Page 26 of Bull Rush

“I don’t know why I asked.”

“You knew the answer and wanted the encouragement, I’m guessing.” She sets her phone aside to give me her full attention. “Like I said. I’m not judging. None of us would. I think even Marlowe would sign on to support it. But…”

“But?”

“Be careful with your heart you’re so sure of.”

“Says the woman who refuses to ever give hers away.” I pin her with a look of skepticism. She rolls her eyes and presses on.

“I’ve never seen anyone love each other the way you and Ramsey did. The way that boy loved you enough to tell Bo and the rest of your brothers to go to hell. The way you took care of him through everything…” Dakota looks me over thoughtfully as I hover in the doorway. “I’m just saying, I know how much it hurt you when he left.”

“I hurt him when I didn’t go with him,” I admit, because our marriage falling apart had been a mutual sort of thing. No one cheated. No one lied. The tragedies just mounted up so high we were hurting too much to see past them, and when push came to shove, he wanted to run, and I wanted to stay. He needed to start over fresh, and I couldn’t imagine leaving the only thing I ever knew.

“Well. I’m not blaming you for that. It meant I got to keep you.” Dakota gives me a small smile, and then it spreads. “All right. No more of this sad stuff. Back to plotting torture.”

ELEVEN

Ramsey

I resignmyself to doing the one thing I’ve been avoiding since I got here—seeing my family. My brothers, Grant and Levi, run the local casino hotel, The Avarice. It’s on family land that abuts the ranch. It was my grandfather’s, and then my uncle’s originally, then my dad’s when he died with no children, and finally, a shared venture between the eldest Stockton brothers. They’d taken a lot of liberties with it from what I’d seen on the website when curiosity got the best of me—modernizing the hotel rooms, adding a huge restaurant and rooftop pool, and even having entertainment in on the weekends.

Kit and the other staff at the inn told me it was becoming a bit of a thorn in the side of the town. Drawing business away from the inn and the other shops on main street during the day and dragging drunken hordes of tourists up into the bars for late night barhops—creating the perfect storm of misery for Purgatory Falls business owners and its small emergency servicesdepartment. The inn was suffering the worst of it. Many of the visitors who had once come up to stay were now more excited about the all-in-one resort options The Avarice offered. It had made my brothers less than popular with my wife and her friends, but I doubt they care when they count their millions at night.

The woman at the front desk is perplexed when I ask for their offices, insisting that they’re not available at first until I tell her I’m their younger brother. She then calls another assistant of theirs who gives me permission to take the elevators up to the top floor where their operations are. I’m given a code to punch in to allow me access to the upper floors, trying not to roll my eyes when I do it. Our family has always had money, but my father had been strict about keeping us tied firmly to the ground with our lifestyle and our expectations. I can’t imagine what he’d think of his sons living in a penthouse.

When I get out, it’s another maze of a hallway. One direction seemingly leading to residential quarters, and the other ushering me on to corporate offices. I follow the signs and pass through a couple of heavy mahogany doors into an office lobby. This one’s much smaller than the first but still grand. The woman offers up a bright white smile, letting me know she’ll take me to Mr. Stockton’s office in just a few moments. I don’t bother asking which one because, for my purposes, I’m not sure it matters.

Twenty minutes later,I’m finally in my brother Grant’s, office. The dramatic floor-to-ceiling window vista of the surrounding mountainside and valley is extra stunning today with the sun out, and the absence of clouds makes it look like the sky stretches to infinity. I almost forget togreet my brother until he leans back in his chair and makes a clicking sound in his throat.

“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal son…” He makes quick work of surveying me and raises a brow as if to ask what I’m here for.

“I won’t keep you long. Just thought I should come talk to you given I’ll be here for a while.”

“I’m not in a hurry. Work will still be here later. You should at least wait for Levi to get here. We can get some lunch down in the restaurant, or we can have it bought up here to the conference room if it’s a private conversation you need.”

“I don’t need both of you down my throat. One of you is plenty.”

“Sorry. Two for one deal when our baby brother finally decides to show his face.”

“Especially since he’s fresh out of prison.” Levi appears behind me and pulls me in to slap me on the back before he leans back again to give me the same surly once-over that Grant did. “Gonna have to tell us how that went.”

“It went as well as prison can go,” I answer tersely. I’m not sure what they’re hoping for, a rundown of the meal plan and laundry days, or just the opportunity to rub it in that they’ve done far more illegal shit than I could ever dream up, and I’m the one who ended up serving time. Which reminds me… “Just being here is a risk for me, so I’d like to keep this chat short.”

“You’re just visiting family.”

“From what I hear you haven’t been making a lot of friends here locally, and old habits die hard. I’m imagining those two things are going to converge eventually.”

“I don’t plan to do anything I’m not forced to do.” Lev leans back on a low bookcase pushed up against the windows and crosses his arms.

“Is that what you’re doing? Moving back to the ranch?”Grant’s looking at me like he might give me an award for being a clever bastard for moving in on my wife.

“I’m not moving back in. Just staying while I get through parole. It’s quiet. Safe. I’m hoping it keeps me out of trouble. Gives me a chance to get some closure on shit, grab my things… Just makes it easy all around, and I finally have time to get it done now that I’m not playing,” I lie, using the half-truths that Haze gave me to run with.

“You could have come here.” Grant almost looks hurt.

“You miss the part about staying out of trouble?”

“Now, it’s been what… five years? We’ve grown,” Lev says defensively.

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