SWNOVELS Downpour: Chapter 23
“Morning, beautiful,” I murmured, tipping my chin down and pressing a kiss to the top of Brooke’s head.
She yawned and burrowed into my side. “Is it morning already?”
I chuckled. “It was morning when we went to bed.”
“That’s your fault,” she mumbled into my chest. Her brows creased. Morning was the only time Brooke was remotely unpleasant. Even then, she wasn’t ill-tempered. It just took her more than a few minutes to wake up.
It was pretty fucking cute.
“Pretty sure you were the one begging me to keep going,” I said, slipping my hand up the shirt she had stolen from my bag to sleep in. I grazed her ribs. “Something like, ‘Please, daddy, fuck me harder.’”
I chuckled as she groaned and buried her face in the covers.
“Oh, God.”
“Yeah, you said that too. A lot.”
“Stop teasing me. People say way weirder stuff than that during sex.”
I brushed her hair away from her face and peeled the covers back so she couldn’t hide from me. “Hey, you don’t have to be embarrassed around me. Okay? I liked it—a lot. You liked it. What’s there to be bashful about?”
Her eyelids fluttered shut. “Promise?”
I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Promise.”
We dragged ourselves out of bed, packed up, and loaded into the truck for the drive back to the ranch. It wasn’t until Brooke pulled the truck through the property gates that I let go of her hand.
“So, did you have fun?” she asked, turning down the dirt road that circled the barns.
“Yeah. I, uh… I did.”
Brooke beamed, and damn it—I grinned back.
“Thanks for suggesting it,” I said. “It’s not something I’ve really thought about since I came back here. Leaving, I mean.”
Her smile was infectious. “It’s kinda lame to do a spontaneous trip by yourself. Way better with a friend.”
Something stung me when she said that. Brooke wasn’t my friend. I didn’t want her to be.
As much as I wanted to force myself to believe that I didn’t want more, I wanted more.
But wants and wishes didn’t miraculously give me more to give her.
A figure was sitting on my front steps when Brooke pulled through my grove of trees.
Her smile grew. “I haven’t seen your mom in forever.”
Sure enough, my mom sat on the front steps, holding a pan covered in tin foil.
She stood when Brooke parked the truck and hopped out. Instead of getting out, I sat and watched.
Brooke threw her arms around my mom and gave her the biggest, tightest hug. My mom’s eyes crinkled at the corners as she hugged her back. Brooke hurried back to the bed of the truck to get my wheelchair out. I popped my door open and lowered down.
“Hey, mom,” I said, releasing the brake and pushing the wheels backward to shut the truck door.
She dabbed her eyes on the shoulder of her t-shirt. “Hey, honey.” A heavy breath escaped her lungs. “Wow. I haven’t ever seen you get out of a car that fast. You’re looking good.”
“I’ll let y’all catch up,” Brooke said, grabbing our overnight bags out of the back.
“Here, sweetheart,” Mom said to Brooke. “I started baking and just couldn’t stop. Thought you all might enjoy some banana bread.”
Brooke peeked under the foil. “Oh my god, this looks amazing. Can you teach me how to make it?”
Mom’s cheeks turned pink. “Well, of course. Just come up to the house anytime. I’d love to spend some time with you.”
Brooke threw her arms around my mom’s shoulders again. “Thanks, Momma. I can’t wait!”
Mom gave me a pleased smile and a knowing look as Brooke made her way up the ramp with our things.
“Seems like you two are getting along.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I like her. I hope she sticks around.”
Yeah, I did too.
“Where were you two off to?” She checked the time. “I thought you’d be home since you don’t have PT until this afternoon.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “We, uh… We got out of town for the night. Went to see a band play in Maren.”
Worry flashed across her face, but it quickly turned into surprise. “Oh. Well, that’s good. I’m glad you got out and had some fun.” She squeezed my shoulder. “And Brooke was with you?”
