Page 7 of Just (Fake) Married (Calloways vs. McGraws #1)

THREE

ETHAN

I pulled up to the gravel in front of the three-car garage, which sat adjacent to the lodge.

The lodge was what we called the main house on the property, although there were several more houses built over the years. Including the house where Carter lived with his kids.

Originally built by our ancestors back in the late 19 th century, it survived about fifty years, before my great-great grandfather got bigger dreams and mining money. He’d knocked down what was there, and created the Craftsman mansion that had been the McGraw home ever since.

The main house had six bedrooms, five bathrooms and four fireplaces. My mom had knocked down a few walls to create a more modern kitchen and dining space, with floor to ceiling windows to enjoy the view of the valley.

The dining table sat twenty, and over the course of the years, at least four men had been operated on on that table after a gunfight, knife fight or bar brawl.

Three of them died.

The last one survived, and had worked as the Swinging D’s chief foreman for almost thirty years. Now his son had the job, and he used to be my best friend. But like most things attached to this land and this place, I’d let the friendship go.

As soon as I stepped into the house, I was knocked sideways by the smell.

Cedar fire.

The smell of a cedar fire was the smell of my childhood.

“Ethan?” Taggert Durham’s voice pulled me out of the past and made me smile.

My old best friend. Tag came out of the study, into the hallway, on the other side of the fireplace that smelled so good.

He looked the same. Dark hair, dark beard.

Tall and thick chested. He’d gotten me out of a dozen scrapes over our lives, and I’d set three of his bones and stitched a head wound closed a time or two.

Outside of my brothers, he’d been my first and only friend, and even though I was looking right at him, it occurred to me how much I missed him.

I missed all of them. My brothers. My mom, even. This house.

Everyone but my dad.

I stood in the entryway that was full of benches so people could take off their gear and dry off by the fire before going into the rest of the house. I felt a little stuck there, like I needed an invitation. I was such an outsider in my own family.

“Hey, Tag,” I said, as my old friend came over and we hugged each other hard with manly back claps. “It’s good to see you.”

“Glad you could make it,” he said.

“Am I such an asshole you think I’d miss my dad’s funeral or…whatever the hell this is?”

“No,” Tag smiled. Or rather gave the impression of a smile. His beard hid his mouth, but his eyes crinkled slightly. Which was about all the emotion Tag would show. “Not an asshole. Just a busy man.”

“Not too busy,” I said, taking off my not-warm-enough coat and hanging it on one of the hooks above the bench. I’d decided to keep the possible firing/suspension to myself. That wasn’t anything my family needed to worry about right now. “What about you? How are things here?”

Tag rubbed a big hand over his beard. “We’re all right for now. Had some decent success with our insemination program, we’ll see how that translates in early spring.”

“Ethan, that you?” Another man stepped out of the office, and there he was, my big brother, Carter.

He was fair like Mom had been, with blonde hair that curled when it got long.

We used to tease him about that. But other than the hair, he was all Dad.

Built like a whip, tall and lean. Tough as a son of a bitch.

Carter hugged me and I squeezed him tight. Dad and I had our issues, but Carter was Leroy’s pride and joy. Which meant my brother was hurting today, and he’d already hurt so much in his life.

“How are you holding up?” I asked.

“We’re okay.”

“Daddy?”

Carter’s oldest daughter, Taylor, came up behind him and eyed me like she wasn’t sure how she knew me, which was fair. The last time she’d seen me, she’d been seven and devastated by the loss of her mom. Now she was tall and coltish with long blonde hair parted down the middle.

“Taylor? No, you can’t be,” I said with a teasing smile. “You’re way too tall to be her. You must be at least eighteen.”

“Hi, Uncle Ethan,” she said, rolling her eyes. I was great for making women roll their eyes at me today. “I’m only twelve.”

“Who are you?” That from the blonde boy standing behind Taylor.

“Luke,” Carter scolded. “This is your Uncle Ethan, visiting from Seattle.”

Before I could say anything, Luke took off at high speed for the kitchen at the back of the house.

Carter’s youngest, Zoe, who’d been just a baby when Lilly died, came around Taylor’s long legs to show me the oversized stuffed pillow pet she carried that reminded me of the alpacas I’d seen earlier.

“This is George,” she said. I reached out and shook one of George’s four legs.

“Nice to meet you, George. I’m Uncle Ethan.”

“He can’t talk,” Zoe informed me.

There was a crash in the kitchen, and Luke came running back into the room with a cookie in each hand.

“What broke?” Carter asked his son.

“Nothing,” Luke said, and took a bite of the cookie. “The stool fell over.”

There they were, my nieces and nephew. I’d seen pictures, of course. Posts on social media. FaceTime during holidays, but it wasn’t the same.

I should have come home sooner.

“Are you here because Pop-pop died?” Zoe asked me.

All I could do was nod.

She leaned against her dad’s leg and Carter rustled her messy blond curls. She looked up at him with so much hero worship, it almost made me emotional.

