25. Brady
CHAPTER 25
Brady
T he phone rings as soon as I sit in the truck. “Hey,” I answer, picking it up when I see it’s Autumn.
“I’m with Dad, and we are at his house,” she informs me. “We’re going to have coffee together and chat.”
“Is that my cue to get my ass there?” I ask the phone and look at the clock to see it’s a little past ten. “Is no one working today?”
“There are no tours today and no deliveries, so I think I can go into the office late,” she snaps. “Now, I expect you here in five minutes, or else I’ll tell Dad everything I know.”
“Your husband has a big mouth,” I mumble as I take off. I think about going back and asking Harmony if she wants to come with me, but she needs to fucking sleep. She’s running on fumes, even if she says she isn’t.
“Four minutes,” she sings out before she hangs up.
My phone pings and I look down to see another text from Taylor.
Taylor: Hey, stranger, it’s been forever. Call me.
I close the text and put it in my back pocket, making a mental note to call her and finally end things with her. Even though we have never been a couple or exclusive, she needs to know that I’m not available anymore.
I’m almost tempted to leave the apple pie Harmony made this morning in the car and not take it in. But as soon as I get there, I grab the plate from the passenger seat and then get out. When I walk up the steps to the house, the front door is open as always when he’s home, with just the storm door to stop you from walking in. “Hello!” I shout out once I step in, and no one responds to me, so I know they are in the back. I walk through the house toward the back and see them. My father sits in his chair on the back porch, and Autumn sits in the chair next to him. Her hand is in his as they talk, and he says something to make her laugh. His color looks a bit better today as I walk over to the counter and place the pie on it. I grab two plates and a knife. I opt to bring the whole pie outside, knowing they will want seconds.
“Well, well, well,” Autumn says and then stops when she sees me with the plates in one hand and the pie in the other. “Is that?—”
“Apple pie,” I finish for her, and I see my father’s eyes light up. I suddenly wish Harmony was here to see not everything in this town is bad. There is good, and the good will always outweigh the bad.
“Shut up,” Autumn says, reaching for the whole pie, but I give her an empty plate instead, which earns me a glare. My father chuckles at her as I sit in the empty chair, cutting a piece of pie and giving my father the first one. “I want the bigger piece,” she demands automatically, making my father laugh. “I’m carrying a human inside me.” She points at her stomach, reaching over for the knife and cutting her own piece, which looks like double the size of what my father has. He waits for her to have the piece on her plate as she dances in her seat, grabbing a fork.
“Now can I sit down?” I ask, walking over to the chair and pulling it out, as she takes her fork and takes her own bite. She moans and closes her eyes, holding her fork up to stop me from talking. “Let me enjoy this for a second before you ruin my buzz.”
I can’t help but chuckle at that, taking my seat in front of them. “Wouldn’t want to ruin her buzz,” I mumble and wait for her to open her eyes again. “And I took her a cake yesterday.”
“Yeah.” She nods. “Charlie took two pieces from it, and now we are debating having him in the delivery room.”
“Autumn,” my father hisses.
“Dad, he took food out of his child’s mouth. Who does that?” she asks him, taking another piece of pie. “Now, let’s focus on this one”—she points at me with the fork once she’s cleaned the piece of pie off it—“and what he’s getting himself into.”
“Yes,” my father agrees with her while he takes his own piece, “let’s talk about things.” I lean back in the chair, feeling like I’m a teenager who got caught sneaking back into the house. “There have been whispers.”
“Of course there have been.” I roll my eyes. “What’s the chatter now?”
“Is it chatter if it’s true?” my father asks me the loaded question. “Now, it would be one thing if people spread false narratives out there. Like you didn’t hire Winston’s wife to help work at the bar.”
My hands go into fists at the words Winston’s wife. “Soon-to-be ex,” I hiss, and my father’s eyebrows go up, but his smirk also comes out. “But, yes, I did. Next.”
“And she’s living with you?” my father asks, but the question really isn’t a question. It feels like more of a statement.
“Someone’s in trouble,” Autumn sings to me as she chews another piece of pie.
I look over at her and know she will not like what I say next. “I’m going to forget to deliver a cake next time.”
“When I give birth to this child,” she hisses, “I’m going to kick your ass.”
“So is she living with you?” My father ignores my sister's wrath by continuing the conversation.
“She is,” I confirm to him, and then fill him in on what happened the last couple of days. I see his face get harder and harder by the time I’m at the end of it. His hand grips the fork in a death grip, and it has nothing to do with him eating the pie.
“That fucking sheriff is as shady as they come.” My father tells me something that everyone knows.
“He is, but,” I start, “hard to fight black-and-white things without tainting himself. Is he willing to go down for the Cartwrights? Because that is how far I’m willing to push things.” I look at my father, making sure he sees how serious I am. “And I know that this is going to piss them off, so I’m fine with stepping away from the business.”
“What?” Autumn gasps. “Why would you even think that?”
