from behind her desk. “I’ll send a gift, phone the ranch, wish Jonas the best…” He smiled his thanks as Rosa handed him a cup. “You two guys can enjoy the party without me,” he finished as he sat down at his desk again.
“Hold it right there, pal.” Slade’s voice rang with indignation. “I never said I was going. In fact, I’m going to be in Baltimore that weekend.”
“Or in the Antarctic,” Travis said lazily. “Anywhere it takes to avoid this shindig, right?”
“Wrong. I’ve put in the past eight weeks on plans for a new bank in Baltimore, and I’ll be damned if—”
“Easy does it, Slade. I was just kidding.”
Slade sighed. “And I was lying through my teeth. Not about the commission, but about why I can’t make it to Espada.”
“Amazing,” Gage said softly. “Here we are, three grown men, all of us falling over our own feet in a rush to keep clear of the place where we grew up.”
“Some people call the place where they grew up ‘home,’” Slade said, trying for a light touch but coming up short.
“Yeah,” Travis said, trying for the same light touch, “but they aren’t the sons of Jonas Baron.”
“The Sons of Jonas Baron,” Gage said, trying even harder. “Sounds like a movie.”
“Not a bad idea,” Slade said. “I can play myself but they’d need to hire stand-ins for you two. Splash those ugly mugs of yours across the big screen and they’d scare away paying customers.”
This time, at last, they all laughed.
“The thing is,” said Travis, “tough as the old man is, eighty-five is a pretty impressive number.”
“So?” Bitterness tinged Gage’s voice. “I don’t much remember him being impressed enough by other numbers. Your eighteenth birthday, for instance. Or when Slade finished his two years of grad school.”
“Or your big fifth anniversary party,” Travis said, and Gage felt the pain of Natalie’s announcement rip through him again. “But, what the hell, gentlemen, we’re bigger than that, right?”
Groans greeted the announcement, but Travis was undeterred.
“Well, we are. We’re young, he’s old. That’s a simple fact.” His voice softened. “And then there’s Caitlin.”
“Yeah.” Slade sighed. “I do hate to disappoint her.”
“Disappoint her?” Gage muttered. “Hell, Catie’ll come after us and cut out our hearts when she hears we’re not coming.”
“Or other, even more important parts of our anatomies,” Slade said.
The three Barons laughed, and then Gage gave a deep sigh.
“Yeah, I know. I don’t like letting her down, but I don’t see a choice here, guys. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
“The choice,” Travis said in the tone of reason that had made him such a successful attorney, “the choice, my man, is that there is no choice. We have to show up at this thing.”
“No way,” two voices said in unison.
“Look, we’re not kids anymore. Jonas can’t get under our skin. He can’t make us miserable and, what the hell, we do owe him a show of respect. And think how happy we can make Caitlin by showing our faces, singing ‘Happy Birthday’ or whatever it is she’s got planned, before we head out to the real world again. What’ll it take? A couple of days? That’s not much, when you come down to it, is it?”
Silence skimmed along the phone line. “Maybe not,” Slade said after a while.
Maybe not, Gage thought—but the birthday weekend was only ten days away. Every instinct he possessed told him it was going to take longer than that to fix this mess with Natalie, to convince her that he still loved her, that he wanted her because, dammit, he did.
“Okay,” Slade said, and heaved a sigh. “I’m in.”
“Great,” Travis said. “Gage?”
Gage cleared his throat. “I can’t.”
“Dammit, Gage, if Slade can, and I can—”
“I can’t, I’m telling you! I’ve got—I have things to take care of. Important things.”
“It’s just a weekend,” Slade said.
“Well, I don’t have a weekend to spare.”
“Listen here, brother,” Travis snapped. “If I can manage the time and Slade can manage the time—”
“Good,” Gage snarled. “Great. I’m proud of the two of you. But I’m busy. Too busy for this kind of nonsense. I have some sensitive things going on here. You guys understand that, or do I have to put it on a billboard?”
He heard the harshness, the anger, of his own words echoing around him. His brothers were silent and he shut his eyes and put his fist to his forehead. He could almost see the looks they’d be sending each other if they were in the same room.
He took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice near a whisper. “But I can’t be there. I just can’t.”
“Sure,” Travis said after a minute.
“Understood,” Slade said a beat later. “Well…”
There was silence, then the sound of a throat being cleared. “Well,” three voices said at one time, and then there were hurried goodbyes, good wishes…
The phone went dead. Gage sat staring at it, waiting—and smiled a little when it rang.
“Listen,” Travis said without bothering to say hello. “If there’s a problem on your end…”
“I’m okay.”
“Yeah, sure you are, but if there should be a problem, whatever—”
“I’ll call you,” Gage said quietly.
“Yeah,” Travis said, cleared his throat, and hung up. The phone rang again, almost immediately.
“Gage?”
Gage sighed. “Yes, Slade.”
“Look, if you, ah, if you need anything—”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, sure, but if you should need anything, somebody to talk to, whatever—”
“I’ll call you,” Gage said softly.
“Right.” Slade cleared his throat and hung up.
Slowly,
