Page 14 of The Rogue (Four Corners Ranch #11)

It wasn’t a question of if the binder would hit; it was a question of when . He knew better than to underestimate Rue when she was in the midst of making a plan. She was unstoppable.

Relentless in her organization. She was a one-woman wrecking ball. If a wrecking ball put labels on things with a label maker,

rather than knocking them over.

He was supportive of her. There was no need for her to be as careful as she was. But he... Well, he admired it too. So

it felt weird that she was so intent on disrupting this thing that he... that he valued so much. Not that riding a horse

and jumping into cold water was wild. In fact, it was kind of funny that this was what she had come up with. It wasn’t like

she had asked him to take her to the rodeo so she could snort a line of coke off the rump of the bucking bull. He might have

had to stage an intervention at that point.

But it was... it was something to do with the dynamic of everything being just a little bit distracted.

It felt like the air was electric. And he didn’t especially like it.

He hadn’t even made a joke when he had said that he could take her for a ride.

Normally he wouldn’t have passed up the double entendre.

Well, maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe with her he would’ve gallantly passed it up. Because she was... her.

“You all right?”

“Fine,” he said.

His older brother was staring at him. They were working on some of the last-minute touches on the new barn venue before the

season started in summer. They had reservations and everything. It was getting real. All the changes.

“Totally fine,” he said to Denver.

The barn door opened, and Bix and Daughtry came walking through. It wasn’t entirely unusual to see Daughtry at the ranch in

the middle of the day, but it was a little unusual.

“Landry isn’t here?”

“No,” Justice said.

That was when the door opened again and Arizona came in. “Landry isn’t even here? He texted...”

Landry and Fia came in through the back door then. Fia had a wide grin on her face, her eyes sparkling. Landry looked...

Well, he had never seen his brother look like that.

“What’s going on?” Denver asked.

“We’ve been sitting on this. But we went down to the doctor today, and we saw...” Landry couldn’t even contain his glee.

The grin on his face almost stopped him from speaking clearly. “We’re having a baby.”

“Wow... congratulations,” said Daughtry.

“Congratulations,” Arizona said, leaning in and pulling him in for a hug. “My little bun in the oven is going to have a cousin.”

“Yeah,” said Landry, his voice hoarse.

Fia put her hand on his back and rubbed him gently. “I’m just so happy.”

“Yeah. Damn,” said Denver, clearing his throat. “Good for you two.”

Justice knew that this was an especially loaded and weighty thing for them. Landry and Fia had a daughter, but they’d had

given her up for adoption when she was born. It had driven a wedge between them for years, and they’d kept it a secret. Then

when Lila’s parents had died, Landry had been contacted by the adoption agency asking if he wanted to take her in. It had

brought Landry and Fia back together, and they’d made a little family. But now... now they would get to experience this

together. Not in secret.

“What’s Lila think?” Denver asked.

He had thought his brother couldn’t look any prouder. But he did.

“Oh, she’s thrilled. She’s already trying to strong-arm us into letting her name him or her. So, if we end up with a kid named

Ragnar the Destroyer, you’ll know what happened.”

Justice’s chest felt strange. It was so... It kind of blew his mind to see his brother in this position. It had been a

few months of watching Landry come into fatherhood. Watching him learn to parent Lila. Then watching him learn to be in a

relationship with Fia. Then they’d gotten married. After all those years. All those years of circling each other. Of no one

knowing where their bad blood came from. He was like a new man. For one acidic, awful moment, he envied his brother so much

he thought he might not be able to keep it off his face. And then the moment passed. Landry was Landry.

The truth was, even when your father was an awful bastard, he wasn’t an awful bastard to each of his kids in the same way.

Hell, the McCloud family had a great and obvious example of that. Seamus McCloud had been horrible to all his children in

their own special way.

He never laid a finger on Brody. He had manipulated him instead. He’d tried to kill Gus. Gus carried permanent physical scars

from that. As for the other boys, they had endured varying degrees of abuse. But it looked different for everyone.

Justice knew the things his dad had put him through had done some particular, specific damage. He didn’t waste time worrying

about it. He didn’t waste time worrying about whether or not he ought to fix it. It was what it was.

