chapter17

Colin arrived back in Cambria ahead of the McCrays. Drew had to wrap up some things

at home before making the trip, and Julia wanted to travel with her brother. That gave

Colin a chance to have a family meeting prior to Drew's arrival.

He picked his car up at the San Jose airport, where he'd left it when he'd caught his

flight to Montana, made the long drive down to Cambria, and got checked in at the lodge.

He knew his family would grouse at him—again—for choosing the lodge over the family

home, but he did it anyway.

Even he wasn't sure why he was so stubborn on that point. There was plenty of room

at the ranch, God knew. And he loved his family—there wasn't a single one of them he

wouldn't have taken a bullet for. But being under their roof always made him feel itchy

in his own skin in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on.

He was one hundred percent Delaney, but he had never quite fit in.

Part of it was the asthma.

When he was a kid, he'd had asthma severe enough to land him in the hospital more

than once. It was triggered by allergens, mostly—something a ranch, with the hay and the

animals and the infinite species of plants and other living things—had plenty of. So,

while his brothers and Breanna were out riding, or helping to tend the cattle, or doing one

of the million other things Colin couldn't do because his parents were afraid it might kill

him, Colin was back at the house, feeling other in a way that never quite wore off, even

when the asthma receded from a major threat to a minor annoyance.

So, yeah. That was one part of it. The other part of it, he supposed, had to do with

Harvard.

Colin had excelled in high school in a way that none of his siblings ever had. Ryan

and Breanna both had gotten solid grades, but nothing extraordinary. Liam had barely

scraped by, preferring to work the ranch and hang out with his friends instead of

studying.

But Colin had taken to schoolwork as though he'd been born doing it. Straight As,

academic awards, student government. He'd been a National Merit Scholar, and he'd

gotten a near perfect score on his SATs. So when it came time to apply to colleges, he'd

set the bar high.

Orin and Sandra had been dismayed by their youngest son's desire to attend an Ivy

League school. Despite their wealth, they were deeply down-to-earth people, and the

pretentious lifestyle Harvard represented to them felt so foreign that he might as well

have been asking to go to school on Mars. He'd wanted it badly, though, so when he got

accepted, they'd reluctantly relented and sent him.

At least some of their fears came true. Colin had come home from the East Coast

with a Harvard Law degree and a fondness for designer suits, cocktail parties, and

socializing with the children of aristocrats and business titans.

He'd never looked down on his own family, had never felt for a moment that he was

in any way superior to them because of his educational experiences. But when he'd come

back, he'd felt a distinct chill from Liam, who probably felt judged for his relative lack of

achievement, and disdain from Sandra, who simply couldn't relate to this newly uppercrust

sophisticate she'd given birth to.

He knew they thought he was judging them, but that was ironic; he was the one

being judged and who had come up lacking, in their estimation. And why? Just because

he wasn't the salt-of-the-earth man of the land that his father, his uncle, and his brothers

were? Just because he was interested in things they weren't? Since when had that become

a crime?

He'd reacted to all of it by keeping his distance—which had only confirmed their

suspicions that he had somehow become too good for them. It was a vicious cycle, and he

didn't know how to get out of it.

The simple fact was that his family's world was different than his own, and while

that should have been okay with everyone involved, somehow it wasn't.

When Colin had moved to San Diego, his mother, in particular, had taken that as a

personal affront, as though Colin had done it to hurt her, or because he didn't love her

enough to stay in Cambria. Or, because small-town life wasn't good enough for him.

He'd told his family that he had to leave because he needed to work at a major firm

in order to properly launch his career. What would he do in Cambria? Open a storefront

law office to handle people's wills and their lawsuits over their petty disputes with their

neighbors?

His mother had responded that there would be plenty of work for him handling the

Delaney holdings. The family's real estate interests were so vast and far-reaching that

managing their legal concerns could easily be a full-time job.

That was true, of course, but he'd gone anyway.

