Chapter 23
twenty-three
Tucker Hammond lay on his side, his arm draped over Bobbie Jo’s waist. She breathed deeply in his arms, but he knew she hadn’t fallen asleep.
“It’ll be fine, sweetheart,” he told her, his voice barely audible to his own ears.
“We just have to draw really firm lines with them,” Bobbie Jo whispered back.
Tuck hated seeing his lovely wife so tense and irritated.
She’d been working on curbing her temper since he’d met her a couple of years ago, but finding out her mom had lost her job at the elementary school six months ago, and that her daddy didn’t make enough at the hardware store to cover their bills, had sent Bobbie Jo’s irritation to the stratosphere in only one second.
Tucker’s default reaction was stunned silence while Bobbie Jo scoffed and stomped around. In the end, her mother and father were going to lose this rental in only another week, and they had nowhere else to live. Nothing lined up.
Bobbie Jo turned in his arms and slid her hand along his ribs and under his arm. “I just don’t get what they thought would happen,” she whispered fiercely.
He moved his hand to push her hair back off her face.
“Did they just think a miracle would manifest itself out of nowhere?”
“Yeah, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I think that’s what they thought.”
“It’s just ridiculous,” she said. “Who thinks like that?”
“I think what they thought…is that they would tell you when we came for Christmas and we’d do exactly what we did—offer for them to come live with us.”
“If that’s true, I don’t want them to live with us.”
Tucker didn’t want her parents to live with them in the mansion at all, but he couldn’t say that, and he couldn’t leave them here in Oklahoma without proper housing.
“We’re going home tomorrow,” he whispered.
“And we’ll make sure everything’s ready in the upstairs suite, and it will be fine.
We’re out on the farm all the time, and they’ll have that second bedroom to set up as a den or a living room, and Tarr said he would text me pictures of the electric stove top when he goes to the store tomorrow. ”
“I guess it’s really lucky that we have someone who’s thought about living up there without bothering us,” she said.
Yes, Tarr had already done all the research about how to make the second-floor suite more independent.
They’d put a microwave and a mini fridge in the loft, but the moment Tucker had called and practically screamed at his best friend that his in-laws were going to have to come live with them, Tarr had said, “No problem. I’ll make sure that suite is everything they could possibly want, and we can put a two-burner stovetop on the countertop out in the loft, and Briar knows how to install islands for more storage and counter space, and they can even make a reading nook in that loft. It’s huge.”
He’d gone on to detail how they could stage the second bedroom as a living room, and they had a full bathroom and a bedroom with a linen closet as well. “It’ll be great,” Tarr said.
And hey, they have no other options, Tuck thought.
“Do you really think it will be temporary?” he whispered.
“I don’t know,” Bobbie Jo said. “I’m sorry, Tuck, but I really don’t know. My parents have always been self-sufficient, and I just don’t know what’s happened in the last few years.”
She sighed and rolled over again, and Tucker had the very real feeling that this was just the beginning of a long night of tossing and turning and talking as they both tried to filter through their feelings and figure out what to do.
A couple of days later, Tuck found himself standing on the elevated edge of one of the pallets in front of Tarr’s RV. He gestured on that side, while Ashton waved in another trailer opposite from him.
“There.” Tarr had called his friend Jentzen again, and he’d just arrived with a heavy-duty extension cord, a bag full of surge protectors, and a one-hundred gallon water barrel.
Tuck had been inside Tarr’s RV since he’d moved it to this location on the south side of the arena, and while he wasn’t super pleased with the mobile home community going in on his property, he also recognized it as a great blessing from God Himself.
With John and Linda due to arrive from Tulsa tomorrow, Tucker’s house had suddenly become one-third smaller. He and Bobbie Jo would stay on the main level, where all of the amenities were, and her parents would take the second-floor suite.
Rosie Young and Jessa Lilly would live in the basement, in that three bedroom, two bath area with a full living room and the theater room.
It had space for a kitchen down there too, and Bobbie Jo was handling the arrival of a full-size fridge and stove to complete that area, so his rodeo clients could live comfortably in the basement.
