"Yep." She smiled. "It's starting to look good in here, too. We're getting all settled in now. Do you want something to drink?"
"Coffee would be good, if you have it," I said, as I followed her into the kitchen. "How is life outside of the Hollywood scene? Are you getting bored with West Bend yet?"
"Not yet." She opened the fridge. "Do you want milk for your coffee? Oh, here. Fix it however you want. The sugar is on the counter."
I dumped a couple of spoonfuls of sugar into the cup, and took a sip. "It's a pretty big change of pace for you, isn't it?"
River shrugged. "You'd think so," she said. "But West Bend seems to have its own share of drama, just like California."
I laughed. "Shit. That's for sure."
"Elias was worried about you," she said.
Elias' footsteps were heavy as he thumped into the kitchen. "I wasn't fucking worried," he said grumpily, opening one of the cupboards to take out a coffee cup and then slamming it shut. "I was worried about my car, maybe. Where the hell have you been?"
"What, are you my wife?" I asked. Elias' nosiness was making me testy, and I was suddenly feeling protective of the time I'd spent with Tempest. I could anticipate what the hell Elias would say if I told him I'd been with her. Elias left West Bend right after Tempest did, got his GED and joined the Navy early, but he knew what happened with Tempest. And he knew that I was torn up about it, back then. Elias would hate that I'd been with her.
He would be sure she was running a con on me.
I wasn't certain I could trust her, either.
But it didn't matter, since I wasn't going to see her again.
Elias' jaw clenched, and I knew he was trying not to fly off the handle right in front of River. "You were disappearing before, acting all mysterious and shit, and this time you took off on the way back from Los Angeles with my car, but you're still not going to say where you've been? It doesn't take that fucking long to drive from LA to West Bend, Silas."
Sitting at the table, River cleared her throat. "Elias."
"No, seriously, brother," he said.
I exhaled heavily. "I'm sorry I wasn't answering the phone, okay? I had a fight while I was there."
"A fight?" River asked. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. Then I realized she thought I meant that I'd gotten into a barroom brawl or something. "I fight sometimes. Or I used to, more regularly. In Albuquerque, then in Vegas on the fight circuit out there. Boxing, some MMA, that kind of thing."
"I thought you tore your ACL," Elias said, citing the lie I'd told him before as the reason I was back in West Bend. I hadn't wanted to tell him that Coker had done a number on me. I was trying to keep him from getting involved in any of that shit.
"It's pretty much healed now," I said. "Anyway, it was just a favor to a friend who had to back out of the fight, a one-time deal. I'm out of the scene now. I would have called, but I was tying up some loose ends there, all right? I'm sorry."
Elias grunted a response, but I knew that meant I was forgiven. "Look, I've been trying to get in touch with you for a reason. Killian had to get back on the rig, but Luke has been hanging around here between jobs. He's been doing some looking into things."
My brother Killian was a roughneck, working on the oil rigs for months at a time. Similarly, Luke's job as a smoke jumper generally took him away from things. I was surprised he'd stayed in town as long as he had. My two older brothers had been as ready as Elias and I to get the hell away from this town and away from our family, as soon as we could.
"Oh yeah?" I asked, gulping my coffee. "It's weird that Luke has been sticking around here. Is he really that interested in our parents' deaths?"
Elias shrugged. "Luke isn't staying around because of that," he said. "I think there might be a girl here that he's soft on."
"Still," I said. "Now that Luke has been asking about mom's death, you're interested? But when I said that the suicide was suspicious, I was the crazy one."
"Luke doesn't have a history of being erratic," Elias said.
"Dude, what's your fucking problem?" I asked.
"Come on, boys. No fighting." River stood beside Elias and put her hand on his arm. "Elias."
Elias narrowed his eyes at me. "Fine," he said, kissing the top of River's head. "I need to call Luke anyway."
River sat down at the table in the kitchen as Elias stomped upstairs. She motioned toward a chair opposite her. "Elias was worried about you, you know."
"Elias has a habit of worrying about things for no damn reason," I said.
"I imagine so," she said. "He's your brother, so he's probably overprotective."
"Were you overprotective with your sister?" I asked, immediately regretting the question. It had to be a sore spot with her, after she had caught her sister and her ex-fiancé together. "Sorry. I didn't mean that. I'm a total shithead."
"Don't be," River said, laughing. "I used to be overprotective of her. I probably could have done better. You know, since she turned out to be an asshole."
I sighed. "Family, right?"