Chapter Forty-One

Collin

There hadn’t been a nightmare since everything happened with Phil, and I’d started spending every night with Brandy in my arms. In a way, I felt like I might have finally broken through, working on my mental health in a way that I hadn’t done yet and getting past the point where the nightmares would come. The suppression of it all was over, and I could talk about it now, since everyone knew.

Brandy being in bed with me probably helped. It was comforting to have someone there with me, and when I did wake up in the middle of the night, her warming, soothing presence lulled me back to sleep almost immediately. And when it didn’t, it began an adventure all of its own, and we’d spend a while reminding each other of the pleasures we could give one another.

I knew that the nightmares could always come back, though, and so did Brandy. We were prepared for that, and she had been badgering me about talking to a professional. Between her and Owen, I realized that they had my best interests at heart and started seeing someone recommended by the service. I’d really only just started regular meetings, but I was finding it helpful to see habits I’d formed to close others off and how I could avoid them.

April was a transformative month in a lot of ways. Brandy spent a lot of time on the ranch, and I spent a fair amount of time at her place. It made it complicated for me to get up early enough to head back to the ranch to do my duties in the morning, but it was worth it to share a bed with her every night. The nights on the ranch were the best, though, and I would cook her breakfast in the morning, along with the other couples and Owen. Logan often didn’t come until the afternoon, usually bearing some kind of lunch for us.

No one really knew exactly how Logan got the thumb drive from Trish, and it was a source of rumor among the family. He refused to talk about it, and we all just assumed that Trish had enough of her brothers’ shenanigans for once and grew a backbone. After she got slugged that one time, she had been a seemingly different person. Sometimes all a person needs to right their worldview is a hard punch in the mouth.

Owen still hadn’t told anyone else in the family his own secret, and Brandy and I were careful to keep it. I did go see one of his shows once and was amazed at who my brother became under the lights. He was an entirely different person, and yet, at the same time, exactly who I knew Owen always wanted to be. I looked forward to seeing how that evolved, and when he would be ready to tell Luke and everyone else.

Jesse and Charlotte’s wedding was coming up in a month, and Charlotte had asked Brandy to be one of her bridesmaids, which sent her over the moon. She had gotten very close with Charlotte and Amber over the months, and I rarely saw one of them without the other two during the daytime, unless they were at work. At night, the boys would often gather on the porch of the ranch and have a few beers while the girls would sit inside and drink wine with April’s sister Tamara and Basil. Dwayne often came over to join us as well, and it created a nice little dynamic that started to feel like a real family again, rather than a bunch of us splintered off doing our own thing.

Despite what I told her, Brandy was still convinced she was going to bankrupt me somehow and kept asking if it was okay to add an expense here or there while she handled the lack of funds from the lawsuit. The production company was likely going to settle with her out of court, but until it was done, she couldn’t have access to any of the money they’d promised her, and the shop itself calmed a little without the buzz of the cameras and the show.

Still, it was doing well enough to pay for itself, and Madie was having a blast being back in there three times a week. Brandy told me she was doing worlds better and seemed to have a new lease on life, even if it didn’t stop the disease. There were still hard days, and I would have to hold Brandy as she cried into my chest, but they were fewer than they apparently had been.

What Brandy didn’t know was that I had set up a third bank account with a bank that was local to Foley. It was the only bank in Foley, in fact, and I had avoided it because it was a rather simple one. But I had a reason to use them now, and I’d walked in last week to start a new account.

Now the checks had arrived, and so had the cards, and I waited on her to get to the ranch after a long day at the shop. I’d been working all day on the year’s taxes in preparation for the deadline and was more than ready to sink my teeth into something fun, and Brandy was excited to go out to Crockett’s to hear Jesse sing. He was doing one last show before the wedding, and had promised to dedicate the entire set to his bride-to-be.

When she got to the ranch, she had already gone home and showered and changed and looked spectacular in a little black dress and heels. I wanted to grab her and take her to bed right then and there, but I knew the anticipation would be better if I could control myself. Besides, I wanted to give her the surprise now before we went out, so we could celebrate and then come back and celebrate some more.

“Are you ready?” she asked, fiddling with one of her earrings that she had changed into while standing in my bathroom. She’d gone back and forth between three pairs for the last ten minutes.

“I am,” I said. “Just wanted to show you something before we left.”

“What’s that?” she asked. “Did you finish my taxes for me?”

“Oh, I did that a while ago,” I said. “I forgot. I’ll email you the materials later. But I wanted to show you this.”

“Okay,” she said, following me into the office.

I sat her down in the office chair and then leaned over her to bring up the relevant screens. While I did, she took the opportunity to kiss my neck a few times and let her hand ride up my leg. It took all my concentration not to give in to the moment.

“Before you wake up a sleeping giant that will need to be put back to bed, you need to see this,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, disappointed. “What is this?”

“It’s a bank account,” I said.

“Well, I can see that.”

“Look at the balance line.”

“Three… whoa, three million dollars. Wow. I thought you said you had two in checking. Did you pull out another one?”

“No,” I said, grinning. “I pulled out three.”

“Huh?”

“Look up… here.”

I used the mouse to point to a line at the top of the screen. A line that had the words ‘checking account’ and then two names. Mine and hers.

“That’s my name,” she said.

“Uh huh.”

“That’s my name on an account… with three million dollars in it.”

“Yes. It is.”

“OH MY GOD THAT’S MY NAME!”

I laughed uproariously as she jumped out of the chair, pointing at the screen with her mouth wide open in an ‘O’ shape. She looked from me to the screen and back again a few times before beginning to jump up and down and scream. It was impressive she didn’t obliterate her ankles doing that in the heels, and in order to save her from possible damage, I grabbed her and lifted her in a hug.

“Collin!” she shouted. “You didn’t have to do that!”

“I wanted to,” I said. “This is the account that your grandma’s healthcare will come out of. It’s also an account you can use for whatever, and you don’t have to ask me. If it ever gets low, I will refill it, okay? But this is your money. I want you to spend it. Do you understand? I want you to spend it.”

“Collin, I can’t… This is too much!”

“Nothing is too much for you,” I said. “I love you. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I want to share everything with you, and that includes this money that otherwise just sits in a bank as a bunch of imaginary zeroes.”

She embraced me again, and I held her tight. Nature started to take over, a completely normal experience for when I held her body close to mine and we were both happy and excited.

“I can feel you,” she giggled.

“I know,” I said.

“How much time do we have before Jesse starts singing?”

“About an hour.”

“And how long is the drive to Crockett’s?”

“About twenty minutes.”

She slid out of my grasp and smiled devilishly.

“Want to see what color underwear I have on?”

“If I ever answer no to that question, I want you to shoot me.”

She giggled and ran for the bed, unzipping her dress as she did. I ran after her, kicking off my shoes and laughing as freely as I ever had.