Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Cam figured he might never eat again. They’d had Thanksgiving at his folks’ house, and then they’d been sent home with almost an entire turkey dinner’s worth of leftovers.
Mom believed that Thanksgiving should feed people for a week, so they had turkey and brisket, and dressing and sides and desserts, and a gallon of iced tea.
The girls loved it, and they loved their paint-by-numbers things they had done at Momma’s house, too.
“Oh my God.” Mitch settled down across from him in the front room once the girls were in their rooms, either in bed or, like Sarah, reading. “I think I’m going to just explode.”
“Uh-huh.” He grinned because Mitch and his girls had experienced a Halley family Thanksgiving, and it had been loud and boisterous, and nobody had really fought. Although there had been one snarl over a football game.
Rosie went wandering through on his way back to Sarah’s room. Somehow or another, he was not even just an I-come-in-to-sleep-on-the-kitchen-floor dog now. He was a I-sleep-with-my-girl-in-her-room dog. He’d gotten some turkey and dressing and gravy in his dinner tonight, too.
“I tell you what. Your people know how to create a spread. And I was so tickled for Bekka and Rachel both. They ate all the pineapple dressing and the chocolate pie.”
Cam winked at Mitch. “You know they did. They would have eaten that stuff if it had tasted like it was made from crushed bugs.”
Mitch’s cheeks flushed, and it almost looked like his eyes welled up with tears, but Cam wasn’t about to comment on that. “You know your dad called the girls his grandchildren.”
That caused Cam’s chest to—not tighten. It wasn’t panic.
It was more as if it expanded with pride.
Sure, the idea that those kids were somehow his kids now too still gave him a huge jolt of tingling, sweating hands and prickling neck.
But at the same time, they were… like his.
Oh, they weren’t his kids yet, but he was feeling as if they could be.
“That’s because they’re amazing, and my father has exceptional taste.”
Mitch’s soft laugh sent something that absolutely had nothing to do with food fluttering in the pit of his belly. “Thank you for giving us this. It was an amazing day, and the girls were so happy.”
“Admit it, was it weird?”
Mitch grimaced. “A little. Even when we were kids together, I didn’t get to ever see your whole family all in one place. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many people in a single house who were related to each other, but it was still really cool.”
He wiggled his toes, which were finally out of their boots for the first time all day, staring at his feet where they were propped up on the recliner footrest. “It’s been a long time since I fully participated in the family Thanksgiving, so I should thank you for giving it back to me.”
“Now we’ve both said thank you.” Mitch winked, his grin broad. “The girls are going to want to decorate for Christmas tomorrow.”
“Holy shitballs.” The words popped out of his mouth before he could even think to stop them, but luckily the girls weren’t there to hear it.
“Yeah, it’s our compromise. Allison used to want to decorate like the second week of November.”
“Wow.” Cam shook his head, grabbing the remote to turn on some kind of show. Maybe a baking show. He’d gotten into watching those with Rachel. “Do we even have the stuff to decorate?”
Mitch held up a hand flat in the air and twisted it from side to side a little. “We have some stuff from when the girls were kids. We got them each a Hallmark ornament every year, and we have some neat garland and a couple of inflatables, but I’d like to get a new tree this year.”
“I can see that.” Cam snagged his phone off the side table and opened up a note-taking app. “So, we need a tree. We would need some lights. Do you have lights for the outside of the house?”
“Like I said about the tree, I have a few, but I’ve never been one to do up the house too much because we’re kind of off the road and nobody really sees it. I kind of do the porch rail and the supports, and that’s about it.”
“Hey, it’s not like I want you to get up on the roof.” Cam gave Mitch an arch look and got a middle finger in return.
“I will have you know that I have hired out myself on occasion to put people’s Christmas lights up, and that’s one reason I don’t do very much with ours.”
“Right, but this year you have a crew to do that,” Cam pointed out. “Or at least you’re building one. And I bet the guys could all use extra work.”
“Everybody can use extra work at Christmas. That’s true.” Mitch tilted his head, expression gone serious. “How long are you going to be gone for the NFR?”
“Well, it starts on the fourth and it ends on the thirteenth. Ideally, I’ll be there the whole time.
So a week and a half, give or take.” End up in the money in any kind of meaningful way, then he would be able to maybe pare down how much time he spent on the road.