Everyone would have to come and go through the front or back door, and Tuck reminded himself that he’d grown up on a farm with a revolving door that anyone and everyone walked through at any given time, day or night.
He actually didn’t mind it so much, but he really worried about Bobbie Jo.
She wasn’t like that at all, and she liked her privacy and her quiet time in the evenings.
He thought of the main level suite, where they had a full master bedroom with a sitting area and a fireplace, a connected master bath and a door that led into the nursery.
He had already ordered furniture to make it Bobbie Jo’s office and a reading nook, so she would have somewhere private and quiet all to herself.
He could handle the rodeo stars and her parents anytime she needed to escape.
As the beeping stopped on Alex Monterro’s trailer, Tucker thanked the Good Lord Above that he had this farm to provide for the needs of his friends and family.
Tarr was super happy in his RV—warm and watered with restroom and shower facilities only a few steps away.
He’d said that he’d start showering at Briar’s to leave the mansion for the rodeo stars and Bobbie Jo’s parents, and Tucker loved Tarr’s thoughtful heart.
Alex dropped out of his truck, his grin as wide as the sky. “This is going to be so great,” he said. “Look how close I got to those pallets.”
Tuck looked, as the edge of the trailer had gone right by him, and he hadn’t even noticed.
“Your steps go right on the pallets,” Tarr said.
“And then you can get out of the mud and get everything clean before you go inside.” He turned back to the arena.
“I’m thinking we need some retractable awnings here, though.
Sure would be nice if this patio area was covered. ”
“Don’t call it a patio,” Tuck growled. “It’s a bunch of pallets.”
Tarr turned toward him, his eyebrows raised.
They had a whole conversation in only one look, and Tarr’s face settled back into a regular expression.
“You’re right. It’s not permanent. You probably shouldn’t put anything permanent on the side of the arena.
We’ll figure out if we can set up some poles, maybe put some tarps that will slope down over the pallets to slick the snow away, so we can have this dry area where the pallets are. ”
“It’d be great to make it through the winter,” Alex said.
Tuck took a deep breath and tried to calm his inner beast. It didn’t come out very often, as he was definitely more like Momma and Hunter, who both saw the bright side of life, while Jane and Deacon had inherited their daddy’s more grumpy personality.
“I can fund a tarp-roof for your pallets,” Tuck said. “If you guys want to look into it.”
“If you’re talking some sort of roof structure,” Jentzen said, as he stepped up onto the porch-pallets with them. “You could put in some four inch posts or poles, but they’d need cement.”
“Just QuickCrete, probably,” Alex said.
Tarr looked back and forth between the two of them as if they were speaking another language, and Tuck felt the same way. Sure, he’d grown up on a farm, but he lived with all the modern conveniences of life these days, and he employed people to build fences; he didn’t actually do it himself.
“It’d be really easy to adjust the pallets or cut through them,” Jentzen said. “I’ve probably got some posts at my place.” He started pacing off the distance between the two trailers. “Probably twelve foot tall,” he said as he reached Tarr’s RV steps.
“And you’d only need three.” He turned to face them again.
“We could put one right behind Tarr’s RV, one here in the middle, and one on the other side of your trailer, Alex.
” He returned to their huddle, and Tuck wanted to leave it.
A headache stretched across the back of his neck and up into his skull, and he just wanted to go home and take a nap.
“What would you use for the roof?” Tarr said. “A tarp? And where would you attach it?”
“We put lower posts on either side.” Jentzen looked right and then left, indicating the trailer-less sides. “They’d match up with the three main posts, so you need six more—mm, probably eight foot posts, so you could walk underneath them.”
“That doesn’t give you much of a slope,” Alex said.
“True. We could make the back side even lower,” he said. “Keep the front open for where you guys are going to park and walk in, and make the back side go all the way to the ground. Then we could stake it and keep it nice and tight.”
Jentzen actually looked excited by this project, and Tuck turned away from the conversation.
He let them continue to brainstorm as he unhitched Alex’s trailer and got it level and settled.
He pulled his truck forward and parked it next to Tarr’s, and then got out to find Bobbie Jo exiting the arena through the side door that Tucker had once thought they’d never use.
