CHAPTER 20 #2
The beer was hitting me harder than usual, my head feeling light as I looked away and caught a flicker of movement at the tree line.
My mom made her way toward us with a pink fuzzy blanket slung over one shoulder and one of Ruby’s sparkly backpacks hanging from the other. She’d balanced a couple roasting sticks, a battered lantern, and a bag of marshmallows in one of her arms, and she looked like a grandma on a mission.
I looked back at Ruby, but she hadn’t noticed her yet. My mom marched down to the edge of the water, looking out at the view before her, and she planted her hand above her eyes as if she were searching for something.
“Excuse me,” she called out, and Ruby’s head whipped in her direction.
“Has anyone here seen a little girl about this tall—” She held her hand at Ruby’s height “—who might want to join her nana and Ms. June on a top-secret camping adventure? I’ve got marshmallows and chocolate, but I can’t find the little girl. ”
My mom shook her head dramatically and Ruby squealed. “Me! I’m the little girl!” She shot up from Blaire’s lap, nearly knocking Maggie off the dock. “Can we really, Nana? Tonight?”
Mom nodded and held out all the things in her arms. “I didn’t pack all of this for nothing. I’d hate for me and June to have to eat it all by ourselves.”
“No! I’m coming!” Ruby ran down the dock and was halfway down the gangway before she skidded to a stop. She stared at my mom as she hesitated, then she spun all the way back around, and bolted back the way she came.
Blaire barely had time to react before Ruby crashed into her, arms winding around Blaire’s neck in a tackle hug.
I watched the whole thing from the grass, muscles locked and breath rushing out of me.
Blaire’s hands wrapped around her, holding her so gently, as she squeezed her eyes closed and buried her face against my girl.
I could see her lips moving, whispering something only for Ruby, and she nodded before she climbed back out of her lap.
Ruby quickly hugged Maggie, and even Alicia, before she finally made her way back down the gangway.
“Love you, Blaire!” Ruby said without stopping.
“Love you, Ruby. Go have the best adventure.” Blaire smiled at her, and I wondered if she realized what she was doing. Did she know how much power she had to fuck everything up?
“You are so fucked,” McCoy said under his breath as he chuckled, but I didn’t respond.
I climbed to my feet and made my way over to my mom and Ruby. Mom pulled Ruby into the biggest hug before my daughter’s small hands were grabbing for her blanket and the marshmallows.
“You mean to tell me all of those girls got a hug, and you didn’t save one for your dad?” I teased, but Ruby’s head whipped around like she’d been caught.
She ran to me, marshmallows and all, and threw herself into my arms. I caught her, easy as breathing, and she clung to me like she knew how badly I needed the hug. I pressed her into my chest, chin on top of her head, and squeezed her tight.
“I love you, Daddy. I’m going on an adventure with Nana and Ms. June,” she said, her words muffled against my neck.
I tried to memorize the weight of her, the way her hands balled up fistfuls of my shirt, and the smell of sunscreen sticking to her skin. She wouldn’t always be small enough for this, wouldn’t always run back to me. A fact that hit me in the gut more and more every day.
“Papa will be there too,” Mom added with a smile. “We’ll get him to tell us a ghost story before he goes to bed.” She wiggled her fingers like she was already preparing to scare her granddaughter.
“Mom,” I chastised, but Ruby only giggled.
I set her down, crouching so we were eye to eye. “You take care of Nana and Ms. June, all right? And don’t eat all the marshmallows.”
Ruby gave me a quick nod.
“Go give your uncle Coy a hug.” I looked over my shoulder and saw Hunter making his way back down to us. “And your uncle Hunter.”
She ran straight for Hunter, and he bent to scoop her up.
“You don’t have to take Ruby tonight.” I looked at my mom. “You’ve got your hands full, Mom.”
And she damn well did. She’d been the engine that kept our family running for as long as I could remember.
She was the first up in the morning, the last to bed, and the one who never flinched in the face of a crisis.
