Present Day
Monday, October 26, 2020
Keegan
I stared at my twin, doing my damnedest to get the man to come over to my way of thinking. Being as I’d been working on Kaden for the better part of ten minutes, it wasn’t looking good for me.
“All right. What about a bakery?”
“Coyote Ridge already has a bakery,” Kaden countered.
“Pet store?”
“No.”
“Gym?”
“No.”
“Vape shop?”
Kaden shot me a get real look. “No.”
“Thrift shop?” Of course, that had me doing my rendition of Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop.” “I’m gonna pop some tags … only got twenty dollas in my pocket.”
A little too much twang, I thought, but not terrible.
“Stick to your day job, Keeg.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. “Fine. No thrift shop. What about an arcade?”
Kaden narrowed his eyes in that manner that spoke of disbelief combined with a modicum of concern. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. Seriously.” I was serious, and I wasn’t sure how much clearer I could be. Yet Kaden didn’t seem to be on board, hence he was feigning ignorance.
“Is this some sorta midlife crisis?” Kaden questioned, his dark eyebrow lowered at a sharp slant, his incredulity evident.
“First off, we’re a long damn way from midlife. And two, it’s a damn fine idea and you know it.”
“Oh, yeah? And who in their right mind is gonna hang out in an arcade? In Coyote Ridge?”
“Just because you’re old doesn’t mean we all are,” I argued, staring at the man who was more or less my mirror image. “Have you seen the town lately? They’re finally gettin’ with the program.”
“Yada, yada, I got it,” Kaden sniped. “Ever since Rex opened the B and B, blah, blah. I know the spiel, Keeg.”
But what a spiel it was. The Double R Bed and Breakfast had been open for a year, and it had proven to be a fruitful venture in just a short time. The big, renovated farmhouse right in the heart of town had been at capacity every weekend since the opening, and it didn’t appear they’d be letting up anytime soon. What more could a small-town hotel ask for? Or those who had invested in the project from the jump?
I grinned wide. “Damn good idea, wasn’t it? I knew that place would be a helluva investment.”
“Frog giggin’, cow tippin’, and a B and B. What more could Coyote Ridge possibly offer?” Kaden grumbled.
“An arcade,” I answered, deadpan.
Kaden rolled his eyes again.
I had known my brother would react this way. We might share the same DNA code, but there was no denying our personalities were polar opposites. Kaden had always been the level-headed one, the one who came up with a plan even when a plan wasn’t necessary. I was more of the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kinda guy. I tried not to take things too seriously, while Kaden spent more time thinking than actually doing. And sure, I could admit my brother was usually right when it came down to our arguments.
Didn’t mean I agreed with my twin. In fact, most of the time, we didn’t see eye to eye at all.
But…
Yes, but. Backing Rex Sharpe in the bed-and-breakfast had been a stellar idea if I did say so myself. And now, who was to say an arcade couldn’t bring some life to this sleepy little town? Of course, I was only considering it because my true dream couldn’t be realized yet. It had always been my goal to own a ranch, but without one available to acquire, that was unfortunately on the back burner.
“Well”—I lifted my coffee mug, offered my brother a casual one-shoulder shrug—“I think it’s a smart idea. Think about all the things Coyote Ridge has goin’ for it. Just in the time we’ve been here, they’ve opened a toy store and a bookstore, right on Main Street. I heard they’re plannin’ to expand the bookstore to include a coffee shop. An arcade might kick it up a notch.”
“I get my coffee at the bakery,” Kaden retorted.
“Options, Kaden. We’re always open for options.”
“No. No way,” he retorted. “I’ll admit, I doubted the B and B in the beginning, and it turned out all right, but I’m not at all on board with an arcade.”
“Okay, fine,” I conceded. “What then? It’s not set in stone, and the place is still for sale. We can snatch it up, put in somethin’ of our own.” I leaned in, lowered my voice. “For fuck’s sake, everyone else is doin’ it. Why can’t we?”
“If everyone else was jumpin’ off a cliff, would you wanna do that, too, Keeg?”
I grinned. “Damn straight I would.”
