Cowboy Up (Coming Home #3)

I laugh, low and deep. “Admit you’re just as over the fuckin’ moon as she is and I’ll be there.” I don’t need him to, but part of me loves to hear him talk about how thrilled he is that he’s going to be a father. Even though I’m only three years older than him, I basically raised him and Quinn when our mama took off. I reckon this is as close to parental pride as I’ll ever get, which is why I keep taking that pride whenever opportunities arrive.

He drops his brooding expression and gives me a smile that’s usually only reserved for Leigh. “Shit, Clay. Can’t even put it into words, but if that’s what it means to feel like my heart is gonna explode daily, then yeah, I’m over the fuckin’ moon. Scared outta my skull, too,” he admits, his smile diming a little.

“Why’s that?”

“Did you know her mama had complications when she had Leigh? That’s why they never had any more youngin’s. She told me about how her mama almost died during childbirth and all I can think about is what I’ll do if I lose Leigh.”

No longer feeling the joy of his happiness, I prop the pitchfork against the stall, walk over to him, and clasp his shoulder in support. “Leighton’s strong as hell and doctors are trained a lot better than they were thirty years ago, Mav. Don’t let that ruin your excitement. She’s gonna be just fine, and in the end you’ll have a little piece of the two of you keepin’ you up all night.”

“I won’t be able to move on if I lose her,” he continues, completely ignoring my attempt at lightening the mood and I realize just how much this has been weighing on him.

“Maverick,” I hiss through the thickness in my own damn throat and pull my brother into my arms. His own come around me with bruising force.

“Can’t talk to her about this shit, Clay. I don’t want her worryin’ about it when she should be focusin’ on all the happy shit, but it’s tearin’ me apart just thinkin’ about losing her.”

“Fuck, brother.”

Just like when we were younger and he was upset, he drops his forehead against my shoulder, and even though I’m no longer taller than him, he seems to shrink in my hold. It’s then that I realize my baby brother—the badass ex–rodeo champion—is crumbling, his silent sobs only evident because of the choppy breaths coming from his lips.

“I could lose her.”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that,” he bellows, ripping free from my arms and throwing his hands in the air. “Every day we get closer to the baby bein’ born I feel like I’m losin’ her. I can’t turn it off.”

Fucking hell.

I pull my phone out of my back pocket and move my thumb against the screen while he paces and mumbles in front of me, placing the device to my ear a second later.

“Hey,” my sister sings through the phone.

“Tate around, darlin’?” Maverick stops in his tracks and looks over at me with a blank face. No hint of anger, the fear gripping him too deep for him to be mad that I’m bringing someone else into this and exposing his vulnerable fears to them.

“Yeah. Everything okay?”

“All’s fine, Quinnie, just thought of somethin’ I needed to ask him. Forgot the other day when I ran into him in town.”

“Let me go grab him. We’ve been workin’ on a junker he bought off Craigslist. Can you believe that? Only man in the world who would buy his wife a rust bucket as a gift.”

“Sounds like the perfect gift if that wife is you,” I tell her, forcing lightness into my tone while my eyes stay trained on Maverick.

“It is, isn’t it.” She sighs happily. “Here he is. Love you, big brother!”

“Love you back, darlin’.”

I wait, hearing what sounds a helluva lot like them making out before he comes on the line.

“Hey. What’s up, Clay?”

“Need you to come to the ranch, Tate. Keep that stupid smile on your face so Quinn doesn’t think somethin’ is wrong. Tell her I need help puttin’ together a gift for the baby or some shit and come now. Got it?”

“Need me to bring any tools?” he plays along instantly.

“See you quick, Tate.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I won’t tell Quinn you’re puttin’ together a gift for her, man.”

I hear Quinn make some girly as fuck noise as I disconnect the call and push the phone back into my pocket.

“You’re gonna sit down and listen to what he has to say, Maverick. Then us three are gonna go inside and have some cold ones before you go home to your wife with a clear conscience. Got it?”

He grunts, doesn’t speak but drops against the wall. He slides until his ass is on the ground and his head is hung low. The whole time my heart breaks knowing he’s been carrying this load secretly until it became too much for him to keep buried. Work can wait for another day: right now, my brother needs me, and there’s never been and never will be anything I won’t do for the people I love.

I sit against the wall opposite him while we wait. Fifteen minutes later, Tate comes roaring down the driveway in the truck my sister restored for him almost a year ago. I’d sent him a text right after getting off the phone with him to let him know to find us in the old barn that we use for our personal horses. This one, while still nice, isn’t top-of-the-line like the one we use to breed, and it lacks the air-conditioning system we put in the breeding stable a few years back. By the time Tate comes running in, I’ve finally gotten used to sitting in a puddle of my own sweat.

“Jesus Christ, Clay. Give me a fuckin’ heart attack. What’s going on?” he breathes, and I finally look away from Maverick. My sister’s husband might not have been born and raised in Pine Oak, but all it took was one year back here and he shed every ounce of the city boy he’d become when he lived in Atlanta. Even if he still wears ball caps and not Stetsons, he looks like any other man that grew up here. Course, he would when Quinn’s got his ass working on trucks, covered in dirt and grease.

“Maverick,” I tell him, looking back at my little brother. He hasn’t moved since I called Tate, who conveniently happens to be our town’s lady doctor in addition being to our brother-in-law. If anyone knows the facts that can set Maverick’s mind at ease, it’s Tate. “Mav, want me to tell Tate or do you?”

He grunts, and I take that as him wanting me to fill Tate in, so I do. Each word that crosses my lips makes Tate look more and more sympathetic. His own wife, our sister, is due only a week after Leigh, so aside from Tate being one hell of a doctor, he can sympathize with Maverick on a level I couldn’t begin to imagine.

“Jesus, man. That’s some heavy shit.”

“I’d die without her.” Maverick finally looks up, his eyes pleading with the two of us.

“You wouldn’t. Not because you’d move on, but because you’d have a reason to keep goin’, but that’s not gonna happen.” Tate moves over to his side and starts spewing a bunch of medical knowledge that makes my ears bleed, but by the time he’s done explaining to Maverick just how safe Leigh is, I finally see the tension leave my little brother’s body. “Not only has medicine become more advanced, but we doctors are always thinkin’ ten steps ahead, man. I promise you, Leighton and the baby are gonna be fine.”