I looked at the sky and let out a wry laugh. “Don’t overthink it, momma.”
“I’m not overthinking anything.” She smirked and raised her hands in defense. “It’s written in plain ink, honey.”
“Momma—“
She chuckled and patted my shoulder. “Holler if you need anything.”
I opened my mouth, but froze when I heard Brooke call out.
“Ray?” Panic flooded her voice. I had never heard her sound scared before.
I turned around and rushed up the ramp like my wheels were on fire. Mom’s footsteps thumped up the wooden slats behind me. As soon as I rolled over the threshold, I stopped and looked around.
Brooke stood frozen in the kitchen. My house was in shambles.
Cabinets were open. Couch cushions were askew. Every bedroom and closet door was wide open. Dresser drawers were pulled out.
The strange thing was that my TV was still mounted to the wall and my laptop was sitting on the coffee table, right out in the open.
There were no signs of forced entry. Then again, I couldn’t remember if I had locked the door.
I had stopped locking up when people stopped dropping by unannounced, thanks to Brooke. Frankly, nobody on the ranch bothered to lock anything. Not houses. Not vehicles. Not sheds or warehouses.
But we were entering a different era. It wasn’t just our family and ranch hands on this land anymore. There were droves of people coming in and out of the gates every day to work on the revitalization projects.
If it wasn’t construction crews, it was the renewable energy company or cell company leasing part of the land. If it wasn’t them, it was investors, inspectors, and nosy folks.
We had fences surrounding the property, but they were meant to keep cattle in, not to keep people out.
“Don’t touch anything,” I said as I came up behind her, taking the banana bread out of Brooke’s hands and setting it on the kitchen counter. “Come on.”
Our overnight bags landed with a thump.
“I’m calling the police,” Mom said from the door.
I steered with one hand, keeping the other on the small of Brooke’s back, leading her out to the deck.
“Breathe,” I said to Brooke while half-listening to my mom on her cell phone.
Brooke nodded, but she was still shaken.
“Hey,” I said, pulling her down onto my lap. “You’re okay. I’m okay. It’s creepy as fuck, but we’re fine. It’s probably good that we were gone.”
Brooke swallowed and stammered until she finally found her words. “You brought your pill organizer to the motel, not the prescription bottles, right?”
I cocked my head. “Right…”
She let out a shaken breath. “The prescription bottles you keep on the kitchen counter are gone.”
I froze. “What?”
Brooke nodded. “All of them.”
Some of the pills I kept on hand wouldn’t be worth much, but there were a few narcotics that would probably fetch a good price on the street. And those had just been refilled.
“Okay.”
“It-it’s not,” she whimpered.
I cupped her cheeks. “Baby, breathe for me. It’s fine. I’ll call the doc and get him to send in new prescriptions. The cops will come out and check it out and write up a report. We’ll start locking up, and I’ll order one of those doorbell cameras. It’s going to be okay.”
“Drugs going missing… I could lose my job,” she whispered.
“They didn’t go missing. They were stolen. A police report will prove that. Besides, you were with me the whole time, and there’s a lot of witnesses who can place you at the bar—“
“—Yeah, riding a fucking bull with my tits out in front of my boss before we went back to a motel and fucked like rabbits,” she hissed.
I grinned. “It was a pretty great night.”
Brooke was grinding her teeth down to nothing, so I wrapped my arms around her and let her tuck her head into my shoulder.
“You’re not getting fired today, Sunnyside,” I murmured as I rubbed her back.
Brooke leaned back and wiped her eyes as she crawled off my lap. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t have done that in front of your mom.”
“She knows.”
“I’m sorry—she knows what?”
I shrugged. “Momma knows everything.”
It wasn’t long before cop cars flooded the ranch. Half of the officers combed through my house, while the other half questioned every living being on the ranch.
I wasn’t surprised when my brothers and their women showed up on my lawn. Blue lights had a way of doing that.
Brooke and I were sitting on the deck, finishing up talking to an officer when Christian burst through the back door. “Y’all alright?”
