Slow Burn Cowboy(57)

“No one is a good option.”

“Yeah, that’s an option. It’s definitely the one I went with when my marriage was falling apart. It worked out well for me. I ended up without a wife, and my daughter ended up without a mother. I definitely endorse that.”

“Lane isn’t my wife,” Finn said, “and she isn’t going to be.”

“Right. Not if you keep avoiding the problem. Not if you keep existing in deep denial.”

“Did you see a therapist after your wife left you, or something?”

Cain shifted uncomfortably. “I took Violet to one. A family therapist. I was there too. I was worried about her. And I may have internalized some things.”

Finn arched a brow. “Okay.”

“My point is, you obviously want more. You’re not letting yourself have more. Why is that?”

“She’s all talk,” Finn said, the alcohol and his anger warming his blood, making the words flow free and easy. “She says she loves me. But what does that mean? I wasn’t ready to say it back to her and she walked out.”

“Yeah, women don’t like that.”

“So, she changes what she wants,” Finn went on as though Cain hadn’t spoken. “And I’m supposed to change right along with her, on her schedule. She would have left anyway. Sometime, she would have left. The fact that she couldn’t handle this proves that.”

Silence settled between himself and Cain, and his brother’s expression took on an uncharacteristically serious look.

“That’s what you wanted to prove, though, isn’t it?” Cain asked finally, his words quiet and steady.

“What are you talking about?”

“You were trying to prove that she would leave. You pushed her away. That’s what you do to people, Finn, if you hadn’t noticed. You were a mean son of a bitch to all of us from the moment we got here.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I just don’t want you here?” Finn asked. He lifted the glass to take another drink, and Cain wrenched it out of his hand, setting it down on the bar top with a loud click.

“No,” Cain said, “it did not occur to me that you didn’t want us here. You do want us here. You want a family, Finn. We all do. That’s why we’re here. If we can be honest for a second and just cut the bullshit I think we’d all have to admit that. This ranch means something. Grandpa meant something to us. We are all each other has. Collectively, our parents sucked. Dad is God knows where. My mother can’t be bothered to leave the casino for two seconds to deal with me, let alone her granddaughter. I assume you don’t even know where your mother is.”

“You assume correctly.”

“I made a family. I got married. That went to hell, so here I am. Alex was in the military. Clearly that didn’t work out—he came here. Liam... Who the hell even knows. But he’s here too. My point is you do want us here, just as much as we want to be here, but you can’t admit that. Because you have to push. You have to push and push until people prove that they won’t walk. I get it—I do. But there’s a certain point where you make it impossible for people to do anything but disappoint you. You tell a woman you don’t love her... She’s gonna leave.” Cain blinked, a muscle in his jaw working. “That’s how it goes. You’re a self-fulfilling prophecy, Finn. How does it feel?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Your mother raised you, at least. She might not be mom of the year, but she was there. You know where she is. If you needed to go drag her out of a casino, you could.”

Cain lifted a shoulder. “We all have a sob story. But do you want to be the sob story or do you want to be a man?”

“You think it’s that simple? Well, of course you do. Because in the end, this all worked out for you, didn’t it? Did you ever think just how insulting it was to me that our grandfather left us equal shares in this ranch after I lived here for all this time, worked it, invested my time, my money. I took care of this place. I took care of the old man. And apparently, he thought I was about as useful as my parents did. Because he brought in all of you. Apparently, what I did didn’t matter.”

“Dumbass,” Cain said. “That’s the only thing you can figure it is?”

“You think you know,” Finn said, snatching his glass of whiskey back. “You didn’t even know him. Not really.”

“From the sounds of it, neither did you.”

“Great,” Finn said, setting the glass down again before crossing his arms over his chest. “Tell me about it, Cain. Maybe when you’re finished I won’t want to punch you in the face.”

Cain rocked back on his heels, and once again, Finn was conscious of the fact that the two of them were standing in exactly the same position. That they were brothers, even if they felt more like strangers.

“Did you ever think that he didn’t want to leave you the whole burden to carry alone? Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, he thought we needed each other?”

Cain’s words hit Finn hard. “No,” he said, “I didn’t.”

“Of course you didn’t. Because you’re lost in your own little world where nobody loves you and everybody leaves you.”

“My own mother left me. My mother called the police on me, tried to get me arrested for dealing with her abuser.” And there it was. He’d admitted it. To Lane, and to Cain. That his own mother hadn’t even seen the point in sticking around with him. That she’d found life more worthwhile with an asshole who beat her than she’d found it with him.

“I’m not saying you didn’t go through hard times. I’m not saying I’m not messed up too. I’m just saying, if you can be close enough to something that matters, this close, close enough that you’re trying to drink away the pain, maybe you just deal with your issues instead.”

“Right. Give me the number of your therapist.”

Cain snorted. “Unfortunately for you, I’m the only therapist you have. Let me tell you, I can’t be pushed away. I stayed with my wife even when our marriage sucked. Eventually, she had to leave because I just wouldn’t. And now I’m staying with my daughter even though she kinda hates me, and I have to deal with her attitude all the time. I am not an easy man to scare away, Finn. I’m the wrong person to test. I might end up beating your ass, but I’m not going anywhere. Lane loves you. Any idiot can see that. But you have to give her something.”

Everything inside Finn rebelled against that. Because hadn’t he given her all of his support? Hadn’t he listened to her as she’d told all of her secrets?

Except, Cain was pushing against exactly what Lane had just yelled at him about. About him keeping everything from her. Everything locked down inside. About her being the only one who was vulnerable.

Yeah, well, he wanted to be vulnerable about as much as he wanted a stick in the eye.

“Do you want to prove yourself right or do you want to be happy?” Cain asked. “You can only have one of those things. But you need to be honest with yourself. And you need to stop being such a dumb fuck.”

“I don’t think therapists say stuff like that.”

“Older brothers do. And you have one. You could have a lot, actually. A lot of family. A lot of love. If you weren’t so afraid of it.”

Those words hit hard. Like an arrow right on target.

No man wanted to be told he was afraid. He wanted even less to find the words true.

“Fix it,” Cain said.

Then he turned and walked out of the kitchen. Finn could hear his brother’s heavy footsteps on the stairs. But he just stood there, his hand wrapped around the whiskey tumbler.

Then he tilted it back and took it all in one swallow.

He closed his eyes, and all he could see was Lane’s face. All he could see was the pain he had caused her. He had pushed. He had pushed, and he had pushed.

His heart squeezed tight, like someone had punched a hole through his chest and grabbed it, yanked it out.

All he could do was picture the way he’d treated her before they slept together for the first time. That day he’d stormed into the Mercantile, yelled at her, taken her in his arms.

He had been pushing then. But she had stayed.

He had asked, he had taken, he had forced her out of her comfort zone. And she had proven that she was up to the challenge. The challenge that was him.

And tonight, when she had asked for something from him, he had done what he did best. He had done exactly what Cain had accused him of doing.

He had tried to make her run. To prove that he was right about himself. That there was nothing in him worth loving enough for anybody to stay.

He had decided, when she had walked away with all the hurt in her eyes, that it proved his point.

Right. He was an ass.

He braced his hands on the bar top, lowering his head. He closed his eyes, and images flashed through his mind. Lane, tonight, mixed together with that day his mother had left.

He didn’t even have a real image of his mom walking away. He had made one up in his head. A kind of strange vision of her walking off into the sunset with a small suitcase that didn’t even look like anything she’d actually had. And he was sure she hadn’t walked anywhere. She had most definitely gone with her boyfriend. And they had taken a car. Still, that was the image that lived in his brain.