The Hot Brother (Romance Love Story) (Hargrave Brothers - Book #5)

by Alexa Davis

I smiled and leaned toward her. “I assumed it was possible. I just never thought I’d see it.”

  She leaned forward and smacked my leg, then sat back with a gasp and stared at me wide-eyed. “Did I hurt you?”

  I shook my head. The truth was, it hurt a lot. But not because of the surgery or the nerves that had been damaged. I’d been working so hard on trying to walk again, my legs ached like every day was leg day at the gym, and I was simply dealing with the normal muscle aches of pushing too hard. Only, too hard was a simple matter of standing without using handrails or taking fifty steps on a treadmill at one mile per hour.

  I hated every second of the work I did. Not because it was difficult, but because every moment that I spent unable to complete routine everyday tasks was a reminder that I was a failure. Add to that a couple of sanctimonious men who had to explain my shortcomings at every group therapy session, and I was beginning to wonder if I couldn’t do better on the outside.

  “I need to get better. I’ll never walk without aid. The damage is too extensive. But I’d be happy to walk with a cane if it meant I was walking at all.”

  “You look like you are a lot better to me. What does Logan think?” she asked then cringed as I felt flames lick at my cheeks.

  “He’s gone, apparently dating an actress, and we’re never going to speak of him again.”

  Something flashed across her face, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she told me that since she’d started therapy, she’d signed up for a dating site and was trading emails with a nice family attorney in Austin, but she kept putting off meeting him because she’d decided that disappointment was her lot in life.

  “I’m glad I’m talking to someone one on one now,” she admitted finally.

  “You mean, from the dating site?”

  “No, in therapy. I finally started talking to someone. Let’s just say, my personal idea of a victim was called into question.”

  “So, you don’t see yourself as a victim of my cancer anymore?” I quipped, arching one eyebrow at her.

  “No, I see everyone who loves you as a victim of your cancer. I just stopped pretending I don’t blame you for having it.” She laced her fingers in her lap and I gaped at her.

  “Well, this was a nice visit. Really, glad you stopped by. I like your new, happy look. It suits you,” I rambled as I got into my wheelchair and wheeled myself to the door to open it for her.

  “Don’t be like that. No one is more a victim of the cancer than you. That’s what I needed to remember. That no matter how much I was hurting because you were sick or how painful it was to watch you suffer, my pain would never be more than a shadow of yours. If you could suck it up, I had no choice but to do the same.” She closed the door and waited for me to move back to the bed.

  “Well, let me know when you get to the point of being the good example, instead of recognizing you should follow mine, and we’ll throw you a party.”

  “You’re angry that I’m finally happy and I’m in a good place.”

  “I’m angry that you crapped on me for my whole life, and now suddenly, you’re better, and you don’t even feel the need to make restitution to the person you hurt the most. You finally figured out how you sabotage your own life; well, bully for you. What about the child whose life you ruined repeatedly?” I scrubbed my face with my hands and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Where’s my apology?”

  “Obviously, I never meant to harm you.” I saw the mother I knew and mistrusted glaring out at me from those eyes as she whined.

  “It doesn’t matter if that’s what you meant to do, Mom. When you hurt someone, you say, ‘I’m sorry I hurt you.’ It’s a simple thing, but it matters.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “And the times you hurt me?”

  “When did I ever do anything to hurt you, Mom?”

  “You never call.”

  “That’s self-preservation. But I’m sorry that it upsets you. If we ever have a relationship that doesn’t center around you blaming me for everything bad that ever happened in your life, I promise, I’ll call you all the time. I want a mom, just like everybody else. But I’m the child in our relationship. You’re supposed to be the grownup.”

  She stared at me for a long time, but she didn’t seem to look at me, so much as through me. I watched the gears tick in her head the way they’d done or my whole life, and I finally realized she was really thinking about what I’d said. My legs ached and screamed for my bed, but I held out for a few minutes, hoping if I didn’t argue with her or interrupt, we could end the visit on good terms.

