Across the Vanishing Sky (Starlight Grove, #1)(7)

As I forced my focus back onto the road, I had to slam on my brakes as a maroon SUV backed into the street, not a care in the world. I resisted the urge to lay on my horn. But the last thing I needed was Maisy telling the world I had a rage problem on top of all the rumors she was helping along.

I didn’t—at least not that I ever let anyone see—because I did everything to combat it. I meditated. Had a gratitude practice. Did things to counterbalance all the evil my father had bled into the world.

The SUV kept right on backing up, and I realized it wasn’t a fuck-you move; the woman likely couldn’t see over the piles of suitcases and boxes in the back. I could only tell it was a woman by the flash of long, blond hair I saw as her head turned. Oblivious to me, she started down Mountain View Way on her way out of town, a dog shoving his or her massive head out the window.

“Tourists,” I muttered. Always completely unaware of their surroundings unless stopping to take a selfie and bringing more crap with them than they’d ever need for a two-week vacation.

I cracked my neck and eased off the brake yet again. If I could make it to the ranch without getting into a wreck or biting someone’s head off, it’d be a miracle. I needed a meal that didn’t come from a vending machine or a fast-food drive-through, a cold beer, and a scalding-hot shower to scrub off the road. Not necessarily in that order.

But I still didn’t let myself drive even three miles over the speed limit. Couldn’t risk it. Not with my history. Not with my family’s reputation.

Instead, I tried to take stock of all that had changed in downtown Starlight Grove since my last visit. My brother Wylder’s bar, the Boot, looked damn good. He’d added some color in the form of flowers in water troughs out front, and they worked against the dark, almost-black stain of the wood building. Countless people were crowded into picnic tables around the diner, opting for the Grove Griddle’s walk-up window in the deep May warmth. And the bookstore looked like it had gotten a facelift, too.

My brain stayed occupied until I reached the edge of town and could breathe a little more deeply. Luckily, my hands stayed on autopilot, taking me on the fifteen-minute drive out of town to the place that was more home than anything else I’d ever had. The estate I’d grown up on in Greenwich, Connecticut, sure as hell hadn’t been home. I’d thought it was, but it had been a house of horrors. My apartment in DC had barely seen my face other than for me to grab fitful patches of sleep. And the only thing my college dorm room had been was the backdrop for my arrest by the FBI.

But Twisted Oak Ranch. That was home. The perfect fit for the misfit Archer brothers. And it all centered around the ramshackle house my great-uncle had built with his friends and added onto year after year. The house he’d been determined to build with a massive, living oak tree at the center of it.

The tree house. That was what my brothers and I called it. There was even a swing off one of the branches in the living room.

But it was more than the house itself. It was the land and all the things on it. Over a thousand acres with everything but what most people raised around here: cattle. Not Uncle Waylon. The only cows he had were those of the mini-Highland cow variety. He had alpacas, an extra shaggy breed of sheep, goats, and a small herd of yaks.

Even the land itself seemed to fit us. Rustic and wild, a little ragged around the edges. Fields and meadows punctuated by brambles and sagebrush, framed by endless forests with that staggering mountaintop in the distance.

Beauty and home.

My SUV slowed as I reached the gate, the rusted metal complete with Uncle Waylon’s true love in the middle…a clock. And not just any clock. A Bigfoot clock.

A soft chuckle left my lips as I rolled down my window and punched in the gate code—the same one we’d had since we’d come here to live. It sure as hell wasn’t secure to not change it in two decades, but every time I brought that up to Waylon, he said he’d never be able to remember a new one.

The gate swung open with a creak, and I eased my SUV over the familiar bumps of a cattle guard. Each vibration sent a spasm of pain through my back. Damn. I needed a soak in the hot springs on the property.

I guided my vehicle around the bends in the bumpy-as-hell dirt road, cursing every divot and ridge. But finally, the tree house came into view. Its sage-green siding almost matched the oak tree leaves that sprang out of the roof. How Waylon had managed to make that work without a leak of some sort was beyond me.

But then again, he had all sorts of mechanical tricks up his sleeve. And like a magician, he always refused to share his secrets.

Slowing to a stop, I cut the engine and climbed out of the SUV. I stretched and cracked my back, groaning with the movement.

“Uncle Dex!”

The two words had me searching out the source. Skylar ran at me full-out. Her blond hair flew behind her in a tangle of waves, the crown atop it sliding to one side. She wore a pink princess dress paired with cowboy boots covered in pink flowers and mud, and wielded a play sword.

I couldn’t help the chuckle that left my lips as she launched herself into the air. I caught her with an oomph as pain flared in my back and my glasses nearly flew from my face. “Did you grow on me, Little Princess?”

“Duuuuuuh, I’m seven now,” she shot back.

“Driving yet?”

Skylar sent me a sly smile. “Sometimes, on the tractor.”

Oh Jesus. I bet Kol didn’t have a clue about that one. My brother put the over in overprotective, especially when it came to his little girl.