Just do some of the bigger stock shows early in the year, a couple of the events like maybe Santa Fe that had good purses.
Cam was finding way less appeal in spending most of the year out in the truck, rather than at home.
Now, what the hell he was going to do with himself when he stopped rodeoing? He had no idea because that was what he was good at.
He was not going to panic.
Mitch nodded. “I might see if I can’t bring the girls out for the last weekend. I know we won’t be able to see you riding because we won’t have tickets, but we can at least be there. We can show them Vegas. Maybe.” He stopped, frowned. “Shit. No. They may not want to.”
Cam didn’t expect that to hurt, but it did. “You don’t think so?”
Mitch shrugged, cheeks pink. “Well, I’m sure it has to do with what they’ve got.
For example—the Christmas parade in Santa Fe is the first weekend you’re gone.
I think they’ve got to start building up to their Christmas parties.
But—” Mitch wrinkled his nose. “Rebekka’s birthday is the twelfth.
So, unless she decides that she wants to have her birthday in Vegas instead of all of her little girlfriends at the slumber party she’s been planning for a month… ”
“Oh shit, you’re right.” Damn it. He’d been planning, and he knew the dates, but somehow those two things seemed so disconnected.
There was Rebekka’s birthday, which was somehow forever away, and then there was the NFR, which he’d be leaving for in a couple of days.
He’d lost the thread here. “Is she going to be mad at me for not being here for her birthday?” What he was asking was whether she was going to be hurt.
“She understands needing to work, man. And I think all three of them will be cheering for you. So if—when—you’re riding well and in the money, they’ll be cheering louder than anybody.”
“That’s cool.” He shook his head at himself, grinning a little. “I got all cart before the horse, I think. I forget not everyone lives for the NFR in December.”
“No, no, in this house, we are going to be celebrating our twelve-year-old. God, next year she’s going to be a teenager. Can you believe it?”
“It’s wild. It’s not going to be too much longer before she’s in high school.”
“Oh, would you shut up?” Mitch winked at him, taking the sting out of the words. Mitch sobered, staring over at him. “I’m glad you’re here to be a part of all of it, you know?”
So was Cam. It was nuts. “You know I never meant for any of this to happen.”
Mitch nodded. “You would be surprised at how much of my life is formed pretty much solely on those words alone.” He winked as he said it though, probably because it was true.
Cam got it. As much as he loved Mitch—all of him—none of his life seemed to have been planned.
Not one of the girls, not getting married, certainly not Allison’s death or Cam showing back up. Not a bit of it had been planned.
Cam wasn’t sure Mitch would know quite what to do if he had had a chance to plan something and it had worked out the way he’d meant it to.
“Well, I’m not too much more of a planner, but I’ve always had the illusion that I knew what I was doing.” Cam shrugged. “This thing with you, though? It’s the best kind of happy chaos, baby.”
Mitch chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, it is kind of happy chaos,” he said. “And let’s be honest, I think most country people are like this. We’re at the whims of the weather, bugs, children. Then there’s the government and everything else. We have to be able to wing it a little bit better than some.”
He nodded because it was true. They didn’t have sick days, paid time off. They didn’t work, they didn’t get paid. And it didn’t matter how big they were. Someone could be a damn wealthy cattleman and then hoof-and-mouth disease went through a herd and suddenly they were on the ropes.
“True enough. I never thought I’d come back here and spend so much time, you know?”
Mitch raised an eyebrow. “Do you hate it?”
“No. No, it’s been surprisingly good. It really has.
I guess I’m just old enough now and mature enough to realize that I don’t have to run away from my family or my hometown.
” And now he had Mitch back in his life.
He hadn’t pined for Mitch necessarily for all those years, but he sure had missed the idea of him if not the reality.
The reality was they had been high school kids and they hadn’t known each other well enough to plan a future.
“I’m glad you’re here. Did I say that already?” Mitch gave him a wink and he had to laugh.
“I am too, baby. I really am. Now, what do you say we roll ourselves into the bathroom and take a shower? It looks like we’re going to have to get up and decorate the house tomorrow.”
“A shower sounds like an amazing idea.” Mitch waggled his eyebrows at Cam. “Like, a really good one.”
“Oh. Yeah. Real good.” A shower with a side of hot roofer was the way to go, he thought.