“Speak of the traitor.” Naughton laughed and nodded in the direction of the stables where Maddox stood waiting for them.
“Hey, that’s my horse,” Maddox shouted when Kade rode up to him.
“Before he was yours, he belonged to me. You always seem to forget that part.”
The two men embraced after Kade dismounted.
“I’ll take him,” offered Naughton.
“You sure?”
“You two catch up.”
“How the hell are ya, Kade?” Maddox asked as they watched their brother lead the horses into the stable.
He rubbed the back of his neck, wishing he hadn’t. All four of the boys in the family had the same tell, and they’d gotten it from their father.
“Guess there’s no point in telling you I’m fine.”
Maddox laughed. “Have you see Peyton yet?”
Kade nodded. “I stopped at Stave last night.”
“And?”
“Same as always. I walked her to her car.”
His brother laughed again. “I’d say this isn’t like you, but I wouldn’t know.”
“I spend a lot of time at Stave. If this goes south, I’ll lose my hangout.”
“You’re both adults.”
Kade kicked at the dirt and leveled his gaze at Maddox. “How’s Alex?”
Maddox laughed harder than he had before. “You’re an asshole.”
“Naught says you still see her.”
Kade remembered coming home on leave and hearing Mad and Alex were secretly seeing each other. His brother was eighteen and she was fifteen. He made Maddox promise not to see her again. Even at the time Kade knew it was a promise his brother would break.
At least once a week, sometimes more, Kade would receive an email from Maddox in the middle of the afternoon, which for his brother, was three in the morning. He wondered if Alex was the reason. He wouldn’t ask, though. It might mean Maddox would stop sending him messages in the middle of the night, and Kade definitely wanted his brother to have someone to talk to when he needed to.
“It’s never been thing for either of us. We get together, fuck our brains out, and then we don’t see each other for weeks or months.”
“Are you seeing other people when you aren’t together?”
“I don’t know if she is.”
“Are you?”
“I used to, but not so much anymore.” Maddox waved his arm around the winery that they’d just entered. “This place takes up most of my time.”
Kade nodded, but he knew in his heart the winery wasn’t the real reason his brother stopped seeing other women.
Kade sat at the tasting bar and drank the wine his brother poured while he listened to Maddox’s plans for the fall releases. He found himself wondering, like he had before, what Mad would make if he wasn’t tied into producing the wines that Butler Ranch had been putting out year after year.
Before he could ask, the door opened and their youngest brother, Brodie, came in.
“Hey, little bro,” Kade said, getting up and embracing him. Brodie rubbed the top of Kade’s bald head like he had every time they saw each other after an absence.
“Why do you shave your head?” Brodie asked him what felt like years ago.
“I’m gettin’ a little thin up top. Decided to shave it instead of fighting it,” he’d told him, adding, “Chicks like bald heads, brother.”
Nine years separated Kade from Brodie. There were times that it seemed like to wide a gap to bridge. The older they got, the easier it seemed for them to talk, but it still wasn’t like it was between Kade and Mad or Naughton. Brodie was different. He couldn’t say how, he just was.
“Remember the day you took me surfing?” Brodie asked.
“God, Ma was mad,” said Maddox, shaking his head.
Kade remembered the day as if it happened yesterday. In reality, it was over fifteen years ago. A hell of a lot had happened in his life between then and now.
Kade had joined the Marines right out of high school, eventually being asked to serve in one of the Force Recon companies.
From there, he’d gone on to Navy SEAL training as well as attending Special Operations training in Fort Bragg—with the Green Berets. Shortly after that, he earned a degree as a physician’s assistant.
It was then he became part of Delta Force, officially known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, the most highly trained elite force in the US military. The Special Missions Unit performed various clandestine and highly classified counter-terrorism missions around the world.
More and more he found himself thinking about retirement. He wasn’t getting any younger and the last thing he wanted to do was jeopardize the members of his element because he was no longer fit to do their type of missions. His choices in retirement were to find a desk job, or strike out on his own and start a private black ops firm. He was leaning toward the latter.
“I keep forgetting you’ve never met her,” Kade heard Maddox say to Brodie.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“Peyton Wolf.”
That surprised him.
“She went to the private school. Same place as Alex Avila.”
Brodie and Alex were the same age. Kade scrubbed his face with his hand. That meant he and Peyton were the same age too. Something about that nagged at him.
“You seein’ anybody?” Kade asked his little brother.
“Not seriously. I’m in no hurry to settle down.”
Kade shook his head trying to remember how he felt when he was twenty-nine like Brodie was. By then he’d been married, divorced, and had a kid—not that his brothers knew anything about that part of his life. Almost no one did.
“There’s the bell,” said Maddox, stuffing a cork into one of the open bottles of wine.
The bell he was referring to was one that had been affixed to a post on the front porch. Whenever a meal was ready, or she needed her boys for some other reason, their ma would go out and ring it. The punishment for ignoring the bell was so severe, no one ever did it twice. Even now, Kade felt himself growing anxious about how
