“He was attacking you—attackingus!” I protested. “What was I supposed to do, stand there and take it?”
“Yes!” Cole snapped, the first crack in his composure. “That’s exactly what you should have done. Now he’s got a bloody lip to show everyone in town while he tells them we’re sleeping together! It’sproof, Jesse!”
“I don’t care!” I shouted back. “I’m not going to stand there while he calls us those names. While he threatens you—threatens us!”
Cole’s face darkened, his jaw clenching even tighter. “This is exactly what I was afraid of,” he muttered. “This is exactly why I said we needed to be careful.”
“So what now? We just let him spread rumors about us?” I stepped closer, trying to catch his eye. “We can deny it. We can?—”
“Deny what?” Cole snapped, finally looking at me. “That we’re fucking? That I’m in love with my stepbrother? That we’ve been lying to everyone for months?” His voice cracked on the last word, raw emotion bleeding through his carefully constructed walls. “What if the will has a clause about this we didn’t read? What if Whitaker decides we’re unfit to inherit because of this?!”
The sound of another vehicle approaching made us both freeze. Evelyn’s truck came into view, kicking up dust as she pulled in with our lunch. Cole took another step away from me, running his hands through his hair.
“Just... stay away from me right now,” he said quietly. “I need to think.”
Before I could respond, he turned and strode toward the barn, leaving me standing alone in the yard, my hand throbbing and my heart shattering into pieces. Evelyn pulled up beside me, her smile fading as she took in my expression.
“Jesse? What happened to your hand, honey?”
I glanced down at my swollen knuckles, already turning an angry purple. “Nothing,” I lied, forcing a smile. “Just caught it on a fence post.”
Her eyes narrowed, clearly not believing me. “And where’s Cole rushing off to? I brought lunch for you boys.”
“He’s... busy,” I managed. “And I… I’m not hungry.”
She studied my face, seeing far more than I wanted her to. “What happened, Jesse?”
I couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t form the words to explain how our carefully constructed world was crumbling around us. “Nothin’,” I said, my voice hollow. “Nothing important.”
“That doesn’t look like nothin’,” she said, nodding toward my hand. “And Cole looked like he’d seen a ghost.”
I swallowed hard, but when I looked up at Evelyn, I felt something inside me break. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes.
“I think…” I began, the words catching in my throat. “I think we might’ve just lost the ranch…”
“What? How could that be?”
“Mack Hollister just stopped by,” I replied, a lump forming in my throat. “He saw us… and said someterriblethings. Then I… I punched him.”
Understanding dawned in her eyes. Evelyn had always been far more perceptive than she led on. And she knew about us, she had for ages. “Oh, honey,” she said softly. “What did he say?”
“Nothing that wasn’t true,” I replied bitterly. “That’s the problem.”
She reached out, her weathered hand gentle on my arm. “Come on. Let’s get some ice for that hand. We’ll fix what we can for now and figure out the rest later.”
I wanted to believe her, to accept that wecouldfigure this out or get out of it in some way. But I just had a feeling deep in my gut that we were fucked. Utterly and royallyfucked.
Chapter 26
Jesse
If anyone had tried to convince me that Mack Hollister was dangerous, I would’ve laughed in their faces. But it had been nearly a week since I’d punched him in the mouth and things were already getting out of hand. First was the visit from the local sheriff who warned me that if I didn’t keep my hands to myself, there was gonna be trouble. That would’ve been fine if he hadn’t stopped at the bottom of the porch, looked directly at Cole, and asked, “Y’all really sleepin’ together”?
That I could handle. However, I was not expecting the sudden rush of cancellations from local stores. It seemed Mack had his hands in everyone’s pockets, and he was either convincing them our beef was bad or they shared his sentiments about gay men. Either way, we lost three major carriers in a single day and that meant a sudden overstock of beef in the freezer. Thankfully out-of-state sales hadn’t slowed down, but it was still a hit.
The third and final straw that broke Cole was the call he received from Mr. Whitaker. Apparently, we were being called in for a formal review. According to him, Mack Hollister had hired a lawyer himself and had him take a look at Jack’s will. I had no idea how he’d managed it, but Mr. Whitaker and this new lawyerwere being forced to work together to make sure that there had been no favoritism during our monthly visits. Basically, we were being audited, plain and simple.
After that call, Cole disappeared into his room and locked the door. The next morning when I got up, his truck was gone. It had been two days since then and my gut was twisted into knots. He wouldn’t pick up his phone, he wouldn’t answer my texts, and despite going into town myself searching for him, I couldn’t find a trace. He was just…gone.