Those familiar steel-blue eyes glinted with incredulity. “You’re serious? You want… Us? You and me…?” Kaden exhaled with a sigh and shook his head. “Ain’t gonna happen, Keeg.”
I chuckled. I happened to enjoy getting my brother riled. Especially first thing in the morning.
“I’ll come up with somethin’,” I told him. “You just wait.” Although I certainly wasn’t giving up on the arcade.
Kaden challenged me back with a simple tilt of his eyebrows upward.
I knew that look. He thought I was off my rocker. And perhaps I was, but hey, everyone else seemed to be making their mark on this town. Why couldn’t we?
Kaden leaned back, allowed the waitress to set his plate down in front of him. “Thanks.” He turned his full attention to me. “Might I remind you, we’ve got enough on our plates.”
I smiled at the waitress. “Thanks, doll.” I peered over at my brother. “What? With Walker Demo? That’s gonna be our claim to fame?” It was my turn to shake my head. “In case you didn’t notice, it just kicked over leadership again.”
Granted, that was because Reese Tavoularis had moved on to the governor’s task force, another brainchild of our cousin Travis. In Reese’s place, Autumn Jameson—one of Travis’s many cousins on his mother’s side—had come on board to run things. She’d been in her new role for nearly a month, and to my surprise, she was doing pretty darn well. I was tempted to say she could pinpoint an issue with an engine faster than I could. But that didn’t change the fact that even the family business didn’t seem all that stable.
“What about the time we’re puttin’ in on the ranch?” Kaden asked.
“Key word there bein’ the. The ranch infers that it doesn’t belong to us.”
As much as I enjoyed working on the Walker ranch, which belonged to Uncle Curtis and Aunt Lorrie, it had always been a dream of mine to have one of my own. And yes, I was keeping my eyes open for that opportunity. If it were to arise tomorrow, I’d drop every damn thing else and follow my dream. Until then…
Silence settled between us as Kaden covered his scrambled eggs in Tabasco sauce. Rather than stir him up more, I took a sip of my orange juice, stared at my pancakes. I always had pancakes. Every damn day. Why? At what point in my thirty-seven years had I gotten so damn … boring?
“Are you really serious about this? Openin’ a place of our own?” Kaden finally asked, his voice lowered.
“Hell, I don’t know. I’m just…” I met my twin’s eyes. “I’m tired of watchin’ everyone else doin’ their thing while we settle for bein’ along for the ride.”
Kaden sighed.
I sat up straight, picked up my fork. “Tell you what. I’m gonna stuff my face with these pancakes, and we can pretend this conversation never happened. Deal?”
Kaden’s blue-gray eyes locked on my face, but I didn’t flinch. I knew how I sounded. Petulant, whiny, sullen. Take your pick.
In my defense, I had always allowed Kaden to make the final decisions. Sure, I threw in my two cents, like where we were gonna put down roots. My choice had always been Coyote Ridge, and since we were metaphorically attached at the hip, where one of us went, the other followed. When we arrived here, we’d thought it would be a fruitful venture. Years later, although we’d technically settled in, we weren’t completely settled.
“Fine,” Kaden huffed, grabbing his coffee mug. “Let’s talk to Travis. Get his thoughts.”
Great. Go to the man with the plan and tell him what? That we didn’t have a plan? Yeah, no thank you. Our cousin Travis was not just paving the way here in Coyote Ridge; he was the way. Hell, after Travis’s daughter was kidnapped a few weeks back, a task force governing the state of Texas had been formed to search for other missing people. Thank the good Lord, Kate had been located and returned seemingly unharmed two painfully long days after she went missing, but still. Guy had some serious pull. Not to mention, half the town went to Travis for advice. I didn’t want to be another in that long line.
I sipped my juice, glared at my pancakes.
We finished our breakfast in silence, although it was obvious Kaden’s mind was running a million miles a minute. That was the way my twin’s brain worked. Whenever I planted an idea, my brother would veto it immediately, then spend considerable time mulling it over until he came to a final decision. Generally, I would go along with whatever my brother wanted, because the truth was, I was the laid-back one. Most things I could simply take or leave. Didn’t matter. But something hadn’t been sitting well with me lately.
