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Aiden hesitated, then nodded, deciding to choose his battles carefully. "Your call," he said, elaborately casual. "Where?"
"You can come up to the ranch tomorrow," Seth said curtly. He was probably hoping the long drive would discourage Aiden. Then he wrapped a protective arm around his sister's shoulders and turned away, dismissing Aiden as if he weren't worth another thought.
Tessa glanced behind them apologetically, but Aiden only gave her a playful wink. His grin said no hard feelings, but as he watched them disappear in a gust of swirling snow, something vast and ugly began to crawl its way out of his heart.
His chest burned, and he knew it wasn't from the sludge he'd just drank. It felt like a spark of determination. Seth had dropped him like a hot rock once, and in his own hurt and wounded pride, Aiden had allowed it. But he didn't want to let the past define them anymore. It was time to carve out a new future, one step at a time.
Chapter Seven
AIDEN
No matter how lightly Aiden took each step, the old farmhouse stairs creaked beneath his weight. He climbed slowly, dragging his hand along the aging plaster wall as if he could absorb memories through his fingertips. It had been years since he'd set foot inside this house, but it smelled exactly how he remembered: wood smoke, old pine, and a trace of vanilla that he'd never managed to trace to anything specific. It all mingled with the scent of fresh coffee from the pot Tessa was brewing downstairs.
She'd greeted him at the door, puffy-faced and wrapped in a terrycloth robe dotted with a pattern of strawberries. It was barely past dawn. The sky was more white than blue, and the lacy peach hues of sunrise were just beginning to creep over the horizon, but she didn't ask questions. She only clutched her forehead in one hand, pointed mutely toward the stairs, and then stumbled toward the kitchen.
Aiden was shocked that Seth wasn't out in the barn already. Cowboys rarely slept past dawn. It just wasn't done—not at the Triple M, and certainly not here when there was so much work to do. Back when they were kids, Aiden used to bed down in the barn during calving season, and it was always Seth who woke him, fully dressed, sharp-eyed, and brimming with vitality. If Aiden ignored him and rolled onto his stomach, Seth would grab him by the sock feet and drag him, howling, from under the blankets.
Maybe Seth was sick—or maybe, like Aiden, he'd been up all night sorting through a tangled mess of confused emotions. Regret, mostly. The McCall family were a Sweetwater legacy, and they'd been destroyed by a single drunken night. No one ever blamed Aiden; Seth had made sure everyone thought it was his idea, but Aiden couldn't help but feel partially responsible. Sometimes, he wondered if that was the true reason Seth cut him loose. Seth would never admit it, but maybe somewhere deep in his subconscious, he blamed Aiden for what happened. Aiden had tried apologizing, but Seth didn't want to hear it. Whenever Aiden attempted to broach the topic, Seth had only said, "It's not the time." His sole directive became avoiding the topic and then eventually avoiding Aiden entirely.
The biggest mistake of Aiden's life was not fighting back when Seth pushed him away. Aiden had retreated to lick his wounds privately, but he'd never planned to stay away. When he thought about it, he wasn't sure how the distance between them had gotten so bad. While Seth crashed and burned, Aiden's star only continued to rise. He'd gone from a goofy kid to a well-respected, hard-working cowboy, the kind of man the neighboring ranches scrambled to hire during calving season.
The biggest lie ever told was that time healed all wounds. It hadn't healed jack shit, only made the blood gushing from their wounds easy to ignore until it slowed to a trickle. Not because they were healed—they were just bled out.
Aiden's heart twisted when he remembered Seth's distant, guarded expression when he walked into the tack shop. As if he was unsure of his welcome. His Seth had always been so strong and confident. Unashamed. Aiden missed the memory of his easy laughter, the way his eyes used to light up whenever Aiden said something outrageous. He barely recognized the wary, closed-off man Seth had become, but he had to believe that beneath his thorny exterior, the same gentle, self-assured man still existed. The one who had encouraged Aiden and stood by him through thick and thin. The man who, even now, cared enough to risk his own life pulling Aiden out of that frozen lake.
Friendship with a man like that was worth fighting for.
Cold morning air clung to Aiden's jacket. The last thing he wanted was to head outside on his only day off, but the quickest way to earn Seth's approval had always been hard work, and the Double Jay obviously needed help. Aiden had clocked at least a dozen necessary repairs in his first five minutes. So, last night, while he tossed and turned, he'd decided on a strategy—sneak attack.
The hallway stretched before him at the top of the stairs, exactly as it had been when they were kids. Nothing had changed. It felt like stepping back in time. The same jumbled collage of family photos hung on the walls, frozen moments of happier times. Aiden's throat tightened at the sight of David McCall holding up a largemouth bass and grinning broadly, arm slung around a younger, happier-looking Seth. Aiden leaned so close to the photo that his breath fogged the glass frame.
Unless they'd shifted things around, Seth's bedroom was at the end of the hall beneath the cupola. The last time Aiden had walked in unannounced, they were teenagers sneaking out for a morning ride. Things felt different now.
Aiden hesitated, hand hovering over the brass knob, and took a deep breath. Then he threw the door open and bellowed with gusto, "Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty!"
Seth was sprawled on his stomach in bed, arms akimbo, with a patchwork quilt barely covering him from the waist down. He'd always bucked convention with his long hair, and right now, it was tangled around his shoulders as if he'd had an even rougher night than Aiden. The deep worry grooves on his face had smoothed away, and he looked somehow younger with his eyes closed. He'd always had old eyes. While Aiden watched, they blinked open, and the years came pouring back.
"What're you doing here?" Seth asked, burying his face in his pillow. His voice was rough with sleep.
"Is that any way to greet a pretty face?" Aiden joked, swallowing quick to bring some spit back to his dry mouth. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't pry his eyes from the puckered scars running along the curve of Seth’s ribs.
"Go away," Seth groaned.
"You're the one who invited me," Aiden said blithely. "What're you still doing in bed? Did your animals learn to feed themselves?"
He crossed the room in a couple strides—it wasn't big—and stripped the quilt away with the flourish of a magician's cape. It was instinct, falling back into old habits, their old way of being around each other. But they weren't kids anymore, and the taut, tanned ass on display was a far cry from the Batman boxer shorts Seth used to sleep in.
"Jesus!" Seth exclaimed, rolling fully onto his stomach. "Get out of here!"
"Oh, come on. It's not like I haven't seen it before," Aiden said—lightly, he thought. Maybe too lightly. Maybe breathless.
Seth glanced over the cradle of his arms and glared at him with one baleful eye. "You've never seen my dick," he said flatly.
"Sure, I have." All that naked flesh was making his groin tighten, so Aiden got busy gathering up the pair of worn boots by the door and snatching a fresh pair of jeans from the pile of denim stacked neatly on the bureau. "Skinny dipping with Marla Hatch. Sophomore year. Remember?"
Seth sounded like he was choking. Aiden glanced over his shoulder, amused to see Seth scrubbing his hands over his face like he was trying to wake himself from a nightmare.
"I didn't forget," Seth said thickly. "You were too busy staring at Marla's tits to even notice the rattlesnake in our path 'til you almost stepped on it."