He'd spent a few years at a big firm, learning how to practice law in the real world

and not just in theory, and then had quit to work full time for his family. But he still

hadn't returned to Cambria.

He'd stayed away because he'd needed to figure out his place in the world. He knew

who he wasn't; he'd needed to get some distance to figure out who he was.

But the longer he stayed away, the more his mother seemed to resent him for it. The

more he felt that resentment, the more he needed to stay away.

So, it would be the lodge instead of the ranch; that way, he wouldn't have to feel the

weight of his mother's disapproving gaze any longer than he absolutely had to.

Once he'd checked in, unpacked, and gotten himself settled, he braced himself and

drove out to the ranch.

It had rained on the day of Redmond's funeral, and it had rained on Salt Spring

Island. In Montana, he'd had to deal with the snow.

But now, in Cambria, the world was green and lush, and the sky was a clear blue that

seemed almost impossibly brilliant. The rolling hills were covered in waist-high grass the

color of emeralds, and the pines towered above him. As he drove north toward the ranch,

the calm, blue ocean spread out to his left into eternity.

While it was true that he'd chosen to leave, the awe this place inspired in him had

never stopped. He'd never stopped feeling the magic.

He turned right onto the road that led to the ranch, and prepared himself for all that

was to come.

It had only been a week or so since Redmond's funeral, and Liam hadn't left

Cambria yet because he'd wanted to be with the family while this business of the will

was being cleared up. So, the full complement of Delaneys—minus his nephews, Michael

and Lucas, who were watching a movie upstairs—was gathered in the family room of the

ranch house when he arrived.

They didn't mob him for information all at once, because their mother had taught

them better manners than that. Instead, they exchanged small talk and inquired about his

trip, and Ryan brought him a beer in a bottle sweating with cold.

When that was done and they were all settled in on the same sofas and chairs that

had been there since Colin was a child, they launched into it.

"He's coming here," Colin announced. "Drew McCray. He wants to meet everyone,

talk this out. His sister is coming with him."

A muscle clenched in Orin's jaw. "When?"

"A day or two, probably. Drew had some things to wrap up at home before he could

make the trip."

"I don't recall him being invited," Liam snapped.

"Oh, he doesn't need to be invited, and you know it," Sandra scolded him. "He's

family, no matter how it happened."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," Liam said.

Of course Liam was the hard one. He always had been, in so many ways, about so

many things. But this time, Colin found it especially predictable.

Liam, of all of the Delaney children, had been the one closest to Redmond. Their

uncle had never had any children—at least, none they'd known about—and he'd treated

Liam like his son. A lesser man than Orin might have been threatened by that, but Orin

was not a lesser man. And so Liam had been particularly hard-hit by Redmond's death.

Colin supposed that Drew, Redmond's actual, blood progeny, presented a threat to

Liam in a way that none of them fully understood. Things might get sticky when it was

time for the two of them to meet.

"What's he like?" Gen, Ryan's wife, wanted to know. Colin imagined that she was

attempting to get the conversation on safer, more stable ground.

"He's shocked about the inheritance," Colin said. "He's angry that his mother lied to

him all these years."

"Well, I guess he would be," Ryan said.

"There's going to be a certain … resistance," Colin said. "At first, he didn't want

anything to do with any of us."

"Well, if that's how he feels, then he can just—"

"Liam. That's enough," Orin interrupted him. Orin was a quiet man, who'd mostly

left the control of his children to his wife. So when he corrected Liam, when he asserted

himself with authority in his voice, they all stopped and listened.

"Of course he's angry. Of course he's shocked and he doesn't know what to think,"

Orin went on. "You'd feel that way too, I expect," he said to Liam. "This young man is

Redmond's son, and we're going to welcome him into our home. And if he's a little testy

with us, well, we're all going to have a little patience, a little compassion. That includes

you." He glared at his son.

"Yes, sir," Liam uttered, his face grim and as hard as stone.

