Love Brewing (Love Brothers #3) (10 page)

“Yeah, well. Sorry. I didn’t mean….”

“To what? Remind me of the third time I let you back in my
house, my body, my heart? Goddamn, but you are incredible, considering how all
that ended up. I hate you,” she heard herself yelling, even as she swallowed
the inevitable, dreaded, Dominic-induced tears, yanking thoughts of Lee into
the forefront of her brain to shield her.

“As you should.” He tipped the brim of his ratty UK ballcap
with a sad smile. “I’ll go, leave you to your menagerie.”

When he walked away, words on the tip of her tongue forced
themselves out. “I love you. Don’t leave me,” she whispered. But her eyes
stayed dry as she headed into the barn. “I’m coming, I’m coming, sheesh, bossy
animals.” She grabbed the feed bucket and headed inside to her flock.

Dom sat chatting with his younger sister while Diana put the
plate of country-fried pork chops in the center of the dining room table. He
had spent the rest of the evening ignoring her—easy since Angelique filled all
the conversational holes with news from home.

“So, Kieran and Cara.” She named their older brother and his
high school girlfriend who’d reappeared in a surprise twist for everyone
concerned. “They’re together, but she won’t marry him yet. It’s making him
nuts, but he’s busy with the basketball team and loving it. He’s taking classes
in the mornings, working on his master’s degree so he can teach.”

“Nice.” Dom sipped the beer she’d put in front of him—a Love
Brothers cream stout. “I mean, about Francis and his girl. Not this.” He set
the bottle down on the table and pushed it away.

“Antony and Margot are convincing AliceLynn to apply to some
fancy schmancy Ivy League schools. Who’da figured she’s a brainiac under all
that slutty goth?” Angelique got up to help Diana bring in the bowls of cut
corn and greens from last year’s garden.

Dom grunted and put his elbows on the table. “Don’t call her
a slut.”

“Oh, you know I didn’t mean it. Besides I call her that to
her face. She’s calmed down real nice. Margot playing good cop to Antony’s
asshole cop is working.”

“From what I remember of Antony, Margot must be pretty
special to have settled all that down.” Diana smiled when Angelique gave her a
quick squeeze. “Good to see you again, hon. Grab the biscuits, willya?”

Diana sat, suddenly bone tired. Dom passed her a beer. She
took it and frowned at him. “This is really good. What’s your problem?”

“I didn’t make it.”

She reached over to touch his lips for reasons that escaped
her.

“Hey, guys.” Lee burst through the side door. Startled, she
dropped her arm, guilt coursing through her at the sight of the tall, handsome,
loving, and fabulous man standing in her kitchen, seemingly thrilled to see
her—and what she’d put on the table. “I’m starved, but I gotta jump a quick
shower first. Don’t wanna subject anyone to cow afterbirth.” He kissed the top
of Diana’s head, nodded to Dom, and bounded up the steps.

“Gross,” Dom said mildly, toying with his barely touched
glass of dark brown beer.

Diana realized she had her napkin clutched so hard her
fingers hurt.

“Now that is the kind of vet that makes me wanna get a dog.”
Angelique grinned from ear to ear as she plunked the basket of steaming hot
biscuits in the center of the food. She gave Diana a fake punch to the
shoulder. “Nice work.”

“Yeah, thanks.” Diana sipped her beer and avoided Dom’s
gaze.

“Y’all playing ball tomorrow?” Angelique asked, taking her
seat next to her brother and draping an arm over his hunched shoulders. “Huh,
Sean?” She kissed his cheek, using the Love family habit of calling the boys by
their middle names.

“I dunno, maybe. It’s gonna snow. You’re headed back to
school soon, right?” He disentangled and gave her his best pissed-off glare.

“I dunno, maybe.” She parroted, pouting like a pro, Diana
noted, glancing up when Lee reappeared, dressed in jeans and a soft gray
T-shirt.

“What’s wrong, sweet cheeks?” He took a seat between her and
Angelique. “Long day slaughtering nature’s gentle creatures?”

She started to pick up the plate of chops. Angelique cleared
her throat and held out her hands on the table. “I’ll say grace.”

Lee blinked then looked to Diana. She smiled and nodded at
him. He smiled back, nearly melting her heart, and took hers and Angelique’s
outstretched palms.

“Dear Lord,” Angelique began. “Bless this food for the
nourishment of our bodies. Thank you for your bounty and for the folks that
prepared it. Be with us in the coming week, help us to be the best we can be.
Amen.”

Diana picked up her napkin and put it in her lap. “Thanks,
Angel. I forget sometimes.”

“Oh, you know our Angel.” Dominic scooped greens onto his
plate and reached across the table for a biscuit. “ She’s a regular Sunday
School teacher.”

