Fall to Pieces (5 page)

"Belkin can wait to take delivery and give us
more time to do the mowing and the baling," Pete said.

"But the Bar Twelve is offering fifty percent
more per pound than Belkin," Sadie protested.

"And we're short handed, so by the time we're
ready, the Bar Twelve will have gotten what they need, and we'll be
shit out of luck," Pete snapped. "We promise to Belkin, we get the
money free and clear."

Sadie's protest was cut off by her father's
sharp voice.

"It's nice of you to take an interest in the
business, but don't you have something to do on your computer?"

Sadie curled her fingers against the dining
table as any warm feelings about being back in her childhood home
left in a cold rush at the blatant dismissal. She might have been
born a girl, with more interest in books and computers than in
breeding horses. But she was smart, she had a head for business,
and as long as they were depending on her help it would be nice to
feel like her opinion mattered.

It was a wonder, she thought as she thanked
June for lunch and retreated to her office, that her mother had
stuck around for as long as she had.

But after sixteen years of standing by her
husband, reassuring Sadie that under that hard exterior he really
did love them, Angela Thornton had cut her losses and gotten out
while the getting was good.

Was it any wonder that Sadie had done the
same?

Dylan trudged up the front steps, rubbing
absently at his left thigh, which was feeling the effects of the
intense workout he'd put himself through after he'd left his
father's shop.

He took perverse pleasure in the discomfort,
savoring the fact that it came from physical exertion rather than
from his injury. When he'd first been injured, his leg torn up,
he'd been terrified that his career was over. It didn't seem
possible that he'd ever recover to the point where he could rejoin
his team.

The members of the Unit had to operate at one
hundred percent, physically, mentally, emotionally. They wouldn't
tolerate a soldier with a gimpy leg.

But thanks to some very talented surgeons and
his dogged determination to continue to serve with army's most
elite covert operation team, he was nearly there. In a few weeks,
he'd have his final medical evaluation and be cleared for duty.
Until then, he continued to train, build up his strength, prepare
himself as much as he could to be sent back into the fire.

He only had to tolerate a few more weeks,
spinning his wheels instead of fighting terrorists and rescuing
hostages as part of a spec ops group so secret the government
didn't officially cop to its existence.

He resented every moment of this idleness,
hated the fact that while he was kicking around Big Timber,
shacking up with his brother Damon and his fiancée, Ellie Tanner,
his teammates were in the thick of it.

Ever since he'd returned from first
deployment to Iraq as a ranger, he'd had trouble settling into life
back home. He had no idea how his brothers had managed to adjust to
civilian life.

For his part, he couldn't imagine doing it
and keeping his sanity in tact. The slower pace made him edgy,
restless. And now, after all his years in the forces, he found that
too much down time made it too easy for all the darkness that went
along with his job to come creeping into his consciousness.

He shook his head. He'd be back in soon
enough, too busy to contemplate all the things he'd seen, done, in
some of the darkest corners of the world.

He shoved away the pity party as he unlocked
the door and glanced at his watch. Only five-thirty. He'd have a
couple of hours at least before Damon, Ellie, and Ellie's son
Anthony got home to relax, decompress, maybe even spend some time
in front of his computer pouring out some of the turmoil swirling
inside him.

He swung open the door, stepped through the
entryway, and headed for the kitchen and the ice cold microbrew
waiting in the refrigerator.

Intent on his mission, he didn't register the
low grunting noises until it was too late.

"Jesus Christ!" He covered his eyes and
recoiled as the sight of his brother's white ass confronted him
head on as Damon hunched over the kitchen table between a pair of
thighs Dylan fervently hoped were Ellie's.

Damon's curse, echoed by Ellie's, followed
Dylan as he staggered back to the entryway. Damon skidded into the
entryway just as Dylan was grabbing his keys and wallet from the
table where he'd tossed them.

"I thought you said you'd be home around
six," Damon said accusingly. He'd thankfully pulled on his boxers,
but Dylan didn't think there was enough bleach in the world to get
the image of his brother's ass humping and pumping out of his
brain.

