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PetGoats:1
AnnoyingBrothers:3
“You fucking fuckers!” I roar as I slam my foot on the brakes in front of my brother’s cabin, sending a dust storm of gravel swirling around my truck. Jumping out of the driver’s seat, I charge up the steps toward my two siblings sitting on Calder’s front porch and come to a stop between them. I glare at their relaxed frames stretched out on a couple of wooden rocking chairs with tin cups of coffee in hand.
Like it’s just a normal Saturday fucking morning.
I hold up the piece of paper in my hand. “Which one of you posted this at the bar?”
“Easy there, Wyatt…you don’t want to hit your daily word quota all before lunch.” Calder laughs and sets his cup down on the end table beside him and snaps his fingers. “Although I guess ‘fuck’ was redundant, so you have a few more words to burn.”
Without warning, I reach out and grab his collar, yanking him out of his chair. I knew it was Calder. It’s always fucking Calder. “Is my life some kind of joke to you?” I seethe, feeling every muscle in my arms flex as I hold my six-foot-three brother up on his tiptoes. I’m only an inch taller thanhim, so it’s no easy task.
“How do you know it was me?” Calder’s eyes dance with mirth. Mirth that I am two seconds away from punching off his smug face.
I glance over at Luke, the youngest of us, who seems perfectly at ease as he scratches his short beard and enjoys the show. I slant my gaze back to the most typical middle child on the face of this earth—never mind the fucker is thirty-five now. He was a pain in the ass when we were young, and he’s a pain in the ass now. The only difference now is he has more disposable income and more “inspired” ideas for his shenanigans.
My voice is growly as I crumple the sheet between us. “‘Impervious’ was your word of the day last week, and you used it incorrectly for hours.”
The corner of Calder’s mouth tips up. “Pretty sure I got it right in that ad, though, didn’t I, Papa Bear?”
Rage spikes in my veins now that he’s confirmed his guilt. “I’m going to throw you off this mountain and burn your cabin down.”
I drag Calder’s floundering body down the front steps of his porch toward the lookout point in front of my cabin, ignoring his raucous laughter that echoes off the foothills. I spent weeks clearing trees from this mountain vista when I bought this land to create this view before I even built my home. I wanted a place to quiet my thoughts and bring me peace.
This is the opposite of peace.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Luke calls out, his boots crunching on the gravel as he jogs past me to press a hand to my chest. “It’s way too early in the day for manslaughter and arson threats.”
“No shit,” Calder scoffs, extricating himself from my grip. He steps back and straightens his flannel, concealing the ink scrawled across his chest. “This violent behavior will make finding you a Momma Bear very difficult, Papa Bear.”
“Stop calling me Papa Bear,” I hiss, ruing the day I ever thought it’d be a good idea to have my brothers build on this secluded mountain with me.
I fist the ridiculous ad in my hand and glance up the hill at the three cabins we all built together almost ten years ago. Three brothersliving on a mountaintop I bought in rural Colorado sounded like a dream back then. We all worked side by side to develop this stretch of land and build self-sustaining cabins to survive up here on minimal energy resources. Even in the snowiest of winters, we have everything we need to survive for days without contact from the outside world. Weeks even.
Sounds like fucking heaven.
Or it did…until something started to feel different for me.As though somethingwas missing.
“This isn’t a fucking joke,” I grumble, running my hand over my short hair.
Calder’s expression shifts from cocky to damn near somber as he pins me with a serious look. “I didn’t make that ad as a joke, Wyatt. I made it because you’re a damn fool for going back to that agency in Denver that’s going to charge you six figures for a surrogate when there are decent women right here in Jamestown who will grow your baby for a fraction of the price.”
“It’s not about the cost, Calder,” I boom for the hundredth time. “I’ll pay whatever it takes to become a…” I hesitate to say the word out loud, my voice getting caught in my throat as the weight of it presses down on me.
Dad.
When will that word ever stop being difficult for me to say out loud? My eyes move over to the memorial bench Calder built and placed at the lookout point two years ago after our father passed unexpectedly. Our dad’s favorite saying is inscribed on it:“We’re not here for a long time, we’re here for a good time.”
Dad was the salt of the earth—hardworking, protective, and challenging in all the best ways. I can close my eyes and still feel his presence all around me—his signature scent of Brut cologne, his chastising tone when my brothers and I were late to a jobsite, his bark of a laugh, or the way he never sneezed just once. It was always an attack of eight sneezes in a row. Fuck, I miss him.
And let’s not even think about how hard it’s been for my mom,who was just about to celebrate their forty-fifth wedding anniversary before he passed. Now, she’s a widow who still cries at family events.
Dad was the definition of patriarch, and when we lost him, we lost our guide, our anchor, our voice of reason. The world got a little darker.
Now, I want to bring some light back into our lives. I want to see my mom hold my kid for once instead of my niece or nephew. I’m proud of what my brothers and I have built on this mountain, and I want to share that with a child of my own.
And I’ll be damned if I let Calder fuck with my plan.
