AVERY (The Corbin Brothers Book 2) (13 page)

Paisley arched her back and howled at the storm like a coyote, her body bearing down on my cock, making me come with a shout, rocking against her, cradling her to me even as her fists rained blows on my back and she cried and cried.

Paisley was my home.

I’d finally found where I belonged, and it was with her.

We put Sam Summers in the ground on a Sunday morning, the entire town turning out after church let out for the graveside services. I sat at Paisley’s side because that was expected of us, not necessarily because that’s what she wanted me to do. She was composed, folding her hands over her lap, probably causing a glut of gossip with her nice black trousers and black button-down shirt. I could imagine the scandalized whispers of some of the old ladies in town — couldn’t that Paisley at least wear a skirt to her own father’s funeral? What good was that husband of hers if he couldn’t even buy her nice things? Why won’t he whip her into shape? Paisley didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of her. With the contract creating Corbin-Summers Ranch, she had what she wanted. If only I could be better for her, she could’ve had everything — that fairy tale she thought was out of her reach.

All of us sweated in black and the nicest shirts and jeans we could find. Funerals were getting much more common than they should’ve been, old ranchers dying off just as quickly as our way of life was. People just didn’t bring their children up like our parents had been dead set on doing for us. Ranches were getting snapped up by big oil, or bigger, commercial ranching operations like Bud Billings’ outfit. Funerals should’ve been something we were used to for people and ranches, and here we were, weeping over one of the last good men in ranching. Sam Summers had been a force of nature in the ranching world, and nobody seemed to know or care that Paisley was his heir through and through.

The minister droned on and on about fidelity and hard work and perseverance, all qualities embodied by the late Sam Summers. Paisley watched her hands dispassionately, peered up at the sky, looked everywhere except for the box that contained her father, and the hole we were all preparing to place him in. I wanted to put my hand over hers, to try to offer some sort of comfort, but I was pretty sure she would reject it.

The ceremony ended and people stood from their chairs, Paisley rising automatically, moving away from the gaping of the ground, from the abstraction of death and the horror that brought, away. I followed her because I thought that was what I was supposed to do, what Sam Summers had wanted. Paisley seemed placid, but I knew just what level of turmoil churned under the surface of that calm face. I knew it very well.

“My condolences, Ms. Summers.”

We turned to come face to face with Bud Billings, cane in hand, dressed in the nicest suit by far at the funeral — nicer even than the one Paisley was burying her father in. I noticed with some satisfaction that he was in the process of sweating right through it. Not even Bud Billings could escape the heat of the sun.

“Thank you, Mr. Billings,” she said, perfectly polite even as I bristled. He held out his hand and she took it, but instead of shaking it, Bud lifted it to his lips and kissed her browned skin.

“Or, and I’m sorry, is it Mrs. Corbin now?” he asked, glancing at me, not releasing her hand.

“It’s still Summers, as in the Corbin-Summers Ranch,” she said. “Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

“Your father was a good man, Paisley,” Bud said. “A smart man. Hell of a rancher.”

“Yes, yes he was.”

“You were lucky to have him to advise you on managing the ranch.” Bud was talking to Paisley, but he kept his eyes on me. “That’s the reason this new ranch has been relatively successful — so far. But the Corbin boys didn’t inherit their parents’ ranching acumen. They’ll run their half of the ranch — and yours — into the ground before your father’s cold in the ground.”

“That’s the last time you get to talk about our parents like that,” I said, inserting myself between Bud and Paisley. “Mind your own ranch — and your manners — when you’re speaking to my wife.”

“No disrespect meant, Ms. Summers,” Bud said, smirking at me, clearly implying that disrespect was meant to me and my family. “I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

“Move along, Bud,” I said, watching him until he walked away, swinging his cane.

I turned back to Paisley, who had a funny look on her face.

“What?”

“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever called me your wife,” she said.

“How, um, how did it sound?”

“Strange.” She looked up at the sky, then back toward her father’s open grave as the backhoe began to push earth into it. “A shame it took my father dying for you to start doing it.”

“Paisley, it just slipped out.”

“So calling me your wife was an accident.”

“I’m not trying to antagonize you. I’m sorry for offending you. I really am.” How did I blunder into this kind of idiocy? There had to be some kind of reward for it.

“Just — just forget about it. I don’t mean to snap. I’m tired.”

“I know you are. Are you ready to go?”

“Let me just watch them put the dirt on my father.”

“Paisley, I don’t think …”
“It’s closure, Avery. That’s all.”

I sat with her as the afternoon deepened into evening, watching the backhoe operator complete his work, on a couple of metal folding chairs the funeral home saw fit to leave us even as workers loaded the rest into the bed of a truck and paused a respectful distance away.

She waited until the backhoe was loaded and taken away before standing up, walking to the grave, and observing the work done.

“What makes the mound of earth on the grave go down?” Paisley asked absentmindedly, kicking at a clod. “We can come back in a month or two months or six and it’ll be flat again. Why?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.”

“Oh, first wife and now sweetheart?” she asked, smiling at me. “Did that one just slip out, too?”

It had. I felt such tenderness toward her. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Paisley. I’m right here with you. Whatever you need.”

“I need to go home,” she said with a sigh. “Sorry I’m acting crazy.”

“You’re not acting crazy. You just buried your father.”

“If you say so.”

We rode back in silence, Paisley’s head bobbing with every dip and curve in the road. I thought she’d gotten all her grief out last night, but grief was a funny thing, different for every single person and every single experience they had. She seemed all emptied out right now, but I didn’t know how to fill her back up, or whether she would even want me to try and pull her back into herself. Tragedy had a way of turning everything inside out.

“What do you want to do tonight?” I asked her as we pulled in to the driveway and I turned off the truck.

