Wyatt's Stand (Colebrook Siblings Trilogy Book 2) (3 page)

The door flew open and a man jumped out, slamming his door and storming toward her. He was big and around her age, with short dark hair and a beard. What she could see of the right side of his face was scarred pretty badly, and she recognized the swirling pattern mixed with pockmarks as the hallmarks of a blast injury.

She’d never laid eyes on the man before but it was clear he was pissed. Austen almost backed up a step at the look on his face as he stalked toward her, a twinge of fear twisting up her spine. Except she wasn’t the backing down sort.

She stepped to the front of the porch and crossed her arms over her chest, effectively barring his way to the front door as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Can I help you?” she asked evenly.

He paused there, his jaw working for a moment. A shaft of sunlight bathed the scarred half of his face, illuminating his thick espresso-colored hair and hazel-brown eyes. “You the real estate agent?”

“No. The owner.”

Shock flickered over his face for a moment. “You’re Austen Sloan?”

“That’s right. Is there a problem?” Because he sure as hell looked like he had one.

He crossed his arms over his chest—his very broad chest—mimicking her pose, his feet braced apart. “Yeah, there is.”

She raised her eyebrows and waited, not about to be intimidated by some local asshole. Nine years as a firefighter had taught her many things, one of the most important being not to take men’s shit just because she was a woman. This guy was big and built, but she wasn’t exactly petite and had long ago stopped letting men use their size and attitudes to intimidate her. “And what’s that?”

“There’s been some kind of mistake. I’ve been waiting to buy this place since the former owner passed away. I was supposed to be informed by the estate’s lawyers the moment this house was listed for sale, and I wasn’t.”

She’d been prepared for this, for someone to want to battle her for the house, because according to her agent, people had been asking the estate to sell the house for years. She just hadn’t expected a confrontation so soon. “I don’t know anything about that, but I assure you I bought it fair and square.”

His jaw flexed and she could see the resentment burning in his eyes. “What did you pay for it?”

“None of your business.”

A pause. “I’ll pay you ten percent over the purchase price to sell it to me.”

“No.”

More jaw flexing. “Fifteen.”

“No.” She’d fallen in love with this house, with its charm and character and this wasn’t about money. It was about restoring and building a place for her to love and make a home in. “Listen, Mr…”

“Colebrook,” he answered, an impatient edge to his voice. Tension rolled off his big frame, burned in his eyes. He would have been attractive without that scowl, even with the scars.

“Colebrook,” she acknowledged. “I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to bid on the house, but it’s mine now. I bought it legally and I’m not interested in selling to you or anyone else. Now have a nice day.” With that she spun around and headed for the front door.

“You don’t understand.”

She almost kept walking. She wanted to, but something about his tone stopped her. Pain.

Reaching for patience, she made herself turn around to face him. “What don’t I understand? My name is on the title and the seller has my money in their bank account. Pretty sure it’s my house.” And it was going to cost her more than twice as much to fix it as it had to buy it.

“This house, this property, has significant…sentimental value for me.”

The way he phrased it, and the way his already deep voice dropped lower when he said it, told her it cost him a lot to admit that. “It does for me too.” John would have loved this place. They’d always wanted to renovate a Victorian house together. This was her chance to live her dream and honor his memory.

Those hazel eyes pinned her in place, burning with frustration and…something that tugged at her. A bleakness she recognized that came from profound loss. “I used to stay here. Have Sunday night suppers in that dining room,” he said, nodding in the direction of the where the room was located. “The family who owned this place meant a lot to me. I’ve had my eye on it since the day Mrs. Miller died, and I’ve been waiting ever since for it to go up for sale.”

Did he think she would change her mind because of that?

He paused, drew a deep breath and seemed to struggle to rein himself in before asking, “How much will it take to buy it off you?”

She got the sense it hadn’t been easy for him to ask that. Her mind was made up though. “It’s not for sale. I’m sorry.” She hadn’t even turned back around yet before he stopped her again.

“What are you intending to do with it?”