I kept my hand on Brooke’s back. “We’re fine. You didn’t have to come down here.” I could hear Cassandra yelling at people from inside my house. I sighed. “Tell her to leave the cops alone.”
Christian chuckled. “You tell her.”
“Hell no. I’m not stupid.”
His gaze shifted to Brooke. “You okay, sweetheart?”
Brooke leaned closer into my arm. “Just fine. Thanks.”
For Brooke to say she was ‘fine’ was a red flag. Not once in her life had she ever been fine. ‘Fine’ for her was probably close to rock bottom.
“Uncle Ray!” Gracie, Christian’s youngest, darted through the house and threw her arms around me.
Tears welled up in my eyes.
I’d been a dick to them after my accident, and I knew I had some groveling to do. But honestly, I didn’t even know where to start.
“Hey, squirt.” I squeezed her tight. “You came all the way down here just to see me?”
Gracie wiped her eyes. She looked so much older. Like a young lady, rather than the kid I remembered. “We came to see you a lot. You wouldn’t let us in.”
I sighed. “I know, kid. I’m sorry.”
She hugged me again. “Can we hang out when the cops are done?”
I glanced at the time. “I’ve gotta head into town for physical therapy in a little bit. But how about you and Bree come down tomorrow? I’ll be here all day.”
Gracie chewed on her lip. “I don’t know if Bree wants to.”
I peered through the open sliding glass door and spotted Bree pressed to Cassandra’s side as they talked to my mom. “I’ve got some apologizing to do, don’t I?”
Gracie nodded. “Yeah. You should probably apologize with presents.”
I chuckled. “You got it, munchkin.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m thirteen.”
“Yeah, I need to yell at your management. I specifically told them not to let you become a teenager.”
Gracie hitched her thumb over her shoulder at Christian and Cassandra. “You’ll have to take it up with dad and my evil stepmother.”
Nate, Becks, and their toddler, Charlotte, arrived on my deck.
“Have you seen the tire swing your Uncle Ray put up?” Brooke asked Gracie.
“No?” Gracie popped up on her tiptoes, then smiled. “Can it hold me?”
I chuckled. “Your dad gave it a test ride. Go crazy.”
“I’ll go with you,” Brooke said to Gracie. “I love tire swings.”
Bree slipped out the sliding door and hurried past me without so much as a hello before joining Gracie and Brooke at the tire swing. Charlotte had wiggled out of Becks’s arms and waddled over to her cousins.
I watched as Charlotte reached up to Brooke with gimme-hands. Brooke scooped her up and propped her on her hip while Gracie jumped on the tire swing.
My heart knotted in my chest. Goddamn, she looked so natural at it.
“I know that look,” Nate said as he and Becks settled in the chairs across from me.
I pulled my attention away from Brooke. “Shut up.”
“Oh good. We’re teasing Ray about his little crush. I thought I was going to have to be the one to bring it up,” Cassandra said as she stepped out to join the group.
“Are you done harassing public servants?” I asked.
Christian chuckled.
CJ joined us on the deck. “What the hell happened?”
“Someone broke into my house and stole my pills. We think it was Brooke’s roommate.”
CJ cracked his knuckles and turned to head out. “Give me an hour.”
Christian grabbed the back of his collar and forced him to stay put. “Don’t go and do something stupid just because you’re itching to punch someone. You don’t get to lose your shit.”
CJ was seething. I could see it in his eyes.
Where Christian and I shared our dad’s dark hair and eyes, Nate and CJ favored our mom. Unfortunately, Christian was the only one out of the four of us who had a lick of their patience. That usually meant he was the one keeping the three of us out of trouble.
Cassandra looked around. “Well? Are you going to tell me their names or not? I’ll have this wrapped up before the cops can get off the property.”
