Jesse Pleasant’s flight from Vegas to Ontario, California, touched down right on time. He’d managed to hold off the hangover he was positive would be waiting for him; still, leaving his brother and his soon-to-be sister-in-law’s weekend of fun on the strip a little early was the right move. He needed to pace himself for the week ahead. The whole extended Pleasant crew, currently spread far and wide, would gather in Malibu to celebrate the union of Zachariah Pleasant and renowned celebrity chef Yvonne “Evie” Buchanan.
Jesse had to admit, it was strange to be on the personal side of things this time around. Long before his father, Jesse Senior, relinquished control of their family business Big Rock Ranch to Jesse and his brother Zach, Jesse knew how important weddings had been to their profit margins. Fifty-two weeks a year, and nearly every one of those weekends since Jesse had been a kid had been booked with a wedding. He knew all the ins and outs of seating arrangements, menus, floral arrangements, rehearsal dinners, receptions—all with a clinical eye for the cost. This time though, he could sit back and enjoy the duties of best man and people wrangler.
Zach wasn’t the first Pleasant grandchild to get married, but thanks to Evie’s celebrity status, this wedding was definitely going to be the biggest, the most lavish, the most over-the-top. The photos had already been sold to People magazine. Jesse needed to be present and prepared for every minute of it. On hand to keep his play-cousin Corie in check. Eyes open just in case his actual cousin Lilah decided sometime during the reception was the right moment to cuss out her estranged father, who had assured Jesse several times he was in fact coming, even if Lilah didn’t want him there.
He’d keep an eye on his grandmother, Miss Leona, make sure she was comfortable. Keep his mother from trying to set him up with any single women in attendance, and if there was time he might hit the dance floor. It was a celebration after all, and if the week went well, maybe he’d be in the mood to celebrate by the time Evie walked down the aisle.
Jesse let out a deep breath and looked out the cabin window, waiting for the crew to give him the go-ahead to disembark. There was something about weddings, or knowing you have to give a best man speech for your own brother and a woman who was already close enough to be family, that had Jesse trying to shift through certain thoughts, certain memories. Picking out the good, for quality wedding toast’s sake, while avoiding the bad, mostly ’cause there was nothing he could do about it.
He never imagined he and his brothers,—hell, he and whole his family—would be where they are now. When his grandfather Justice, once a Hollywood animal trainer, and his young wife, film actress Leona Lovell, had secured the deed to Big Rock Ranch in the scenic valley town of Charming, California, there had been one goal, one plan. Build the ranch up as a source of wealth for their Black family. Their three sons had their own plans, though. Their oldest son moved to Chicago, where he was now a successful surgeon. Another son went off to wine country to build up a vineyard of his own, and Jesse Senior went on to claim a record number of champion buckles on the rodeo circuit.
When they were old enough, Zach and their youngest brother Sam had set out on the rodeo circuit with him. Senior and Sam had been scouted as stunt performers and that led to both of them pursuing their dreams of acting, unexpectedly following in Miss Leona’s footsteps.
Jesse was proud of them. Senior and their mom had relocated to London so Senior could work on a police drama, officially giving up the ranch to Jesse and Zach. They’d been living over there ever since. Sam was exactly where he belonged, one Oscar win under his belt and Jesse had no doubt there were more to come. He was dating a great young woman named Amanda McQueen, who was making her way as a screenwriter.
Evie had been along for almost the whole ride. After her parents had passed away, she moved to Big Rock to live with her grandmother Amelia Buchanan, the ranch’s lead trainer and Miss Leona’s oldest friend. Evie had fit right in, always out on the trails with Zach and Sam or in the kitchen learning to cook with Jesse and Miss Leona. Somewhere along the way she and Zach had fallen in love, even if Zach didn’t realize it.
Life and a little bit of stubbornness on Evie’s part and a lot of foolishness on Zach’s had sent them their separate ways after Amelia passed away too, but fate brought them back together. Sure, a piece of that fate involved Evie suffering a pretty nasty blow to the head at the hands of her former costar and losing her memory. But she was back in the fold now and the restaurant she’d just opened in Manhattan was doing great. She and Zach split their time between Charming and New York, and would keep that back and forth going after they were married.
Jesse sniffed and fought the urge to sigh again. The flight had only been forty-five minutes, but he needed to move and stretch his legs. First class on these tiny commercial jets didn’t provide the legroom Jesse needed for his six-foot-seven frame. He let out another deep breath, keeping his eyes on the window as he heard the sounds of the Jetway locking into place. His seatmate was already on her feet, shuffling and shimmying so she could get off the plane first.
