Big Sky Wedding by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

beginning to wish that he’d kept his opinions to himself. If it comforted the kid to make-believe the old man had his best interests at heart, well, where was the harm in that?
    Nash scowled on, two bright patches burning on his otherwise pale cheeks. Zane didn’t look away, nor did he speak.
    “He could have changed,” Nash finally said. “Dad, I mean.”
    “Yeah,” Zane agreed, after unlocking his jawbones so he could open his mouth at all. “Or not.”
    Nash leaned forward, both hands flat on the tabletop now, fingers splayed. At least he didn’t make a loud noise or a fast move and scare the dog again.
    “Look,” the kid ground out, eyes narrowed, breath quick and shallow, “I didn’t ask to come here, to Butthole Creek or whatever this place is called, all right? I didn’t ask to be dumped off on Landry’s doorstep, either. So don’t go thinking I’m some poor orphan who needs to be preached at, okay?”
    “Far be it from me to preach,” Zane said calmly.
    Nash glared even harder. “In the movies, you always play an easygoing cowboy with a slow grin and a fast draw. Now, all of a sudden, you’re talking like some college professor or something.”
    “That first part,” Zane responded, “is called ‘acting.’ It was my job.”
    “Did you go to college?” From Nash’s tone, he might have been asking, Did you rob a bank—mug an old lady—kick a helpless animal?
    “Now and then,” Zane replied. “Mostly, though, I just read a lot.”
    There was another pause. Then, “You think you’re better than Dad—better than me.” Nash Sutton was obstinate to the core—just like both his older brothers.
    “There’s only one man I try to be better than, and that’s the one I was last week, last month or last year. It’s a simple creed, but it serves me well, most of the time.” Privately, Zane wondered where those lofty words had come from and, at the same time, realized they were true. He wanted to be himself, not the movie cowboy with the smooth lines, too much money and the steady supply of silicone-enhanced women, Tiffany included.
    It was time to get real, damn it.
    Another long silence stretched between them, broken when Nash finally asked, “Am I going to have to sleep on the floor?”
    Zane grinned, aware that the tension had eased up a little and thus felt relieved. Although he could be pretty hardheaded—bull-stubborn, his mom would have said—he wasn’t unreasonable. He liked people and preferred to get along with them when he could. Especially when they were kin—like Nash.
    “No,” he said. “You won’t have to sleep on the floor. We’ll head into town and buy a couple of decent beds in a little while—with luck, we’ll be able to haul them home in the back of the truck and set them up right away. If that plan doesn’t work out for some reason, you can use the air mattress in the meantime.”
    “Beds,” Nash ruminated. He seemed wistful now, but that might be an act. “With sheets and blankets and pillows and everything?”
    Where in hell had this kid been sleeping? Zane wondered that and many other things. “With sheets and blankets and everything,” he confirmed, hoping the boy didn’t notice the slight catch in his voice.
    Nash’s grin flashed, Landry-like. Zane- like.
    There was certainly no question of his paternity. He was Jess Sutton’s kid, all right, full of bravado and brains and smart-ass attitudes. Were there other siblings out there? Zane wondered, as he often did. Did he and Landry and Nash have sisters and brothers they knew nothing about?
    It seemed more than possible.
    “Let’s go, then,” Nash said. He actually seemed eager now.
    Zane, not at all sure he wasn’t being shined on, was unaccustomed to power-shopping—or any shopping at all, really, since Cleo or some assistant had done most of that for him.
    Until now.
    The furniture store in Three Trees agreed to deliver the beds, mattresses and box springs, dressers and bureaus later that