His sister smacked his shoulder. “Shut up, you jerk.”

“I’m getting that a lot lately.” He frowned at Diana. She
smiled sweetly at him.

“Damn, these are the most amazing pork chops I’ve ever eaten
in my life.” Lee cut his second bite and grinned at her.

“You do know they come from nature’s gentle pig creatures,
right?” Dom stated without a trace of irony.

“Yeah, I do know. I think it’s great that Diana can dress a
deer in an afternoon. I used to hunt. Then I started taking care of animals
that took bullets accidently by clumsy hunters. Animals like dogs.” Lee kept
eating. He wasn’t giving off a confrontational vibe at all, merely being
matter-of-fact.

“Oh, no,” Angelique declared, a little too dramatically. But
who could blame her? Lee was all that and a bag of chips—the phrase wafted
through her memory like a ghost.

Diana smiled and grabbed his thigh under the table. He put
his over it and smiled at her, making her feel like the only woman in the
universe. Dom cleared his throat. Lee raised an eyebrow at her. She shook her
head.

“It’s honey,” she said.

“Um, what?”

“Honey. I drizzle it on the chops while they’re hot.”

“Wow.” Lee put another bite in his mouth, chewing and
swallowing with gusto. “Perfect.”

Diana wondered if that word would ever apply to her again.

Dom woke to pounding on his door. He sat up, picking up the
anger burden and shouldering it. He’d resumed taking his meds right after the
reunion in the barn followed by the shocking revelation of Lee Tolliver’s
existence. Somehow it seemed less problematic that they would razor off his
edge—take away the highs with the lows. That was one of the reasons he’d quit
taking them once he’d connected with Kent. He didn’t want to be blunted by chemistry—wanted
to experience everything, physical and emotional. Of course, once he’d admitted
it, Kent had been furious, insisting that he get to the doctor and figure out
the best way to get chemically sorted out again.

But to Dom’s mind, all the time he’d spent in the presence
of doctors and therapists seeking to make him less volatile at his parents’
request had made him a real para-professional when it came to antianxiety and
antidepressant drugs. Even now he had that familiar sensation of watching events
unfolding from a distance while encased in a warm fluffy, impenetrable
cloud—all indicative symptoms of the early phase of his chemical re-adjustment.

The past months had been a blur of readjustment on a lot of
levels. Accepting that Diana had actually meant it when she’d floored him with
her
that’s my boyfriend
reveal up in the haymow after their night
together had been tougher than he’d expected. Combined with his re-medication
regimen, it had proven challenging. But it had also provided the distraction he
required to force all thoughts of Kent Lowery completely out of his mind.

“Get up, ya lazy ass,” a male voice intoned from the
doorway. “I’m driving us in for the ball game.”

Dom groaned and stretched out his already sore arms and
legs. Stomping out into the snow and facing the weekly basketball game had not
been terribly high on his agenda for the day. He loved the first snowfall, but
usually from inside a warm house, holding a hot beverage, preferably doctored
up with bourbon. But he got up and into a pair of shorts. Ignoring Kieran’s
idiotic grin, he stumbled into the bathroom, then remerged with an empty
bladder and clean teeth.

“Jesus, Francis, do we hafta?”

“You know we all need it. Antony’s on some kind of tear over
AliceLynn and it would appear that Margot is taking the girl’s side. So now
he’s this growling, grumpy, man-shaped bear. I’m sick of studying for finals.
You…you’re….”

“I’m stuck in my old girlfriend’s house listening to her get
fucked by Doctor Horse Whisperer, getting paid to hang and mud drywall, and
trying to concoct better beer out of a damn mushroom.” He leaned in the
doorway, arms crossed. “That about sum it up? Oh, wait.” He held up a finger as
if remembering something. “And I’ve been declared officially dead by the Love
family
pater familias,
so I can never go home again. There, that about
does it.”

Dom shoved past Kieran who’d taken a step toward him and
ducked into his temporary room, which Diana had let him use knowing full well
it had been her old room. The very space he’d taken advantage of her obsession
with him again and again…and again. He groaned and flopped onto the bed, ready
to tell Kieran to leave without him when a round object hit him right in the
crotch.

“Ow! Son of a bitch.” He grabbed the well-worn leather ball
and heaved it in his brother’s general direction. “Don’t gotta damage my
goods.” He found a mostly clean T-shirt, his high tops and a pair of
sweatpants. “Come on already.”

The kitchen lights flamed bright. Diana stood at the sink
peeling a huge mound of potatoes. He smacked her ass hard enough to make her
screech and brandish the paring knife at him.

