Jeremiah (Stud Ranch 5)

We were the only one each other’d had for the longest time. Yeah, things had changed some when we’d found Xavier and he’d taken us in and given us the only family we’d ever known beyond each other.

But this was different. Reece was getting married. Tomorrow he’d be made one with Charlotte. Maybe one day, hopefully a long fucking time from now, they’d even have kids. Fuck, I couldn’t imagine Reece as a dad, he was only just now beginning to act like an adult instead of the fuck up I’d had to watch out for and get out of scrapes his whole life. But someday. Starting tomorrow, he was starting a family unit that was separate from me. And it was good. That was the way it was supposed to be.

As we approached the stables, Mike emerged with one of the roan mares Xavier had brought, all saddled.

“Got ‘em ready for you, boss,” Mike said.

Reece looked at me, again perplexed.

I shrugged. “I figure the day before my little brother gets married, maybe we could take one last ride, just the two of us. Us against the world. And I can give you your wedding present in private.”

Reece looked not only surprised but moved, if the way his jaw working and him swallowing was any tell. I rolled my eyes again and slammed him on the shoulder. It shoved him to the side a bit. “Now outta my way. You’re riding Sally Anne here and I’m taking Lightning.”

“Hey, why do you get the stallion? They were my wedding presents!”

I laughed and looked at him over my shoulder. “Yeah, but Xavier says he’s barely broke and it’d be my ass if I got you thrown the day before your wedding. Plus,” I said before disappearing into the stables to find Lightning, “I get dibs cause I’m the oldest.”

16

Jeremiah

I sat gingerly at the rehearsal dinner chair that evening.

“I told you, you shoulda let me ride Lightning instead of you,” Reece said with a big-ass grin from across the table. We were all out at a fancy restaurant terrace on Lake Travis—they’d had a late cancellation that Ruth managed to snatch for us.

I grimace-smirked an acknowledgement in my brother’s direction. “Yeah, yeah. If you’d been on Lightning when he bucked like that, you’d have ended up with a broken ass instead of just a bruised one. I am the master of the tuck and roll.”

Reece laughed and looked out on the table of our gathered friends and family. “Yeah, more like the master of the awkward fall-and-holler-your-ass-off.”

“Hmm, and yet,” I undid the cufflinks and shoved up the sleeves of my dress shirt. “Not a scratch.” My legs were ripped up all to hell and my tailbone hurt so bad I was trying my hardest to lean forward and put most of the weight of sitting on my thighs, but no one needed to know that.

I grinned. “Plus, I got right back up on that—” fucker. I stopped myself just in time and glanced to the right where I saw Charlie’s mom reaching for her pearls as if to start clutching them, “that horse. So all’s well that ends well.” I sat back a little without meaning to and struggled not to wince through my smile.

We’d had a great time on the ride, other than the tumble from Lightning when I’d challenged Reece to a race. And the racing wasn’t because I was a testosterone-filled jackass who always had to prove his superiority to his twin brother anymore—no, it wasn’t because of that. I challenged Reece to race and tried my fucking hardest to beat him because I was intentionally being nostalgic for those times.

And if Lightning wasn’t exactly on the same page as me and bucked me off when I tried nudging him a little too fervently in his hind quarters—well, I was just chalking that up to an excellent learning experience for all involved.

Plus, giving my little brother the win like that on the day before his wedding was really just the gentlemanly thing to do.

It was nice for all of us to be sitting down like this. Especially when Ruth had done us all a solid by putting the parents-in-law at the opposite end of the table by some of her parents’ old friends she’d wrangled into coming. Ruth and Charlie had been on the go all day and after Reece and my brief hour trail ride, so had we.

Ruth’s to-do list wasn’t endless—it had been doable. But only barely.

But Charlie had grabbed her friend’s hand and dragged her to sit down and enjoy the actual meal with us. That had been about half an hour ago and we’d all been eating good food, and more importantly, drinking fucking fabulous wine. I wasn’t usually a wine guy. I was a hefeweizen guy all day long. But fuck if this cabernet—or whatever the hell this ruby red magic drink was—didn’t go down smooth after the fourth or fifth glass. I’d lost track—I just knew the waiters at this fancy as fuck place never let my glass get more than half empty before they were there topping me off.