother, Bart, but more vehement. “I went into the barn to save all the animals. I couldn’t just let them burn, even if we had insurance. I could hear them screaming.

  “But I wasn’t strong enough. I… I couldn’t breathe. I think I might have fallen over and my brothers dragged me out. That should have been it, but I begged them to go back in. To save the goats. Stupid goats! Now my brothers are almost dead because I couldn’t remember the most basic rule of fire safety.”

  By the end of her speech, she was nearly shaking, and Benji suddenly felt so utterly guilty for every negative thought he had ever had about her.

  Dear Lord, he had really been a jerk, even if it was inside his own head.

  Suddenly her bandages and those burns made sense. As did her abrasive greeting. She was in so much pain, he could feel the deep, raw ache of her regret even from where he was standing. It wasn’t right. She had already been through so much.

  Keiko seemed just as stirred by the confession because she was hugging Dani again, both of them rocking gently. Well, Keiko rocked, Dani just stood there like a stone, but her shaking did slowly subside.

  Benji couldn’t really state how long the two of them stood there. People walked around them, giving the two women odd looks, but he busied himself with pretending to check out the endcap. When the two women did finally separate, they started their journey down the aisle again.

  He knew that he should go. That he was definitely wrong for all the eavesdropping he was doing, but hey… the two girls were in a public place. It wasn’t like he was on her personal property, skulking around in the middle of the night.

  No, that had been yesterday.

  Benji flushed at that and finally got the gumption to walk away. He was almost to his cart when he heard Keiko haltingly take another stab at having a conversation with Dani.

  “So, are you guys getting enough help on the ranch? I remember your Ma saying in church that it’s still gonna be a bit before the insurance is able to investigate and calculate everything.”

  “Yeah, they sure are taking their time about it. I just wish that so many people didn’t think that ‘helping’ meant giving us a casserole.”

  “Oh geez, that bad, huh?”

  “I don’t know if I would call it bad, per se. But definitely a lot of the same. Thankfully some people went above and beyond and got us food that didn’t involve being baked in cream. I think I spotted some ribs and some roasted chickens in there.”

  “That’s awesome! It’s only been three days, right? So, I’m sure people will be there with more.”

  “I’m not sure our fridge can handle any more. I wish people would be more into physical labor, but beggars can’t be choosers. And I know the eighty-year-old church ladies that have the most free time won’t exactly be up to moving all the debris that is cluttering up the main part of our barn. Well, what used to be our barn, I guess.”

  “What? You’re kidding me. No one has come to lend an actual hand on the ranch?”

  Benji waited, holding his breath to see if she was going to lie, but instead, Dani sighed.

  “The Millers have actually been pretty helpful.”

  “What? The Millers? Really? I mean, Ma Miller is the most generous woman I know, but I figured that you guys are kinda competition.”

  “Only barely. But yeah, she sent one of her sons over to help right away, and they’re going to send more workers after the weekend. They’re really going above and beyond when they didn’t have to.”

  Huh. So she was grateful. He never would have guessed based on how she had acted earlier. Then what gave?

  “Sounds like the Millers to me. So, which son did they send? I think Chastity would have told me if Ben was doing it, and as far as I know, Bart is working on coping with his PTSD. The youngest is still off squandering his money at casinos, so that leaves… either Benjamin or Bradley.”

  Dani let out a strange sort of huff. “Huh, you really know the Miller boys, don’t you?”

  “Well, I do listen when Chastity tells me stories. Besides, I went to school with them just like you.”

  “Well, technically we only went to school with three of them. But yeah. You weren’t really tormented like I was though.”

  “No. The benefit of being mostly invisible. But still, did any of the Millers bully you though?”

  Benji stood up straight at that. He never bullied anyone in high school. Sure, he and his brothers liked to roughhouse, but they had never bullied anyone. That would be one of the least Christian things to do—not that there weren’t plenty of Christians out there who seemed to have forgotten what “love thy neighbor” meant. Besides, Chastity hadn’t had the easiest time in middle school, coming up mixed and curvy as she was, so when Ben found out he’d gone on a whole anti-bullying campaign and stuck with it until they both graduated.

  “Well, the young one wasn’t exactly pleasant. But no, it’s not like they directly did anything. But I clearly remember that Benjamin one standing there, not intervening while Jessica fake complimented my outfit.”

  “Fake complimented?” Thankfully Keiko asked the question so Benji didn’t have to.

  He vaguely remembered a Jessica… potentially. She was a brunette with hair down to her waist, so she was always coming to him for new styles. They’d gone on a couple of dates, but he hadn’t really been interested in anything more. She wasn’t really his type.

  “You know, when a teenage girl tells you that she just looooves your outfit and wheeere did you get it? She knew darn well
that I was wearing my brothers’ old clothes. It didn’t make sense to waste money on stuff I would just ruin at the ranch anyway.”

  “Ah. Maybe he didn’t know?”

  “How could he not know. No laugh like that could ever be nice. And that was just how I met him. We went to school with those brothers for years and did any of them ever talk to us? Did any of them ever do anything but walk around and be popular?

  “No. They’re just a bunch of rich jokers who’ve never known what it was like to struggle. They looked down on all of us poor kids while rolling around in their brand-new trucks and designer clothes.”

  “I’m not sure,” Keiko said cautiously. “I seem to recall Bradley being fairly nice. He wasn’t the most social, but we were in math club together.”

  Dani laughed at that. “Of course, you were in math club.”

  “Hey, don’t resent me for actually trying to do extracurriculars.”

  “I couldn’t do extracurriculars and also help my family on the ranch. Sue me.”

  “I would, but I doubt that’d get me much.”

  “Hey, was that a poor joke?”

  “At least you can recognize a joke. Sometimes I worry that your sense of humor got lost somewhere in the pockets of those overalls you love so much.”

  “Ow. All right, Jessica. But still. All I’m saying is those guys rolled with the same people who bullied me. They never stopped anyone who bullied me. They never tried to talk to me or get to know me. As far as I am concerned, they are complicit.”

  Benji stood there, feeling like his character was being attacked. He didn’t remember that instance she was talking about… but that didn’t mean it had never happened. And he also didn’t ever remember really standing up to anyone. He mostly just ran with his brothers and their close circle of friends.

  …but that didn’t mean he was complicit, right? It wasn’t like he sat there and watched… did he?

  “I know high school wasn’t easy for any of us, but from what I know of the Millers, they’re nice people now. Maybe you should try cracking that door to friendship.”