Slow Burn Cowboy. Maisey Yates

in one room. There was—at any given moment—both a disconnect and a connection between all of them.

      Brothers. Strangers. Both of those descriptions were true.

      By the time the brothers had settled in the expansive seating area it was dark outside, the interior lights reflecting off of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Liam and Alex were sitting on the couch, at opposite ends. Cain was seated in a chair, one leg flung out in front of him and his hands in his lap.

      Finn remained standing, taking the folded-up will out of his pocket and holding it out. “Was anybody confused about these terms?”

      “Seems straightforward to me,” Liam said.

      “We’re all beneficiaries. And I’m the executor. That means it’s my job to make sure that everybody gets what they’re supposed to. And of course, if you have any objections to the way I’m handling it, you’re welcome to talk to Grandpa’s lawyer.”

      “Does Copper Ridge have a lawyer?” Cain asked.

      “Sure, but I’m pretty sure he works at the local general store and also does weddings, funerals and burials,” Finn said.

      “I can’t tell if you’re joking,” Liam said.

      Finn just shrugged. “I’ll give you his number if you have a problem. That’s all you need to know. Anyway. After I received the will I got the property evaluated. I’m willing to buy all of you out. With projected appreciation up to five years. It’s a good offer.”

      “You have that kind of money?” Alex asked. “I have my doubts about that.”

      “I’ll have to get a loan for some of it, but that’s not really your problem. I can’t imagine you guys want to be here. I give you the money and you can go do whatever you want.”

      “We’re all here,” Cain said, looking around the room. “Do you think the issue is I don’t have my own money? I do. I don’t get why you think you get to pull rank here.”

      “Really?” Finn asked. “You don’t get it at all?”

      “We’re all blood, Finn,” Cain responded. “We want what’s ours. So what is it you want?”

      “I want control of the ranch. The Laughing Irish is mine. I’ve spent the past eighteen years working my knuckles bloody on this place. And where were you?”

      “Serving my country,” Alex said, crossing his arms.

      “Raising a kid,” Cain said, shifting his position.

      “Pissing into the wind,” Liam added, because he was never going to give a sincere answer.

      Finn gripped his elbows, then realized they were all glaring and crossing their arms. He lowered them quickly to his sides. “Well, you’re all welcome to keep doing that.”

      “I’m out,” Alex said. “Of the military. And I’m not planning on reenlisting. I don’t have anything else, anywhere else.”

      “You aren’t reenlisting? Is there a reason for that?” Finn asked. His brother had been in the army for more than a decade. Finn could hardly imagine him doing anything else.

      “Nothing I want to talk about right now. Right now, we’re talking about the ranch. I don’t want money. I don’t need money. I’ve got pay from the army for my service as a veteran of a foreign war. But I need something to do. And this ranch is something to do.”

      Something to do? His life’s work was something for Alex to do.

      He had honestly never considered his brothers would want to stay in Oregon and work on a dairy farm when there was money on offer. This wasn’t a glamorous life. And as far as Finn was concerned, teamwork wasn’t the road to happiness. Space was. Control.

      How the hell they could think any different was beyond him.

      “I don’t see the point of dragging me into your career crisis,” Finn said, not particularly caring if he sounded insensitive. “If you want to try your hand at something new, by all means, take what I give you and invest in something new.”

      “Maybe I want to get back to my roots, Finn,” Alex said. “Did you think of that?”

      “No,” Finn returned. “I didn’t. I honestly thought that between a stack of cash and a life spent getting up at the ass crack of dawn, you’d choose cash.”

      “I’m ex-military, Finn. This doesn’t feel like a hardship to me. And anyway...we’re family.”

      “Bull. That’s not why you’re here.”

      “My reasons don’t matter,” Alex said. “Not even a little bit. What matters is the will and Grandpa’s express wishes. We all have equal share of the ranch if we want it. And I, for one, want it.”

      Finn looked around the room, daring the others to turn down his offer. “And the rest of you?”

      “I already told you,” Cain responded. “I’m staying. We’re staying. I’ve been working my ass off trying to give Violet a normal life in Texas. But everybody there knows that her mom walked out. As if it wasn’t enough for her to have to deal with Kathleen abandoning her.”

      “You mean she doesn’t see her own daughter?” Alex asked.

      “No,” Cain said. “She walked out the door one day and neither of us have seen her since.”

      An uneasy silence fell over the room. Probably because none of them knew whether they were supposed to express sympathy or not. Another thing they had in common, aside from physical mannerisms. They were deeply uncomfortable with emotions.

      “I’m staying too,” Liam said.

      Finn looked at Liam. “Because you love this place so damn much?” He could remember Liam coming to work on the ranch when he’d been a teenager. A surly, jackass teenager who had never seemed particularly interested in the goings-on at the Laughing Irish. No, he was much more interested in the goings-on of Jennifer Hassellbeck’s panties.

      “Maybe I’ve grown an interest in animal husbandry.” Liam shrugged.

      His brother, who Finn knew was actually something of an entrepreneurial genius, most definitely did not have a sudden interest in animal husbandry.

      “Right. And I just started a vegan diet,” Finn said. “What does this place mean to you? Why do you want it? I know why I want it. I’ve bled for it, and that’s not a metaphor. So you tell me what reasoning you have for thinking you all having equal ownership with me is fair.”

      “Our reasons are irrelevant, as Alex already pointed out. Grandpa left a quarter of the ranch to each of us. Sorry if that puts a burr under your saddle, Finn,” Liam said, “but that’s kind of the least of my concerns.”

      “I just want to know what you bastards think you’re getting out of this.”

      This time, it was Cain who spoke. “Come on now, little brother. Liam and Alex are legitimate. Only you and I are bastards.”

      “Legitimate or not, once they were adults they never came back here. And neither did you,” Finn said. “You can see why I don’t much feel like I owe any of you anything. I’m not sure why Grandpa did.”

      “Maybe the old codger was sentimental,” Alex said.

      “No,” Finn said, “that is definitely not it.”

      He had been hard, but loyal. Protective. Of the land. Of his grandson. Finn had never felt much like anyone loved him. Until the day he’d gotten into a mishap with a barbed wire fence and sliced through his thigh. He’d come back home pale and bleeding, and the old man had nearly lost his mind. Worried, he’d said, that it was serious. That he’d need his damned leg cut off.

      That was the only love Finn knew. And it had been everything to him.

      “This