No, I want to stay at the ranch.
He really had. He couldn’t imagine losing his dad and then losing the place he called home on top of it, trying to live in that house where he always felt he might break something.
Then Cassidy got dropped on their doorstep at Christmastime, and suddenly, he had someone to care for too.
Austin, though, was the reason they’d all made it. Austin washis hero, even if he’d never actually said those words to his oldest brother.
He deserved the world.
Flynn lifted his hand and waved, but Austin didnotwave back, which was how he knew he was in some kind of trouble.
Austin didn’t wait for them to get close before he shouted, “Really?”
He closed the distance between him and his older brother before he said anything. “What did you hear?”
“Cassidy said that you took Jessie Jane Hancock home.”
He met Austin’s judgmental gaze. “I did.”
“Why?”
“You ask the right questions. It’s not what you think. And you know what, Austin, if it was, it wouldn’t be any of your business. You are a married man, aNew York Timesbest-selling author with a movie in the works, and you don’t need to be up in my sex life. You’ve corrected the historical record in your book. You can let your issue with the Hancocks go.”
Austin appeared to be going over the list of things that Flynn had just said to see whether he could dispute any of them. Flynn knew that Austin was sort of uncomfortable with the level of success he was enjoying from the book he’d written about their ancestor Austin Wilder’s life and death. He and his wife, Millie, the town librarian, had discovered that Butch Hancock and the sheriff of that era had colluded to frame the Wilders for murders they hadn’t committed. Austin’s brothers were tried and convicted and hanged publicly. Austin himself was shot in the street.
Flynn’s older brother had always suspected that their ancestor hadn’t been a murderer. That their family had never been as bad as they’d been accused of being. Outlaws, certainly, but not coldblooded murderers. It had eaten at him because he blamed the town’s unfair treatment of them on that historical lie.
His brother hated the Hancock family, not just because Butch Hancock had set up Austin Wilder and his gang, but because the Hancocks had gone on to profit off a tall-tale version of it.
Austin had disproved the lie, but his brother was the kind of man to hold a grudge. Not just against the man who had betrayed his five-times great-grandfather, but against his descendants. Which included Jessie Jane.
“What are you doing, if you’re not hooking up with her?”
“Pretending to hook up with her.”
“Again, why?”
“Hey, Bug,” Flynn said, looking at his niece and tapping the end of her nose with his finger. She giggled in her sweet baby way. “Let me swing my niece.”
“Fine,” Austin said, beginning to unstrap the front pack. He worked Emma out of the device and handed her to Flynn. Flynn carried her on his hip, then put her in the little bucket swing, pulling it just slightly and letting it sway while she laughed and laughed.
“What’s the deal?”
“We’re going to pretend to date. As a little PR stunt to help her campaign for mayor.”
“You havegotto be kidding me,” Austin said. “She’s running for mayor, and you’re helping her?”
“Yes, I am. Because otherwise Danielle will run unopposed. And you know what, I’m kind of tired of the family that hates me being in charge of the place I live.”
Austin let out a long sigh. “I get that, I guess.”
“I’d have thought you’d be into defeating Danielle no matter what. Not only has she been a pain in my butt, but she was responsible for hurting your wife.”
He lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, but she liberated Millie from that asshole she was planning to marry instead of me, so I can’t say I’mmadmad about it.”
“Sure, but Danielle is in a position of power in our community, and Millie’s ex is our first man.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay, when you put it like that. But don’t pretend this isn’t a little about you taking petty revenge on your family.”
