chapter 19

Because Colin, Sandra, and Orin had been straightforward and kind, and because all of

this seemed like an odd and implausible dream, Julia was beginning to get the sense that

maybe this—all of this—would turn out to be okay.

Until she met Liam.

She and Drew heard him before they saw him. The two of them were still sitting in

the kitchen with Sandra and Orin, the four of them taking the first, tentative steps of

getting to know one another in the warm and homey room, when they heard a commotion

outside the kitchen door, in the living room.

"Screw that," a voice was saying. The voice was angry, raised. It was the voice of

someone trying to pick a fight. "You can make nice all goddamned day long if you want

to, but what's the point of that? What's the fucking point? This guy comes here like he

thinks he's entitled to what we have, what we've built. And you want me to be nice?

That's bullshit, Ryan."

Another voice, this one quieter, murmured something they couldn't hear.

"Ah, blow me, Ryan. You always have thought you were my goddamned dad."

They heard the front door open, and then a third voice—Colin's—was added to the

mix. The dynamic was clear: Ryan and Colin were attempting to calm Liam, with results

that were less than successful.

"You gonna go out there and do something about your son?" Sandra asked Orin.

Orin ducked his head, as though maybe he could avoid that eventuality if he could

somehow make himself smaller and avoid Sandra's notice. "Well, I guess," he said. He

left the kitchen reluctantly.

"Now, don't you two worry yourselves about Liam," Sandra said, her wiry hands

holding a coffee mug. "He's my hothead. But he's a good man. He always comes

around."

If Liam was going to come around, it wasn't going to be today.

When the three Delaney sons came into the kitchen, Colin introduced Ryan to Drew

and Julia, and she thought the man seemed amiable enough. They all shook hands, and

Ryan's smile seemed warm and genuine.

Liam, however, stood in the doorway with his arms folded over his chest, his face

hard and his eyes narrowed in anticipation of what? An argument? A fistfight? He hadn't

seemed to notice Julia's presence at all; his steely gaze was fixed squarely on Drew, who

returned Liam's contempt with more of his own.

Julia rolled her eyes at the unknowable thought processes of men.

"Liam, for God's sake," Sandra snapped at him. "Get in here and act as your

mother raised you right. Because I know I did."

Liam was motionless for a few moments more as he seemed to weigh whether to

back down or face his mother's scorn. He opted for a kind of compromise: He stepped

into the room and offered his hand to Drew, but kept the look on his face that said he was

ready to kick somebody's teeth in at the least provocation.

That much was okay, Julia thought—at least it was something—but then Drew

escalated the situation by refusing the hand Liam had offered.

"Seems like I'm unwelcome here, as far as you're concerned," Drew said, looking

Liam in the eye and ignoring the hand that still hung in the space between them.

Liam scowled. "All I know is that you showed up out of nowhere, and I'm supposed

to believe you're family." He dropped the hand palm-down onto the table in front of

Drew with a smack.

"You don't have to believe a goddamned thing," Drew said, standing. "I don't give a

flying—"

"Hey, hey, hey." Colin put one hand on Liam's shoulder and put the other one up,

palm out, to stop Drew from finishing his sentence—a sentence that, once completed,

would certainly inflame tensions that were already high. "Let's just take a minute."

"Liam, for God's sake," Sandra said, glowering at her son. "Get out of here and go

cool down."

"I don't need to cool down. I need—"

"Boy, when I tell you to go cool down, you damn well better do it." Sandra stood

facing Liam with her hands on her narrow hips, her brows drawn together so tightly that

they looked like two caterpillars that had collided.

Sandra was more than a foot shorter than Liam, and she had to be half his weight.

But to Julia, it was clear who held the position of power here—and it wasn't Liam.

Liam's hands clenched into fists. "Yes, ma'am." He shot Drew another challenging

look and then left the kitchen, letting the door close behind him with a smack.

The remaining Delaneys in the room—Sandra, Ryan, and Colin—displayed a variety

of reactions to what had just happened. Sandra looked irritated, Ryan looked

embarrassed, and Colin just looked uncomfortable.

"As far as friendly greetings go, a basket of muffins might've worked better," Ryan

quipped.

"Oh, God," Julia muttered. She already felt like an invader here, and now, Liam's

reaction confirmed that she and Drew were exactly that. "We don't have to stay here.

Mrs. Delaney, thank you, but we can go. We can—"

"We're staying," Drew said mildly.

"What?" Julia turned to him, not sure she'd heard him correctly.