“Got any coffee, Di?” Kieran flopped into a chair and let
the ball drop to the floor.

“Of course. You know where the cups are.” She pointed with
the business end of the utensil. “Already on pot number two.”

“Oh?” Dom poured a healthy portion into a couple of large
mugs, emblazoned with the new, super-cool, Brantley’s Farm logo. “Insomniac
after all that moaning and screaming last night, dear heart?”

She shot him a killer glare. He grinned at her over the lip
of the steaming cup, but his heart skipped a beat at the vision of her—color
high, hair tugged back in a messy ponytail, and clearly braless. He shook his
head to keep from staring at her nipples poking out of the thin shirt fabric.

“No, smartass. Lee had to leave out early. Problem at the
horse park.” She trained her focus on the stack of tubers. “Beat it. I’ve got
work to do.”

He sat across from his brother, keeping his gaze on Diana’s
oh-so-appealing backside, clad in a pair of flannel shorts. The fireplace
crackled pleasantly behind them and the smell of some kind of pie filled the
air. She had been busy early. He slumped down in the chair.

“When’re you and Cara gonna tie the knot?” he asked, hoping
to deflect his attention from Diana.

“Who knows? I ask her every other day. She won’t commit to
it. Says it’s too soon and we gotta figure out if we really still like each
other. Damn woman’s as stubborn as a billy goat. Don’t even get me started on
the fact that she wants a baby—before the wedding. Dear Lord but our mama will
have kittens over that.”

Dom absorbed the
too soon
comment without it hurting
like would have a few months before. He’d come a long way since that horror of
a near-miss wedding between Cara and Kent. And he intended to go even further
away from the concept of him and Kent together.

He pushed up from the table and grabbed a glass of water,
forcing the three morning pills that kept him from spinning off into the
crazy-person stratosphere down his throat. He gripped the counter’s edge,
focused out into the rapidly increasing snowfall and muscling past the
metallic, medicinal taste that coated his mouth, same as every morning when he
ingested that particular cocktail.

“Let’s go, goddamn it.” He winked at Diana. “Have fun with
the ‘taters, sweet cheeks. I have to go school my brothers in the fine art of
the roundball.”

Without thinking, he leaned over and put a quick kiss on her
lips. She stepped away, palm over her mouth, her eyes snapping. He blinked.

“Oh, um, sorry.” But he wasn’t really sorry and he smiled
all the way out into the snow, trudging to the car in his work boots and the
heavy coat he’d snagged out of Diana’s late father’s collection.

***

They had to wait thirty minutes for a half court to free up
inside their old high school gym, which gave Antony plenty of time to fill them
in on his teenage daughter’s latest transgression. Dominic blocked it,
unwilling to suffer his eldest brother’s judgmental BS that morning. The last
time he’d pointed out the hard truth of the matter—that Antony had been the
second worst among them at meeting curfews, making grades, and had been caught
underage drinking more than a half-dozen times as a teenager—he’d gotten shoved
to the floor for his trouble.

Finally, the game commenced. He and Antony paired up against
Kieran and Aiden. Dom dropped into the game, which devolved into the usual mix
of unnecessarily thrown elbows, fists and feet. After thirty minutes, the score
tied, they took a water break, ignoring each other in their typical half time
fashion. He loved every sweaty, physical minute, because it allowed him to
forget everything—his newfound obsession with Diana, his attempt to deny what
he’d felt for Kent, his new status as the outcast brother.

“Oh, uh...hey, Daddy,” Aiden said somewhere to his left.
Dom’s heart raced as he pulled the towel off his head. His two older brothers
shifted, placing themselves between Dom and their father. The men stood for a
few beats, not moving. Something in Dom’s chest loosened in his father’s
presence.

Anton Love broke the eyeball lock first, shifting his gaze
to the shiny wood floor. “Your Mama told me to come here.” His deep, gravelly
voice was almost too soft for Dom to hear. “I’m too old for this crap. I can’t
stand seeing her unhappy. Plus I’m sick to death of sleepin’ in the pole barn.
Even with the heat on and the dog in my cot, it’s too cold for an old man.” He
shook his head. “It’s not where a man should be at night.” He took a long
breath, trained his gaze up into the rafters, then met Dominic’s. “Your
brothers tell me you’re out at Brantley’s. That you’re helping ‘em with their
new project or…something.”

Dom had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from being a
smartass and ruining this moment. Antony had moved closer to him. They now
stood shoulder to shoulder, facing their father.

“So, uh, here’s the thing.” Anton’s jaw was clenched so
tight it was hard to understand him. “I’m not ready for you to come back to the
brewery or anything but, uh, I guess since you’re getting into things with that
Diana, you’re not…um…oh hell.”