While living and working in this small town had always been a dream of mine, there was only one teeny tiny problem… We hadn’t really put down roots. When I took stock of what we had to call our own … besides our trucks, there wasn’t much of anything.
Take the house we occupied, for instance. Someone else’s. Technically, it was now just one of seven separate structures Curtis had built for his boys when they were old enough to venture out on their own. Originally, it had been Kaleb’s place. Then it was Jared’s for a bit. Now it was ours until we figured out what we wanted to do.
To buy or not to buy? Coyote Ridge or bust? For the moment, our options were open, although real estate in Coyote Ridge was scarce, and what did come available was usually snatched up within hours of being listed. If it ever made it to listing at all. Just like the building on Main Street. If we didn’t make our play, it would be gone before we knew it. There wasn’t even an apartment to be had. Not that I had any desire to live in an apartment. I preferred wide-open spaces.
Sure, I loved Coyote Ridge. Had since I was a kid, when our parents would bring us and our brothers and sister down to visit our aunts and uncles. I remembered one summer—we were probably twelve, maybe thirteen—my brothers and sister all ganged up on our parents, tried to convince them to move to the small town our father had grown up in. Our parents won in the end, determined to hold down the fort in El Paso, but we’d all talked about moving here eventually.
Our oldest brother was the first to take the leap, relocating to Coyote Ridge permanently. Jared had fled a bad situation only to have it all turn around for the best once he settled down here. Of course, Quinn and Eve had rolled in only a month ago, with Wesley promising to pull up the rear sometime in the next year. At the very least, Wesley had promised to make it down here at some point during the holidays. I was looking forward to seeing our overachieving doctor brother as well as our parents.
Even having my family close wasn’t doing what it used to, though. I wanted something more.
Then again, perhaps that didn’t have anything to do with the house we lived in or the jobs we held or the hobbies we’d picked up along the way. In most ways, we had the life we’d hoped for. Perhaps my settling-down issue had more to do with a someone, not necessarily a something.
That, of course, was Kaden’s fault. My twin was still adamant we would eventually have the big wedding and greet some sweet young thing at the end of the aisle where we would vow to love endlessly, blah, blah, fucking blah. I was no longer disillusioned in that area. Been there, done that. Twice. Another ride on the merry-go-round that was shitty relationships? No fucking thank you.
Unfortunately, I was starting to suspect Kaden had a specific woman in mind.
Did I still want to share women with my twin? Damn straight. I didn’t know any other way. Our desire to share women between us was something that had come naturally since we were old enough to don a condom. Then it had been sealed thanks to Mrs. Whitley, the sexy housewife who’d turned two horny teenagers into men. Some found our untraditional needs an abomination, but that had always been the way it was for us, and I wasn’t the sort to make excuses for it.
It was the marriage part I wasn’t on board with. Nothing permanent, either. Fucking for the sake of fucking, that was my motto. Why, you ask? Well, that was because our attempts at happily ever after had blown up in our faces not once but twice in our history. Thank the good Lord, we’d never made it to the altar either time, but that had been the plan.
I was still on board with shagging the same chick, but I was no longer interested in seeing if it would lead to something more. It wouldn’t. Might as well steer clear of the heartache.
Which was another reason I was content to live in Coyote Ridge. I saw the way people treated Travis, Kylie, and Gage. They certainly weren’t abominations, and they were making the ménage à trois work. Of course, that was a different version of what Kaden and I engaged in. Travis was in love with both Kylie and Gage; he was intimate with both of them, while Kaden and I merely wanted to bang a willing, sexy woman from both ends. At the same time.
Crude, yeah, I could see that.
And yes, I was jaded.
So fucking what.
Kaden’s cell phone rang, drawing me from my rambling thoughts.
My brother snatched the phone off the table. “What’s up, Trav?”
I watched his face, waited to see what emergency we were being dragged into now. For whatever reason, we were the go-tos when it came to helping out Curtis’s branch of the Walker family tree.
