Brothers of Miller Ranch Box Set

by Natalie Dean

  Bryant assumed that she was there for some sort of important ranch business, so he stepped to the side. He needed a moment to think anyway. He felt like he was asking himself a bunch of question he had never even thought he needed to ask and wondering things he had never wondered before.

  But all of that came to a screeching halt as Missy stormed right up to him and slapped him straight across the face.

  The woman’s biceps weren’t just for show, and Bryant’s head whipped to the side from the force of it. It hurt, but mostly it shocked him, and he looked at the blond incredulously.

  “How dare you!” she spat, finger in Bryant’s stinging face.

  While Bryant had never struck a woman in his entire life, he wondered if he was about to need to defend himself from a very angry in-law.

  Missy was right in his face. “Look, it’s one thing if you want to ruin your own life, but you have no right to treat Keiko like—”

  Her words were drowned out by the sound of another four-wheeler, and suddenly Bart was there too. His giant, muscled brother moved impossibly fast, getting between him and Missy and forcing her backward.

  “Hey, calm down, honey. Remember what you taught me? We solve things with our words, not violence. You know it’s not right to put your hands-on people in anger.”

  Missy let out a series of swear words that was impressive to even Bryant. He’d never seen the blond bombshell be anything other than happy and laughing, so it was like he was seeing a completely different side of her.

  A mean side. A violent side. A side that he brought out.

  “Come on, honey. Let’s go home. That baby rabbit is probably hungry. You can show me how to bottle feed her again.”

  Missy looked like she wanted to say more, and Bryant was reminded of how a mother coyote would look when defending her pups. The reason why Missy was so riled up was because she thought that he was a danger. A threat.

  Was she even wrong?

  He didn’t know. His first instinct was to dismiss her as crazy. As another Bible-thumping, brainwashed bumpkin that had already decided who and what he was before she ever met him.

  But then he thought of how Keiko looked at him when she had left their meal, how his every interaction with her was one that was supposed to get him something, like she was nothing more than a prize to be won, a thing to be used. He thought of the slight tremor in her hand and the pain written across her features.

  But his thoughts were cut off as Bart turned to look back over his shoulder, face in a snarl.

  “Stay away from her friend. You’ve done enough damage as it is.”

  His tone. That same condescending, reproachful tone that he’d heard since he was a kid, burst through the lines that he had been connecting and all of a sudden, all he could feel was anger. He didn’t deserve this; he didn’t deserve any of this. He’d come around to talk out some things that he needed to figure out with his one brother who would listen to him, not be attacked.

  The four-wheelers raced off, and Bryant stormed back towards his car. Bradley didn’t even try to stop him, just standing somewhere on that stupid trail, no doubt wondering what the hell had just happened.

  It took him longer than he would have liked to finally reach the lot that the workers used, but once he was there, he practically vaulted into his souped-up ride and peeled out of there. He didn’t care if he kicked up dust and dirt. He just needed to go.

  Was he a bad person?

  No. He just liked to have fun. They were all jealous because they were ruled by all these little rules from a stupid old book. Rules that they broke whenever they wanted to, judging by the stinging red mark on Bryant’s face.

  Whatever. He didn’t need them. He didn’t need Keiko. He had everything he needed, and he was perfectly content with his life.

  In fact, he was going to go enjoy himself a good time, something his family probably all wanted but would never allow themselves. Because, unlike them, he was free.

  11

  Keiko

  Her fingers ached as she cleaned the mirror in her bathroom for the fifth time. But it seemed no matter how many times she squeegeed it, there was always a thin line of film somewhere.

  She had to get it off. Film was dirty, and dirt was germy, and germs made her skin crawl to the point where she wanted to tear it off. She had to get rid of them, she had to—

  The handle of her cleaning tool broke, snapping her out of the spiral. She took a deep breath. She knew that she was stuck in a cleaning bender but couldn’t quite seem to get out.

  She’d gone over her apartment twice, and the only thing that had managed to slow her down was that she’d had to take all of her laundry to the laundromat down the street. But then she’d just ended up sweeping and mopping and wiping down the machines there, so that wasn’t exactly any sort of break.

  She was tired, and she just wanted to sit around and enjoy herself considering how stressful her life had recently become, but she couldn’t. She felt like she was teetering on the edge of the cliff and the only thing that was going to keep her from falling over the edge was to make sure that every single molecule of her apartment was spick and span.

  It was exhausting, but there was no reprieve. All of her coping mechanisms were coming up empty and her support was AWOL.

  Well, perhaps that wasn’t exactly accurate. It was just that Dani was still on her honeymoon. Keiko missed her terribly. Dani was always there to wind her down, or remind her to relax, or cook delicious food that she couldn’t resist. Dani also had just enough problems that Keiko would occasionally need to help her too, and aiding someone always made Keiko feel better.

  But it wasn’t like her whole world revolved around her best friend. She’d called her therapist as well to see if her office could schedule an emergency appointment. But unfortunately, the doctor was out with the flu and Keiko didn’t gel very well with the other therapist who worked in her office. And as if that wasn’t enough, they warned her that they might have to cancel Keiko’s Friday appointment as well.

