“Oh yeah. She was my favorite.”
Archer shook his head. “I once walked in on him banging her over his desk. I was nine. Their marriage is so messed up.”
“What? The fact the old man tries to bang anyone that moves? Or that mother knows and pays them off, so they don’t go to the press?”
“All of it.” Archer sighed. “Murray’s sending one of his neighbors to get us. He said it’s unlikely the guy that runs the garage will come up here tonight. I got an earful about how we should have left earlier.”
“Great. Wonder how long we’ll have to wait.”
“We could always have a talk about why we’re here.”
“Fun. Talking. My favorite thing.”
“Isaac.”
“Archer,” he repeated. He hated his fucking name. All he could hear was his mother saying it in that disappointed drawl of hers. Nothing he’d ever done had been right. Not like her golden child.
Enough. You have to get past this.
He thought he had. But that was before Evelyn messed him up all over again.
“I want us to have a relationship again. I know you don’t believe that I had nothing to do with Evelyn—”
“How about we agree never to talk about her? That would be a good start to mending this shit between us. Also, how about we don’t talk at all. About any of it. Just agree to move on. See? We didn’t need to come to some cabin in the middle of the woods to chat. I’ve solved it all. We could have stayed at the ranch.”
“You never leave the ranch. And we’ve solved nothing. You can’t just agree to get over everything.”
“Why not?” he snapped. “Why can’t we do that?”
“Because you still fucking hate me,” Archer replied. “And you always will unless you let me explain.”
“Maybe I don’t want your explanation. Maybe I like things the way they are. Perhaps we’re not supposed to be close. We should just agree to send each other fucking Christmas cards and call on our birthdays and leave it at that.”
“When’s the last time you sent a damn Christmas card?” Archer snarled. “And do you even know when my birthday is?”
Isaac shrugged. “There’s no need for any heart to hearts or lies about forgiveness and becoming best bros. Let’s just keep the truth between us. We’re both completely different and we’re never gonna be close and leave it at that.”
Archer threw up his hands. “Fine. If that’s what you really want. We can go back to being near-strangers.”
That should make him happy. But very little made him happy anymore.
He opened his mouth to say something. What, he had no idea. An apology? To tell his brother he didn’t mean it? But then lights shone into the truck and Archer was climbing out.
The moment was gone.
2
Murray owed her big-time.
If he wasn’t such a good neighbor, who had helped her out more than once, she wouldn’t be here.
Caley knew she shouldn’t have answered her phone. Most of the time, she didn’t even have it charged. But just her luck, she’d charged it up last night. And so here she was. Rescuing some friends of
Murray who’d had a car accident.
Probably a pair of city dwellers, looking for a weekend in the country and unused to driving on these sorts of road.
Her old truck bounced over the ruts. The suspension was shot. She just hoped she had plenty of gas. When was the last time she’d put any in? She should have brought a fuel can with her. Her gas gauge had stopped working at some stage and she’d never gotten it fixed. Come to think of it, when was the last time she’d had it serviced?