Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Sam Walter stopped at the entrance to Crooked Tree. He'd only been away a week, but he already had the feeling that everything had changed. Over the past few years the Todd and Allens families, had worked hard to make the ranch more as it had been in its prime. Not to mention Adam Strachan, still rocking the memory loss but working with the horses.

He worked hard here, belonged here, deserved to be here. So, why did he feel like he wanted to stop and not go in at all?

He climbed down off the Ducati and wheeled its great weight over to the side, set it on its stand, and sat on the low wall by the ranch sign, attempting to get his thoughts in order. He'd sold his Harley two weeks back, and he kind of missed it.

"We never expected to see you." Those were the words that summed up his last week. From his brother's formal phone call advising their grandmother had died, to the moment Sam left after the funeral, he went against every single thing he'd promised. First off he'd gone home, which in itself was a miracle. Facing off to his parents—all smart suits, Chanel for his mom, Hugo Boss for his dad, and accents that reeked of money, and not to mention the Bentleys in the drive, was just the start of a miserable seven days.

"Why would you even think she'd want you here?" his mom had added the question to the stunned aura of disapproval from his dad.

Sam's relationship with his grandmother had been as twisted and toxic as the one he had with his parents. Her last weeks had been ice-cold; the letter arriving two weeks ago said she expected him at her funeral but didn't want to see him before that. He was, she said, abhorrent to God but he had to be there to present a united face to the rest of the world. Who even used words like abhorrent anymore, and what did Sam care about a God who'd made a family like that?

Samantha Eleanora Walter-Bridges, the woman he'd been named for, had been just as instrumental as his father in blocking him from their lives. She'd overridden Samuel's mother small glimpse of compassion toward the son she'd always adored. That poor woman had never been strong, marrying into a family that considered public face more important than love.

His grandmother had been responsible for Dad cutting him out of his inheritance, even the money Sam had tucked away each birthday and Christmas.

No Walter-Bridges son is gay , she told him with icy calm in her quietest, tightest voice. A Walter-Bridges marries well, becomes part of the family firm of investment bankers, and fathers two perfect children. A Walter-Bridges son does not fuck the hired help .

Or, indeed, get his photo with said hired help in the society blogs that loved to kick a guy when he was down.

But Sam had gone to the funeral because she dangled money in front of his face and told him he was going to be well paid for attending and keeping up appearances. Well, not in so many words, but a quarter-million dollars wasn't something to be sniffed at.

The letter ended with the suggestion that his family would forgive him for what he'd done if only he changed, and that maybe money could buy him a new life. She even suggested that if he attended, she could forgive him in whatever heaven she resided in for his gross ways.

Sam didn't go to the funeral for money or forgiveness, he just wanted to make sure she was six feet under, and he hoped to God her ghost wasn't around to haunt him.

"I don't hate my family" was all he said at her graveside. "I want a family, just not this one."

He didn't care about inheritance. Sam needed his mom to love him; he needed his dad not to stare at him like he was dirt on his shoes, and he needed his spineless brother to back him up.

They never had. They'd listened to the one person who held the purse strings, the matriarch of the family.

His grandmother likely never imagined he would go back. No, she was probably convinced he wouldn't. But he needed to be there for that moment when they dropped her into the ground.

The day had been sunny and bright, not storming as though the heavens were raging at her loss. People weren't sobbing at her graveside. Some stood in quiet respect, but others seemed uncomfortable to be there.

Certainly Sam wasn't sobbing, and he met every pointed stare with equal force.

He'd needed his family when he was sixteen. They'd turned on him. They didn't deserve his respect.

But then it was done, and in his pocket was the payoff. The money she'd promised him as a reward for staying away and making a life that wasn't a stain on the Walter-Bridges family, for making the move to become what she wanted him to be.

Yeah right, that isn't happening.

It wasn't much. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars out of an estate worth a hundred times that. Blood money.

Half of him had wanted to take the envelope from his brother's hands and rip it in two. But he hadn't. What would that prove to anyone? Nothing except that he could act hysterically, and he was fucked if he was giving his family any kind of emotion that day.

Benjamin watched him take the envelope. "You can always give it to charity," he said, unable to look Sam in the eyes—probably because Ben's eyes were dull, his face worn, making him look older than forty-three. The drugs and stress were close to killing him.

"Fuck you," Sam said.

Then he took the linen envelope and pocketed it in his trademark leather jacket that he'd worn to the funeral. Fuck Ben, fuck his ice-hearted parents, and fuck the grandmother who'd told his sixteen-year-old self that he was a sinner who would go to hell.

Fuck all of them.

"I'm sorry," Ben said. He even held out a hand to shake, but he still wouldn't look at Sam, even though he attempted a smile.

Sam ignored Ben's hand, and left.

With his grandmother safely in the ground, Sam drove away from the mausoleum of a house, and the family that had rejected him.

And then he was home.

Because that was what Crooked Tree was to him. Home.

Up there, just past the bend, at the end of the long drive and over the bridge was his restaurant, Branches. Sam was master there, in charge of his own destiny, making something for himself. He had friends there, people who actually cared about him and had never once judged him for who he was.

A car left the road and turned into the drive, and he recognized the low hum of a Jeep Wrangler and knew who it was. Nate.

Part of Sam wished he hadn't stopped there, hadn't decided to have a meltdown in a position where someone could see him. The other half of him was damn pleased it was Nate who'd found him.

Nate pulled over onto the verge, killed the engine, and clambered out of the cab. "Hey," Nate said a little uncertainly, hovering by the car.

