Page 22 of Dead Man's Alibi

Particularly if it made Aly work this hard.“Should you be on your feet this much?”

She spared him one condescending look.“Landon, ranching women have been having babies formillionsof years, working ten times harder than I am.”

He knew she was right.Hell, his mother had somehow birthed four kids and his father had been an abusive asshole.No doubt she hadn’t been well taken care of, but she’d survived.And whatever Bennets had carved out this ranch surely hadn’t had access to a doctor, yet Bennets procreated all the same.

He wished that made him feel less like Aly was an egg just seconds away from being cracked.“When’s that doctor’s appointment again?”

“Not until the end of June.I’ll admit, I don’t like that any more than you do, but I’ve read everything I can get my hands on.”She put a big pan into the oven.“There’s no reason not to go about my day the way I normally do at this stage.”

She closed the oven, straightened.“And people thinkI’ma mother hen.Don’t you have a million things you should be doing out there?”she said, gesturing to the ranch beyond.

Where, yes, he had a million things he should be doing.He couldn’t seem to focus on any of them, though.

He just grunted.When she came over and leaned against him, he wound an arm around her shoulders and rested his cheek on the top of her head.“Are we going to tell them?”

She patted his chest.“I think… I think we should wait.At least until after the doctor’s appointment.Unless you really want to tell them.”

He shook his head.“No, I’m more than good keeping this between us for right now.”

He heard the creak of the front door opening, theclickof it being closed.“Cal must be first.”

“We’re in the kitchen,” Aly called, moving away from Landon and back to her dinner preparations.

Cal entered.Landon felt some relief that Cal didn’t look particularly worried or stressed.In fact, he was looking so much like his old self, Landon almost felt the old knee-jerk reaction to find fault with his older brother.

But he kept his mouth shut, which he considered growth.

“I invited Jill and Glenda,” Aly told him.“I figured that would be okay, since you mentioned this was about Jill’s idea.”

Cal hesitated, but it was so imperceptible Landon figured he was imagining things.

“Sure.Yeah, good idea.The more, the merrier.”Then he smiled that fake, blank lawyer smile, and Landon inwardly winced.

Somethingtonight was definitely not going to go right.

*

Nate pulled histruck to a stop in front of the Bennet ranch house.In a lot of ways, when he came up here, he didn’t really think about his childhood growing up in that house.His childhood felt so removed from his present, even if it was taking place in the same town with the same people.

The Bennet Ranch had come to feel like somewhere new.Landon and Aly’s.The shadows of ghosts somehow swept away by how present and normal they were.And happy.

But tonight, with the light fading in the west, Nate felt like memories were crowding in.Not that they felt like memories, exactly.More like bad dreams he’d convinced himself weren’t real.

There had been something so sinister about the way his father had kept them all at odds so they’d never see the cracks in the foundation of everything their family was built on.Nate had never fully realized all theevilthat had been slithering out of those cracks.

Something Nate had spent fifteen years away from.Away from Marietta and Montana and his family and, in some ways, himself.He thought sending his father to jail would lay to rest all he’d run from.

But being suspected ofmurdersure did fuck up all that equilibrium andlifehe’d been finding since.

He got out of the car and Sam followed suit.He wouldn’t say she was still icing him out, exactly.But she wasn’t herself, and he probably wasn’t himself, and now Cal wanted to have some kind of family meeting about this shit.

Nate supposed he could have refused, but what was the point?Everything was going to be terrible until the police figured out who’d really done this thing, and as much as Nate would like to dig in and figure it out himself, being a suspect meant keeping his distance.

Meant waiting.

Nate heard an engine approaching and stopped his forward movement.Cal was already here.Who else would be coming?He was bracing himself for something bad, but it was only Jill and Glenda.

Nate let out a slow breath.“I didn’t know they were coming.”