“Just sleep,” she said dully, looking out the window.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I’m tired.”

“All right. Your body knows what you need.”

But when I went upstairs later to check on her, she was pulling on jeans and a T-shirt, braiding her hair away from her face like she did while working on the ranch.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

“I’m going out,” she said, the same tonelessness in her voice as before.

“Do you want me to go with you?”

“What for?”

“Just to go,” I said, because it was better than “to watch you and protect you and surround you with as much love as you need to go.” Paisley didn’t seem like she’d tolerate any sap right now, even though I was trying to support her like I’d promised her father I would do.

“I want to be alone,” she said.

“Can I drop you off?”

“No.”

She took the truck, and I knew she was going to the bar, the distraction of merriment and free drinks from those sympathetic to the bereaved a welcome thing. I knew what it was to strive for distraction. I just wished she would’ve let me driven her and picked her up.

One o’clock rolled around, and then two. I worried for a while, then decided to do something about it. I fired up an old motorbike I found in the gaping garage, wobbled around on it until I found my balance, and rocketed off in direction of town.

I found her perched on my barstool, her head in her hands, the bartender clearing a long line of shot glasses from in front of her.

“I wouldn’t have let her drive home,” he assured me, dumping the shot glasses in the sink.

“Thank you,” I said.

“I’m right here, you know,” Paisley said. “You’re talking about me like I’m not.”

“Do you feel better, now?” I asked her. “Or is it going to take more liquor than that?”

“She didn’t even come to the funeral,” Paisley murmured, turning away from me.

“Who didn’t come to the funeral?”

“My mother.” Paisley lifted her face and looked at me. I tried to mentally count how many shots she’d had, how many glasses were being cleared away when I walked in here, but I couldn’t summon the image.

“Do you think she knew your father died?” I asked hesitantly. “Maybe she missed the news.”

“She didn’t miss the news because I called her to tell it to her,” Paisley said. “Well, I left a voicemail.”

“See? Maybe she didn’t get it.”

Paisley gave a half shrug. “Maybe she just didn’t care enough to come. I don’t know why I felt like telling her. She obviously hasn’t cared about either of us in a long damn time. Maybe I just wanted to be disappointed.”

“Want to go home?” I asked after a beat, not sure what I should say to make that hurt any better. Paisley had lost her father and been brushed aside by her mother. All I could try and do was be a supportive husband, even if I’d never been terribly good at that before.

“Fine,” she sighed. “You’re probably going to flip out at the tab, though.”
“Why would I flip out at the tab?” I asked her. “I’m sure I’ve run up many a similar one.”

“I don’t know.”

She didn’t question my presence, didn’t so much as look in the direction of the dirt bike once I got her into the parking lot. Paisley simply handed the keys over and clambered into the passenger seat of the truck.

We drove several miles before I decided to break the silence.

“I was worried about you, and I wanted to tell you I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? Why?”
I swallowed. “Because I know how you feel. How you felt. About me, when I didn’t show up at home.”

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” She looked at me. “Not that I planned to teach you a lesson. But you learned one anyway, didn’t you?”

I chose not to answer that. That was Paisley trying to provoke me into a fight. I wasn’t going to answer that question.

“Paisley, I know that you’re hurting right now,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully. “And you know exactly why I know that. I’m here to talk, if you want to, and we don’t have to if you don’t. But I’ll never stop being here for you. Do you understand?”

“Sure,” she said. “But that’s not going to keep me from going out to the bar whenever I want to.”
“I’m not trying to convince you not to. I’m just trying to get you to be safe.”

“Like you were safe before?”

“Better than that.”

“I’m asleep,” she said, yawning widely, and then she was, snoring gently, her mouth wide open against the back of the seat, her body twisted but somehow lost to slumber.

I carried her inside after parking the truck, hoping that the motorbike would be secure, wondering if she’d get angry at me for getting out, hoping she wasn’t too terribly hungover tomorrow. How many times had I just stopped and watched my wife sleep? She was at peace, at least, then, not tormented by the loss of her father or whatever area I had failed her in or her lack of opportunity for leading a ranch without having to be married to anyone. Paisley had too much to deal with. If I could eliminate some of the worries by being the husband I was supposed to be to her, then I’d try my best.

I laid down in the bed gently beside her, curving my body to fit the shape of hers, tucking her hair behind her ears as she murmured in her sleep, draping my arm over her soft stomach. She said something I couldn’t quite understand and started snoring again even as she snuggled back into me. This simple spooning was something we’d never really done before. Every time we had been together, it had been something violent, something visceral. Had we even ever made love tenderly? I couldn’t think of a time.

I loved her so much in that moment, vulnerable and wounded. I would have laid anything at her feet to make her feel better. There wasn’t any use to regretting the past. I hadn’t been ready to be married to anyone, let alone someone as lovely and singular and whip-smart as Paisley. But there it was. We were married, and I should’ve spent my time making the best of it. Now I could do nothing else but try to make it right again.

When I woke up, Paisley’s side of the bed was cold. I knew she had probably found me practically on top of her and slipped out in disgust, preferring to go early to the ranch than have to deal with the man she’d been more or less forced to marry.

I did the only thing I could do — showered, put my clothes on, and headed out to the barn for my horse. It was another day on the ranch, just like any other. The herd was bigger, but the cattle logs were still my responsibility. I had been extra diligent, unwilling to let any of Paisley’s ranch hands take over or help with the duty, ever since those five cows had gone missing.

But when I approached the herd, I knew right away from experience that something was wrong. The cows and calves were skittish, quicker to run from my mount than their usual lazy plod. It was smaller, too, the herd — significantly so. I whipped out my clipboard and began the count … and came up thirty short.