"And you and Ellie don't usually get home
until after seven on Wednesdays," Dylan retorted.

"It was slow at the restaurant so we thought
sneak in a little alone time while Anthony's still with the
sitter." This from Ellie, cheeks flaming and now modestly covered
by Damon's t-shirt which hung almost to her knees.

Dylan felt his own cheeks heat with
embarrassment. While Ellie was a beautiful woman, and he'd be a
liar if he said he hadn't had impure thoughts about her when he'd
been a horny teenager and she'd been dating Damon back in high
school, now she was Damon's fiancée. Practically his sister.

Whose ass had been on the exact spot where
Dylan had eaten his scrambled eggs that morning before leaving for
the shop.

"Your bed broken or something?"

Damon shrugged. "We hadn't christened the
kitchen yet."

Dylan shook his head. "I'll leave you to it.
Next time leave a sock on the doorknob or something."

"You don't have to leave," Ellie protested as
he started down the walk.

"Call before you come home," Damon countered,
and slammed the door.

I really need to find another place to
stay,
Dylan thought as he climbed back into his truck. When
he'd come back to town, staying with Damon had seemed the easiest
option—and a damn sight better than moving in with his folks.

Not that he didn't love his parents, or even
enjoy a little spoiling courtesy of his mom every now and then. But
their house was tiny, and the last thing he needed was his mom in
his business all the time, wondering why he wasn't sleeping, asking
him what he was doing tapping away at his computer all hours of the
night.

Not to mention, the prospect of moving back
into the room he shared with his brothers—with its bookshelves
still adorned with their high school trophies and freaking NFL
sheets on the bunk beds—even temporarily would drive him even
crazier than he already was.

"We've got plenty of room, even with Ellie
and Anthony there," Damon had offered before Dylan even had a
chance to ask. Not only was Damon's house almost twice the square
footage as his parents', it had a bedroom on the lower level away
from the others so Dylan—and Damon and Ellie—could presumably have
their privacy.

Not quite private enough,
he thought,
cringing as his mind flashed back to the scene on the table.

As he headed back toward Big Timber's main
drag, he was forced to admit that even if the house were three
times bigger, it wouldn't have been big enough to accommodate the
mushy ooey gooey I love you vibe that permeated the house whenever
Damon and Ellie were together.

Not that he begrudged his brother a second of
happiness. Despite their bad break up and years apart, it was clear
as day that Ellie made Damon happier than anyone could have ever
thought possible. And he and Anthony, Ellie's five-year-old son
from her first marriage, had bonded so strongly, if he didn't know
different even Dylan would have believed he was Damon's biological
child.

But it was hard not to feel like an outsider
amidst all that new found familial happiness.

Driving on auto pilot, he headed for town and
pulled up in front of Adele's Cafe, the restaurant started by
Ellie's grandmother decades ago and taken over by Ellie's mother a
little over twenty years ago.

Ellie's mom, Adele, and Dylan’s mom, Vivian,
had been best friends growing up and had picked up their
relationship right where it left off when Adele had moved back to
Big Timber with her daughters, Ellie and her younger sister, Molly,
who was in the same grade as Dylan.

As such, he'd spent a lot of time at Adele's
growing up, especially after Damon and Ellie had become attached at
the hip. Then, as now, Dylan had played the unwilling third wheel
until he'd turned sixteen, fixed up an old Ford to drive and was no
longer at Damon's mercy for transportation.

Still, Dylan had spent his share of evenings
after practice shoveling down the food at Adele's, because everyone
knew she made the biggest, best cheese burgers and chili fries in
all of Sweetgrass County.

Every time he came back home on leave, he'd
made a point to visit Adele's and eat enough chili fries to make
him feel like his gut was going to bust, knowing he'd be spending
several months after surviving on army food and MREs.