“Absolutely. We can run by there now, take them to the daycare. No problem.”
I grinned. Looked as though we were on chauffeur duty again.
When Kaden hung up, he grabbed his napkin, wiped his mouth, and signaled the waitress over.
“What was that about?”
Kaden reviewed the check, pulled out some cash. “Travis needs us to run by his house and pick up Kade, Avery, and Maddox. Asked us to drop them off at the daycare.”
“Somethin’ wrong?”
Kaden got to his feet. “Said Haden isn’t feelin’ well. Runnin’ a fever. Kylie’s hesitant to get him outta the house.”
“Can’t blame her there. What about Kate? She back at school yet?” I asked, hopeful the little darling was finding some normalcy again after her horrific ordeal with the crazy psycho bitch who’d snatched her.
“Not yet. Travis said she’s with him at the resort. Gonna take her to Lorrie this afternoon.”
I got to my feet, grabbed a five out of my wallet, and tossed it onto the table along with the money my brother left.
“I covered the tip already,” Kaden mumbled as we were walking toward the door.
“And I bumped it a little. Now she’ll be happy to see us next time we come in.”
Kaden smirked. “She’s happy to see us already.”
Yeah, but I was still on the fence as to whether I was going to attempt to get her phone number or not. Never hurt to be extra nice.
You know, just in case.
* * *
Kaden
Half an hour later, I was hopping out of the truck while my brother carried on a conversation with the three kids strapped into their car seats in the back seat. I couldn’t help it; I was laughing at some ridiculous joke Keegan told. Didn’t matter that it was juvenile and rather simple, I still laughed.
I had to admit, I was a tad jealous of how easily Keegan got along with the little ones. My twin was the guy all the kids wanted to be around, the one they chased over and under the jungle gym, shot with water guns on Sunday afternoons, hunted Easter eggs with, opened presents with. In recent months, Keegan had even claimed Beau’s title belt as the favorite uncle, although technically, we were cousins, not uncles.
Granted, that transition only happened because Beau was ear-deep in dirty diapers of his own with the rowdy triplets. Beau had promised Keegan he would be back to challenge him for the title, but he needed some time to settle in. I had to wonder how true that was because the triple terrors were now one, and Beau was still on hiatus, his return to glory still iffy.
Didn’t seem to bother Keegan in the least. In fact, I was pretty sure he was mighty proud of the title.
Funny thing was, Keegan didn’t have to try too hard to be the favorite. He was merely good with kids. I, on the other hand, loved the little munchkins, but I didn’t have the smooth way that Keegan did. My brother would talk them into damn near anything, including brushing their teeth and eating their vegetables. The guy was a miracle worker.
At one point, I had figured we’d have a houseful of our own rugrats by now, a ranch to raise them on. Some sweet woman sleeping between us, waking us up with a smile, a woman we could love beyond reason, spoil because she deserved it. So far, it hadn’t happened, but I hadn’t lost faith.
I even had one particular woman in mind, but I found myself trying to navigate a couple of obstacles.
One: Bristol Newton, the sassy daycare owner I’d set my eye on, was proving to be resistant to our charms. A problem I figured could be remedied if I just put my heart into it.
Two: Keegan. My twin was adamantly opposed to happily ever after. According to him, it wasn’t possible, so why bother? He did, however, say that just sex was always on the table.
I didn’t really see Bristol as the just-sex kinda girl, which brought me around to those obstacles I was still attempting to hurdle.
“Man, y’all are lucky,” Keegan was saying when I opened the truck door to help Avery out of her car seat.
“Why? Why are we lucky, Uncle Keeg?” four-year-old Kade asked, smiling widely as Keegan leaned in on the other side of the truck to assist him out.
“Because y’all get to come here,” Keegan explained, motioning toward the daycare.
And see Bristol. I kept that thought to myself as I set Avery on her feet because, at three, the little girl was already too independent to be carried.
I took her hand before shutting the rear door. When I reached the front of the truck, Keegan was joining me, one hand firmly held in Kade’s, the other arm filled with eighteen-month-old Maddox.