"If the invitation still stands," he went on.

"Well, I guess it does," Sandra said. "I don't suppose I'm going to let one of my

boys tell me who I can have as a guest in my own house. The day I do that is the day they

carry me out of here feet first." Sandra folded her arms over her chest and scowled, just

as her middle son had done a few minutes before.

"Fine, then." Drew nodded. "Since we're still invited, we're staying." He glared at

the closed kitchen door, where Liam had just been.

"Well, whatever happens, it's going to be interesting," Ryan observed.

Julia looked down at the coffee in her mug and wished it were something

considerably stronger.

Once Liam had stormed out of the house, things quieted down some. Breanna came

home from picking her boys up from school, and Julia and Drew met her and the two

boisterous children. Colin showed Drew to the guest room at the main house, and then he

and Ryan took Julia about a quarter mile down the road in her rental car to white wood

and red brick farmhouse with a big front porch and a flower garden in the front yard.

As Colin took Julia's luggage out of the trunk and carried it up onto the porch, a

pretty woman in her early thirties with red hair in long, wild curls came out the front door

and onto the porch.

"This is my wife, Gen," Ryan told Julia as they climbed the stairs toward the front

door.

Julia's encounter with Liam had left her stressed and on edge, and she didn't know

what to expect from this new Delaney. When Gen smiled warmly and pulled Julia into an

impulsive hug, it was hard not to be disarmed.

"It's so good to meet you," Gen went on before Julia could say anything. "This

the whole situation is so crazy, isn't it? I mean, who could have predicted something like

this? Come on in, we'll get you settled. I'm supposed to be at work today, but I wanted to

be here to greet you."

Gen ushered Julia into a bright, new house that was warm from the fire in the

fireplace, and that smelled like vanilla and cinnamon. "What is that smell?" Julia said,

stopping just inside the front door with the strap from one of her bags slung over her

shoulder. "It's wonderful."

"Cinnamon streusel coffee cake," Gen said. "I love to bake."

Julia let out an involuntary laugh. "That's good because I need to do some stress

eating after what just happened with Liam."

"I've got you covered," Gen said, giving Julia's arm a squeeze. "You can eat while

you tell me what Liam did." She rolled her eyes. "Though I think I can guess."

It occurred to Julia that with Drew at the main house and her here at Ryan's place,

she had very much gotten the better end of the deal. "Lead the way," she said.

Colin's level of family-induced stress was at a particular high as he left Julia at Ryan

and Gen's house. He was not a stranger to family-induced stress, of course, and in fact,

he considered himself something of an expert in the subject. But now, one thing was

compounding on top of another to raise the level to a peak.

Not only did he want things with Drew to go well—he felt an urgent need, one he

didn't fully understand, to restore Redmond's son to the family—but he also felt more

and more that he wanted to protect and take care of Julia, wanted her to be happy here,

with the family, with him.

Which was ridiculous. He wasn't dating her, wasn't even sleeping with her. Still,

there was something about her that put his male instincts on high alert. If he were a

caveman, he'd have gone out and clubbed a mastodon to death just so he could drag it

home to her.

And if Colin had two goals working in tandem here—one regarding each of the

McCray siblings—then Liam was threatening both of them.

"Don't you have work to do back in Montana?" Colin asked Liam irritably when

he'd gotten Julia settled and had arrived back at the main house. Liam was in the kitchen,

nosing around and filching small pieces of food from the cutting board as their mother

cooked dinner. Michael and Lucas were settled in at the kitchen table working on

homework as Breanna helped Sandra prepare the meal. Drew, thankfully, was nowhere to

be seen.

"Don't you have work to do down there in San Diego?" Liam responded.

"I do, but it can wait," Colin said.

"Well, there you go," Liam answered. "Same here. I've got Desmond keeping an eye

on things while I'm gone. He'll manage."

Colin scoffed. "Desmond."

"You've got a problem with Desmond?" Liam wanted to know.

Colin ran a hand through his hair. "Shit. No. I guess not." Desmond Byrne had been

working for the Delaneys for more than thirty years, first at the Cambria ranch, now at

the Montana property just outside of Billings. Colin had never cared for the man much—

mainly because he was surly and always seemed to be competing with Orin and

Redmond for supremacy—but there was no denying that he knew how to run a cattle

ranch.

Liam grabbed a slice of carrot from Sandra's cutting board and popped it into his

mouth. Sandra set down her knife and smacked Liam's hand.

