just evaporated. Suddenly he was nineteen years old again, staring at the girl who made his stomach flip, knowing he couldn’t do anything about it. She had been Andy’s girlfriend, and there were lines he’d never cross. Except she wasn’t Andy’s girlfriend anymore.
The rumble of an engine came up the drive, and Chet ambled through the kitchen toward the front window. A brand-new blue pickup crunched to a stop on the gravel, and when the door opened, he blinked in surprise to see his brother. He hadn’t spoken to Andy in the year or more since their father’s death, and the sight of his younger brother made his throat tighten. After the funeral, they’d had a massive fight over the inheritance and things had been said—the kind of things that couldn’t be taken back. So what was Andy doing on his doorstep? Was this a friendly visit, or was he here to pick up where they’d left off?
Chet pulled open the front door and gave his brother a cautious nod. Andy, shorter than Chet by several inches, slammed shut the truck door. He was tall and well built—the family resemblance between the two men was unmistakable, except that Andy’s hair was auburn in a testament to their redheaded mother. He shuffled his boots in the gravel.
“Hi,” Andy said.
“What’s going on?” Chet asked. “I thought you weren’t talking to me.”
“Ida kicked me out.” Andy slapped his hat against his leg. “I was hoping I could stay here with you for a few days until I get things sorted.”
“What do you mean, kicked you out? The wedding is in two months, I thought.” In fact, Chet wasn’t even sure if he was invited. Ida had sent him the invitation, and he suspected she was trying to be diplomatic. That didn’t mean Andy wanted Chet anywhere near the event.
“We broke up.” Andy gave a weak shrug.
“What did you do?” Chet demanded.
“Can I stay here?” Andy asked, ignoring the question.
“Well, you’re here,” Chet said gruffly, which was as close to a yes as Andy was going to get. Andy grabbed a suitcase from the truck’s flatbed and Chet stepped back and let his brother through the door. “So what happened?”
“I asked if we could postpone the wedding a bit. It’s in two months, coming up so fast, and—” Andy’s face looked older now, more lined and haggard. “You were smart to stay single.”
Chet wasn’t so much smart as unlucky in love. He’d dated a few women over the years, but in a place the size of Hope, he’d known most folk all his life. A few new people moved in every few years, but most of them were older or with young families. You didn’t get a lot of available women putting up their shingles in a place like this.
Andy strolled toward the kitchen, and Chet followed. This was their family house—they’d both grown up in it—and treating it like a shared home was a hard habit to break. Chet had inherited the house, the barns and one hundred and seventy-five acres. His brother had inherited the other two hundred and twenty-five acres—mostly pasture—and their shares combined to make the Grangers’ four-hundred-acre total. Their father’s intention had been for the brothers to run the ranch together, except that Andy had never been interested.
“So it’s over, I guess,” Andy went on, opening the fridge and peering inside. “You don’t have much, do you?”
Over. His brother had been dating Ida for four years, and it was simply done? This was the first woman Andy had brought home whom the whole family really liked. He turned his attention to the fridge.
“What do you want?” Chet asked. “How about sausage and eggs?”
Andy shrugged his assent and headed to the battered old table, where he sank into a chair. Chet set to work in the kitchen. He grabbed the eggs and sausages from the fridge and moved around getting what he needed. Andy scrubbed a hand through his reddish hair, leaving it standing upright.
“So just like that?” Chet asked. “You sure this isn’t a fight? Cold feet?”
“She’s not the right woman.”
“You thought she was when you proposed,” Chet said. That had been before their father died and while everyone was still talking to each other. Andy had used their mother’s engagement ring. Made sense—Andy had always been close to Mom. Chet had been out on the land with their father, and Andy had seen a lot more of their mother before she passed away, something Chet had always felt a little envious of. Had he known their time would be limited...
“A lot changed in the last year,” Andy muttered.
A lot had changed, but truth be told, Chet had been slightly jealous of his brother’s good fortune. He’d fallen in love and was getting married. What better way to get over the death of a parent than by starting your own family?
“Speaking of that year,” Chet said. “I haven’t heard a peep from you.” He hauled an iron skillet onto a burner and turned it on.
“Well...peep.”
Chet rolled his eyes. He’d have to take what he could get. He’d missed his brother, gone over their fight over and over in his head, looking for some fresh insight into why they fought and how to fix it and always coming up empty.
“Dad should never have split the land up like that. It wasn’t fair,” Andy said. “Not that you’d notice.”
“You got more land than I did,” Chet retorted. “You got all the pasture. It’s worth a good chunk of change, so don’t go acting the victim like Dad didn’t remember you.”
The pasture was in Andy’s name, but Chet had been using it just as their father had used that land before him. Chet had always looked at the ranch as theirs—his and Andy’s—but it was no secret that Chet was the one to run the place and do the actual work. Andy was more of a silent partner, and Chet liked that setup just fine.
“I meant to talk to you about that,” Andy said, squinting. “I’m going to sell it.”
“What?!” Chet slammed a spatula on the counter and stared at his brother in disbelief. “You can’t do that!”
“Totally can,” Andy replied. “It’s in my name, and like you said, it’s worth a small fortune to the right people.”
“Yeah, but it’s our pasture,” Chet said. “Where are we supposed to graze two hundred and fifty cows if you sell it out from under us?”
Andy shrugged. “Maybe this isn’t a great time to talk about this.”
“No, this is a perfect time,” Chet said. “This ranch needs land. You know that. I can’t run the place without it.”
Andy pulled out his phone and punched away with two thumbs for a few seconds, then passed the phone over. “This is the development company that is interested in buying the whole lot—yours included—for more money than we’d ever get otherwise. We’d be rich.”
Rich. That was what Andy wanted—cash? Rich was when you had land under your feet that you owned free and clear. Rich was when you could stand outside at dawn and watch the sun rise over fields you owned as far as the eye could see. Rich wasn’t about a fistful of cash; it was about something deeper, more meaningful. It was about roots and history, being connected to the