Words forced their way up and out before Dom could catch
them. “Don’t worry, I don’t intend to come to your brewery and corrupt it with
my fag germs.” Fury blinded him as he processed that his father had been about
to say
if you’re not going to be gay, I’ll acknowledge you as my son and you
can run the brewery like you’re supposed to.

A wave of remorse washed over him then, sickeningly
familiar. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to run away from all of
this. He should never have gone into that stupid chat room in the first place,
but he’d been curious about that side of him—and bored, seeking what, he
couldn’t even remember now. One little foray into it, he’d thought, and he’d
have it out of his system. And the whole thing with Kent had just…happened,
with the force of a rampaging herd of elephants, bowling him over and carrying
him along with it in a cloud of incredible discovery. He tensed when his father
advanced close enough to Dom that Aiden stepped between them.

“Don’t put words in my mouth, boy. I’m only here because
your mama is miserable over this…whatever the hell it is between you and me. I
can’t fix what’s broken inside you, but I can fix how we are when we’re with
her. She’s still…not well, you know.”

“I’m not bro—”

Kieran touched his shoulder, his expression wordlessly
pleading,
Let it be. This is a big step for him
.

Dom blew out a breath. “No, Daddy, I’m pretty well
unfixable, as we all know. Dom and his depression. Dom and his anger. Dom and
his boyfriend.”

Anton held up both his hands, palms open. “I’m here to make
some kind of amends with you. As long as you’re working on…the other stuff,
with Diana, that works for me.”

“Diana isn’t with me. She’s got a new boyfriend. I’m just
camping out there, making a few bucks hanging drywall and helping them get
their
Kombucha
thing going.” The words depressed him. He wanted Diana so
badly he could taste it, could feel her skin under his fingertips, hear her
soft moans of pleasure in his bed…his bed, not goddamn Doctor Lee’s. He set his
shoulders and met his father’s gaze. “But you know, that never stopped me
before with her.”

“That’s my boy.” Anton slapped him a little too hard on the
shoulder, making Dom tense, ready to pounce.

Aiden glared at him. Dom flipped his goodie-two-shoes little
brother off and offered his father the most sincere smile he could muster,
figuring he probably resembled someone who’d eaten a dozen lemons, or a pile of
dog turds. But hey, the old man wanted to make the effort and one thing Dominic
had always craved was his father’s love and approval.

“Fine. Mission accomplished, Daddy. Let’s play.” He grabbed
the ball and threw it straight at Aiden’s face. Anton exhaled and gave the
other boys friendly whacks on the shoulders before grabbing a water bottle and
taking a seat in the bleachers.

After only ten minutes of resumed play, Anton started waving
at them. They all ground to a halt, and a tickle of irritation hit Dominic’s
brain.

“All your phones are blowin’ up over here. Better check in.”

Antony snagged his phone and listened to something that made
his face blanch white. He gave it to Dom, who took it, panic rising in his
throat. When he touched redial from the message, the sound of Diana’s voice
soothed him for a half-second.

“Hey, Dom, I got Antony’s number from your mama. You all
have to get over to the hospital. Angelique must have snuck out of here last
night and had some kind of reunion with her boyfriend. She’s…she’s in the
hospital up in Louisville.”

“What the fuck?” He put a hand over his eyes, wondering how
and who he’d tell first. “How did you find out?”

“Dale, Jen’s husband told me. His brother’s an EMT up there
and…found her, or something. He thought he recognized her, but she didn’t have
a purse or wallet or….” Diana started crying, and his pulse raced so fast he
had to sit down. “He called Dale and Jen once they got her to the hospital.
They called me so I could find you all.”

“You didn’t tell Mama though, right?” He tried to swallow
the lump of dread in his throat. “Angelique…she’s…all right?”

“No, Dom. She’s
not
. Get your asses up to the U of L
hospital, now.”

“It still snowing?” He stood and motioned Antony over.

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad. Take a four-heel drive. Want me
to….”

He started to say,
yes, please God, Diana help me through
this mess,
then got a crystal clear memory of the night before, of her
moans of pleasure floating through the farmhouse walls straight to his ears.
She did it on purpose. He knew it and he’d hated her guts then while knowing he
deserved every minute of the auditory torture.

“No, this isn’t your problem. I’ll…I’ll keep you posted.”

“Dom, I never thought she’d sneak out. She acted so mature
and positive she’d not be seeing that boy anymore, remember when we talked
about it last night?”

“Yeah. Well, we Love siblings aren’t known to act rationally
when it comes to relationships. You’d know that better than anybody. Gotta go,
babe. Thanks…for….” He had no idea how to finish that.