  So she was mostly on her own. She supposed she could call her parents, but she knew what they would say. They would ask if she wanted to move back home. They would give her an out that would be so easy to take, but she knew she couldn’t. Part of her therapy was pushing herself to get out of the protective bubble she had built and learn to live on her own. And while her parents did always try their best, they were sometimes too enabling.

  Her pause allowed her mind to remember that she actually had a body to take care of, and it took a quick inventory of what was going on. Her hands ached from scrubbing, her fingertips were all dry and cracked from the harsh cleaning agents, her back hurt, and she was hungry.

  She was really, really hungry.

  When was the last time she had even eaten? Was it the day before? She had thought she had eaten breakfast, but now that she thought about it again, she’d been distracted by the need to sterilize her sink, then her counters, then wash all of her dishes.

  Geez, she was not in a good way. The only thing that wasn’t really going wrong was that she wasn’t giving in to her rituals, even though it was sorely tempting.

  Ugh. She shouldn’t have thought about that, because suddenly she felt like she needed to check the lock on the door. Had she locked it? She didn’t remember locking it.

  She should lock it.

  She took a hurried step toward it before clamping down hard on that thought. No. Food. She would take care of her needs, and then she could clean and check the door as much as she wanted.

  Keiko went to her small kitchen and looked over all the food. Suddenly, she was far too exhausted to cook anything, exhaustion filling her to the brim. If she tried to make something from scratch, she’d never actually make it.

  All right, so a full meal was out. Searching some more, she found a box of granola bars and grabbed one.

  The bar tasted like chalk in her mouth and went down like ash, but at least it was calories. If she recalled right, they were th
e ones that had extra protein, but she wasn’t willing to dig through the trash for the wrapper.

  But she did desperately need to brush her teeth. Rushing to the bathroom, she grabbed her supplies from where she kept them in the medicine cabinet and went about brushing her teeth.

  And then brushing her teeth again.

  Then again.

  No matter how much she scrubbed, she could still feel the crumbs along her gums. It was like little bugs all in her mouth and she wanted to scream.

  Where was her medicine? She had medicine for times like these. She should probably take it.

  But instead she kept on attacking her teeth. It was on her fifth round of brushing and gargling mouthwash, frustration so high that she felt like she could burst into tears at any moment, that a knock sounded on her door.

  Hearing the knock was like someone flipped a switch in her. She was able to set her toothbrush down and finally rinse her mouth. Crossing to the door, she resisted peeking out of the eyehole and unlocking then locking the door three times. Instead, she opened it up.

  Huh. She hadn’t expected for Bradley Miller to be there.

  “Hey there,” he said sheepishly. “Can I come in?”

  “Of course,” she answered, opening the door and forcing a friendly smile onto her face.

  This was good. She had a guest, which meant she didn’t have to concentrate on herself and instead, could think about being a good host.

  “Here, have a seat,” she said, stepping to the side. “I’ll put some tea on.”

  “Thanks, Keiko, that’s awful nice of you.”

  She nodded and hurried to her kitchen, going through the motions of brewing some loose-leaf. She chose one of her anxiety blends that was full of chamomile and other soothing things. Lord knew she could use them.

  It didn’t take long for the water to boil in her electric kettle and a few minutes later, she was bringing two mugs out into her small living room.

  “So, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

  When she thought about it, only Dani and Bryant had ever been in her home. Usually when she hung out with the Millers, she went to their place or to the city.

  The man flushed, and Keiko couldn’t help but wonder what was going on.

  “Uh, see, that’s the thing. I’m not quite sure this is the right thing to do, but I’m going off what I’ve been hearing from Sophia and everything else that’s happened and…” he trailed off, looking troubled.

  Keiko couldn’t help the sinking feeling in her stomach.

  “You can say whatever you need to say, Bradley.”

  “Well, it’s just that I was wondering if you would be able to check on my brother, Bryant. Because I’ve heard from Sophia that you two know each other, and right now… I guess I just feel like my brother needs something. Something my family isn’t giving him.”

  That was about the last thing that she had anticipated, and she sipped at her tea slowly. “And you think I have that thing?”

  “I don’t know, to be honest. But what I do know is that my brother is in more pain than anybody I know. He’s almost as bad as Bart was when he first came home.” Bradley shifted, licking his lips like he was trying to find the right words. “I know my brother has a rebellious streak a mile wide and real bad temper, but the thing is, at his heart he’s this kind, creative guy who just wants to make things and solve puzzles.

  “We didn’t have the easiest childhoods, ya know, always being compared to our brothers, but he definitely took it so much worse than me. And I don’t blame him, but I think all of that… resentment, I guess, let something dark take root in him and now he’s swallowed by it.”

  Keiko nodded, gleaning more information, feeling her brain shake off all the sticky webs of her spiral. “He didn’t fit in as a kid?”

