Read Online Riverbend Road by RaeAnne Thayne - Free Book Online

family.
    â€œI’ve had it. Do you hear me? I told him the next time would be the last time. I told him if he can’t keep his sorry ass off a bar stool, there’s no freaking way I was going to bail it out of jail again.”
    â€œDUI?” he guessed, though it didn’t take any particular detective skills.
    â€œWhat else? Third one in four months.” She swore again. “It’s like he’s been on one long bender since he lost his job.”
    Marcus was the brother just younger than he was, with barely two years between them. He was also the Emmett brother who seemed determined to follow in their father’s wobbly, drunk-off-his-ass footsteps.
    Until a few months earlier, things had been going well for Marcus. Though his brother had only graduated high school by the skin of his teeth, he immediately moved to Boise and went to work in construction and eventually made a good living driving a cement truck.
    He and Christy had a rocky start, marrying young after she got pregnant, but seemed to be making things work and had even added a few more kids to the mix.
    Earlier in the year, Marcus’s company had run into financial trouble and he was laid off and everything seemed to implode.
    â€œI can’t do this anymore, Cade. I just can’t,” Christy said. Her voice wavered and he could hear the tears just below the surface. “When he’s here, he just mopes around doing nothing but snapping at me and the kids.”
    â€œBeing unemployed is tough on a guy like Marc, who’s used to taking care of his family.”
    â€œI get that. Believe me, I get it. But instead of going out to find another job, he goes out and buys more booze. What is wrong with him?”
    Cade didn’t know how to answer. Christy wanted him to fix his brother. He felt as if he’d spent his entire life trying to duct-tape together the jagged pieces of his broken family in one way or another. Hell of a lot of good that had done over the years. He hadn’t been able to prevent his mom from getting sick when he was eleven and he couldn’t keep anybody else out of the hot mess of trouble they always seemed to land in.
    â€œWhat do you need from me?” he asked.
    â€œHow about a phone number for a good divorce attorney?” she countered.
    That would be a disaster for their three kids, who adored their father. On the other hand, living with an unreliable, unstable, angry drunk wasn’t a great alternative.
    â€œI can’t help you there, Christy. He might be an ass but he’s still my brother. He would be devastated to lose his family. You know he loves you.”
    â€œDoes he? Really? He’s losing his family right now. He’s just too plastered to notice!”
    Was she only calling to complain or did she really think he had some power to change his brother’s behavior? He couldn’t decades ago when they were kids. He certainly couldn’t now.
    â€œI’m not bailing him out this time,” Christy went on. “I’m dead serious. I’m working my fingers to the bone, trying to keep food in my kids’ mouths and shoes on their feet. I’m not going to use my hard-earned money to bail him out of jail one more time. As far as I’m concerned, he can rot in there.”
    Maybe that would be the wake-up call his brother needed, the stimulus to get off his butt and make a change. Or maybe Marcus would perceive Christy’s inaction as proof she didn’t love him, which might send him slipping further into the depression that seemed to have caught hold.
    â€œI understand where you’re coming from.”
    â€œDo you?”
    Yes. Hell, yes. After his mother died, Cade had tried his best to help his father but had finally had to accept his father loved Johnnie Walker far more than he could ever love his sons.
    Marcus wasn’t Walter. He was a good man going through a rough stretch.
    â€œI can try to talk to him, see if