I tip my head to the side and raise an eyebrow.
“I’m on Blackbird duty. The First Daughter. She’s a pain in my ass.”
Now I raise both eyebrows. “Why?”
“She doesn’t do what she’s fucking told.”
“Ah.” I nod slowly, watching him. “How old is she?”
“Nineteen.”
I scoff at that. Willow laughs outright. “Come on, don’t get me started on the shit we pulled when we were nineteen. It’s a wonder Mom didn’t kill us.”
“We weren’t the kids of a president. Our lives weren’t on the line every day.”
“I don’t know, I really think Mom might have killed us if she heard about that time—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He drags his hand down his face, obviously not wanting to rehash old stories. I don’t know why not. They’re damn funny. “You need to know that I’m not moving back here, Ry.”
I frown at my brother as Willow watches us both. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“I’m just saying it, right now. I’ll be back to visit, but I don’t want to live here. I like my job in DC, and I’m not ready to retire.”
“Hey, just because I’m ready for a change of pace doesn’t mean that you are. I’m perfectly fine with that. Iwantto work the ranch. I have plenty of money to get things up and going again. I don’t want you to feel any kind of way about that.”
“Thanks to your finance-geek skills,” Gid says, eyeing me as he tugs his tie loose around his neck, “I have plenty of money too. I can help. But I don’t want to live here full-time.”
“Understood. We’ll take time over the next month to make plans for the ranch moving forward.”
“Are you going to renovate the house, Ry?” Willow asks.
I blow out a breath. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“You should. Just rip the bandage off and get it over with. This is your home now, and you should make it how you want it. If we’re going to go through and clean it out, it’s a good time to do it. I’ll bring Aiden on the weekends, and we can both help. It’ll be good for him to spend time out here.”
I nod and reach over to squeeze her knee, and she stiffens.
I’ve touched this woman a million times before, and it’s never been an issue. Never even athought.
I narrow my eyes at her, and she visibly makes herself relax, and I pull my hand away.
“You okay, Trouble?” I ask her, and she nods, but she won’t meet my gaze.
“Sorry, yeah. Just out of sorts. It’s been a rough week, you know?”
But I don’t believe her. I’ve known her forever. These are the two people I know the best in the world.
Something isn’t right.
Because although I haven’t spent time with Willow in person in years, I talk to her all the time. When life happened, and we all went our own ways, we didn’t disappear from each other’s lives.
But it’s late, it’s been a rough fucking day, and I have all the time in the world to make sure Willow’s okay. I’ll get to the bottom of it.
“When should we start on the house?” I ask the room.
“Might as well dig in tomorrow,” Gideon says, and I nod in agreement.
“I’d better go. I’ll be back before noon tomorrow.” Willow stands, and I frown at her.