She’d been antsy the whole damn flight, but lucky for him she wasn’t the chatty type. Jesse didn’t want to slip up and make eye contact with her, just in case she suddenly had some last-minute things to get off her chest. He turned off the airplane mode function on his phone and checked the text messages that popped up on his screen: a picture from his cousin Lilah, holding up a plate with a waffle the size of her head.
He held his thumb on the message and sent her two exclamation points of excitement back. He did enjoy a good waffle, but not enough to spend another minute in Vegas with his brothers and cousins and their significant others. Yeah, Lilah was single, but she seemed to enjoy all the girl time she got with Evie, Corie, Amanda and Vega, formerly Evie’s private nurse following her incident, currently Corie’s girlfriend. Jesse liked hanging out with his brothers. He loved them, but for some reason this weekend he just wasn’t feeling it and instead of letting his emotions get the best of him, he used his early morning meeting as an excuse to skip out on the remaining hours of their bachelor/ette weekend.
He switched over to the message waiting for him from Bruce, one of the drivers from the ranch.
The cabin door opened and his seatmate was off, damn near plowing over the flight attendant to power walk up the Jetway. Jesse followed, Stetson in one hand, his carry-on in the other. He politely thanked the flight crew before he ducked his head and exited the plane. He waited till he cleared the enclosed bridge before he slid his Stetson on his bald head. The airport wasn’t too full, but he could feel several pairs of eyes on him as he made his way toward the exit. He knew what he looked like, dark brown skin, tall as fuck, wide as fuck, legs the size of tree trunks, well-dressed with a cowboy hat on his head, a manicured goatee that maybe one in a few thousand men could pull off.
He attracted attention wherever he went. Some of it good, some of it not. With his long strides it wasn’t long before he caught up with his seatmate, just before she darted into the women’s restroom. Probably explained her two-stepping to get the hell off the plane. Jesse continued on, past baggage claim and out into the warm desert sun. Bruce was waiting right at the curb in one of the ranch’s navy blue SLTVs. He hopped out as soon as he spotted Jesse and rushed around to open the trunk for his carry-on.
“Welcome back.”
“Thank you. Had enough Vegas to last me the rest of the year.”
Bruce laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get you back to the comforts of home.”
Jesse climbed in the front seat, glad to see Bruce had already pushed the seat back as far as it would go, not that it was the amount of legroom that Jesse liked or needed, but it would do for their short ride back to his house on Pleasant Lane.
“So, you have a good time?” Bruce asked as they pulled out of the airport loop.
“I think so.”
“Not sure? You were there, right?”
“Well, it wasn’t my weekend. I enjoyed myself, but it’s more important that Zach and Evie enjoyed themselves.”
“I’m sure they did. Especially with Corie tagging along.”
Jesse held back a shudder. It only made sense for his grandmother, thee Leona Lovell, star of stage and screen, to have a personal assistant. And that assistant had been like family before she was officially hired, but Corie had her doctorate in fuckery and bullshit. If there was trouble with a side of drama to be had, Corie would find it. Luckily, Evie wasn’t afraid to tell her no.
“I’ll swing back with the pass van at seven to pick up Zach and the rest of the gang.”
“Thank you.” Bruce knew Jesse well enough to know that was enough conversation for today. He turned the country music he had streaming through the car’s speakers back up and let Jesse enjoy the rest of the ride back to his home at Pleasant Lane in silence, the way he preferred it. His own brain produced enough ambient noise most hours of the day. Jesse pulled out his phone and checked his emails.
His meeting with A New Way Forward or ANWF, was locked in for ten a.m. the following morning in the big conference room at the ranch. The Democratic action committee had reached out to him a few weeks before, hoping to convince him to run for Congress. Paul Cogger would be vacating the seat and there was a push to fill it with young, progressive blood who would do well across generational demographics.
While Jesse was an older millennial who’d spent 90 percent of his free time in service to the elderly folks in their community of Charming, he was convinced they had to have the wrong Pleasant. When they pressed him on the opportunities this could provide for himself and his district, he’d resolved to hear them out.
He and Zach had been running their family’s luxury dude ranch for over ten years now. Things were going well, great if he was being honest. Most weeks they were booked to capacity. The calendar was filled with weddings, reunions, corporate retreats all year long, thanks to the changes he and his brother had made when they took over from the former manager. Jesse had set out to make his parents and his grandmother proud, honor what his grandparents had intended and so far, he and Zach had pretty much nailed it.
The ranch was in good hands with Zach as the face of the business and Lilah there to support him. It might be time for Jesse to step away and, for once, look toward a future for himself. Only Lilah knew he was meeting the folks at ANWE Zach thought he was meeting with some new vendor, and would only step in to smile and grease the deal if Jesse wanted to go ahead with a contract. He’d tell Zach after, depending how things went. After Zach returned from his honeymoon.