Again, his phrasing struck her as odd. He sounded protective of the house, as if he didn’t trust her with it. Maybe he was worried she planned to bulldoze it. “I’m going to fix it up.”

“And then what?”

She was losing patience now. “And then I’m going to live in it.” For starters, anyway.

“You’re going to stay.” His tone dripped with skepticism.

Unless this town is full of assholes like you
. “Yes.”

He stood there for a long moment, staring at her. She held that hard gaze, refused to look away or even blink. Then he lowered his arms to his sides and his entire posture seemed etched with defeat. The desperate, almost haunted light in his eyes tugged at her, made her want to make it better somehow.

He pulled out his wallet, took out a business card and held it up. “If you ever decide to sell, will you promise to call me first? It would mean a lot,” he added after a moment.

Dammit, he was making her feel freaking guilty for owning the place, when just five minutes ago she’d been basking in all her excited glory of starting this new chapter of her life. “Fine.” She reached out a hand and stayed where she was, forcing him to climb the stairs to give it to her. His stride had a slight hitch to it.

When he reached the top step she caught another flash of surprise in his eyes as he realized how tall she was. A hair over six feet, putting her at about three inches shorter than him. He was a big man. Sexy, in spite of the scarring and the pissy attitude. Too bad.

He recovered quickly, stopping an arm’s length away. Up close she could see the flecks of amber and green amongst the chocolate-brown in his eyes, and there was something different about his right one. It was subtle, but when she looked closely she could see it wasn’t exactly the same as his left. Given the scarring on the right side of his face, maybe the right eye was a prosthetic.

He held the card out between two long fingers, and raised his eyebrows. “Promise?”

Promise what? Oh, to call him if she ever decided to sell. “I promise,” she told him and took the card, careful not to touch his fingers. Dammit, he smelled good, too. Something clean and masculine, slightly citrusy.

“Thanks.” He took a step back and looked past her through the front door, gazing almost longingly at the interior beyond before meeting her stare once more. “Take good care of her.”

The way he said it, as if he was talking about a lover he’d just lost, made her want to hug him. She knew too well what loss felt like, and was sorry she was responsible for his. “I will.”

The moment he started down the steps she went inside and closed the front door, letting out a deep breath of relief as she rested her back against it. As the sound of his truck’s engine fired to life out in the driveway she read his card.

Wyatt Colebrook, contractor
. Military contractor? Construction contractor?

He hadn’t made the most favorable first impression, that was for sure, but she’d damn sure never forget him. Outside, his truck pulled away from the house, the sound of the engine growing fainter as he drove down the driveway.

He might be gone for now, but her gut said this situation with the house was far from over between them.

A sour sensation churned in Wyatt’s stomach as he drove back home. It felt like he was in a daze. Or a bad dream. “Dammit.”

He couldn’t believe this had happened. How
had
it happened? Piper was a real estate agent and had promised to let him know the instant she got wind of the Miller place going up for sale. He’d been poised to pounce on it when it did.

Whatever Austen Sloan’s reasons for wanting to keep the house so badly, they couldn’t touch his. That house was the only remaining tangible link to a family he owed an insurmountable debt to. Wyatt had spent a lot of time there over the years, enjoying whatever Mrs. Miller had churned out of her kitchen. She’d been a fantastic cook, and a loving, doting grandmother to her only grandchild.

Taylor.

Just thinking about him made Wyatt’s throat thicken and his heart pound. He’d grown up with Taylor, gone to school with him, played varsity football with him in high school. They’d enlisted together, gone to boot camp at Parris Island together. Then they were deployed together on that last tour in Afghanistan.

Taylor wasn’t blood but Wyatt had considered him a brother nonetheless, every bit as much a brother to him as Brody and Easton were. And Wyatt had gotten him killed.

He swallowed hard, clenched his fingers around the steering wheel. The worst part was knowing he’d screwed up. Out on patrol during that early morning op, he’d missed the signals of a buried IED that had taken out the entire squad, including Wyatt’s beloved and brave military dog, Raider.