  “I know you’ve sold your place and packed everything into storage. But I’d like you to come stay with me. I’ll get your stuff out of your old room and move up there, and you can stay in the bedroom on the main floor.”

  I gaped at her and frowned. “You think we’ll get along?” I asked, torn between hopeful relief and cynicism about our ability to cohabitate.

  “You won’t be there forever. I need the chance to be your mom again. I miss being there for you.” She sniffled and reached out for my hand.

  “You were always at your best when I needed you the most. When I was the sickest, at my weakest, you were always Wonder Woman.” I sighed. “I wanted to be with Logan, Mom. I miss him.”

  She came over to the wheelchair and wrapped her arms around me. Her thin frame felt frail against all the new muscle I’d gained in rehab, but her embrace launched me back into my memories to the day we found out I was cancer free. She’d wrapped those thin arms around me and cried in deep, racking sobs into the top of my head until my hair was soaked in her tears.

  “We don’t always get along,” she sniffed, kissing my hair, “but I will never leave you.”

  I pulled her down in front of me so I could see her face, and she fell into my lap with a thump. I groaned as my legs complained, then laughed and held her there. She startled, eyes wide, then laughed with me, loud enough that a nurse came to check on us.

  “Just a little role reversal, Darlene, we’re good.”

  Mom braced herself on the arms of the chair and lifted her butt off me. “I’ll come back whenever you want,” she reassured me after checking her watch. “I’m really glad you’re still with us. I don’t care about anything else.” She leaned in and kissed me goodbye, then left with me with my thoughts.

  I knew she would still be the same old Juliette most days, harping on my tiniest flaws and handing me responsibility for her happiness, or lack thereof. But, in a way, I was glad I’d gotten sick again. For the first time, my mother had admitted that her way wasn’t working and reached out for help, instead of using me as her crutch. I’d thought Logan’s promise to be waiting for me was my silver lining to being in this place. But, maybe, I’d found something better in the one person who had stuck with me through my journey, for better or worse. After all, romance wasn’t everything.

  29. Logan

  I stripped off my clothes and climbed into the shower, grateful to be back on the ranch with my family for a few days before I took off again. I’d been in ten countries in less than a month and had finally reached a point I never thought I’d see. I was sick of my job. I loved the art I’d created, and the landscapes and people I’d captured for posterity. But my hands cramped when I held my Nikon up to my face. I was sick of glad-handing celebrities who had zero fucks to give about anything I believed in, who gushed about how I inspired them and clung to me like burrs until the paparazzi went away. Once the lights weren’t on me anymore, all those soulless beauties disappeared like smoke, and I was all too grateful to see them go, now more than ever.

  The hot water poured over my neck and back, washing off the travel dust and loosening the knots in my shoulders and back. Heidi had stopped answering my messages when I was somewhere between Pakistan and Morocco, but Juliette had let me know her daughter was moving in with her, rather than pay for a place, while she got back on her feet. The truce between Juliette and I was tenuous, to say the least, but she knew that her daughter’s lon
g-term happiness was my primary concern.

  For that, I had a plan in motion. Now, I needed to have the patience to let Heidi make her choices and faith that they would lead back to me.

  Hard banging on the bathroom door brought me out of my thoughts with a curse.

  “I almost broke my hip in here, Danny. What do you want?”

  “It’s George, not Danny, and what I want is your skinny white ass in the saddle in ten, y’hear?”

  “For your information, my ass got a lot of sun in Egypt. No tan lines.” I wrapped a bath sheet around my waist and threw the door open with a jerk, grinning as George cursed and looked away. “What, are you afraid of that my awesome tan will put your lumpy dad bod to shame?”

  He scoffed, and I threw my towel at him, sauntering to my closet naked while he swore at me again. I tugged on some Wranglers and my boots and emerged from the closet with my t-shirt half on, peering out the neck hole to see if George was still by the bedroom door.