Now, it was one of the most trafficked entrances and exits of the arena, and he, once again, took a moment to acknowledge the blessings in his life.
After all, having a property like this that had once felt too big and completely ridiculous for a single man to purchase now provided shelter and life for almost a dozen people.
“How’d it go at the house?” he asked, moving to meet Bobbie Jo.
“Great,” she said. “The fridge and stove are in. Everything’s plugged in and works. When the girls get here, everything’s ready for them down there. Beds, toiletries, all of it.”
Tuck drew her into a hug. “Thank you, sweetheart. Tarr and I got everything ready for your mom and dad on the second floor.” He stepped back and gestured to the trailers parked on the property.
“Alex and Tarr are going to be out here. Stretch said he found a room with a friend not far from here—only about fifteen minutes.”
“That’s great,” Bobbie Jo said. “And he can stay at the mansion if he has to. There is a third bedroom in the basement.”
“I just worry about those young ladies,” Tuck said, though he wasn’t that much older than Rosie and Jessa.
Their daddies had entrusted him to take care of them, and he didn’t want to put a cowboy directly across the hall from them, even though Stretch was one of the most amazing men Tucker had ever met.
“This is really cozy,” Bobbie Jo said, a smile coming to her face as she faced the trailer yard. “Have you ever thought about living in a trailer, Tuck?”
“I’ve lived in plenty of trailers.” He chuckled. “Where do you think Tarr and I stayed most of the time?” He nodded over to his best friend’s RV. “Somewhere far worse than that, let me tell you.”
“I can’t believe you guys sold everything when he retired.”
“Well, we didn’t need it,” Tuck said. “And I never would have predicted this.”
Bobbie Jo wrapped her arms around him and leaned into his side. “Me either,” she said. “I’m really sorry, Tucker.”
“Hey, you have nothing to apologize for,” he said. “They’re your parents, and we have to love and honor them, and if that means giving them a place to live, then that’s what it means.”
“I’m going to make sure they know that they need to find jobs and look for a place of their own,” she said.
Tucker nodded, his throat tight. Bobbie Jo’s parents were in their early sixties, and he wasn’t even sure what employable skills they had.
He knew he could take care of everyone on this farm for the rest of their lives, because he had been abundantly blessed simply by being born with the last name Hammond.
“Maybe your daddy can work around here,” he said, making a mental note to call his father and thank him for the bounteous blessings in his life.
“He’d probably love it,” Bobbie Jo said. “There are tons of schools here, so something will come up, right?”
“I’m sure,” he reassured her, though he wasn’t sure, and he didn’t really know.
Sometimes, Tuck just wanted life to go back to normal. As he stood there and listened to Tarr laugh about something Jentzen had said, and watched Alex point to something on a piece of paper they’d wrangled up to start designing their tarp roof, Tucker realized that this was normal.
Every day was different in a normal life, every day brought challenges, and every day had the potential to bring joy too.
He turned as more tires crunching over gravel met his ears, and he wasn’t surprised to see Briar pulling up in her SUV, nor that Tarr immediately abandoned the design-fest happening on the patio and went to greet her.
Tarr never talked much about the women he dated, but he’d already told Tucker that he’d kissed Briar.
So it wasn’t that shocking to watch him jog the last few steps to her, wrap her in his arms, and lean down and kiss her right on the mouth.
“They’re so cute together,” Bobbie Jo whispered. “I really hope she can handle him.”
“Are you kidding?” Tuck whispered back. “It’s him who has to learn how to handle her.” He looked at his wife, and she searched his face just as hard as he did hers.
“This is what people said about us, isn’t it?” she asked, her smile growing and growing.
Tuck laughed and wrapped her up fully in his arms. “I’m sure they did.”
Now, if he could just survive her parents moving in with them tomorrow, Tucker was sure the Lord would stop surprising him with big challenges he needed to solve in a short amount of time.
Please, Dear God, he prayed as he stepped back from Bobbie Jo and went to see what Briar had made to welcome Alex to the farm. No more surprises for a while, okay?