My dad had been sick for a while, a slow, mean sickness that ground a man down, and she’d shouldered it all with the same stubborn pride she always had.
He had his first heart attack roughly five years ago, and it’s been a slow grind since.
She cared for him in the house he built, surrounded by the land he loved, and it wore her down in a thousand small, invisible ways she’d never admit.
I tried to help where I could, splitting my time between Ruby and the ranch and whatever emergencies presented themselves in a given week, but Mom held us all together. She always had.
So, when she rolled her eyes at me like she couldn’t believe she’d raised a son so thickheaded that I’d question her over her own granddaughter, I wasn’t surprised.
“Don’t you dare try to take our night away from us.” She put her hands on her hips. “I miss my girl, and we’re having a sleepover. End of discussion.”
I raised my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay,” I said, laughing at how stern she looked.
“Plus,” she added, “you’ve been working yourself ragged. You could use a night off.”
I started to argue, but what was the point? She saw through me, always had. I was working a lot, but I couldn’t stand the thought of losing ground, letting the work or the worry catch up to me, admitting that I might not be enough for any of this. Maybe she saw that, too.
I nodded, but the admission stung. “Yeah, maybe I could.”
Ruby made her way back to us, and my mom squeezed her hand before they set off across the grass, the blanket dragging behind them.
They climbed into the battered side-by-side my mom always used to get around the property, and she fired it up.
Ruby scrambled into the shotgun seat, still clutching her marshmallows, and as they pulled away, she twisted back to wave at me.
I turned back to the water, blinking against the sunlight and the silence that followed Ruby’s absence.
The air felt too still without her chatter.
I’d gotten used to the way Ruby made everything bearable, her presence like an insulating layer against all the ways I didn’t know how to be around Blaire.
With her gone, every edge in me was exposed.
Blaire kneeled on a towel, gathering up her things, tucking sunscreen and a book into her bag. Maggie was sitting on the edge of the dock, feet trailing in the water, head tipped back toward the sun, and Alicia was glancing back and forth between her and my brother.
Hunter, of course, had shrugged off every bit of his discomfort, and he was now near the dock with McCoy, both of them on a float with a beer in their hands.
I stayed back, trying like hell not to think about Blaire being in my house tonight with Ruby gone. I picked up the empties and tossed them into the trash as I tried to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do.
I was on my own damn land, but without Ruby here, I felt out of place.
Blaire zipped her bag and stood. Her white tank top was clinging to her, transparent in places so you could clearly see her bikini underneath, and it rode up high on her bare stomach. “I think I’m gonna go shower.”
“Oh, hell no,” Hunter said as he paddled over to the ladder. “Nobody’s bailing now. We rarely get nights with just us, and you’re gonna run off to wash your hair?”
She looked at him, then Maggie, then at the open path back to the house. “We’ve been in the sun all day. I’m tired.”
Hunter hauled himself up the ladder and reached for the towel that was bunched at Blaire’s feet. He flicked it at her legs, grinning when she yelped and jumped back. “That’s the problem with you city girls,” he said. “You can’t hang.”
“I am not a city girl,” Blaire shot back, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms, “and I can hang just fine.”
Maggie perked up, turning to look at her friend. “I’m with Hunter. You’re not allowed to leave. Consider yourself kidnapped.”
Blaire’s laugh was light, but the way she clutched her arms around herself told a different story. “You’re all insane.”
“We have rules here,” Hunter said, draping the towel around his neck and sitting down beside Maggie.
Alicia watched his every move.
“Nobody leaves the dock until at least one round of drinking games is played. Colt, back me up here.”
I shrugged, grabbing the cooler and making my way out to the dock. I tried to act like I wasn’t eager to find out if she’d stay. “He’s not lying.”
Blaire looked at me as I crossed the gangway, and I saw the same panic in her eyes that I felt. But then she set her bag down and dropped back to her towel, arms braced behind her.
“Fine,” she said, but she didn’t sound fine. “What are we playing?”
Hunter rubbed his hands together as McCoy climbed up the ladder. “That’s more like it.”