  “Are you coming, man?” he asked, and pushed the towel across the floor with the top of his cane. He saw me looking at the carved wood and lifted it toward me. “My buddy does great work. We could probably come up with something that looked like a flower, or with like, trees and vines up the shaft for your girl, if she gets that far.”

  I nodded and sighed. “Yeah. Something that looks like birds and flowers in a tree would be cool.” I slid my belt through the loops and cinched it up. “However, since she’s stopped taking my calls or returning my texts, I’ll leave that between you and her.”

  “She’s going through stuff. You know how it is.” He clapped me on the back, and we headed out through the quiet house toward the stables. In the distance, I could hear Patty moving around in the kitchen, taking care of the herculean task of feeding a couple dozen ranch hands plus the family. Every day, she put two meals on the big table for us, and though I thought it would be the worst part of her job, she seemed to love feeding us all.

  I couldn’t hear my parents, but if they weren’t out riding the fences or spending time with their new race horses and Pete Call, our horse master, then they’d be in the office, looking over Danny’s shoulders as he took over running the ranch. They’d handed the business over to him almost five years before, but neither of them could completely let go, and Danny had the patience of a saint.

  It was good that he did, too, because I’d spent the last few weeks emailing him every chance I got about what I needed to do to own land and not starve to death. It was Heidi’s dream, but the more I thought about it, the more I loved the idea of creating the same kind of place I’d grown up in, but for my own children and grandchildren.

  I glanced in the office on our way out the door, and there were my parents, heads close together, muttering as they stared at the computer screen. I nudged George and nodded toward the open doorway.

  “Oh, boy, we should probably let Danny know they’re at it again. He’s getting the horses saddled up.” George limped down the stairs, and I looked out over the sprawling lawn that stood between the main house and the ranchhands’ quarters. Trees created a natural barrier between the house and the winding drive that led up to the property, and the flower-lined circular drive made the massive log house look even more majestic.

  I took a deep breath of air that was uncorrupted by city life and traffic, and smelled the fragrant magnolias from my mother’s garden on the breeze. Danny and Rachel and their children would one day be the sole residents of Lago Colina. As far as I knew, the rest of my brothers were as happy with the arrangement as I was. The land belonged to all of us, but as much as I loved my brothers, I couldn’t imagine having one of them banging on my bathroom door whenever they wanted or gathering around the big table with my family and the ranch hands every morning and evening.

  This land was worth more to me by giving it up to my brothers than it was to hold onto. I’d taken a parcel to help George start his construction business. I’d already talked to Tucker, and was about to make an offer to George and Danny based on his suggestions. I jogged to catch up to George and settled into an easy pace next to him.

  The smell of the stables and the bustle of the trainers hit me simultaneously as we came around the corner. Our longtime horse master, Pete, was waiting with Danny, and I got a huge one-armed hug from my old friend as he handed me the reins to my big docile buddy, a chestnut stallion named Dudley. When he was a foal, he’d let the other foals eat before him, watching over them like the herd leader he would one day become.

  I scratched his big head, and he hung his face over my shoulder so I could rub down the sides of his neck and give him a big hug, too. He sniffed around my pockets, looking for treats, and Danny tossed me a carrot for him to munch on while we walked out to the exercise pen. I watched George pull himself up into the saddle and took note of how he used his legs. The saddle he left here for riding was specially designed to accommodate his bad leg, and the stirrup on his weak side had a quick release cuff that wrapped around his ankle so his leg wouldn’t slip out.

  He saw me watching and twisted his foot, unlocking the stirrup and releasing his foot. He slid it back in and I heard the click as it locked in place. “It’s based on the pedals that cyclists use. It won’t hang me up if, say Dolly here bolted at a snake and somehow managed to buck me. The leg would come loose as soon as my foot twisted, and I’d be free.” He snapped it out and back into place with that same ease a couple more times.

  I nodded, thinking. “Just keeping things in mind.”

  “I know. Tucker called and suggested that we ambush you, since you took off so fast for your whirlwind trip around the world, you didn’t get a chance to talk to us about your plans before you left.”

