Big Sky Wedding (21 page)

Unsettled as she was, some part of Brylee was soaring, and there were wings beating inside her heart and in the back of her throat.

Before Zane could say anything more—a blessing in disguise, no doubt—Amy and Landry wandered out of the Boot Scoot and into the coolness of the evening, both of them looking concerned.

“Bry,” Amy said gently. “Are you sick or something?”

“No,” Brylee said, too quickly. Then, “Yes.”

Zane wasn’t gripping her waist now, but he’d looped one arm around her shoulders, and she knew it was because he wasn’t entirely sure she could remain upright under her own power. She both resented and appreciated the gesture, and she felt drunk, even though she hadn’t had a drop of beer or wine the whole night.

“Shall I drive you home?” Amy asked, searching Brylee’s face anxiously. The worry in her friend’s eyes was genuine.

Brylee shook her head and limped off toward her SUV, rummaging in her purse for the keys as she went.

Amy hurried after her, caught hold of her arm. “Bry? What’s going on?”

Brylee paused, shook her head again, unable to explain since she didn’t entirely understand what was happening herself, and forged on toward her vehicle.

Amy let her go this time, but Zane wasn’t so accommodating.

The whole way back to Timber Creek Ranch, he was right behind her, he and his big truck and his brother. Only when she’d pulled off the road and started up the long, winding driveway leading to the house she’d lived in all her life did he go on his way, the headlights of his truck beaming bright in the darkness.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I
T
WASN
’
T
Z
ANE
’
S
style to back out on a commitment,
any
commitment—which was probably the main reason he so rarely made one to begin with—but for Saturday night supper at Timber Creek Ranch, with Brylee and her whole clan, he knew he’d better make an exception. He’d lost his head back there at the Boot Scoot Tavern, testosterone levels ratcheted way up by the sight and scent and feel of Brylee Parrish in that damnable, sex-on-wheels red dress of hers, and he’d just hauled off and
kissed
her—definitely a tactical error, in hindsight. She’d gone all wide-eyed afterward, like a doe startled in the woods, and practically
loped
to her car, she was in such a hurry to get away.

From him.

Seeing Brylee again so soon might make her feel cornered, and he didn’t want that. Still, he wished he didn’t have to cancel, and not just for selfish reasons. Nash’s chance to meet Brylee’s nephew, Shane, a boy about his age and thus a potential friend, would be postponed. Even Cleo, the human dynamo, could have used a night out of that old house and a taste of someone’s cooking in place of her own.

Damn, Zane thought. When had his life gotten so complicated? He’d come to Montana partly to simplify his existence, but in retrospect, L.A. seemed peaceful by comparison. Probably an illusion.

All too aware of Landry, slumped sullenly in the passenger seat of Zane’s truck, he suppressed an audible groan. His brother had witnessed most of the debacle at the Boot Scoot, and what he hadn’t seen for himself, he’d probably guessed, because whatever Landry’s other shortcomings might be, he wasn’t stupid.

Zane swore again, silently. He’d kissed a lot of women in his day, and some of those women were beyond hot, no denying it, but he’d never felt anything more than normal, if pleasant, heat with any of them, not even Tiffany, and he’d truly believed he
loved
her. Once upon a time, that is.

The warm and receptive sweetness of Brylee’s mouth under his, by contrast, had caused a seismic shift inside him, a sort of violent connection—or, more accurately, a
collision
—of their two souls, and the aftermath felt alarmingly permanent. Oh, the shock had let up a little, all right, but the echo of that was tattooed on every cell in his body and branded on his heart and mind.

Was this love? Damn, he hoped not, because it was too soon for that, too. Seemed like it was too soon for just about
everything,
and he wasn’t a patient man.

Landry, having been on the peck since Zane had practically shirt-collared him away from the Boot Scoot and into the truck, determined to make damn sure Brylee got home without incident, given how upset she’d been. Leaning forward on the seat, Landry twiddled with the sound system on the dashboard, producing fragments of songs and newscasts, but mainly ear-splitting static, before giving an exasperated growl, low in his throat, and, mercifully, shutting the noise off again.

Something ventured, nothing gained, Zane thought. They’d just made the U-turn at Timber Creek’s front gate, and Zane was heading for home. Nights at Hangman’s Bend were relatively quiet, but the days were pure chaos, with Cleo and Nash and the dog and the contractors all vying to see who could raise the most dust and clatter and all-around annoyance in general.

Now, damn it,
Landry
would be tossed into the mix, nasty-assed attitude, drugstore-cowboy getup, and all.