He thought back to the conversation he’d had with Rue earlier in the day. The idea that he didn’t have women over because

he didn’t want to deal with it. It was true. But fractionally. He didn’t like sharing his space.

Rue was an interesting exception to that rule. She felt like home. She was her . Also, she was organized and she wouldn’t go moving things without talking to him. He just liked his space. He liked control.

Maybe that was the real problem. Right now nothing about life felt predictable. It didn’t feel in control.

Rue wanted to get wild and Landry was settling down.

It was all just a little bit too off-brand for him.

He didn’t care for it. It was his sister who peppered Fia with questions, while Bix stood back, eyeing everybody with suspiciously glittery eyes.

His brothers didn’t ask lots of questions, but their happiness for Landry and Fia was evident.

Daughtry looked at Bix. “What do you think?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I dunno, Sheriff. Not sure I’m ready for you to put a baby in me. Maybe we can just keep practicing.”

He laughed. “I’m good with that.”

Bix had been such an easy addition to the family because she was as feral as the rest of them. And he wondered if she was

uncomfortable in a similar way to him. All this... functional family shit.

It made him kind of want to run for the hills, and embrace his brother at the same time. That was the problem. Moments like

these made him feel like he was being split in two. It was why he preferred control. Preferred for things to keep bumping

along like usual, not... get all upended like this.

It was Fia who approached him, and then she stood up on her tiptoes and ruffled his hair. “Justice,” she said. “Are you good?”

“I’m good. I just don’t know what to do with pregnant women.”

There. That was true anyway.

“You don’t have to do anything with me. I’m not your responsibility. You do have to be a fun uncle, though.”

“I’m already a fun uncle.”

Granted, Lila and Arizona’s stepson were teenagers, and he found that a damn sight easier to deal with.

Babies... He didn’t the hell know about that.

Thinking about how vulnerable little kids were.

.. it made his stomach hurt. They were born into this world with no choice of who parented them, and there was no.

.. test to take or anything like that. People made you, gave birth to you, didn’t ask you if you wanted to be born, then did whatever the fuck they wanted with you. Didn’t seem fair to him.

“I’m happy for you,” he continued. “You guys are going to be great. You’re already great. But now you get to do sleepless

nights and diaper changing together.”

“It will be great,” said Landry. “Because we didn’t get to do it the first time. And now... we do.”

He hugged his brother and his sister-in-law and sent them on their way, went back to work and was a little bit annoyed that

the binder wasn’t the only unexpected thing he should’ve been looking out for.

He didn’t really get why everything was changing like this. Of course, it had been bound to change no matter what. Rue had

been about to marry somebody else.

He’d been certain it wouldn’t change their relationship, though.

He’d been so happy for her, he wondered if he hadn’t fully thought all that through. Well, that didn’t sound like him at all.

He huffed. Finished out his work for the day and headed on back to his place. And that was where the binder reared its head.

Rue was sitting on the floor in front of his coffee table, her eyes overbright.

“I have a plan,” she said.

She lifted the first binder, one with flowers.

“This one is all about my plan for what I’m going to do with the new phase of my life.

Rental options, purchase options, potential locations.

Things like that. And this one is about me personally.

” This binder was the one with the squirrel on it.

He didn’t know what to make of that. “New hobbies, new activities and new things I’m going to try.

Because I have to become a different Rue than I was before, because the old Rue can’t come to the phone right now. Do you know why, Justice?”

“I don’t.”

“Because she’s dead.”

“That... is a little dramatic,” he said.

“No,” she said. “It’s Taylor Swift. But even if it wasn’t, it’s a metaphor. The only way that I’m going to find a way to not

be sad about all this is to let go. I have to make a new life so that I can personally begin to recover from all of this.

You have to fill the void, Justice.”

“This sounds a lot like unhealthy coping mechanisms to me. And I should know, because I am the king of them.”

“You are a King.”

“That you are saying things like that with glee makes me think you are either drunk or a little deranged right now.”

“I’m not drunk,” she said.

“Well, thank God for that.”

“But I will be. That is part of my plan. My multistep plan to make the old Rue into the new Rue. And it will involve a night

of debauchery.”

“What... what kind?”