“You’ve worked your ass off to bring us back to this place.” I put my hand on hers when I see tears well in her eyes. “It’s not fair to you to lose all of that because of my decision or my actions.” I look at both of them. “You hear chatter?” I look back at my father. “I hear it too, and I see it. The orders slowed down for the past two weeks.”
Autumn waves her fork in the air. “And now they have picked back up.”
“Yeah, because you had to call and beg them not to listen to anyone else,” I tell her something she doesn’t know I heard the other day. “So like I said, I’m okay with stepping down.” Even though I know I shouldn’t let them get to me, I won’t do this to my sister again. She worked too hard to bring us to where we are now.
“I don’t give a flying fuck!” my father roars out. “You are not stepping away from the business that you carried on your back for the past fucking eight years because of those fucking people. I swear to everything, I’m coming back to haunt them.”
“Dad!” Autumn slaps the table. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m going to say that,” he fires back. “When it’s my time to go, and I go, I’m coming back just to fucking haunt them.”
“Can we not talk about you dying?” Autumn asks with tears now escaping her eyes. “At least not until you meet my child and tell him or her stories about how amazing I am.” She tries to fill the sadness of her sentence with a joke, but she sobs out the rest and she gets up off her chair and walks over to him. “Promise me you won’t leave until then.” She doesn’t wait for him to answer. She just turns to me. “Now, you better not say that shit again,” she snaps. “I’m not supposed to get upset.” She kisses our dad’s cheek. “Charlie is going to hear about this.”
“I’m shaking in my boots,” my father tells her, trying to joke with her and cheer her up.
“I’m going to go freshen up.” She glares at me. “And maybe make room for another piece of pie to make me feel better.”
“That’s for Dad,” I remind her, and she ignores me as she walks back into the house. Only when my father knows she’s out of the way does he start talking.
“You know there is a little boy involved in this,” he states, and all I can do is nod at him. “This isn’t just you and a girl. It’s bigger.”
“Dad, you don’t have to tell me,” I assure him and then look down at the table. “It’s different with her,” I admit. “I can’t pinpoint when it happened. All I can say is, everything is so clear now. Why I never got attached to anyone before; it was because I was waiting for them. My heart knew the minute I saw the two of them moving in next door to me that this was different. My head didn’t.” I smile softly. “Took a couple of minutes for my head to catch up.”
“Did your head finally catch up?” he asks, and I smile at him.
“All parts are on the same page,” I tell him. “Fuck, Dad, being a part of Wyatt’s life. Teaching him stuff, watching him learn from me, and then succeed in doing it. I can’t even put into words how that makes me feel.” I smile. “Fuck, I feel like I am literally the king of the world.”
“Now you know how I felt every time you walked into the room,” he says softly. “I can leave this earth knowing my biggest achievement was raising two amazing kids.”
“Well, one at least,” I joke with him, ignoring the way my chest is contracting when I think of the day he won’t be here for me. Knowing it’s going to kill me. “Thank you for showing me the way, old man.” I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze. “Now, since you two are playing hooky today, I’m going to go into work.” I get up and look down at him, stopping. “I want you to meet them.” My voice almost cracking.
“I want to meet this young man of yours and Harmony.” He smiles at me, my chest filling with pride when I think of bringing them here.
“I’ll talk to her and see if we can maybe swing by next Sunday when we are both off,” I suggest, and he nods. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you more. When you go inside”—he motions with his chin—“hide the pie before your sister finishes it all.”
I laugh as I walk in and see her in the kitchen sitting in the chair with a white tissue in her hand as she dabs her eyes. “He’s worried about you,” she shares. “He won’t say it, but he is.”
“I know,” I say, and it kills me I’ve added this to his stress level. “I told him not to worry about it.”
She laughs at me. “Yeah, like that’s going to do anything.”
“He wants to make sure you don’t eat all his pie.” I try to change the subject, but Autumn is Autumn, so she doesn’t let me.
“What is going to happen now?” she asks me.
“Nothing is going to happen. She has to go into the sheriff’s office tomorrow with Ryleigh and answer questions.”
“But they are going to know the two of you were together all night long,” she mentions quietly.
“Yeah.” I put my hands on my hips. “I hope they get the fucking message, and he hides under a fucking rock and doesn’t come back out.”
She laughs. “Out of all the women in all the world, you get tangled with the only one you shouldn’t.”
I look at her and do a chin up. “Seems like I learned from my sister,” I joke. “You love who you love.”
She gasps. “You love her?”
“Never felt this way about another woman in my whole life,” I confess, “and I’ve had my share. With her, I know I’ll go to the ends of the earth to make sure she’s not hurt. I’d go to the ends of the earth to make her smile. So, if that’s love, then yeah,” I admit. Just the thought of her smiling and happy fills another piece of me I didn’t know needed to be filled. Another part of me I didn’t know was empty. “I guess I love her.”