Frustrated, Zane shoved a hand through his hair, reminded himself that the man riding with him wasn’t some troublesome hitchhiker but his own blood, his
brother.
He didn’t see where he had any choice except to suck it up, concentrate on finding the man a place to sleep for the night and try hard not to go for his throat. Landry, being Landry, would inevitably decide to go back to Chicago, where he belonged. If he wanted a change of scene, why not New York? Boston? Or L.A.?

In the meantime, the situation simply had to be endured.

“I never figured you for a knight in shining armor,” Landry said dryly, in the dimness of the rig’s fancy interior, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had prevailed, for the most part, since they left Parable. Out of the corner of his eye, Zane saw his brother cock a thumb over one shoulder, presumably indicating Brylee’s turn onto her driveway. “Guess you missed it, big brother, but the lady clearly did not want you to escort her home. Following her the way you just did is called stalking, where I come from.”

Zane’s back molars locked together, and he purposefully relaxed the muscles in his aching jaws. He
had
crossed at least one line with Brylee that night, but he wouldn’t have put the indiscretions into that particular category.
Stalking?
“Thanks for that observation,” he finally ground out on a raspy breath, keeping his eye on the dark and winding country road ahead because, when this edgy and all-too-familiar energy arced between him and Landry, it generally led to a fistfight, the bare-knuckle, no-rules kind. “I really appreciate your expertise. Not to mention the benefit of a doubt.”

Landry’s laugh was raw and a little ragged around the edges. “What? You think you’re the only one around here who knows a thing or three about women?”

Zane made a conscious effort to go all Zen on the inside, but it didn’t work, possibly because he didn’t know spit about the process. Nobody—not even Tiffany—had ever been able to get under his hide the way Landry did, always with a minimum of effort, too. Like he was born for it.

“Look,” he said, with a quiet but unmistakable warning in his voice as well as his manner, “I’d just as soon not discuss Brylee, if it’s all the same to you.”

“The woman is seriously hot,” Landry went on, undaunted. “If you’re not planning to go after the delectable Ms. Parrish in earnest, kindly step aside and let
me
give it a shot.”

That did it. Zane slammed on the brakes and brought the truck to a dust-roiling, tire-screeching stop alongside the road. “Make a move on Brylee,” he said, sounding deadly calm, which he damn well wasn’t, “just one move, and you’re going to need a brand-new set of teeth,
little
brother.”

Landry pretended to cower slightly against the truck door, putting both hands up, palms out in a gesture of mocking capitulation, but the glint in his eyes told the real story. He’d have enjoyed a good row himself, Landry would have, right then and right there, in the ditch or even on the road, and avoiding a potential melee wasn’t on his priority list.

“All right, all right,” he said, with notable irony, “I
get
it. Brylee is off-limits.” He paused while Zane, white-knuckling the steering wheel with both hands, tried to defuse the ticking bomb in his middle. Landry, of course, chatted merrily on. “Of course, there is the matter of the lady’s obvious reluctance to have anything whatsoever to do with you, so that might mean I’ll get my chance, after all, at some point. I trust you noticed how jumpy Brylee was, from the moment she came through the door and caught sight of you? I was watching her—who could
help
watching her, with looks like that?—and she would have done a disappearing act, pronto, if her friend hadn’t grabbed her arm and forced her to stay.”

All that was true, of course—except maybe for the part about Landry having a snowball’s chance in hell with Brylee,
ever
—and that was why Zane planned on calling Casey Elder as soon as he got home and asking for a raincheck on the home-cooked dinner. If he crowded Brylee now, Zane figured, he wouldn’t just miss when he tried to catch the brass ring, he’d fall clear off the merry-go-round, and getting back on would be a bitch, if it was possible at all.

“Let it go, Landry,” he said, very quietly. He started the truck up again, grinding the ignition, checked the mirrors, and pulled back out onto the road. “We’ll be at Hangman’s Bend in a couple of minutes. You can sleep off all that beer and whatever else you’ve been swilling since you got to Parable. There might even be some hope that you’ll come to your senses by morning.”

But Landry was shaking his head. “I’m not bunking in at your place, cowboy,” he said. “There’s an establishment in Three Trees called the Somerset Inn. Place looked halfway decent on the internet. Anyway, I have a reservation, and the rental company is dropping off a replacement car there first thing tomorrow.”

Zane hoped his relief wasn’t too obvious, intense as it was. “Okay,” he agreed casually. “But you might have mentioned this when we drove
through
Three Trees fifteen minutes ago. I could have dropped you off then.”

“You were busy tailing the Lady in Red,” Landry reminded him airily. “Far be it from me to interfere with your love life, bro.”

“Right,” Zane said skeptically. “Far be it from you.”

