“Can’t talk to her about this shit, Clay. I don’t want her worryin’ about it when she should be focusin’ on all the happy shit, but it’s tearin’ me apart just thinkin’ about losing her.”
“Fuck, brother.”
Just like when we were younger and he was upset, he drops his forehead against my shoulder, and even though I’m no longer taller than him, he seems to shrink in my hold. It’s then that I realize my baby brother—the badass ex–rodeo champion—is crumbling, his silent sobs only evident because of the choppy breaths coming from his lips.
“I could lose her.”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that,” he bellows, ripping free from my arms and throwing his hands in the air. “Every day we get closer to the baby bein’ born I feel like I’m losin’ her. I can’t turn it off.”
Fucking hell.
I pull my phone out of my back pocket and move my thumb against the screen while he paces and mumbles in front of me, placing the device to my ear a second later.
“Hey,” my sister sings through the phone.
“Tate around, darlin’?” Maverick stops in his tracks and looks over at me with a blank face. No hint of anger, the fear gripping him too deep for him to be mad that I’m bringing someone else into this and exposing his vulnerable fears to them.
“Yeah. Everything okay?”
“All’s fine, Quinnie, just thought of somethin’ I needed to ask him. Forgot the other day when I ran into him in town.”
“Let me go grab him. We’ve been workin’ on a junker he bought off Craigslist. Can you believe that? Only man in the world who would buy his wife a rust bucket as a gift.”
“Sounds like the perfect gift if that wife is you,” I tell her, forcing lightness into my tone while my eyes stay trained on Maverick.
“It is, isn’t it.” She sighs happily. “Here he is. Love you, big brother!”
“Love you back, darlin’.”
I wait, hearing what sounds a helluva lot like them making out before he comes on the line.
“Hey. What’s up, Clay?”
“Need you to come to the ranch, Tate. Keep that stupid smile on your face so Quinn doesn’t think somethin’ is wrong. Tell her I need help puttin’ together a gift for the baby or some shit and come now. Got it?”
“Need me to bring any tools?” he plays along instantly.
“See you quick, Tate.”
“Yeah, don’t worry, I won’t tell Quinn you’re puttin’ together a gift for her, man.”
I hear Quinn make some girly as fuck noise as I disconnect the call and push the phone back into my pocket.
“You’re gonna sit down and listen to what he has to say, Maverick. Then us three are gonna go inside and have some cold ones before you go home to your wife with a clear conscience. Got it?”
He grunts, doesn’t speak but drops against the wall. He slides until his ass is on the ground and his head is hung low. The whole time my heart breaks knowing he’s been carrying this load secretly until it became too much for him to keep buried. Work can wait for another day: right now, my brother needs me, and there’s never been and never will be anything I won’t do for the people I love.
I sit against the wall opposite him while we wait. Fifteen minutes later, Tate comes roaring down the driveway in the truck my sister restored for him almost a year ago. I’d sent him a text right after getting off the phone with him to let him know to find us in the old barn that we use for our personal horses. This one, while still nice, isn’t top-of-the-line like the one we use to breed, and it lacks the air-conditioning system we put in the breeding stable a few years back. By the time Tate comes running in, I’ve finally gotten used to sitting in a puddle of my own sweat.
“Jesus Christ, Clay. Give me a fuckin’ heart attack. What’s going on?” he breathes, and I finally look away from Maverick. My sister’s husband might not have been born and raised in Pine Oak, but all it took was one year back here and he shed every ounce of the city boy he’d become when he lived in Atlanta. Even if he still wears ball caps and not Stetsons, he looks like any other man that grew up here. ’Course, he would when Quinn’s got his ass working on trucks, covered in dirt and grease.
“Maverick,” I tell him, looking back at my little brother. He hasn’t moved since I called Tate, who conveniently happens to be our town’s lady doctor in addition being to our brother-in-law. If anyone knows the facts that can set Maverick’s mind at ease, it’s Tate. “Mav, want me to tell Tate or do you?”