But then it’s gone. Acting as if she didn’t hear me, she smiles at me softly before walking up to her dad to hand him the platter. “Mom said everything else is ready.”

My eyes follow Casey like a hawk, wondering what the hell is going on in her head at this moment. She heard my declaration… no doubt. But the variant emotions that filtered over her face in just the breadth of a nanosecond didn’t reveal anything to me. If her dad wasn’t standing right there, I’d grab her by the shoulders, kiss her hard first, and then demand she tell me what was going on in that sexy head of hers.

Instead, I take another casual sip of my beer and intercept the platter from Casey. My fingers graze against her hand just before she releases it into my control.

Butch opens the grill lid and starts grabbing the steaks with his tongs and layering them on the platter. Casey turns around without a word and heads back inside.

“I’m assuming you haven’t told her yet,” Butch says as his lips tip upward, his eyes intent on his work.

With a sigh, I look back through the sliding glass door and see Casey helping her mom set bowls of food on the table. She’s laughing at something her mom says and then Brody walks into the kitchen and grabs her in a headlock, rubbing his knuckles over her head. I can hear her squeal through the closed glass door, and I can’t fight the grin on my face.

Turning back to Butch, I say with frustration, “Just never seems to be the right time.”

Placing the last steak on the platter, Butch closes the grill lid and looks at me with solemnity. “Son… I’d propose it never seems to be the right time until it is the right time. You’ll know when it’s right.”

I nod at Butch, his simple words making a fuck of a lot of sense to me.

Butch grabs the platter. I grab the sliding glass door and open it, motioning for him to precede me in. He goes through. I follow and slide it closed behind me.

“Everyone, sit down,” Lillian says as she flits back and forth grabbing condiments and one more bowl of food… pasta salad by the looks of it. Butch leans over and sets the steaks in the middle of the table.

Casey and Brody immediately fight for a chair, not because I believe it holds any special importance, but because the noogie he bestowed upon her earlier has seemed to waken up her inner brat. I shake my head with an amused smile and wait to see how it all shakes out. Casey manages to win by putting her butt on the seat, pushing hard to dislodge him, and then reaching up under his armpit and viciously twisting what I’m guessing was a chunk of skin and hair. Brody yelps and jumps from the seat, and Casey gloats.

My girl. The woman who shut herself away. Who curled into herself when her brother got ripped away from the family and another man shattered her heart and her trust. Now opening her arms to me as surely as her heart, and doing so with almost a blind faith in my ability not to hurt her.

I walk around the table and take the seat next to the one she claimed. Brody walks to the opposite side and sits down. Finally, Lillian and Butch take seats opposite each other at the ends of the table.

“Eat, eat,” Lillian says, motioning to the food on the table. Brody doesn’t wait and pounces, grabbing a steak first and then a baked potato. Butch and Lillian start filling their plates, and Casey starts to lean forward to grab a steak of her own

A quick glance at her and I see a warm, relaxed smile on her face. She gives Brody’s hand a little slap when he tries to grab the butter from her, and her dad laughs at them. Lillian tells Casey to quit picking on her brother, and Casey gives her mom an eye roll that would rival Zoey’s.

It’s at this moment that I get overwhelmed with the sudden desire to tell Casey that I love her. That no matter how she feels in this moment, I just need her to know how I feel, and I don’t give a fuck that her family is sitting here witnessing it.

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out to make sure it’s not Zoey calling. I’m surprised to see it’s my brother, Woolf, because he never calls me. I hit the side button to decline the call, start to put in back in my pocket, and it immediately starts ringing again.

“Sorry,” I mutter to everyone at the table and hit the decline button again.

“You can answer it if you need to,” Casey says as she slices her potato open. “We’re not formal or anything at dinner.”

“It’s alright,” I assure her, but then a ding alerts me to a text. I glance down and it’s from Woolf.

Call me. Emergency.

Immediately, a zap of electric fear penetrates the center of my chest and my skin starts to tingle in apprehension.

I stand from the table and mumble, “Excuse me. I need to make a call.”

Clumsily, I step out from my chair and manage to bump into Casey’s hard. She looks up at me as my hand goes to her shoulder to steady myself a moment.

“Tenn… are you alright?”

I try to give her a reassuring smile, but I’m not sure if I’m all right or not. I’ll know as soon as I call Woolf back.

Chapter 23

Casey

Tenn pushes past my chair as his fingers tap something on his phone and he’s putting it up to his ear. I immediately scoot my chair back, put my napkin on the table, and shoot my mom a quick glance. “I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time, honey,” she says and her eyes are as worried as I know mine are.

Hot on Tenn’s heels, I follow him through the living room and out through the front door as he holds the phone to his ear. As I’m walking through, I hear him say, “What happened?”

His voice is soft… filled with dread. I know something bad is going on, and my insides start to cramp with worry over Zoey. I step around Tenn and rest a hand lightly on his stomach to let him know I’m here if he needs me, which I think he does.

The muscles in his abdomen bunch in reflex, but then he relaxes as he shoots an apprehensive look at me while he listens.

I don’t know who is on the other line but whatever they’re saying produces an effect on Tenn. The foreboding leaves his eyes and is immediately replaced with a hot flash of shock. That quickly melts away and his skin pales, then I’m staring at full-blown grief within those blue irises. His lips draw down, a soft rush of breath blows through his lips, and then everything drains out of his eyes until they’re devoid of anything.

Flat.

Dead.

Just… nothing.

My fingers curl into the soft material of his t-shirt, and I bunch it hard with anxiety.

“I’ll get the quickest flight out I can,” Tenn says, his voice thick and hoarse. “I’ll text you the details.”

He listens a minute more and then he pulls the phone away from his ear, not having bothered to say goodbye to whoever was on the other end. His gaze shifts away from me, staring blankly at the house next door.

“What’s happened?” I ask, my own voice scratchy with distress.

Tenn’s shoulders sag as if fifty-pound weights are on each side, and then his head slowly turns back my way. “It’s my dad… he’s dead.”

“What?” I exclaim as my entire body receives a sizzle of shock and my fingers tighten harder into his shirt.

“He got thrown from a horse, and then um… trampled. Took a hoof right to his chest. Ruptured something in his heart apparently.”

His words are flat and monotone. I launch myself at him, burying my face in his chest and bringing my arms around his back to hug him as tight as I can. His arms immediately come around me, clinging hard, and I feel his lips press against the top of my head.

“I’m so sorry, Tenn,” I murmur as I turn my face to rest my cheek against him, my arms clutching at him in a desperate attempt to convey my feelings. “So, so sorry.”

He hugs me back, silently accepting my sympathy. My brain tries to process everything I know about Tenn’s father. He’s been notoriously tight lipped about him, and I assume it’s because they weren’t overly close. Tenn has told me that his father has pestered him repetitively to come into the family business of ranching, and Tenn has told me that he has no intention of doing that. I know he’s just been waiting for his younger brother, Woolf, to sort of step up to the plate and fill his shoes, and now I have to imagine that in addition to the grief of losing their father, the two brothers will need to come to some sort of understanding.