And it was the second person in only a couple of hours to look right at him and tell him that he was a liar. He didn’t know quite what to do with that.

Caleb held up his hands. “Look, have whatever narrative you want, but you don’t actually know everything about my relationship with Mom and Dad. It’s just not simple enough for us to have all gone through the same thing. All this bullshit is complicated. So whatever issues you came out of our childhood with...

“If I had a woman who loved me, staring me in the face and telling me she wanted to be with me, and I loved her back, I’d take it.”

“How do you know that’s what happened?”

“Because she had the look on her face of a woman who’d had her heart smashed to pieces. And I figure that’s about the only thing that’ll do it.”

A wave of physical pain washed over Gabe and he kept his face stony. He’d ridden bucking horses for years. Had all kinds of cuts and bruises, minor stomping, that he had to stand up and walk off. Because there was a crowd of people. Because a champion didn’t show pain. Because you got up again, no matter what.

You didn’t cry when your dad sold your horses.

You didn’t fall apart when your mother was crying in your arms and telling you about your father’s bastard children and the way you could get back at him.

You stood up, and you moved on. It was what you did.

It was what he’d always done.

Except...

Except now it was all crashing into him.

He had done it for so long, and it had taken him to a place where he wasn’t sure how to do it anymore.

He met his brother’s eyes. “Unless you have something else to say, you can go now. I have a lot of work to do.”

“I don’t have anything else to say,” Caleb said, turning away. “No, just one more thing.”

Gabe gritted his teeth. “Of course you do.”

“If you’re so angry about the way Mom and Dad railroaded you into choosing the path they wanted you on, then at some point you have to quit letting your life be their choice.”

“Why do you think I’m here? What do you think I’m doing now?”

“Just enough that you can pretend what you’re doing isn’t a reaction to them. Just enough.”

And then Caleb walked out of the room, closing the door behind him, and Gabe didn’t let any part of the conversation replay in his head. Instead, he wheeled his chair over to the fridge and took out a bottle of beer.

It was one in the afternoon. And he figured he better start drinking now.

* * *

JAMIE DIDN’T KNOW how to be sad. Not for a prolonged period of time.

But she’d had a pretty solid twenty-four hours of sadness. The dull edges of pain from the grief over her mother were still there, along with the sharper, biting pain of losing Gabe.