My father would never have been able to do what Carter did when Lilly died.

Carter had stopped everything else in his life to just be a dad. Raising three kids on his own, responsible for every decision. I still don’t know how he handled it all. Along with his own grief.

I felt the stab of regret that I had not been around more to help.

I should have put my sense of guilt aside and been more present.

I wondered if every doctor felt this kind of responsibility when someone in their family died young.

I could have checked in more. Reached out more.

Set them up with more and more consultations.

Made a nuisance of myself with my colleagues.

Anything to save my brother’s beloved wife and the amazing mother of his children.

A squabble broke out between Luke and Zoe over the remaining cookie in Luke’s hand. Zoe leaned over to take a bite out of it and Luke yanked it back, causing a sound in Zoe like a tea kettle about to blow.

“Taylor,” Carter said. “Take your brother and sister into the kitchen and ask Mrs. Walker if there are any more cookies.”

The oldest corralled the two younger kids back to the kitchen.

In the silence left behind, I took off my boots out of habit.

Memories of my mother hollering: You track cow shit into this house, boys, and it will be the last thing you do s till haunted me to this day.

“What are those things?” Carter asked, staring down at my boots.

“Hiking boots,” I said. They were the sturdiest foot apparel I had in my closet at home.

Carter and Tag of course wore old cowboy boots, so worn in they could probably sleep in them.

“You do a lot of hiking in ‘em?” Tag asked.

“No,” I said. “But every citizen of Seattle gets a pair when they move in.”

Carter laughed and slung his arm over my shoulder. “Come on inside the study and let’s have a drink. Tag and I will catch you up to speed before everyone else gets here.”

The study was filled with my dad’s ghost. It still smelled like his cigars.

There was a big mahogany desk and a big leather sofa with smaller chairs across from it.

A full bar under the bay window. As kids, we only ever came in here if we were in trouble.

The night of that party when Harmony punched me, Dad and I had the first of many fights about my future.

You’re a McGraw and you’ll do as I say.

“Ethan?” Carter asked. “You all right?” He already knew the answer. All of us were somewhere between fine, and nothing will ever be the same.

“I’m good,” I said, and I sat down on the couch. Tag and Carter settled into dark brown leather chairs across from me. “But you didn’t tell me Dad was sick?”

Carter and Tag shared a look.

“Would it have mattered?” Carter asked.

“I would have come home sooner,” I said, feeling defensive. Dad and I had our problems, but I was still his son. And a doctor. If it was cancer, I could have helped.

“And done what? The old man refused to admit there was a problem. Wouldn’t talk about it, wouldn’t see a doctor. He was as stubborn as fuck, right up until the second he died. We had no idea what was going on with him. Only that he was losing weight.”

“Still, I would have...” my voice trailed off. Carter was right. If Dad hadn’t seen a doctor here, it was unlikely he would have listened to anything I had to say.

“Since it’s just the will reading, I told Eli he didn’t have to come home,” Carter added.

Eli, our youngest brother, was in the military, and had been on various assignments throughout the years, none of which he could tell us about.

“What about Seth?” I asked.

Seth, who was only a year younger than me, was a professional rider on the rodeo circuit. He’d been injured recently, which was nothing new for him, but last I heard he was held up in a physical rehab facility in Texas.

Carter shook his head. “I told him the same. He’s trying to heal up his leg, and it’s not worth coming back just for the will reading. You, me, and Mac will scatter Dad’s ashes out in the valley, and that will be that.”

“I think you’re missing something,” Tag said, ominously. He got up and walked over to the fully stocked side bar along the back wall of the office. He poured whiskey into three cut crystal tumblers without asking if I wanted a drink.

“What?” I asked.

“The will reading. It’s tomorrow morning,” Carter said.

He took a glass of whiskey from Tag and Tag held out one for me.

I waved him off, it was early, and I wanted to keep my wits about me.

“You’re going to want that,” Carter said, pointing at the glass.

“Why?” I asked, taking the whiskey.

“Dad might be dead, but apparently, he’s still got a few surprises for us.”

“You want me to guess?”

“You can try.”

“He’s not leaving any of us anything. It all goes to Tag?”

Tag laughed. “About time.”

“I have no idea,” I said to Carter. “Just tell me.”

“The Calloways will be here.”

“For what?”

“The reading of the will.”

I was not following this at all. “Why?”

“We don’t know.”

“I saw Harmony Calloway driving in,” I said. An image of red curls and sassy green eyes filled my vision.

“Yeah? She give you another taste of her right hook?” Tag asked.

“Hilarious.”

“I’d imagine she’s stretching out so she can dance on Dad’s grave,” Carter said.

“I’d imagine all of them are,” I said. “Dad hated the Calloway women. What possible reason would he have had to put them in his will?”

“I don’t know,” Carter sighed and took a sip of his whiskey. “That’s what we’re scared of.”