“Hell no.” Zack shakes his head and backs toward the door. “We don’t do chick flicks.”

“No way,” Seth agrees, and motions for Thor to join them. “Dad, can we go fishing?”

“Not today, the water is running too fast and too high. We’ll have to wait a few weeks for it to recede.” Zack pats Seth’s shoulder.

“So, does this movie even have a plot?” Josh asks, and pulls me against him tightly.

“Don’t be an ass. Of course it does.”

“Are there guns? Car chases? Aliens?” he asks hopefully.

“No.” I laugh and kiss his cheek. “You’re going to survive it, I promise.”

“And I don’t even know for sure that I’ll get sexual favors out of this deal?” He sends me a mock glare and I laugh, holding my stomach.

“You probably will.”

“What do I have to do to get a ‘definitely’?” He eats an orange Skittles.

“Go pop me some popcorn.”

“Done.”

Chapter Fifteen

JOSH

“Hey, man, wait up,” Zack calls to me as I walk from the barn toward my house. He jogs up to join me, matching my pace.

“What’s up?”

“How are things going?” he asks casually, but I know my brother.

“Fine.” I eye him suspiciously. “What’s going on with you and Jilly?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“Come on, Bro.” I smirk at him and shake my head. “Cara and Jill are as close to sisters as they can be. You’re my brother. Talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to tell. She went back to LA.”

“Have you heard from her?”

He slowly shakes his head no.

“Have you tried to call her?” I push my hands in my pockets.

“No.”

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, and shake my head at him. “One-night stands aren’t usually your style.”

His jaw tightens as he looks away, and I want to punch him in the chin, but I keep my hands in my pockets and my eyes trained on his face.

He laughs humorlessly and scrubs his hands over his face. “We are a fucked-up pair.”

“No, we’re not. I know who I want, man. She’s right inside with your kid. You’ll figure it out too. You always were the slow learner of the two of us.”

“You’re a dick.”

“Yeah, I can be.” I grin at him. “Cara will fit in here. Hell, she already does.”

“Just be careful, and for God’s sake, don’t knock her up.”

My eyes widen in surprise. “Are you saying that if you could do it all over again, you wouldn’t have had Seth?”

“No, I love my kid. I just wish I’d had him with someone else.” He brushes his hand through his hair and sighs.

“Well, maybe now you can have more kids with someone else.”

“Fuck that.”

“What did you really want to talk about, Z?”

“I can’t ask you how you are?” He grins when I glance over at him with a raised brow. “Okay, how are things with Cara?”

“Good.”

He nods and looks ahead to the house where Cara is getting her day started tutoring Seth. “She moving in here?”

“That’s the plan.”

We stop by my truck and I lean my arm against the bed, watching my brother. He won’t look me in the eye, and I know it’s because he has something to say and doesn’t want to piss me off.

“Just say it, Z.”

“Is that smart?” he asks quietly, and looks me in the eye.

“She’s not her,” I remind him, and sigh when his eyes harden. “Dude, what were you supposed to do? Your wife was miserable. You tried to give her what you thought she needed.”

“Yeah, and where did that get me, J? She fucked anyone who looked at her sideways and abandoned my kid.”

I flinch and roughly rub the back of my neck.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me about her?”

I don’t even pretend to not understand him. “What was I supposed to say, Z? ‘She doesn’t belong here’? It’s not like it was gonna be a forever thing anyway. I have a habit of putting my foot in my mouth, I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by telling her she was not welcome here.”

Zack shrugs and looks over the pasture to the mountains and takes a deep breath. “She never would have fit in here. City girls rarely do.”

“That didn’t have anything to do with it,” I murmur. He looks back at me, then shakes his head ruefully. “Besides,” I chuckle, “it’s not like she’s from the big city.”

“No, but she grew up in town. What could she possibly know about this life? It’s hard for us and it’s in our blood.”

“True.” I nod. “Well, it’s just a good thing it didn’t turn out to be forever.”

“We’re all better off without her. I have so much to make up for with Seth. I had no idea things were so bad when I was gone. I don’t think it was always the case. I hope it wasn’t.”

“You’ll work it out, man. Seth will be fine. The change in him from the day he arrived to now is like night and day.”

CARA

“But I really, really want to go fishing.” Seth has folded his hands as if he were praying and is begging to play hooky from today’s lesson.