  “Lord no. While Ben and Bart were wrestling calves, he wanted to play wizards and dragons dressed up in a curtain. When they were playing sports, he was drawing his own comics and joining a LARPing thing in the city. Even when Benji was doing really well in football and my family had kinda accepted my love of school musicals, he was the weird one who joined the Mathletes and mock-trail. He was always the odd one out. While I could kinda grab onto a sliver of likeness and I liked my solitude and time away from my brothers, I could tell that he just wanted to be accepted.”

  Keiko spoke up. “It hurts him, you know. To be rejected by your family. I know you all must mean well, but there’s a disconnect in your communication.”

  “I know. But a few days ago, Bryant actually came to me to ask for my advice. And you know what, I felt like he listened. He’s never done that before, and that made me wonder what could have changed. But then some… stuff happened, and I put two and two together, so I figured that maybe you might be able to help him.”

  Keiko couldn’t help it. Part of her pride perked up at the thought that someone she respected thought she could be of use.

  “Where is he now?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. But I figured you’d be able to figure it out. I remember how you always loved a good mystery.”

  “I do have a penchant for riddles,” she admitted pleasantly. Meanwhile, her head was whirring.

  Was she really in a good mental spot to help someone who had partially triggered a near-meltdown? It seemed that her hurt and his hurt could be too volatile together. It would probably be healthiest to call someone better equipped.

  “Why not go look for him yourself?”

  “You know how it is. A lot of times it’s the whole family vs. Bryant, so I don’t blame the youngest sibling for feeling ganged up on and not wanting to see any of us right now. He’s been ignoring my calls and texts for days.

  “As for a professional, I guess it’s mostly because I don’t really trust most of ’em, and I don’t want things leaking to the news. You know how people like to gossip.”

  She did indeed, especially about the Millers.

  “And you trust me?”

  “Of course. We’ve been friends for years. You’re one of the good ones, Keiko. You know that Chastity credits you with her and Ben managing to get together. And Dani n’ Benji too, for that matter. And right now, I’m pretty sure that Bryant needs a real friend.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure we’re not friends, but I’ll help. You can count on me, Bradley.”

  “Thanks, Keiko, I really appreciate it. You’re such a lifesaver.”

  She could only hope.

  12

  Keiko

  Keiko liked puzzles. She liked finding clues and stringing them together and making a solid picture. What she didn’t like was pouring through all of Bryant’s different social media pages, trying to find clues to where he could be.

  From what she could tell, he was two cities over, hopping around and having a wild time. She found pictures of him winning at a craps table, other shots of him at bars, and drunken tweets about parties he was going to attend.

  It was a Thursday, which was a pretty dead day for almost all events, so that was good. She could Google what sort of adult-related entertainment was going on and deduce from there. If she left now and drove, she could get there in about four hours, which would put her there about eleven pm at night.

  Not bad.

  She rushed to her car, making sure to grab another granola bar and a bottle of water, then she was heading to their one gas station in town.

  A thrill went through her. She always did enjoy a challenge, and she definitely was in the middle of one. This was serious, though. She had to remind herself that Bryant could potentially be in a bad situation and that his brother was counting on her to help.

  Oh well, at least it was a good distraction for her. She felt more in control. She was needed, she was wanted, and she was doing God’s work.

  Or at least she hoped she was. Lately, she felt like the connection between her and him was shakier than it normally was.

  Then again, the best thing to do when her certainty was waning was to pray, so she di
d just that as she drove along.

  She prayed for a lot of things. She prayed silently, and in song, and in just about every way she knew how. She asked for strength and for mental fortitude. She asked for grace and understanding.

  She prayed for Bryant, his family, and she prayed for herself.

  The truth was, she was still quite hurt at what he had said to her. So much of it hadn’t been true, but the thought that that was how she came across had shaken her to her core.

  Yes, she did have a very strict way of holding herself and interacting, but that was how she best managed her mental health. Yes, she had weird rituals with food, but she’d come such a long way since she would only let herself eat a handful of rice in a single day.

  All of her strange “quirks” were ways for her to survive. She hadn’t asked for the mental illnesses she had, and she refused to let them defeat her either. Just as someone might live with diabetes or fibromyalgia, there were certain things she needed to do to take care of herself that a completely healthy person might never have to think about.

  She wished that she had sat there and talked it out with him, explained to him why he was wrong, but the more he spoke, the more exhausted she had been until finally she just felt like an empty bag of bones that was too weak to do anything.

  So yeah, they would definitely need to talk about that, but that could come later. She understood that he was hurt, even deeper than she had guessed, and hurt people hurt other people. The reaction was a classic part of the human condition.

  And so, she drove. Out of the countryside, the rolling hills that she knew and loved. Out of the city where her library was, where she met with her therapist and worked through whatever she needed to work through.

  She drove without stopping, not even to use the restroom, until she finally arrived at the edge of the city that he was supposed to be in. Just in time too, because her tank was on empty and her bladder was on full.

  Keiko took care of both issues before pulling into a mall parking lot to do more social media sleuthing. From what she knew of Bryant, he was trying to handle whatever he was feeling by distracting himself until he was over it. And distractions required constant new stimuli, so he probably was going to a new place every night.