Page 21 of Down in Flames

She muffled a laugh and discreetly hid her raised middle finger so the kids couldn’t see it, but West stopped her cold when he flicked a piece of cornsilk into her hair.

“Ugh! You’re so annoying.”

“I know you are, but what—”

“No.” She held up a hand, palm-out, and gave him her sternest look. “Just no. I get enough of that from the littles.”

He grinned, leaning back on the steps and watching as she fished the vegetation from her long brown hair. If Derek had been their de facto father growing up, Susan had played the role of second mother. Even now that they were all grown, she couldn’t stop clucking over her siblings. It came as no surprise when she couldn’t let the matter drop.

“I’m serious,” she said. “You’ve got no business walking in here looking like that and scaring Mom half to death. You should’ve stayed away until you healed up.”

“And miss Sunday dinner?” His eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “Last time I did that she sicced Derek on me. It was like being dragged home by a feral dog.”

Susan laughed and stood, scooping up discarded clothing and plastic toys on her way across the porch. But before she disappeared inside the house, she pointed toward a huge cloud of dust racing down the dirt road.

“Here comes Cujo now,” she said.

A classic F250 rocked through potholes and rolled to a stop beside the old, gnarled apple tree West’s great-grandpa had planted after getting home from the war. With a different owner, the truck might have been a showpiece, but Derek claimed he never had time to restore it properly. The thick red and white stripes had peeled almost completely away, revealing the rusted skeleton beneath. The windshield was covered in dust, and the oversized tires were caked with red clay. It was a truck made to work, not one that sat around under a tarp in a climate-controlled garage. Ratchet as it was, it was still the best thing in Derek’s life.

His oldest brother ignored the children playing in the yard, cutting through the sprinkler like he didn’t even feel it. The kids watched him curiously, but they didn’t jump all over him the way they did when West or their middle brother James showed up. Nothing in Derek’s body language invited familiarity. He was more like a statue carved from raw, jagged sandstone than a man of flesh and blood. In a family with only middling looks at best, he’d drawn the short end of the stick. His face looked like it had been hammered into all raw edges, and his permanent scowl didn’t help. His tight black T-shirt was sweat-soaked and splattered with mud, and the deep color in his cheeks was a sign of a long, hard day working in the sun.

“You’re back,” he said, sounding like he’d tasted something sour, as if he hadn't been all over West's ass about rushing home.

“What’s that?” West asked, pointing with a half-shucked cob toward the mottled fluff of fur tucked under his arm. “Is that a puppy?”

“Found her in a crate of busted car parts someone left outside the scrap yard,” Derek said gruffly, shifting his squirming bundle. “What happened to your face?”

West tugged on his ballcap, pulling the brim low to shade his bruises. “Forgot to duck when we were unloading,” he muttered.

“Clumsy.”

“Yeah, that’s me.” He viciously ripped the covering off another ear of corn and set it in the paper bag at his feet.

Derek watched him silently, eyes narrowed in that particular way he had when that giant brain of his was processing information on a level ten times higher than any normal person. If life had been kinder, he could have turned that formidable intellect to curing cancer or sending rockets to the moon instead of wasting himself fixing up cars and machinery for cheap out at the scrap yard. He was the poster boy for small-town wasted dreams.

Sometimes it hurt just to look at him.

“Word’s been getting around that Gus is looking to retire soon,” Derek said. “You’re the one he’s going to want to take over, but you’ve been stacking injuries ever since he put you on a full delivery schedule. If you can’t do the job, you need to tell him now.”

“I can do it fine.”

“That broken nose says different.”

West shrugged. He’d given up trying to prove himself a long time ago. Derek had always resented him for his weakness, but he was also the one to most aggressively insist that West stay in his lane.

West had always told himself that he kept the rodeos a secret so he didn’t terrorize his mother, and that was true enough, but if he were honest with himself, he had another reason. Somewhere deep down, he still held onto a little scrap of hope that it proved he was just as tough as the rest of the men in his family, and he could keep hanging onto that delusion so long as he never saw the looks on their faces if they discovered his secret.

Derek brushed past him without another word, climbing the porch in two quick steps, but he paused with one hand on the screen when he heard the agitated voices inside.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you,” West warned.

His brother cocked his head, listening, then he closed his eyes and banged his forehead against the warped frame. “You did that to them, didn’t you?”

“I ain’t the only one here, brother,” West reminded him through clenched teeth.

“You’re the only one who matters.” It wasn’t a compliment. Derek considered him for a moment before jibing, “What happened? They catch you watching gay porn again?”

“I never told them how I found out about that website, did I?” West shot back.

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