Christmastime Cowboy. Maisey Yates

      He didn’t feel better. He didn’t feel different. He didn’t feel healed. He didn’t feel any different from the boy who’d been stuck in his home. Afraid to make too much noise. Afraid to breathe wrong in case it brought his mother’s wrath down on him.

      That was when he had gotten word that his grandfather had died and left him a quarter of a ranch in Copper Ridge, Oregon, and he had thought it might be time for him to go back.

      For him to go back for the first time since Jamison Leighton had sent him packing with a bribe.

      There was more here. More here than in that corner office. He wasn’t exactly sure he liked it or wanted it, but at least it offered a change of pace.

      And his brothers.

      He hadn’t grown up with Finn or Cain, and living with them, getting to know them had been... Well, there was something in that. Being around Alex again, the brother he had been raised with... That was always a little bit of a mixed blessing.

      Not because he didn’t love Alex, he did. Alex’s happiness was the proof that he had done something right early in his life.

      Their life growing up had been awful. But Alex’s had been a little less awful. Because Liam had been the lightning rod. And Alex had never even known it.

      So yeah, he felt like he was on the right track here. And after all that emptiness, that seemed like a pretty good deal to him.

      “Fine,” Liam said, “using my money won’t be the plan. But if loans or anything like that hold stuff up, let me do it.”

      Finn opened his mouth to argue.

      “Let me, Finn,” Liam said. “Let me give you this.”

      His brothers seemed to give with themselves all the damn time and he couldn’t figure out quite how they did it. He knew how to create things. Knew how to make money. And he knew how to give money.

      That was what he did.

      “Fine,” Finn relented. “If we get into dire circumstances, I’ll let you throw some cash at it.”

      “What’s the point in having a rich brother if you don’t use him?”

      “I do use you. For hard labor. Which frankly I find more useful, Liam. I can earn more cash. I can’t grow another pair of hands.”

      Liam shrugged, then started to walk toward the stairs. “Liam!” Lane called after him. “Clean up the mud! I’m trying to plan a Thanksgiving menu and you’re tracking mud all over the place.” She whirled around and went back into the kitchen, leaving a trail of sulfur in her wake.

      “Boy,” Liam said, “she’s about as fun as a bee-stung wolverine at the moment, isn’t she?”

      Which wasn’t fair. He knew that Lane was putting a lot into her and Finn’s first married Thanksgiving. Even though he was a jackass, Liam understood that.

      “Hormones,” Finn said.

      Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “Hormones?”

      A slow smile spread over his brother’s face. “She’s pregnant.”

      “Holy hell.”

      Finn laughed. “Definitely putting that one in the baby book. What your uncle Liam said when we told him you were going to be born.”

      “Why haven’t you told us yet?”

      “Lane wanted to wait. You know, something about the second trimester, or something. But it’s close. And, I don’t want to keep it a secret anymore. So, congratulations. You’re going to be an uncle.”

      “I’m already an uncle,” Liam said. “It’s just that my niece is almost an adult.”

      “I wonder what Violet is going to think,” Finn said with a grin.

      “A baby cousin might be something she can’t play it cool about.” Cain’s daughter was in the throes of teenage snark and angst, so it was difficult to guess how she’d react to much of anything.

      As far as Liam went, he was happy for his brother. But it kind of underscored the fact that everyone around him was living in a completely different phase of life than him. A different phase of life than he was ever going to live. Marriage. Family. Babies. None of it was his cup of tea. Not at all. All that happy family stuff was just a load of crap as far as he was concerned.

      Yeah, he knew some people were happy. But it had never been him. And he didn’t know why he would sign on to that kind of thing. Not again. He had grown up in a house with a mom and dad. They had been in love.

      And it had been awful. Vile and toxic.

      Full of drama and cheating. His mother taking her anger out on her sons—most especially him—and eventually the inevitable meltdown of the relationship.

      Still, he hoped that Lane and Finn would be happy. They would keep being happy. As far as he could see, they were. And it wasn’t some kind of Leave It to Beaver fantasy. Where everybody acted like they had a lobotomy just because they had fallen in love and gotten married. No. They were real people still. They were just people who seemed committed to making a life with each other. People who really loved each other. But Finn and Lane had been best friends before they had fallen in love.

      As for his brother Cain and his wife, Alison, it was a second marriage for both of them. They both knew what hadn’t worked the first time around, and they seemed settled this time. He figured if you were going to do it again, you had to be pretty damn sure.

      And Alex... The youngest of the Donnellys had recently gotten engaged to his fiancée, Clara. And Liam thought that Clara particularly was a little young for all of that. But like Alex always was, he was happy. Reckless and certain. Liam was glad that Alex had that certainty even after their growing-up years.

      Liam didn’t. More than that, he didn’t want it.

      It didn’t mean that watching all this happiness unfold in front of him didn’t make his chest feel weird though. Didn’t make him feel like he was in a strange space of longing for something he knew wouldn’t actually suit him. Like being allergic to peanuts and wanting a Snickers bar.

      It was a reminder. A reminder of that small, bright window of time where he had thought that maybe, just maybe, he could have something more. More than what he had ever imagined. More than what he had thought someone like him could ever hope to touch.

      That summer with Sabrina.

      He’d made the right choice then. He was confident in that.

      And he didn’t like dredging up all this old crap.

      But, since he was trying out having a family rather than existing in isolation, he figured he had better smile and say something that wasn’t profane. “Congratulations,” he said finally. “That’s great.”

      “I’m not sure you really think it’s great,” Finn said, a slight smile on his lips.

      “It’s great for you,” Liam said. “I want a wife and kids like I want a suspicious rash.”

      “Given your behavior, the suspicious rash is a lot more likely.”

      Liam flipped his brother off, then continued up the stairs. He needed something. To change before he went outside and worked. To take a hot shower. Something. Something to keep his head on straight. He had to call Gage West and figure out when he and Sabrina could meet up to deal with that real estate stuff. Which meant seeing Sabrina again.

      He had gone thirteen years without seeing her, and it had worked out pretty well. Seeing her, he supposed, didn’t really have to mean a damn thing.

      If he kept repeating that to himself, he might just start believing it.

       CHAPTER THREE

      SABRINA