She was gone. She’d just walked away, a hollow look on her face like everything was already over.
“Why are you sitting here?” Noah asked, the words grinding out of his mouth. James wasn’t supposed to sit on his ass. James was the guy on the white horse who rode through hell to save everyone.
“She’s married.”
Yeah, James seemed pretty damn caught on that.
“I’m going to call Callie in case Nate is fishing. It seems like he knows more about this than the rest of us. Callie will let everyone in town know what’s going on.” Henry walked back toward the main house, Serena following.
“You two need to get your shit together or that girl is going to be in trouble.” Trev stalked off, too, leaving him alone with his brother.
“Get off your ass, Jamie. We have to go into town.” He would rather have had the chance to talk to her before she’d left. Given what the acting sheriff had said, something very bad was going on.
“She’s married, Noah. She’s not yours and she’s not mine. She’s fucking married.” There was a red rim to James’s eyes that spoke of his emotion. James never cried. Never even came close. He could almost lose a fucking limb and the most he would say was “ow.” The last time Noah knew James had cried had been the day he’d buried their father.
Noah softened his voice. “Yes, she’s married. And she’s scared of him. She’s terrified. This is what she was afraid of.”
“She didn’t tell me. She let me make love to her and let me ask her to marry me and never once did she bother to tell me she was already married.”
Stubborn. His brother had always been stubborn. “She was afraid, still is. And from what I can tell, you didn’t ask her to marry you. You told her. You fucked this up. Now get off your ass and come into town with me, or I’ll leave you here and I won’t look back.”
He would leave. He would go after Hope, but he was lying about looking back. If James wouldn’t be swayed, Noah would go, but he’d miss his brother forever. He’d miss the ranch.
James sat there, his head hung. Noah thought about what Trev had said. James had a big wall around him, and nothing Noah had done so far had even started to bring it down.
“I’ll do it, Jamie. I’ll walk into the house, and I’ll pack a bag for me and a bag for Hope. I’ll drive into town and I will get her out of there one way or another, and then we’re going to run. You won’t see us again. You can stay here on your precious ranch and rot. You’ll have the cows to keep you company. Are you really so fucking scared that you’re going to let her go into god knows what alone?”
James didn’t even look up. “She’s going to see her husband. Are you going to take her away from her husband?”
“I damn well am,” Noah shot back. “If she loved him so much, what is she doing out here? Shouldn’t you listen to the story before you judge her?”
“She lied.”
Noah was ready to pull his own hair out. James was sitting here while Hope was getting further and further away. “We all fucking lie, Jamie. You know what, brother, maybe Hope was right. You were just using her to pay me back. What does that make you? Do you realize what our parents would think of you right now? Fuck you, Jamie. I’m going to get my woman and figure out what the hell is going on.”
He turned his back. He was done. He owed his brother, but Hope was in immediate danger, and he’d meant what he’d said. He was going to get her. If he could bring her back to the ranch, he would. If he couldn’t, then he would take her and run.
He didn’t get past the end of the porch before he was tackled from behind. James hit him with the power of a locomotive. Noah groaned as he hit the dirt, the breath knocking out of him. He tasted grass. He felt a hand on his collar and then damn near choked as he was hauled bodily off the ground.
“You motherfucker,” James yelled, his face red with rage. “You think you can walk back in and I’ll just act like nothing happened? You think she can lie to my face and I’ll just be fine with it?”
His brother’s fist flew straight at his face, and Noah wished that the breakthrough Trev had promised him James would have wasn’t about to come at the cost of his face. He took the first punch, his head snapping back, and then a certain mad pleasure took over.
Pain. Feeling. How long since he’d felt truly alive and connected to his brother? He’d fallen hard for Hope, and he’d thought she could bring them together, but he finally genuinely understood what his parents had found. It wasn’t simply a woman who held his dads together. They had cared about each other, too. They had needed each other. They couldn’t have a chance with Hope until they got their shit together.
His whole face lit up with shock and sharp, biting pain as James struck again.
“You fucking left. She’s leaving. Why don’t you both just leave together and don’t you fucking come back this time.”
The heart of it. He’d left, and James thought he hadn’t looked back because Noah hadn’t told him. His brother had no idea how often he’d sat and stared at the phone and prayed he had the courage to pick it up. “Jamie, come on, man. I’m not going to leave again.”
James’s eyes flared, and for a moment, Noah thought he might have gotten through to him, but then he pushed Noah away with a disdainful huff. “I don’t give a shit what you do.”
He turned his back, and Noah couldn’t take that. For all the mistakes he’d made, he didn’t deserve his brother treating him like a piece of dirt. With a low growl, Noah attacked. He plowed into his brother, his fist flying. He didn’t speak. If James didn’t want to listen to him talk, then Noah could do it this way.
He grunted as his fist met hard muscle. He was deeply grateful for all those hours he’d spent in the gym, lifting weights and running on a treadmill for so long and so hard that he almost could run from his trouble. James rolled, kicking out, and Noah tasted dirt again.
There was a sad little whining as Butch showed up. He moved restlessly as Noah and James rolled in the dirt, grunting and kicking and punching.
If he’d properly trained that damn dog, he could force him to kill his brother. But no, Noah had to treat the dog right and turn him into a huge pussy dog who whined and howled at a little violence.
“You’re such a little shit, Noah.” James kicked up, his face bleeding from a cut on his cheek.
“Yeah, well, you’re a stubborn asshole.” Noah punched his brother straight in the gut.
James groaned, his breath huffing out of his chest. “Just go. Just get the fuck off my land.”
“You would like that, wouldn’t you, you coward?” Noah got to his knees just as his brother stood back up. They circled each other like two animals waiting to attack.
“I don’t need you. That’s what you don’t seem to understand. I have a partner.”
Noah was sick of being told how unnecessary he was. “No, you have Trev. Trev already has a partner. You have a friend who you own a business with. It’s not the same thing.”
“Well, I don’t need anything else,” James argued.
“Really? Then why have you spent the last several years sharing women with Logan and that Wolf guy? You’ve spent years trying to replace me. It’s not going to work. There’s only one me. I might be a little shit, but no one else is your brother.”
“You are no blood of mine.” James stopped and stared at Noah, his eyes dark.
Noah shook his head. The words hurt, but they weren’t a lie. “No. I’m not your blood. But I am the other fucking half of your soul, and no amount of blood would trump that.”
James’s whole body sagged. He slumped to the ground, his ass hitting the dirt. He wiped his hand across his face, coming away with sweat and blood. “It doesn’t matter. Noah, stay or go. It doesn’t matter.”