"Hey, big guy," Sam said in his usual flirty tone.

Nate ambled over; his thumbs in his belt hooks and his face a picture of unease. Nate wasn't big on emotional scenes, which was one of the reasons Sam was relieved it was Nate getting first talk at "poor, bereaved Sam."

"May I sit?" Nate asked and inclined his head to the wall.

Sam nodded. "It's your ranch." Although he wasn't trying for cold, he probably sounded offhand, and regretted the way he'd spoken when Nate winced. "Sorry. Of course," he amended.

Nate smiled awkwardly and then sat. A while back—a long while, before Jay landed in their laps—Sam would have loved a chance to climb Nate like a tree and make love until morning made them leave the bed. But Nate wasn't into bratty chefs with a line in sarcasm, a fact borne out by the way Jay and Nate had clicked so quickly.

Sam loved the both of them, so he wasn't complaining. He'd tried flirting with Jay, too, even though Jay was Nate's, for no other reason than he loved to see Nate all riled up.

Nate asked, "How did it go?"

Well, that was a leading question, wasn't it? Nate didn't know Sam's real name, or his family background, or anything of any importance. Because, hell, the name Walter-Bridges didn't mean much outside of Tacoma. All Nate knew was that Sam's grandmother had died and he'd gone home for the funeral.

Sam shrugged. "It was a funeral," he said, as if that explained everything.

Nate sighed. "I'm so sorry, Sam. I didn't get to see you before you went, but I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you," Sam murmured. A nice simple answer that didn't leave any room for questions or comments.

Unfortunately, Nate was following the tried-and-trusted formula when it came to talking to the recently bereaved: Sorry for your loss, time heals all hurts, blah-blah .

"Were you close?" Nate asked.

Because that was what people did, they asked the same list of questions to frame the bereavement so they could understand the impact of the loss on the person they were talking to.

Emotions boiled inside Sam. Close? They had been, as much as a family mired in society could be, until just after his sixteenth birthday.

They'd been all cheek kisses and politeness on family occasions. But Sam hadn't thought much of his grandmother's place in his life until the embarrassingly clichéd photos of him with the gardener surfaced. And then Sam found out exactly how much control she exerted over her idiot son and his equally vapid wife. And, inevitably, her grandchildren.

"No." Sam kept the response simple. No sense in adding anything to the mix; what was done was done. Another cliché, and wasn't that what people said?

"Okay, then," Nate said, breaking the awkward silence.

They sat for a few moments, Sam in his own headspace and Nate wriggling a little on the wall. The envelope was heavy in Sam's pocket, and his backpack, with everything he'd taken to Tacoma, was weighing him down just as much. He hefted its weight and held it out to Nate. "Will you take that up for me?"

Nate nodded and took the bag. "I'll put it in Jay's office. He'll keep an eye on it."

A car pulled off the road and onto the ranch; a family in Western-style shirts stared at them as they passed.

"The Bennet family," Nate muttered. "If I have to tell the dad once more that he isn't John Wayne…. You back tomorrow?"

Unspoken was the question can we reopen Branches tomorrow?

"Yeah. Back to normal."

Nate bumped shoulders with him. "You need time… or to talk…."

"Yeah, thanks."

"What you doing now? You want to come up and get a beer?"

"Don't you have the Bennet family to deal with?"

"Adam has them to begin with. I have a while."

Sam looked into eyes filled with a sincere need to help. Nate was the kind of guy who always wanted to be there for people.

"Nah," Sam said and gestured at his bike. "I'm switching rides and taking the dirt bike up into the hills."

Nate nodded, gave him a small smile. "Don't scare the horses."

That was a moot point. Sam wouldn't even be on the same side of the ranch as the horses or the clients who played cowboy there. He had his own places, and rushing up and down steep inclines and the freedom to race through empty trails was as near to nirvana as possible.

"I'll try not to." He watched Nate climb into his Jeep.

Seeing Nate was a steadying influence on Sam, even though he hadn't wanted to go through that. Nate would report back, warn everyone up there that Sam was feeling introspective, and likely grieving, and probably should be left alone.

That way no one would think to talk to him or want him to explain his feelings.

The alternative—that he snapped and told them everything—was a horror he wasn't prepared to consider, so he climbed on his bike.

Sam paused as yet another car entered, this one with a group of men, probably here for one of the ranch experiences on some kind of team-building day. Jay had it all covered in his brochures, selling Crooked Tree Ranch for all the good things a person could do there.

Including eating. Branches was getting more popular, not just as a place to grab coffee and lunch at an event, but catering for the team-building days.

Those guys must have been the Evans party, lawyers out of Missoula. They hadn't wanted food, just a finger buffet of sorts, and Ashley had promised him she could handle it.

Sam didn't doubt that for one minute.

He contemplated going back to work to give her a hand, but the nervous twitch in his right eye told him that would be a completely bullshit move. Nope, he was getting his other bike, and then he could shake the shit growing out of all proportion inside his head.

Back at Branches, in the space he used to park his bikes, Sam locked down the Ducati, switching to the off-road bike built for the forests. He should change into his old clothes, but he couldn't be bothered. He had his leather jacket, he had his helmet, and he'd worn boots to the funeral, and he'd be fine.

Then, without talking to anyone, he deliberately turned off the main road and passed the staff houses, heading up past Ember Bluff into the wilderness beyond. Way past where people would ride, way out to the very edges of Crooked Tree, and with every second Sam was out there, the rush of air clearing his thoughts, he began to feel more at peace.

Yep.

He was needed at Crooked Tree. He was important there.

He was home.