Читать книгу Branded - Tori Carrington, Tori Carrington - Страница 10

TRACE’S MUSCLES TENSED tighter than tow wire. On a level he was loath to acknowledge, he should be happy not only that Eric had survived the past six years in the Middle East, but that he was coming home.

Trace wasn’t.

Jo shifted again, drawing his gaze to the way her full breasts swayed beneath the thin cotton of her old T-shirt. “Is he older or younger?”

“Who?”

She made a face.

“Oh, you mean Eric.” It was Trace’s turn to shift. “Older.”

“There’s just the two of you?”

He nodded.

“Do you get along?”

He stared at her.

She lifted her right palm. “Just picking up on some strange vibrations here, that’s all. If you don’t want to talk about it…”

Trace knew that by saying that, she was making it virtually impossible for him not to talk about it.

Besides, when it came to Eric, it was probably long past time Trace stared down that particular unbroken horse and tried to tame his emotions. While much of what had passed between the two of them could be chalked up to simple sibling rivalry, there was nothing simple about what was happening now.

“We used to be closer than two brothers could be,” he said thoughtfully. “We grew up doing everything together. He saved my ass when I got my foot caught in the rope lassoing my first bull. I saved his when his horse went down twenty miles out, while he was on a solo run.”

Trace trailed off, remembering that day. He’d been seventeen to Eric’s nineteen, and his brother had been an hour late for dinner. While his parents pretended not to be worried, despite his mother’s washing the same pan five times and his father staring out into the sunset as if the world had up and disappeared, Trace had saddled his own horse and gone out looking for Eric. He’d found him five miles away from where he’d been forced to put his injured horse down. Eric was walking in the general direction of the ranch house, the temperature already beginning to dip low in the January night.

“What happened to change that closeness between the two of you?” Jo asked.

Trace drew a deep breath. “I don’t know…”

That was a lie; he did know. But it was more knotty than a single conversation could untie.

“You asked yesterday out on the range why I hadn’t enlisted in the military,” he said quietly. “I know you didn’t mean for me to specifically answer the question. You were just trying to deflect mine, but…”

When his silence dragged on, she prompted, “But?”

“Well, I was the one who was supposed to ship out to marine recruit training six years ago, not Eric.”