  “Well, as I’ve learned, I’ve got all kinds of time,” I replied. “Heidi’s still ignoring my attempts to get in touch with her and having to use Juliette as a go-between is chaffing.”

  Danny threw back his head and laughed. “All those women who would never tell you no, and you want the one who lost interest the moment you walked away.”

  “I didn’t walk away,” I snapped. “She asked for space, and I gave it to her. Then, suddenly, she changed her mind.”

  “It was probably all that publicity you had with what’s-her-face, the scream queen,” George suggested.

  I pulled Dudley up to a stop, gaping at him. “The publicity for the fundraiser for the World Wildlife Fund?” I asked, confused. I never paid attention to the image the media painted of me. I wanted my work to be remembered, not me.

  “No, the Entertainment Weekly articles and viral videos where your little friend tells the world that the two of you are ‘very close,’ which implies…” George left the sentence hanging in the space between us.

  Danny shrugged, a sympathetic look on his face.

  “That implies I’m sleeping with her. Gross.” I urged Dudley into a trot, eager to get out into the wild and leave the lying, backstabbing, selfish world behind.

  “Hey, it could be worse, Logan. You actually could be sleeping with her. It would seem to me that would be a whole lot harder to come back from.” Danny pulled up next to me and grabbed my reins. “Look around you. Isn’t this beautiful? This view is why I asked for this parcel, back when Dad brought us all out here.”

  I looked out over the valley and breathed the fresh air in deep. It was beautiful. The hill was just high enough that you could see over almost all of Lago Colina from that point. Far below, trees lined the big lake, and the house and outbuildings looked like miniatures on a thick green carpet, with dividing lines of the fresh red bark that had been laid twice a year for as long as I could remember.

  I turned toward the sun and looked out at my remaining parcel of land. It was heavily forested and not much use for grazing, but the cattle and the mustangs appreciated the cool shade of the trees in the heat of summer, and there were animal paths that led to swimmable lake shallows. Some of my first photos of wildlife had been the mocking jays and pheasants I found in the forest w
hen I ran around alone in my free time as a kid.

  “I’ll sell that land back to you at half market value. Tucker’s agreed to it, Jackson thinks he can manage it, which leaves the two of you.”

  “I can’t agree to that, Logan.” George looked out over the valley and pointed toward the wild mustangs we’d adopted to save them from culling. “Remember when we got that herd?”

  “Yeah, Logan cried for a week.” Danny laughed.

  “It was my first hunger strike,” I recalled. “I’d forgotten that those guys being here was my fault.”

  “Well, they’re your mustangs. We’d have to buy them, too.”

  I glanced at Danny, then at George. “I’ll find them a new home. I’m not asking for more than is fair.”

  “No, Logan, you’re asking for a whole lot less,” Danny snapped. “We’re not charity cases, Logan. We’ll pay the full price for the remaining land and buy eighty-seven mustangs off your hands. It should be more than enough to start the next phase of your life. Now all you have to worry about is getting that girl of yours to remember that you can’t believe hardly anything you read in the tabloids, even if they’re online.”

  The breeze picked up and blew my hair back from my face, reminding me that I’d been meaning to get a haircut. I’d held off because Heidi liked it long. There were a lot of things I’d started doing because Heidi liked them. I had grown up loving the land my father had saved for us. With Heidi, I saw a future where I could do the same for my own future children.

  “Danny, I’m selling the land, not the horses. I want at least twenty head to take with me.”

  Danny nodded and reached across his saddle. I shook it, and a deal was struck. All that was left was to get the girl.

  30. Heidi

  I left the hospital once I graduated from my wheelchair to a walker. It was ugly, and it made me feel like I belonged in the geriatric ward, but I was walking. That was all I needed. Or at least that’s what I told myself a thousand times a day. Callie had found me at my mother’s place and brought me Hope. Mom hated having a dog around, for at least the first thirty seconds. After that, no matter where Mom sat down, Hope was instantly in her lap, snuggling in for kisses from her “grandma.”