Now as he climbed out of the truck and
started across the parking lot, he took in all of the changes
Adele's had gone through recently, most of it thanks to his brother
Damon, who had entered into a partnership with Adele and invested
his own money to fix up the place.

And fix it up he had, starting with the
outside. Instead of asphalt of the parking lot flowing to a simple
concrete walkway leading into the restaurant, there was a patio
made out of flagstone that offered outdoor seating when the weather
allowed. A new outdoor bar lined the side wall of the restaurant,
and at the other end Damon had installed a brick pizza oven close
to the back entrance to the kitchen.

Inside the changes were even more startling.
Gone were the worn linoleum floor, formica tables and
naugahyde-covered booths. It had all been replaced with gleaming
hardwood floors and wooden tables and chairs that could have come
from any big city restaurant.

Then there was the bar. While Adele's had
always served beer on tap—two kinds, Coors and Coors light—as well
as wine—also to kinds, red and white—now premium liquors lined the
shelves behind the gleaming mahogany bar. A half dozen beer taps
were mounted to the bar itself. In addition to the Coors, there
were selections from microbrews from all over Montana.

While he appreciated the new look, he still
felt a pang every time he walked in. Like a piece of his past had
disappeared.

"We needed to up our game if we were going to
stay in business," Damon had said when Dylan had revealed his
nostalgia for the old place. "The tourists coming through here,
even the locals—everyone has more sophisticated tastes now. If we
want to attract business, we need to offer more than burgers,
fries, and a cold one."

Dylan had silently wondered what was wrong
with that, but hadn't argued. Especially when it was clear the
changes Adele had made at Damon's urging had been so successful.
From what Molly, Ellie's sister, had told him, business had been
booming even before movie star Jane Bowden had hosted a birthday
party at Adele’s for her husband, Dylan and Damon’s older brother
Deck. Once the party was written up in all of the tabloids, it
seemed like every tourist taking a summer road trip out to
Yellowstone wanted to stop in and see where Jane Bowden threw her
parties.

Still, when Dylan pushed open the door he saw
that as Ellie had said, business was slow for the moment. At
five-thirty, before the dinner rush, there were only a few tables
occupied.

Several people mingled at the bar enjoying
happy hour specials. Over several heads he could see Molly, who
bartended and waited tables along with keeping the books for the
restaurant and Damon's other businesses, smiling and making small
talk as she placed two cocktails in front of a couple before she
moved down to the other end of the bar to talk to another
customer.

Dylan tracked her, every nerve ending going
on alert when he realized who that customer was. Sadie.

Like he was caught in a tractor beam, he
walked over the bar and sat down on the empty stool next to her
before he thought better of it.

"Dylan!" Molly said and leaned over the bar
to hug him. Dylan squeezed her back, grinning. "Ooh, someone's been
working out," Molly said, giving his bicep an affectionate
squeeze.

"You know me, always pumping something," he
shot back.

Molly chuckled. "Did you need to talk to
Damon? Because he's—"

Dylan held up his hands, "I know exactly
where he is, and what' he's doing," he said with a grimace.

Molly rolled her eyes. "He and Ellie?"

"On the kitchen table."

"Oh jeez." She and Sadie giggled in unison.
"Just last week I caught them in the bathroom here! You'd think
they never had sex before."

"All I know is, I need to find a new living
situation or my psyche is going to be permanently scarred."

Molly gave his hand a sympathetic squeeze and
went to get him a drink, not bothering to ask because it was always
the same thing. Within seconds a frosty mug of a locally brewed
lager appeared in front of him. "Maybe this will help you forget."
She excused herself to take an order from one of the waitresses
working the floor.

He watched her walk away, wondering why, as
beautiful as Molly was in her own right, she'd never been one to
make his blood run hot or make him shift in his seat so no one
would see the tentpole popping the front of his gym shorts.

Not like the woman next to him, damnit. "So
other than catching Damon and Ellie in a compromising position
how's it going?" Even the sound of Sadie's voice was enough to make
his temperature slide up a half dozen degrees as he imagined
getting her into a compromising position of their own.