Page 3 of Meant for You

She laughed and I followed her inside. “He’s like his daddy—if it’s on his plate, he’ll eat it.”

When we came through the entranceway, Cal was walking across the massive living room, carrying a couple of beers. Cassy took Jack back and Cal handed me one. “How does it feel to be home?”

“Good. Like I never left…but yeah, completely different as well.”

He kissed Cassy then Jack and clapped me on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said and headed out the back.

I followed him through the kitchen.

“We’ll sit on the porch.”

They’d changed a lot of stuff in the house, the furniture for one. Thankfully gone was Cassy’s father’s uncomfortable, small, overpriced designer outdoor furniture. It’d been replaced by comfortable wicker with big-ass cushions.

We sat and I took a sip of my beer. The view out the back was just as good as the one riding in: green fields, horses grazing, those mountains in the distance. The guesthouse was to the right, and I found myself looking over there, wondering if Everly was inside.

“She’s staying in the ranch hands’ old quarters off the barn,” Cal said, reading my mind. “Didn’t like rattling around in the guesthouse on her own. Cassy offered her a room in with us, but she prefers it out there.” He took a sip of his beer. “You talked to her yet?”

I shook my head and took another pull of my beer as well. “Still avoiding me.”

Cal nodded like he expected it. “She’ll need time.”

I sat back in my seat. “Yeah? Well, I’ve been gone eighteen fucking months. How much more time does she need?”

My brother looked at me, as serious as I’d ever seen him, and I knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.

“It’s taken her that long to get over you cutting her out of your life…Now you expect her to just…welcome you back with open arms?”

Fuck. The pauses in Cal’s speech told me just how strongly he felt about this. The TBI—traumatic brain injury—he sustained in a car wreck nearly twelve years ago still caused him trouble when he was worked up about something. “No, but it’s…Jesus, Cal, this is Everly.”

I didn’t need to say more than that. He knew how important she’d been to me, how important she still was to me. How she and I had been everything to each other since the day we met. I’d been in the system, in that fucking house, on my own for two years when Everly was delivered there like a lamb to the slaughter.

She’d been a scared twelve-year-old kid. I’d been fourteen and determined to do everything in my limited power to protect her from the realities of our harsh existence.

We’d been together three years before her aunt, an aunt no one knew about, came and took her away from me. I’d saved money, sent her a phone since her strict aunt wouldn’t get her one, and we’d called and texted each other every day until I fucked everything up.

Cal took another pull of his beer and sat back as well. “Whatever you do…don’t go fucking shit up and scaring her away. Cassy loves the girl. Jack, too. And she’s amazing with the horses. Cassy couldn’t do without her now.”

I had no answer to that. It was what Cal expected, me fucking shit up. We hadn’t spent a lot of time together since I left, and he still saw me as that same angry, impulsive idiot with constant black eyes and a chip on his shoulder.

I took another sip of my drink. “What’d you want to talk about?”

Cal shrugged. “Wanted a beer with my brother.” He rested his drink on his knee. “Bunker says you’re one of his best tattooists; was pissed off I wanted you back.”

I chuckled. Bunker owned the club’s parlor and was one of the best tattooists I knew alongside Cal and Bull. “Did he? Surly old bastard never said that to me. Called me few other choice words, though.”

Cal laughed. “Yeah, the review wasn’t all glowing.”

“That sounds more like it.”

There was a long silence, and I knew Cal was building up to something. I waited.

“Look, Dane, I’m fucking happy to have you back. We all are. I’ve missed you, baby brother, like you wouldn’t believe…but if being here…isn’t the right move for you…if you find yourself falling back into old patterns…”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

Cal didn’t look convinced. “When it comes to Everly, you’re single-minded…protective to the point…you take risks…”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” I repeated.