much that wasn’t him.
Except...
“Because nobody was there to help me. And if I can make things easier for you I damn well will, kid. You should recognize that as a gift.”
“Thank you for the gift of yourself, West. Where would I be without my big brother that I barely saw until recently?”
“That’s not what I mean. It’s a gift of resources, dumbass. Grab hold of it. Learn something while you’re here. Figure out what you want to do with your life and then do it.”
“That simple?”
“What do you think Mom wants?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither do I. As far as I can tell a man to share her bed and give her life a little bit of drama, a couple of packs of cigarettes a day and what else? She just wants to survive. I don’t want to be her. Do you?”
“No,” Emmett said. “Mostly because I don’t want a man to share my bed.”
West shot the kid a look. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” Emmett said reluctantly. “She said if she could have married your dad she would’ve been rich.”
He snorted. “Yeah. Sadly for her my dad was already married.”
“She’s hoping someone else will save her,” Emmett said.
West was surprised by his younger brother’s insight. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess she is.”
“I never figured anyone would save me. Not her, not anyone.”
“So you figured what? You figured you’d just scrape by on your own?” West asked.
“Yeah. I don’t need much.”
“All right. Maybe you don’t need much. But how about letting yourself want more?”
A sly look came over Emmett’s face. “Does that mean getting up this early?”
“I expect that’ll come into it.”
“Shit,” he said.
West chuckled and parked the truck.
Caleb, Gabe and Jacob were all there, standing out in front of the house drinking coffee. Caleb didn’t work on the ranch, so he was surprised to see him there.
“What are you doing here?”
“I dropped Ellie off,” he said. Caleb’s fiancée was one of the teachers at the school. “And Amelia. She’s spending the day with Tammy.”
Amelia was Caleb’s future stepdaughter. Though, she called him dad. Amelia’s own father, who had been Caleb’s best friend, had died before she was born. Caleb had been a constant in Amelia and Ellie’s life, but it had taken some time for Ellie to come to terms with her feelings for Caleb.
West had been part and parcel to fixing that.
And try as he might to deny it, it did make him feel slightly closer to Caleb.
“For those of you who haven’t met him,” he said, clapping his hand on Emmett’s shoulder. “This is my half brother Emmett.”
“Welcome to the half siblings club,” Caleb said.
“I’m not your half brother,” Emmett said.
“Still,” Gabe commented. “This place is pretty lousy with them.”
“That’s what I hear,” Emmett said.
“We practically have a baseball team of half siblings,” Caleb said.
“Not that many,” Gabe said, deadpan. “That we know of.”
“I can help you get started on some chores,” Jacob said. “And we can discuss the art class you’ll be taking today.”
West had a feeling that Jacob was really just going to tell the kid that he better be nice to the art teacher, who was Jacob’s wife, Vanessa.
Emmett looked at West.
“Go,” West said. “Learn stuff. Make the most of opportunities. Seize the day.”
“Fuck you,” Emmett said, but followed Jacob off toward the barn.
“So you acquired another sibling?” Caleb asked.
“I did. I mean, I knew about him. I’ve been looking for him, actually. I wanted him to come live with me here. But then it turned out he was causing some mischief locally. Hanging around. He’s angry at me for some things. Some justified, I guess. Some not. But when you’re his age and the world is full of asshole adults you just pick your targets where you can.”
“Yeah,” Gabe said. “We know a little bit about asshole adults.”
“Sure,” West responded. “But it’s not the same. I mean, I know you had stuff. But Emmett and I had to actually worry about whether or not we were going to get taken care of. We didn’t have a fancy house to cushion the blow.”
He looked at his brothers, standing in front of him, so...so similar to him in looks. It was weird. For a guy who had never put much stock in family, or blood connections, having so many people out there in the world who shared his DNA was a little bit strange.
Especially because that link was what brought him here.
That link that never mattered much to his mother, and sure as hell didn’t change the