Jesse looked up as Bruce pulled up to the gates of Pleasant Lane, the private cul-de-sac he shared with his brothers, cousins, and his grandmother on the outskirts of Charming. Miss Leona was still acting regularly on a primetime medical drama called Rory’s War and doing guest spots on other shows and cameos in the occasional film, but she always spent her weekends at home. She was probably out, spending the afternoon with her girlfriends. No doubt bragging about the grandchildren she hoped Zach and Evie would unleash on the world as soon as possible.
The gates swung open and Jesse tried to ignore the way his nerves reacted. He knew the drill, the way his body switched gears when it was time to switch tasks. He had his to-do list for the afternoon and the evening. Several dozen laps in his pool followed by a large dinner. He planned to be in bed no later than ten p.m. As they got closer to the head of the cul-de-sac, something felt off. There was a red Buick SUV parked in Miss Leona’s driveway.
“Pull up to Miss Leona’s,” Jesse said.
“Sure thing.”
A mysterious lack of dogs caught his attention too. His black Lab, Clementine, was usually waiting for him on his front steps or his grandmother’s porch; and their other dogs—Poppy, Euca, and Sugarplum—rushed any car that drove up the lane. He assumed they were all inside his grandmother’s house, which was the center of their sprawling property.
Bruce pulled to a stop beside the red Buick. Jesse thanked him and climbed out of the truck. He grabbed his stuff before he walked up the front steps. He stopped as he took in the calm and eerie silence. Not a single bark or whine. Fear gripped his throat. For a split second he considered going back outside to catch Bruce in case he needed backup, but his feet were already walking him deeper into this house. Where was his grandmother and where the fuck were the dogs? He heard a noise when he stepped into the kitchen, but it wasn’t until later that he realized what that noise had been.
He rounded the large kitchen island and caught sight of a tall man sprawled out on top of Miss Leona’s sectional. Underneath him was Miss Leona. Jesse knew what he was seeing, knew he couldn’t unsee it. There was no doubt as to the consensual nature of it all because, well, just because, but that didn’t make a damn difference. No way this shit was happening, not on his watch. The wall between his temper and the rest of the world was paper-thin, on a good day. In that moment when he saw this elderly man tongue kissing his grandmother, his brain lit a match and that wall was incinerated in seconds.
“Get the fuck off of her!” Jesse didn’t yell. He roared, trying to take the man’s head clear off his shoulders with the power of his baritone. The man’s head popped up, his eyes flashing wide with horror. Jesse recognized him as the man stood and stumbled backward. August LeRoux, a prominent accountant in town, tripped over the edge of the coffee table and fell right on his ass on the Spanish tile floor. The fly on his slacks was down and he was wearing about 40 percent of Miss Leona’s red lipstick on his wrinkled, freckled face. That about did it for Jesse. He charged forward, ready to Uncle Phil the man right out the front fucking door, but Miss Leona was quicker, popping off the couch and shoving Jesse right in the center of the chest.
“Now what in the hell is wrong with you?” she yelled back at him.
“What is he doing here? What are the two of you doing?”
“No way! No sir! You back that trolley right up. This is my house and you are not going to come in here speaking to me or my guests like that.”
Jesse knew she was right, but he was too focused on the way her usually pristine wig was cocked a little to the left. This was not fucking happening.
“You need to leave right now,” Jesse said over the top of her head. Miss Leona looked back and forth between them before she rushed over to Mr. LeRoux’s side. She knelt down, lightly touching his shoulder. Mr. LeRoux was holding his wrist, pain spread all over his face.
“Yeah, I’m alright. Something’s wrong with my wrist.”
The flames burning through all of Jesse’s control dulled themselves for just a moment. Mr. LeRoux was hurt. “Here, let me—”
“Get out,” Miss Leona said.
“Miss Le—”
“I said get out.”
“I—where are the dogs?”
“Up at the ranch. Chris came and got them for me this morning. Four dogs is three dogs too many sometimes. But it doesn’t matter, I said get out.”
“Let me at least—”
She turned on him, the same temper that ran through his veins setting her eyes ablaze. “If you don’t get out of my damn house.”
Jesse’s teeth ground together as he turned and stormed out of the room. He could hear Miss Leona saying sweet, soothing things to the old man and he wondered if he should go back and punch him for good measure. He walked over to his own house instead. He didn’t mean to throw his carry-on bag, but all intentions went to shit went it smashed against the wall and left a black mark. He took a deep breath, knowing he’d regret that later, then grabbed the keys to his truck. He needed to go get the dogs.
The lights came on as he walked into his garage. He stepped into his pickup truck and forced himself to wait until the lift door was completely open before he slammed into reverse. What the hell was Miss Leona thinking, making out with that man like some teenager? What the fuck was Mr. LeRoux thinking? Jesse knew exactly what he was thinking. Sick pervert with his fly down. When he got back, when Jesse had calmed down, he and Mr. LeRoux were definitely going to have a chat.