His gaze strayed to the camo-patterned training collar hanging from the rearview mirror. God, he missed his canine partner and fellow Marines. He pulled in a deep breath, tried to shake the memories away, but couldn’t. It was his fault. He’d screwed up, and everyone had died but him.

Surviving was his punishment. And every goddamn day, he had to deal with that.

When old Mrs. Miller had passed away over a year ago, he’d vowed to himself he would buy the house and fix it up, do something to honor her and Taylor’s memory. Maybe turn it into a home for disabled veterans.

Now that chance was gone.

Stopping for a red light in the middle of Sugar Hollow’s “downtown”, he saw Piper’s red car on the right at the intersection. She stuck her hand out her window and waved him down frantically.

The light turned green. He raised a hand in acknowledgment and kept driving. She swung her car around and he knew she was going to follow him all the way back to his place.

He wasn’t in the mood for company at the moment, but he did want to know what the hell had happened so maybe it was best they talked now. He didn’t want an audience for what would likely be a heated conversation, so if she wanted to talk, they’d have to do it at his place.

He drove down Main Street, past tidy and brightly-painted Victorian shops, restaurants and B&Bs, the architecture so like the Miller place that the sight twisted the knife currently buried under his ribs. Two miles outside of town he turned left and headed out toward the fertile farmland in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley. Normally the rolling green hills and pastureland and the sight of his family home coming into view filled him with peace.

Today, it made him feel like a five-hundred-pound boulder was sitting on his chest.

Initially, after the amputation and being released from the long term rehab facility, he’d moved back here and into the cabin to get himself back on his feet—har har—and then stayed on after his father had suffered the stroke.

As the eldest, he saw it as his job to help his dad out, lend a hand to maintain the large property and take care of the horses along with their hired help. He’d told his siblings from day one that he wanted that responsibility, and he didn’t regret it.

All four of them were involved with their father’s care to some extent, but Wyatt bore the brunt of it and he wanted to shoulder that weight. It had given him a purpose while he struggled to adapt to his new reality as an amputee, and his siblings were all able-bodied and busy with their own careers. His father had raised horses and built homes since Wyatt was in his teens. The stroke had left him unable to work, so Wyatt had stepped in to keep the contracting business running, although on a smaller scale on the side.

While juggling all of that, he’d been saving up to buy the Miller place, taking on reno jobs with the crew of fellow wounded vets he’d put together from here in the Valley and surrounding area. He’d promised them full time work for at least six months when he finally bought the Miller place. Now he’d let them all down too.

The two-story, pale yellow farmhouse glowed in the morning sunlight as he pulled up in front of it. His dad was sitting on the front of the wrap-around porch with Grits and Sarge.

Wyatt loved this house, this land, yet part of him felt suffocated here. Every day he spent here, living in the cabin, reminded him that he was a wounded combat vet, still dependent on his father’s charity. It shamed him.

Using his cane, his father pushed slowly to his feet. “Everything okay?”

“No,” Wyatt answered, a lump in his throat and a hot coal burning beneath his sternum. “It’s a done deal. The Miller house is sold.” And God, he was completely shredded inside.

He’d pinned so much on getting that house when it came up for sale, had refused offers of loans from friends and relatives who knew he wanted it. Ever since the house had become vacant he’d put away whatever money he could so he’d have the down payment ready when the estate decided to sell. All for nothing.

“Ah, damn, I’m sorry to hear that.”

He nodded, pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “Piper’s a minute or so behind me, so I’m sure we’ll get the full story from her. I’d rather talk to her alone for a while, if you don’t mind.” It wasn’t a request, even though he phrased it as one.

“Of course. Come on, boys,” he told the dogs. Sarge waddled after him, but Grits stood there watching Wyatt, the end of his tail wagging.

“Go on,” Wyatt said in a firm voice, pointing toward the house.

Grits lowered his head and his tail drooped, but he turned and followed Wyatt’s dad. It made Wyatt feel like a dick but he just couldn’t afford to let the dog into his heart.