“Talking to her was your thing.” Axel’s slow drawl carries just fine. “But, yeah, I’ve talked with her since she left. Not as much as I’d have liked, but she needed the space, had some things she wanted to work out.”
What could Rose Jordan have to work out? She followed her momma here to Lonesome and then stayed behind when the woman left. She was the apple of Auntie Dee’s eye, which just goes to show that love is really fucking blind.
“You ever reach out to her?” Axel examines the ribbon of trail in front of us with a rock steady gaze as he swings a leg over the seat of his ATV. The nightmares that keep him up at night don’t show in the daylight.
“She wouldn’t have wanted that.” I fight the urge to take the ATV off the trail and into all the wide open around us and just open her up. Go somewhere or nowhere, but feel the wind pulling at my face.
“You don’t know that,” Axel points out. He won’t speak for a week after all this talking. Shit, he’s probably used up his quota for the goddamned month. But Rose brings out the best in my brothers—along with their wild sides. She makes them be different. “You ever ask her what she wants?”
“She was your friend, not mine.” I tighten my fingers on the grips.
He gives me a look. “Only because every time the two of you shared space, you listed off all the things she’d done wrong.”
“Not every time,” I counter defensively. “And you can’t tell me that the three of you weren’t up to your eyes in trouble whenever I looked.”
“It made you look,” Axel says calmly. “You were busy whipping the ranch back into shape and don’t think I didn’t appreciate that. J.J. and I, we were never worried about having a roof over our heads, but the ranch kept you damned busy. You were all work, work, work and no play.”
“Someone had to be responsible,” I growl as the ATV roars to life.
Axel just watches me. “And you’re real good at it. J.J., he gets all over the place on the rodeo circuit. He’s raising Cain in a different state each week. He can’t ever sit still for more than a day or two at a time. He knows that, eventually, he’s going to have to change something, but he’s not sure how or why—but he does know that you’ll always be right here, waiting for him when he’s ready to come home for good.”
I feel that same surge of emotion for my brother that I felt the night my five year-old self tiptoed into the nursery to sneak a peek at the newest Mendoza. I don’t need to slap labels on my feelings to have them. “What does that have to do with Rose?”
Axel shrugs. “Maybe, nothing. But she had things hard before she came to Lonesome, and she always worried that she was screwing things up here.”
“She spent every minute of every day looking for trouble,” I snarl. Jesus. She’s not here and she still gets under my skin. “That’s not worrying too much.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to get the screwing up over and out of the way,” Axel points out calmly. “If the worst has already happened, there’s not as much left to worry about.”
I get the feeling he’s thinking about Leavenworth now, because his face tightens up. I eye him speculatively, because I should find out what went down there. I can kick some asses, make the payback hurt. Or I can leave it alone like he clearly wants.
“That’s ridiculous,” I say finally. “Auntie Dee loved Rose. This was— is—her home. She had nothing to worry about.”
“Try telling her that. You think she knows the details of Auntie Dee’s will?” Axel tosses the question out there.
“You want to play twenty questions now?” Rose’s face the last time I saw her at the swimming hole is burned into my memory.
It doesn’t matter. Can’t matter.
I need those water rights. Hell, I already own half of them. I just have to claim it all.
“She has no fucking clue,” I admit. “You know Rose. She’s not picking up.” Or answering her e-mail or any of the three registered letters I had the lawyer send. Auntie Dee apparently kept her intentions secret. Hell, I had no idea she’d leave me half the place to thank me for everything I’d done over the years. Doesn’t matter now. Rose doesn’t know and that gives me one more weapon. I’ll take it. While I’m going to win, Rose is also going to fight me. Taming her will be a fucking battle of wills, but in the end I’ll have my wells, my ranch, and my girl.
Laughter chokes Axel’s voice, his earlier impatience forgotten. Rose has always made him laugh, made him happy. Part of me envies him that casual intimacy. She likes him and enjoys his company. She doesn’t give him shit, push him, or defy him. Of course, the two of them also have no chemistry, which is what makes things simpler for them. I was the only one thinking about having sex on my kitchen table when she was sixteen.