The garage door finally opened and Jesse started to back out, stopping as he saw the red Buick barreling down the driveway. And that was the moment Jesse knew he’d fucked up. Miss Leona hated to drive, but it was her behind the wheel, Mr. LeRoux beside her, clutching his wrist to his chest.
Jesse sat beside his pool, taking his time with the now room temperature beer in his hand. The sun had long set and the only things breaking up the darkness of his backyard were the blue lights coming from beneath the water’s surface, and the stars overhead. He’d tried to get ahold of his grandmother, but she never responded. Hours later, when his brothers and cousins returned from Vegas, he got a single text from Corie.
He didn’t reply, just let the dogs out so they could rush back over to his grandmother’s house to greet their other humans. That was his proof of life, the signal that he was at home, but he knew it would be better if he lay low. Hours later, even after he’d scrubbed the black mark from his suitcase off the wall, he still hadn’t heard from anyone else in his family and it was just as well. He knew exactly what they were going to say. They’d tell him to check his temper. Give him some lecture about Miss Leona’s right to booty calls and then go back to their own business without a care in the world.
He still had that meeting with the Democratic action committee to prepare for, but at the moment staring at his pool seemed like a better idea. He had to figure out what to say to his grandmother to get her to understand where he was coming from. He had to figure out what to say to his brothers, and Corie, to get them to shut the hell up about it.
He was about to reach for his phone, when Clementine hopped up from her spot beside his deck chair and wandered over to the back door. The door opened and Zach stepped into the backyard. He crossed the pool deck and took a seat in the open chair beside Jesse. His brother was usually all jokes and all smiles, but his jaw was set and he refused to look Jesse in the eye. A rare sight. An angry Zach Pleasant.
“Didn’t bring Sam with you? I know you two love an intervention.”
Zach didn’t respond, he just leaned forward and rubbed at a scuff on the tip of his boot. Clementine took that as her cue to shove her head under his hand.
“Fine. Let me have it. I deserve it.”
“I’m not gonna let you have shit.” He scratched Clem behind the ear before he finally looked up. “Mr. LeRoux has a hairline fracture in his wrist. He’s gonna be okay, but you could have really hurt him. Or worse, you could have given him a heart attack.”
Jesse knew his brother was right, but for some reason he felt his temper rising again. Zach didn’t fucking get it. “You didn’t see what I walked in on.”
“I didn’t, but Miss Leona told me what happened. And as much as I don’t even want to think about our grandmother mugging down, you cannot scream at old people. Like I don’t know how else to make that clear. What if you had given Miss Leona a heart attack, or what if she’d gotten hurt? She’s eighty-three, Jess. She’s not falling apart, but she is still eighty-three.”
Jesse sighed and leaned back into the deck chair. “Yeah, okay.”
“I thought we talked about this.” They had, over a year ago, but that was before Jesse walked in on what he walked in on. “I understand that you don’t want Miss Leona dating—”
“That’s not what I said. I don’t want someone trying to take advantage of her.”
“Okay, but don’t you think she gets to make that call? Did you even try to talk to her?”
“Yes, but she kicked me out.”
Zach let out a sigh of his own, then leaned forward. Jesse looked up and forced himself to make eye contact with his brother. “She’s been seeing Mr. LeRoux for almost a year.”
“Did you know?”
“No, she didn’t want to tell me or Sam because she didn’t want us to tell you. Do you see how that’s a problem? Our grandmother, who trusts you with pretty much everything, didn’t trust you with this, and it turns out she was right.”
Jesse’s gaze dropped back to the bottle in his hand. He didn’t trust himself to say anything else.
“I think you need to give Miss Leona some space until she’s ready to talk to you again. And I think you should apologize to Evie.”
“What did I do to Evie?”
“Well, we’re getting married in six days, and instead of yamming it up with the girls, talking about how much fun she had this weekend and how she can’t wait for our very X-rated honeymoon, she’s over at the house consoling our grandmother and praying you get your shit together so we don’t have to spend our whole wedding day wondering if you’re gonna start something. We already have the looming threat of Lilah versus Uncle Gerald to worry about, and now this.”
“You’re right,” Jesse said, his tone gruff. “I messed up.”
“And if I’m being real with you, you pissed me off too.”
“I hear you.” And he did, but Zach still didn’t understand where Jesse was coming from. He didn’t understand the pressure Jesse was under and he never would, so there was no use in arguing, even if Jesse wanted to lay it all out there. And he couldn’t get up and leave this conversation. It was his house.
“Give Miss Leona a few days, and if you feel yourself about to explode again. . .
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