So there was that.
Of course, Officer Daughtry had gone and married a reformed criminal, Landry and Fia had gotten together—but only after they had revealed they’d secretly had a child together back when they were teenagers, who they were now raising together—and Arizona had reunited with the love of her life, which had sorted her personality quirks right out. The Kings were on the straight and narrow, except for Daughtry. Who had been kicked off of it a little bit. But honestly, it looked good on him. Happiness looked good on all of his brothers.
He had been happy for a long time, personally. Because he had figured out the secret to that. He had a full life. A good family. Good friend. And he had manageable expectations for himself. And that was the best a man could do in his situation, he figured.
The alternative was marinating in trauma and other bullshit and he wasn’t interested in that, thanks. Thinking too much didn’t lead anywhere good.
“You coming out to dinner tonight?”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“Let’s head that way.”
He hopped in his brother’s truck and let him drive him across the property. King’s Crest was, in his opinion, the jewel of Four Corners Ranch. He knew that the other families would fight for that distinction. But Justice had never shied away from a good fistfight. So, it didn’t worry him any. His brothers’ trucks were sitting in front of the farmhouse when they arrived. The stately old place had been in the family for generations.
Just like the ranch itself.
A collective run by the McClouds, the Kings, the Garretts and the Sullivans since the 1880s. It was the largest ranching operation in the state of Oregon. They weren’t factory. They worked the land by hand; they had over a hundred employees. The employees often lived on the ranch, worked on the ranch. Their kids went to school on the ranch. They were an ecosystem in and of themselves. And it was only growing. The Sullivans had made a store on the property where they could sell their items directly. And the Kings were in the process of working at diversifying their cattle operation.
They were building a venue so that people could have conferences, weddings, birthday parties. Guest cabins for people to stay in. Justice was happy to go along for the ride. His favorite thing that they had started up was headed by his sister-in-law Bix, who had an affinity for brewing, and had started a beer label for the place. They had all gotten together and come up with their own distinct variety of beer, and it was about to go into stores, which was definitely a boon.
Bix had been a moonshiner prior to her marriage to Daughtry, and she was the cutest, scrappiest little thing. He really did think his brother had won the lottery with that one.
Bix and Daughtry were about in the farmhouse whenthey arrived, and so were Arizona and her husband, Micah.
“Hey kids,” Justice said when he came in.
“Well,” Arizona said. “As I live and breathe. Justice King. Without a hangover.”
“Oh, I had one. I just worked it out.”
“Good for you,” she said. “Is Rue coming?”
“I expect so. Unless she has wedding stuff.”
Asher wasn’t back in town yet, so she was still spending most nights out at King’s Crest. But that was normal. Asher hadn’t been a Four Corners Ranch kid. Meaning he hadn’t gone to school on the property, even though he was from the area. He had been bussed to school an hour away in Mapleton, and so she hadn’t met him until she had started working at her grandmother’s store in town. She had fallen for him pretty quickly. At least, that was how Justice had felt. She was cautious and sweet, was Rue. And she had never been big into the dating scene. He couldn’t blame her.
Her parents had been a hot mess and a half. Certainly not the kind to give you aspirations of great romance.
So she’d been extremely choosy when it came to dates and all of that. He had actually been a little bit disturbed when she’d gotten serious about Asher. When they’d started... apparently sleeping together.
It wasn’t like she had gone and announced it to Justice. There was just a point where it was clear that was happening. Justice couldn’t say he’d taken kindly to that. To his perfect Rue becoming a sexual being. She was like a sister to him, and it had felt like another thing he wanted to protect her from.
He just hadn’t wanted her to get hurt.
But she hadn’t gotten hurt. Asher and Rue had stayed together. It was definitely hard on her when Asher was gone. But one thing he admired so much about Rue was that she was levelheaded even when she was falling in love. He’d always heard that women got a bit loopy over that kind of thing. Hell, he’d seen men do it too. Love, he knew, was one of the single most dangerous things on earth. It gave one person an extraordinary amount of power over another, and it could create a hell of a lot of damage.
The way that Rue had managed to get into a relationship, and stay in that relationship, while maintaining her home, her career and their friendship, had actually shown him something. But then, Rue had always been a window into some foreign, fascinating thing. She had always been different. Different than what they had been raised in. Different than what they had been surrounded by. A source of peace.
He had never been able to quiet himself long enough to learn anything in school. But when Rue taught him, he was able to sit and listen. She broke it down for him in such a way that she made it all feel possible. He wouldn’t even know how to read if it wasn’t for her. Forget algebra. So, if anybody could do love and marriage and make it all work, keep their sanity and all of that, he really wasn’t surprised that it was Ruby Matthews.
His phone vibrated, and he looked down. Right on time he had a text from Rue saying that she would be there fairly directly. He smiled. He didn’t respond. She knew he saw it.
She wouldn’t expect for him to respond directly either. It just wasn’t how they did things.
They began to get dinner on the table—barbecue and all the trimmings, which was a staple of the King family diet. They did beef. And they did it well. And anything the Kings did well, they did hard. From work to sex.
He liked that about them. They were definitely a better iteration of the family name than their father had been. And to that he could raise a glass.
