It felt strange not to be hustling like mad, always thinking and moving and working on the next big thing. The pace out here was changing the hurry inside him, the quiet at night urging him to let go of the ever-expanding to-do list in his head and just listen.
“Let’s have a look, shall we?” Jake pulled the tab to open the box, and a fat envelope fell onto the desk. He lifted the flap and unfolded the papers. Four pages, one with a summary of the tests done, and a bill that showedpaid in full.Odd. He’d assumed there would be more to it, like a manual on how to read the damned results or something.
Instead, there was just a page for each test subject, with a bunch of letters and numbers dotted in a column down each one. He shuffled them and squinted. He had no idea what he was looking at.
“Let me see. These can’t be much different than cattle genome indexing,” Tanner said gruffly, and Jake handed them over to him wordlessly. Tanner shuffled them as well, squinting much like Jake had, but then stopped when he got to the third page.
“What is it?” Jake asked. He knew Tanner well enough to know that the wrinkles on his forehead and his mouth forming that thin, angry frown said he was about to get mad.
Much like his own face, really.
“I think we need to find Brady. Now.”
“Okay,” Jake said, his brother’s tone indicating it was something serious. He looked at the paper that Tanner was holding as he texted Brady. Tanner pointed to the line at the bottom, which had two results. Only one mattered.
Probability of paternity: 0%.
A chill stole over Jake and he looked up at Tanner, who was trying his best, surprisingly, not to explode. He handed the papers to Jake and slouched in his seat.
Jake scanned the rest of the paper and then looked at the top of the sheet.
It was Brady’s name at the top.
“Fuck.” This was serious. He glanced at Tanner, who was now worriedly rubbing at his forehead, eyes closed.
“How do I tell him this? What do I say?” Tanner muttered.
Jake didn’t know what to say, either, right now or to Brady. Brady, who was as much a part of this place as Tanner, who had poured himself into it to please his father.
Who wasn’t actually his father.
Jake set the papers down on his father’s desk and blew out a big breath, closing his own eyes for a moment, counting to ten. A wastepaper basket flew across the room, crashing into the wall opposite them. Jake followed the trail of empty potato chip bags and crumpled paper across the floor then back to his brother, where Tanner had his face buried in his hands.
“This can’t get much worse.” His voice was muffled. “I—”
Jake needed to handle this situation for Tanner, who had just been dealt yet another blow in the never-ending drama that seemed to be unfolding around them. He sent a quick text to Liz to come over to the cattle barn as soon as possible.
If you were going to rip off an adhesive bandage, it was better to do it quickly. Liz being here would help, because he had no idea how Brady was going to take the news, and she could run interference. Brady was always the happy one, the one who made everyone calm down, made jokes, kept the peace. But this? This changed things.
Brady stuck his head around the corner a minute later, then picked up the very dented basket, looking at it curiously before setting it down under his own desk. He didn’t remark on it, which meant that it was likely not the first time Tanner had abused it.
“Liz is on her way. She was on a horse when you texted. What’s up?”
Tanner hadn’t moved since he had sent the basket into orbit, but he looked up now. Pain and anger radiated out of him, and Brady immediately went over to his brother and put a hand on his shoulder.
“What’s happened?” he asked gently, looking over at Jake. “What do you need?”
“I don’t know how else to do this, so here.”
Jake handed him the papers. Brady side-eyed him curiously, but took them and scanned them. He looked each one over, then stopped when he got to his.
“Well, shit,” he said, and sat on the edge of Tanner’s desk, his hand on his mouth, blinking rapidly.
“You’re still a West,” Tanner growled quietly, steel cutting through the emotion in his voice. “That doesn’t change.”
Brady nodded, eyes scanning the rows of numbers, and Jake put his hands in his pockets, waiting it out. This was not something he could comment on, nor would he want to intrude until they’d said what they needed to say to one another, if that was going to happen now. These two men had been brothers since birth, were still brothers by their mother, of course, but there was a deeper bond that no one could break that had formed during a lifetime together.
A bond Jake could never fully understand.