“There’s all kinds of cool stuff to play with here,” Keegan continued.
I grinned. It was pretty much the same conversation we had anytime we brought one of the kids here. There were currently twenty-three little ones between Curtis and Lorrie’s seven sons, the last of the herd—Zane and V’s Dustin—born last December. For the first time in years, none of the women were pregnant. And due to being far outnumbered by the short-legged Walkers, Keegan and I were often called in to help out in one capacity or another.
As for the daycare, we’d brought almost all of them here at some point. Keegan had mastered the art of hyping them up to want to go in. On occasion, one would make a mad dash for the door in an attempt to escape, but by the time I was leaving, the kids were always excited. That was Keegan for you.
“There is,” Kade assured Keegan with a huge grin. “All kinds of stuff.”
“That’s just not fair,” Keegan said as he opened the outer door, allowing Kade and Avery to step in before him, then me. “I wanna play with the cool stuff.”
Once inside, we remained in the small vestibule, waiting for the interior doors to be unlocked. No one was allowed in who wasn’t on the approved list of visitors, had their fingerprints on file, and knew their specialized code. No exceptions.
I stepped up to the keypad, typed in the six-digit code, pressed my finger to the scanner, and waited.
“Maybe Miss Bristol’ll let you play, too,” Kade told Keegan, his brow furrowed as he peered up, the spitting image of Travis only in miniature form. “I can ask her.”
Keegan’s response was a conspiratorial grin and a quick nod.
I chuckled. God, I loved these kids. They were so damn innocent, reminding me of a simpler time. And I felt blessed to have a chance to hang out with my cousins and their little ones on a daily basis. Plus, from time to time, I got to hang with my brother Jared, spend some quality time with my own nephew and niece.
“You do that,” Keegan told Kade. “If Miss Bristol says it’s cool, maybe we can play for a few minutes.”
On more than one occasion, I’d had to sit back and watch Keegan build block castles with the little kids. Sometimes I wondered if my twin wouldn’t mind spending his day here just so he could do that.
The lock disengaged, allowing us to open the interior door. The instant Kade stepped inside, he released Keegan’s hand and began jumping up and down. “Miss Bristol! Miss Bristol!” he squealed.
Bristol peered up from her spot at the desk, her light blue eyes glittering, a smile tilting the corners of her full lips. Clearly Kade knew to wait until he was acknowledged.
She turned in her chair, giving Kade her full attention as she rested her elbows on her knees, leaning toward him. “Good mornin’, Kade.”
God, I loved that soft twang, the raspy sound of her voice.
“Hi, Miss Bristol.” Based on the puff of his cheeks, Kade was trying to stifle his energy, but his hands couldn’t seem to remain still.
Bristol peered up at us, then back to Kade. She stood and stepped around the desk. “What has you so excited this mornin’?”
“Uncle Keegan wants to play with the cool stuff. Can he? Just for a little while? Purty please?”
While Bristol chatted it up with the kids, I took a minute to admire her. From her shoulder-length brown hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, to the pink Converse on her feet. She looked all of sixteen, although I knew she’d hit the big three-one earlier in the year. I’d even been invited to the shindig. Of course, I’d come up with an excuse as to why I couldn’t go. In my defense, Bristol had been dating some jackass at the time—a temporary thing that had lasted all of two weeks—and I hadn’t been keen on subjecting myself to seeing her with another man.
In fact, ever since our incident at Alluring Indulgence last December, it seemed Bristol was attempting to keep us at a distance by flaunting other men. Didn’t matter that they never lasted much past a first date, and she never shared any stories of hope for something more with the many women in her orbit. If she had, perhaps I would’ve had to intervene. Since she seemed to be doing what she could to push my brother and me away, I’d been biding my time.
But she was single now.
Very single.
When those glittering eyes lifted to meet mine, a wide grin on her face, I was hard-pressed to keep from winking at her, a bad habit I’d acquired when picking up women. Fortunately, I knew better. Bristol was not the sort of woman who would be impressed by a wink and a smile. She was far too smart for that. In fact, she’d rebuked every attempt I’d made to flirt with her in the past. Except for that one alcohol-fueled night. Still, that hadn’t deterred me in the least. Of course, I’d thought for sure we’d made inroads with her last Christmas, but I should’ve known better.