"Where's Drew?" Colin asked.

Liam leaned his butt against the countertop, his legs crossed at the ankles, arms

folded over his chest. "He's gone straight to hell, I hope," he remarked casually.

"You quit that crap before I have to knock some sense into you," Sandra snapped at

Liam, waving her chef's knife in his general direction. "And you know I'll do it, boy, I

don't care how grown-up you are."

"All right, not hell, then," Liam said. "I'm not that lucky. He's upstairs getting

settled into the spare room." Then, under his breath: "I hope he falls down the

goddamned stairs."

"Oh, for God's sake, Liam, I swear…" Sandra started.

"I thought they seemed nice," Breanna said as she arranged some rolls in a basket.

Her dark hair, the same shade, and texture as Colin's fell down to her shoulders.

"Especially her. Don't make trouble," she told Liam.

"Too late," Colin commented. "Before you and the boys got home, Liam gave them

the welcome you'd expect."

"Oh … crap." Breanna scowled and smacked Liam on the arm, hard.

"Hey!"

"Can't you make him behave?" Breanna demanded of Sandra.

"If I haven't managed it so far, girl, what makes you think I can do it now?" Sandra

responded, not unreasonably.

Colin regarded Liam, feeling increasingly uneasy and maybe a little pissed off. His

brother had always been surly and quick to anger; he had their mother's temperament.

While that temperament had, over the years, mostly been a minor annoyance, now it

posed a threat to everything Colin was trying to accomplish here. If Colin had been the

kind of man who got into fights, he might have gotten into one now with Liam; it would

be satisfying to punch his brother in the damned face. But since Colin wasn't that kind of

man, he took another approach.

"Let's step outside for a minute," Colin told Liam.

"Are we gonna fight?" Liam asked in a conversational tone, as though he'd

somehow read Colin's thoughts.

"Don't be an idiot. Just come outside."

When the two of them were out on the front porch—the place where many serious

discussions in the Delaney family took place—Colin turned to Liam.

"You need to knock it off," he said, without preamble. "We've got a somewhat

delicate situation here, and you and your attitude—"

"My attitude?" Liam shook his head and looked out toward the distant ocean. "I

don't see why everybody doesn't have my attitude. Welcoming that guy into our house?

We don't even know if he really is Redmond's son. It's bullshit, Colin."

"He really is Redmond's son," Colin said. "And you know it."

Liam shrugged, still avoiding Colin's eyes. "Maybe."

"What's this about?" Colin's voice was quieter now. He could see that Liam was

genuinely troubled, was having an honest-to-God difficult time with everything that was

happening. His distress was real; it wasn't blustering. "What's it really about?"

Liam made a scoffing noise and turned to Colin. "He's scamming us, Colin. And

you're letting him. You're helping him do it. Like you even care what happens in this

family. You got out of here the first minute you could, and now here you are, acting like

you know everything, like you're going to tell us all what to do—"

Colin looked at his brother like the man had taken leave of his senses. "You think I

don't care? Liam, for Christ's sake. You think—"

"Hey, look." Liam held up his hands in surrender. "All of this right here? The ranch,

the cattle? It's not your thing, and I get that. That's fine, okay? You bolted down south at

the first opportunity, and if that's what floats your boat, then who am I to judge? But

given all of that, I just wonder whether you're the person to decide what's right for all of

us." Liam tucked his hands into the safe haven of his armpits and shrugged.

Colin gripped the porch railing because it gave him something to do with his hands

other than throttling his brother. "You think I'm not a part of this family? A part of all

this?" He gestured toward the land around them. "Who do you think makes all of this

possible? You think the cattle ranch supports itself?" He scoffed. "It's the goddamned

real estate investments that keep this place running. Investments I made for this family.

Do you want to know how much the family's net worth has increased since I started

managing the portfolio? Because I can show you the numbers, Liam. I can—"

"Ah, shut up." Liam's words didn't have much heat to them, and in fact, he'd

seemed to deflate a little. He leaned his forearms on the porch railing and looked out at

the hills and the trees. He shook his head slowly. "It's just … I wonder if we even really

knew him. Redmond. If we even knew who the hell he was."

Colin suspected that this was at the heart of it—the mystery of what had really been

going on in Redmond's head all those years.

"We knew him," Colin said. "We might not have known everything about him, but

we knew what kind of man he was."

"Yeah? Because now, I think maybe we didn't."

Though he didn't say it, Colin thought his brother made a damned good point...