"Well, that's that, then," Sandra announced. "I'll make up the spare bedroom here.

Gen, you suppose one of them can stay with you and Ry?"

"Of course," Gen said. She and Ryan had a big, new house they'd built on the ranch

property when they'd gotten married, and they'd included plenty of rooms for the

children they might have one day.

The ranch had a nice little guest house down by the creek, but Gen, an art dealer, had

been using it to host visiting artists. At the moment, she had some guy in there who

painted portraits of himself. That was all—just himself. Himself as a man, himself as a

woman, himself as a dog, and an angel, and as Christ. Colin supposed that said something

about the basic emotional makeup of artists, though he wasn't sure what.

"We can put Drew in Colin's room," Ryan observed dryly, "since he's not using it."

And there it was—the inevitable jab at him for not staying at the ranch.

"Just because he's coming here to meet us doesn't mean he has to stay here," Liam

said, still determined to be pissy about the whole Drew situation.

"He might not want to," Colin observed. "Might be more comfortable at a B&B,

given the circumstances."

"Well, I'm sure you'd understand that way of thinking better than I do," Sandra

groused.

Colin was sure she was right.

When the family meeting was over, Liam caught up with Colin out on the porch

while Colin was finishing his beer and looking out over the hills toward the ocean.

"So, the sister's coming, huh?" Liam was trying to make his voice sound casual, but

he'd never had much luck with that particular skill.

Colin looked at him, already feeling defensive. "Yeah, she is. So?"

"So," Liam said, pointing his own beer bottle at Colin and dropping the casual act,

which had been a farce to begin with, "that's a car wreck waiting to happen. And you

know it."

"Ah, shut up, Liam, would you?" Colin turned his back on his brother and faced the

glorious landscape instead.

Liam, unfazed by having been told to shut up, continued undaunted. "You told me

yourself you made a move on her, so don't pretend there's nothing going on there."

"Yeah, yeah. I made a move, and I crashed and burned. So you can stop worrying

about it."

"She might not want to go there, but you do."

"Maybe. So what?"

"Colin." Liam waited until Colin turned to look at him, and then he fixed his brother

with the same glare he probably used on errant ranch hands in Montana. The one that said

you'd better get your shit together or you'd be on a Greyhound bus to go live in your

mother's basement by sunset. "Do not do this. She is that guy's sister."

"You can stop calling him 'that guy' any time now," Colin observed mildly. "He

does have a name."

"She's that guy's goddamned sister," Liam went on, "and so she's caught up in this.

The last thing our family needs is for this whole thing to get even messier than it already

is. If you sleep with her, Colin, I swear to God …"

"What? You swear what?" Colin was puffing up now, like some kind of pack animal

trying to appear bigger to the alpha male to avoid getting attacked. Which, when he

thought about it, was exactly what he was.

"I swear to God I'll kick your ass, is what." Liam's face had reddened slightly, his

brows drawn together like he was Clint Eastwood asking Colin whether he felt lucky.

"Says the guy who hasn't been laid in, what, two years? Just because you're living

like a damned monk doesn't mean I have to."

The remark could have set Liam off, could have pushed him over the edge from

belligerent to outright hostile. But instead, it seemed to have the opposite effect, and

Liam deflated slightly. He stepped up next to Colin at the porch railing and leaned his

forearms on the wood.

"Jesus, it really has been a long time," he admitted.

Colin slapped him on the back, brotherly order restored. "That's your own fault, you

know."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know it."

Liam had caught his girlfriend cheating on him with one of the ranch hands two

years before, and it was as though all of the air had leaked out of his balloon. He'd

always had a hot temper, but now Liam seemed angry most of the time. And he hadn't

been willing to take a chance on women again—a situation that just increased his overall

irritability.

"If Julia and I were to get together," Colin said, "it wouldn't be just about sex. I like

her. I like her a lot."

Liam shook his head sadly. "You're a shithead, you know that?"

"I believe I've heard that before," Colin remarked