Cal turned his head to see Landon crunching across the frosty ground.He’d no doubt been out doing the early morning chores while Aly put together breakfast and coffee for the both of them.
Cal knew he should probably feel a little bad about being the third wheel to the happily engaged couple.
But he didn’t.He enjoyed Aly’s meals and fussing.He liked being in a house, eventhishouse, that felt like a… living, breathing entity.The ranch around them working like the well-oiled machine it was.
In this moment, it felt better than whatever he’d been doing in Texas, living on his own, working an ungodly number of hours, socializing just about as superficially as a man could.
Superficial had suited him then.He wished it suited him now.And since that thought irritated him, he tried to irritate his brother.
“Maybe I’m getting used to ranch hours again,” Cal said, watching his breath puff out in front of him as he spoke.“Gonna make a cowboy out of me, Landon?”
Landon surveyed him with dark eyes that were impressively blank.But Cal knew his brother well enough to know that perusal was a critical one.Even if the question had been a joke, Landon was considering if Cal was well enough to ride a horse.
He didn’t answer Cal’s question either way.
“The lawyer wants to come by this afternoon.Go over the trial schedule.Well, he wanted me to go into town, but I don’t have the time or the inclination.”
“Avoiding the lawyer doesn’t change anything.”
“Then he can come here, can’t he?”
Cal sighed.Landon might have…unclenchedor something since Dad had been arrested, since he and Aly hadfinallyhooked up.Or whatever word he should use for some kind of mature, adult relationship in the midst of all this fucked up.
But no amount ofunclenchedmade Landon someone else.He was still himself.Stubborn.Set in his ways.Dedicated to this ranch for reasons Cal couldn’t quite understand.
But more now than Cal had before, he understood that even if the evil of their father had tainted this land, this house, that stain had come from…Dad’spresence.Dad’schoices.
Without him here, the Bennet Ranch could be somethinggood.Landon and Aly would make sure of it.
ThatCal believed.Without reservation.
“It’ll be over by Christmas.And we’ll start a new year with the ghost of Benjamin Bennet in jail forever.”
Cal wanted to agree.Wanted to feel any of Landon’s certainty.
But he knew Benjamin Bennet was a ghost who’d haunt him forever.
*
The house wasblessed warmth against the icy chill.Landon had been out doing predawn chores for at least an hour, and he was cold all the way through.He would have handled a few more things, but he’d spotted Cal walking around in the slowly encroaching light and been… worried.
So he’d cut his chores a little short.He’d catch up after breakfast.After he made sure Cal was warm and inside and fed.
Cal looked some better than he had this summer—both before and after being shot.He hadn’t gained much if any weight back and there was still thathauntedlook about him that Aly fretted over.
Okay, and maybe Landonfrettedover too.If silently.
Landon supposed it made sense that with the trial looming over them that Cal might be… worried, in his head, stressed.So much of the trial rested on what Cal remembered—and that memory matching up with the physical evidence that had been found.
Landon had no doubts about Benjamin Bennet being the murderer.He didn’t need confessions.He’d lived within the trauma and manipulations his father had built their family on his entire life.He might have once done whatever he could to earn his father’s respect, approval,love—but he had absolutely no doubts his father was a murderer now.
The mask had been revealed—thanks to Cal, thanks to Nate coming home.
Thanks to Aly being brave enough to love Landon—really love him, not whatever warped versions he’d beentoldwere love growing up.
But Cal kept reminding them—unnecessarily to Landon’s way of thinking—that knowing someone was guilty and convicting them of said guilt were two very different things.
Landon supposed Cal’s experience as a criminal defense attorney meant he had to hold on to that shred of doubt.The possibility that justice—whatever pathetic justice jail time was—would not be done.