“That woman I was dancing with,” Landry mused aloud, as they passed the mailbox at the bottom of Zane’s driveway and headed on toward town. “You happen to recall what her name is?”

Zane’s grip tightened on the wheel again momentarily, and conversely, he felt a weird impulse to laugh. He’d just been congratulating himself on not getting into a knock-down-drag-out, in the middle of nowhere, with his obnoxious brother. Now, what little self-control he’d been able to hold on to gave way to another rush of hostility.

“You don’t remember her name?” he asked, when he figured he could trust himself not to yell, or pull over again, haul Landry out of the truck and beat the hell out of him on the spot. “You were all over her, man. She’s probably expecting a phone call at any minute, followed up with a major date, if not a proposal, and you
didn’t catch her name?
”

Landry sighed, long-suffering. “I see you’re still the same judgmental bastard you always were,” he remarked, feigning great sadness at the discovery.

“Amy,” Zane bit out, determined not to acknowledge the gibe. “Her name is Amy.”

“Right,” Landry said. “It would have come back to me eventually, but thanks, anyway.”

“She’s Brylee’s friend,” Zane pointed out, remembering what Brylee had said about how Amy was still in love with her ex-husband—against the dictates of common sense, evidently, since the man was busy romancing a flight attendant—and kept his tone as even as he could. Landry was goading him, and he needed to put on the brakes, get a grip before “bad” morphed itself into “worse.” “Amy’s a nice person, a small-town girl.” A pause. “So suppose you summon up the decency to leave her the hell alone? You’re not even divorced from what’s-her-name, are you?”

“Susan.” Landry let out a long breath. “We never got around to getting married again, after that last divorce,” he said, dismissing the most recent wife/girlfriend/whatever, as if she’d been hired from an escort service for a night. “Is Amy the first runner-up or something?” he went on, all innocence and phony concern now. “I mean, if things don’t work out between you and Brylee—and from my viewpoint it looks like they won’t, sorry to say—you want to keep her friend in reserve for a replacement?”

Zane simmered in silence for a long time, refusing to give in to his baser instincts, which called for immediate brother-blood by the bucket load. The flash flood of adrenaline rushing through his system took a while to subside.

When the outskirts of Three Trees finally came into view, though, Zane was ready to talk again, and he went straight to the point. “What are you doing here, Landry?” he asked, without any inflection at all. “In Montana, I mean. It definitely isn’t your kind of place.”

“I told you,” Landry said, the soul of patience. “I want to get a good look at my half of the ranch. I need a change of perspective, a chance to get off the hamster wheel for a few days and figure some things out.” Attitude aside, this was probably the first true thing to come out of Landry’s mouth all night.

“That must be why you bought yourself those road-show jeans and circus boots,” Zane speculated flatly.

Now Landry was genuinely offended; Zane could tell that by the freeze in the formerly heated atmosphere. And he not only didn’t give a rat’s ass what Landry’s response was, he was jazzed.

“These clothes,” Landry said stiffly, “are
custom-made.
The best Chicago-land has to offer.”

Zane chuckled, crossing the town limits and trying to remember exactly where the Somerset Inn was located. He might have seen it on one of his trips to town; he wasn’t sure. “Exactly,” he answered idly. “Around here, people buy their pants at Wal-Mart or Target or over at the Western-wear store—wherever they can get the best price—and no man who called himself a cowboy would be caught dead wearing duds like yours, especially those sissified boots.”

That
remark shut Landry up for a moment or two. He lifted one of his feet and gave his boot a cursory once-over.
“Sissified?”
he echoed, unconvinced but wavering a little, too.

Up ahead, Zane spotted the sign for the Somerset Inn, behind the Denny’s and a convenience store/gas station surrounded by semitrucks.

He grinned to himself.
Score,
he thought. “Downright girlie,” he confirmed, pulling into the lot next to the motel. It was a good-sized outfit, though modest, well-maintained and with a lot of welcoming light spilling out through the lobby doors and windows.

Still, it was surely no match for the digs Landry was probably accustomed to gracing with his presence. Here, there might be a free breakfast, a pool and a few exercise machines, but room service, private wet bars, high-thread-count sheets, retractable TVs and spacious showers with multiple sprayers were unlikely prospects indeed. So much for personal concierges and complimentary champagne and rose stems on the pillows at night instead of a square of cheap chocolate, too.

And yet, Zane thought, slightly deflated by his own observations, unassuming as it was, the Somerset Inn was in a lot better shape than
his
place. Once Landry got a look at the ranch house—and there was no getting out of that—he would have plenty to say about the new setup, and none of it would be favorable.