Rainbow Hill Read Free

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    “Here.” Quinn raised a sun-bleached eyebrow. “We’re going to be roomies?”
    Ethan knew he was blinking like a mental patient in need of some strong meds, but that was all his body could manage at the moment.
    “Son, are you all right?” Tucker leaned in. “You’re looking a little…”
    “Psycho?” Quinn finished, a sly smile sliding over his sexy lips.
    “What the fuck is going on here?”
    “Manners.” Tucker’s voice was stern.
    “Manners my ass,” he shot at Tucker. “For the last time, would you please tell me what’s going on here?”
    “What’s going on is the Kincades have lost their farm, and I thought that the neighborly thing to do was to invite them to live here.”
    “W-w-what?” Ethan sputtered. “Have you finally gone soft in the head?” Ethan jerked out of the chair to pace across the linoleum floor. “You can’t just ask anyone to move into this house?”
    “Why not?” Tucker inclined his chin, eyeing Ethan. “It’s my house, and I can do whatever the heck I want.”
    “What would Mom say about this?”
    “She would say I was doing the right thing. The Kincades needed my help so I offered.”
    “But why? You don’t need theirs.”
    “How would you know? You’re never around long enough to find out.”
    “Well, do you?” Ethan stopped pacing and waited for an explanation.
    “Ethan, it takes a lot to run a farm. There are crops to plant, animals to tend to, buildings to repair, and that’s just the first hour of every day.”
    “I know all about it,” Ethan began. “I grew up here. And no matter how much I want to forget it, I can’t.” He started pacing again, clenching and unclenching his fists to his side. “I thought you wanted to sell this place?”
    Tucker’s mouth fell open, and his eyes looked north. He took in an audible breath. “How did you come to that conclusion? I don’t remember telling you I wanted to sell the farm.”
    “But I thought when you called it was because you needed my help listing it.”
    “Any fool can make a phone call to a real estate agent, son. I can manage to open a phone book. I’m not that feeble.”
    “Questionable,” Ethan mumbled under his breath.
    “I heard that, and I forgive you.” The look in Tucker’s eyes told a different story.
    Rocking in his boot-clad feet, Quinn tucked his hands into his back pockets. “Ethan, I know this comes as a bit of a surprise—”
    “Bit? You and your father have taken over my room, my house, and you have the balls to say ‘bit’?”
    “We have not overtaken anything.”
    A chill raced along Ethan’s spine, Quinn’s resonating baritone voice unnerving him.
    “Tucker invited us.”
    “Tucker?” Ethan asked.
    “Yes, Tucker,” Tucker seconded. “I figured that since we’re living together we could drop the formalities.”
    Ethan made a derisive noise in the back of his throat. “God forbid if we should be formal.”
    “Glad to see that you agree,” Tucker responded.
    Exhaustion overcoming him, Ethan stopped pacing to lean against the closest kitchen cabinet that was available. He scrubbed at his face with his hands and blew out. “So let me get this straight. Dad, you’re not sick.”
    Tucker nodded. “Correct.”
    “The Kincades have lost their farm and now live here…with you.”
    “Right again.”
    “So what exactly do you need me here for? Quinn appears to have everything under control. And if Mister Kincade—”
    “Frank,” Quinn said.
    “F-F-Frank.” Ethan rolled his eyes. “Since he’s here too, he knows what to do, I mean, being a farmer an all.”
    “I need your expertise,” Tucker said.
    “In what? Scraping cow patties? I left that shit, quite literally, behind when I left this farm.”
    Tucker patted the table and repositioned the neighboring chair with his foot. “Sit down, Ethan. We have to explain a few things.”
    “We?” Ethan groaned.
    Quinn claimed a seat, straddling it, his arms draped across the back. “Please sit