“Well, all right,” she told Kade with a chuckle before peering up at Keegan. “I think it’ll be fine if Uncle Keegan hangs out for a bit.”
“Yay!” Kade squealed, jumping up and down as he grabbed Keegan’s hand and jerked him toward the door leading to the inner sanctum.
“Hold up, speedy. Your sister’s gonna wanna join us.”
I remained in the front office as Keegan keyed his passcode in a secondary keypad and then motioned Avery in front of him, making the little girl giggle as Kade grabbed Avery’s hand and took off at a trot toward the back the instant the door opened.
“Sometimes I think you should charge him for bein’ here,” I told Bristol as I stepped over to the wide window that overlooked the room where the kids congregated, watching my brother pass Maddox off to a waiting teacher.
“I think it’s sweet,” she said, bending over to jot something down in her notebook before standing tall once more.
The outfit she wore was more for comfort than fashion, I figured, but the woman would’ve looked damn fine wearing a potato sack. The light blue skinny jeans couldn’t have been more form-fitting if they’d been painted on. The plus was how they showcased toned legs and a sinful ass, while the oversized cream-colored sweatshirt hid the nice curves I knew she rocked on that petite frame.
Truth was, I was usually drawn to leggy women, the ones who were closer to my six-foot-two inches. Bristol couldn’t have been but a few inches over five feet. Still, there was something about her that did it for me.
“I’ll be sure to tell him you said that.” I grinned. “He likes when women call him sweet.”
Speaking of sweet, Bristol was sweet enough to cause a toothache and sassy enough to square a man’s shoulders. Not to mention, she was as stubborn as she was beautiful. Oddly enough, I didn’t even have to wink to make Bristol blush. Despite the fact we’d spent countless hours in her presence, usually at one Walker function or another, I always detected a hint of nerves when she was around us.
“So, will you be attendin’ the fall festival?” she asked while we stood watching as a group of kids built a block fort around Keegan.
Fall festival? We’d just had the back-to-school festival, hadn’t we? I did a mental calculation, realized the fall festival was only a few days away. Next weekend, in fact.
“Is it just me, or does Coyote Ridge have a festival for everything?”
Bristol smiled up at me, a flash of those pretty white teeth. “I think the mayor’s responsible for that.”
“It hasn’t always been that way?”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Not like this, anyway. We’ve had one or two a year, but only for the past couple of years has it ramped up. It’s kinda nice.”
Nice wasn’t the word I would’ve used. Saying there was a festival for everything wasn’t an exaggeration. Just in the past year, I’d been suckered into attending a Valentine’s festival, Founder’s Day festival, Easter, Memorial Day, the Kick Off to Summer festival, July Fourth, Back to School, some kind of Ode to Pets festival, and now the town’s long-running annual fall festival.
How exactly did anyone get anything done around this place when they spent so much damn time decorating and organizing events?
“I think it’s her way of revitalizin’ the town,” Bristol continued. “Mayor Stewart is all about bringin’ the residents together.”
I found myself mesmerized by Bristol’s glossy pink lips and the twinkle in her eyes. I wanted to kiss those lips again, to slide my tongue along the seam and dip inside, hear her reaction. It had been too damn long since I’d gotten a taste of her.
“Does that mean you’ll be attendin’?” I asked, breaking the hold she had over me and forcing my eyes to meet hers.
Bristol grinned. “Of course. Mayor Stewart roped me into it.”
“I find it amusin’ you refer to her as Mayor Stewart, considerin’ Bianca’s your best friend.”
She laughed. “One of them, yes. But I do it because it irritates her.”
That made me smile. I liked her sassiness. I only wish she’d turn all that attitude on me sometime.
“Well?” she asked, still staring at me.
I frowned. “Well, what?”
“Can I add you to the list of people attendin’?”
“Depends.”
“On?”
I held her stare and offered my best smile. “What’s in it for me?”