I huffed. “Let the fucking cops do their job. Jesus, you people are insane. Between you and CJ, people are starting to think we’re the cowboy mafia or some shit. I’m fine. Brooke’s fine. She’s a little shaken up, but fine. Nothing else was taken. We weren’t even here when it happened.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about that,” Becks said with a nefarious grin.
“Let’s not,” I countered. “You’re a journalist. I’m not talking to you.”
Becks scoffed. “You guys are no fun. Who told you not to talk to journalists?”
“A really annoying publicist who likes to show up in my kitchen and throw mail at me.”
Cassandra smirked.
“Seriously. Where’d you guys go?” Becks asked. “I saw your truck leave yesterday and didn’t think anything of it until you didn’t come back.”
I knew they wouldn’t leave it alone, so I decided to throw them a bone. “Got out of town for a change of scenery. Went out to that bar in Maren and listened to some music.”
“Wait.” CJ’s eyes lifted to Brooke, who was now on the tire swing with Charlotte safely perched between her legs. “You took her to The Silver Spur?”
“Get that picture out of your mind before I beat it out of you,” I growled.
CJ raised his hands in surrender.
Nate and Christian tried to hide their guilty smirks. Before Cassandra knocked Christian on his ass, he made plenty of trips out there to blow off some steam. Nate, not so much. But he knew what went on at the bar.
Becks and Cass exchanged a look that was loaded with telepathic thoughts.
I hated that.
“Whatever you two are thinking, stop,” I said.
Becks looked innocent. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Cassandra inspected her manicure. “We’re gonna kidnap your girlfriend this weekend. Deal with it.”
“Leave her alone.”
“Saturdays are her day off, right?” Becks said with a smirk.
“Yeah,” Cassandra chimed in. “You can deal with not fucking your employee for a few hours.”
Christian broke out into an involuntary cough to hide his discomfort.
Nate pointed between Chris and me. “Pot, let me introduce you to kettle.”
I pointed at him. “You fucked Becks when you were deployed. Together.”
Becks pointed back at me. “Technically, I didn’t work for Nathan. We were embedded together. Not deployed together.”
“Am I the only one not fucking someone I work with?” CJ asked.
“You work with cattle. I’d be concerned if you were fucking them,” Cassandra said.
“Glad you’re fine. I need to get laid,” CJ grumbled as he stomped out.
Christian took a seat, and Cassandra slid onto his lap. “Did y’all have a good time?” he asked.
I was distracted by Brooke again, watching her laugh with my nieces, and barely heard him. “Yeah. It was the most normal thing I’ve done in a while.”
As the chaos inside the house began to die down, Nate and Becks declared it to be Charlotte’s nap time and headed back to their house.
Christian looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Fortunately for him, he was about to marry a woman who had no problem relieving him of that burden.
Cassandra got straight to the point. “Have you thought about what’s next? Or are you just going to keep her trapped in your house like Belle?”
Christian raised an eyebrow at her.
“What?” she snapped. “The girls and I had a movie marathon. We watched the classics.” She huffed and turned back to me. “When you want to discuss your offers, come down to the office and we’ll have a chat.”
That made me pause. Marty hadn’t mentioned anything about offers. Then again, I hadn’t exchanged more than a few sentences with my old manager since I told him I didn’t need him anymore.
“What offers?”
Cassandra let out a bitter laugh. “You really don’t know? I’ve been fielding phone calls and emails every day. Teams wanting you to coach other bull riders. Companies wanting you to be the face of their brands. Some public speaking gigs. A docu-series. Interviews. A book deal. You name it. Since you broke up with Marty, they’ve been flooding the ranch’s inbox and answering machine.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around it. “And… You didn’t tell me earlier because…?”
Cassandra leaned forward. “Rebranding means pivoting. It means going from what you were to who you are now. But that’s not what you have to do. You have to build something new from the ground up. We’re revitalizing the ranch. Honoring the past and confidently moving into the future with new ventures. And when you’re ready, you get to do the same. You just have to decide what it looks like.”