Chapter 37
thirty-seven
Hunter Hammond pulled up to The Burger Babe and killed the engine. “You ready?” He looked over to his son, who’d had his head bent over his device for the entire drive from the farm to the burger joint.
Ryder’s thumbs flew over the screen, and then he looked up. “Yeah.”
“Maybe we should leave your phone here.” A certain measure of weariness moved through Hunt,
Ryder frowned. “I’ll participate appropriately.” He opened the door and jumped down from the truck. “Besides, it’s lunch with your brothers and sister. I don’t know why I’m here at all.”
“You’re here, because your mother needs a break from babysitting an eighteen-year-old.
” Hunt’s irritation with his son spiked, and he followed Ryder out of the truck.
He slammed the door behind him and strode around the front of the vehicle.
“I want the phone on silent, and I don’t want you to huff, sigh, or check it every fifteen seconds. ”
He must’ve spoken with enough seriousness, because Ryder blinked, the fight in his shoulders deflating. “Okay,” he said, and he silenced the phone and stuck it in his back pocket. They faced the burger joint together, and Hunter exhaled slowly to get his frustration in check too.
“Did Momma really say she needed a break from me?” Ryder asked as Hunter stepped up onto the curb.
He shot a look over to Ryder. “Buddy…yeah. Okay? Yeah. You stress her out with your insistence that you and Clementine aren’t going to break up, that you’re late all the time, and that you can’t seem to do the few simple chores she asks of you.”
Ryder wore a hint of worry in his expression. “I don’t mean to do that.”
“Really?” Hunter pulled open the glass door and cocked his eyebrows.
“If you didn’t mean to be late to dinner, you’d be on time.
If you didn’t mean to cause us grief over your girlfriend, you’d break up with her.
If you wanted your mother to worry less, you’d feed the chickens, pick up Lisa and Charlotte on time, and clean out the stalls you’re being paid to clean out. ”
Ryder glared at him now, and he’d just started past Hunter when Tucker called, “Hey-o, boys.”
Hunt grinned at his younger brother. “Hey, you.” He laughed as he detoured over to Tucker and hauled him into a hug. “You live so far away, and I feel like I haven’t seen you in so long.”
Tucker laughed too, and he hugged Hunter hard. He possessed all of their daddy’s height, just like Hunter, and they grinned at one another as they parted. “We’ve been really busy with that agricultural specialist we hired. She’s got us doing all kinds of soil tests and water purification.”
He looked over to Ryder and hugged him too. “Hey, buddy. You’re not in school today?” Tuck stepped back and looked at Hunter.
“He has three weeks of school left, and apparently, none of it is important.” Hunter shot Ryder a look, who smartly kept his mouth closed.
“Jane’s inside,” Tucker said. “Deac texted to say he was running a minute or two late.”
Hunter nodded, then turned and led the way into The Burger Babe. Sure enough, he found Jane holding down a big corner booth by herself. She sat on the very end of it, and she glanced up as if sensing her brothers’ arrival.
They’d met for a late lunch, so the place wasn’t terribly busy. Hunter suspected he had about fifteen seconds before Hillie would be out front, causing a fuss over him, so he leaned against the half-wall and called to Jane. “Did you order?”
“Sure did,” she called back.
Hunter lifted his hand in a wave and continued toward the ordering kiosk. He’d just tapped when he heard Hillie’s laughter.
“Look at you, young man,” she drawled, and Hunter glanced over to find her pulling Ryder into a hug. His son knew to go along with it, and in fact, everyone loved Hillie.
“Howdy, Hillie,” Ryder said, and Hunter had to abandon his order to hug her hello too.
She hipped him out of the way and tapped with the pad of her finger, her long, red fingernails not getting in the way of her use of the kiosk. “You want the beer-battered fries, baby?”
“Yes, please,” Hunter said. “I was putting it in, Hillie.”
“Yeah, you sure were,” she said. “Tell me what to add, now.”
Hunter nodded to Ryder, who came closer and gave Hillie his order. Tucker followed suit, and by then, Deacon had walked in.
Hunter waited out of the way, and once Hillie had tapped in her code and made their food free, he was able to grab onto his youngest brother and hug him. “Hey, is everything okay at the farm?”
“Yeah,” Deacon said. “It’s just busy this afternoon as we’re getting all the equipment out.”
“Sure, yeah,” Hunter said, though he’d never really run the farm in a full-time capacity the way Deacon did. He’d been the CEO of the family company, HMC, in downtown Denver for seventeen years, and he was now enjoying his retirement at the farm.
They joined Jane in the booth, and she immediately flipped open a manila folder. “At Deac’s request, I’ve made an assessment of the farm, and these are the top three places for his new house.” She gave him a quick smile, and love filled Hunter from top to bottom.
It beamed through him, because he loved his siblings, and he loved watching them interact. Of course Jane had made a map. And of course, Deacon had asked her to. And of course, Tucker frowned as he peered at the map, as if he cared where Deac built his house.
Deacon cared, though, and that was what mattered. Hunter had told him to pick anywhere he wanted, and Deacon had rolled his eyes. “Just because I own the farm doesn’t mean it’s mine,” he’d said.
And he’d wanted everyone’s input for the location of the second family home on the farm. It had never needed one until now, though Momma and Daddy hadn’t moved back from Coral Canyon yet.
“This is a great spot,” Tucker said, pointing to the map.
Hunter looked at it and found Tucker’s pointer on a cute cartoon clipart of a cabin at the top of the meadow.
“We could put in a short road that leads to the driveway for that one,” Jane said matter-of-factly. “And it’s out of the way, which I think Deacon will like.” She tossed him a look, but Deac wore a fine frown line between his eyes.
“We’ll still have plenty of room for our family parties,” Hunter said, as the picnic area and pavilion and grills stood down on the other side of the meadow. “Great shade up there.”
“Yeah,” Deacon said. “I like that spot.”
“The others would work too,” Jane said, and Hunter spotted another cabin on the other side of the red administration barn. “For this one, we’d put a road curving left where it normally only goes right. Just past that pine tree?”
“Yeah,” Deacon said.
“And you’d have some privacy over there,” Jane said. “Because there’s nothing else. Only fields.”
“Some of our best fields.” Deacon raised his eyes to her, then Tuck, then Hunter. “I only need about an acre.”
“You can have whatever you want,” Hunter said, and he meant it. “Deacon, it’s a few acres. It’s not going to matter in the grand scheme of things.”
“I want it to be fair,” he said. “And I want you all to know I’d build a house for you on the farm if you needed it.”
“But we don’t need it,” Tuck said.
“We like living a bit further away,” Jane said.
Hunter smiled at her. “Does Cord have Clint today?”
“He’s out at Gerty’s,” Jane said. “I’m taking them all French fries and we’re having an evening play date with the new chickens Opal got.”
Hunter nodded again, glad his family got along so well. He knew not every family had relationships like this, and he knew they took work to develop and maintain.
“I’d do the meadow,” Tucker said. “It’s close to the family farm, and the cowboy community, while still being wooded, and you’ll like that, Deac.”
“Yeah,” Deacon said slowly. “I don’t want to put in a bunch of new roads.” He tapped the map over by the admin barn. “This site is out.”
“I don’t even see the last one,” Hunter said.
“That’s because….” Jane suddenly folded the map. “It’s not a good one. The meadow site is the winner.”
Deacon blinked, and Hunter sat back in the booth. Tucker immediately reached for the folder. “I want to see the third site.”
Jane pressed her palm against the folder and glared at Tuck.
“Come on, Janey.” He grinned, and she released the folder to him.
He flipped it open, and Hunter could’ve predicted how things would go from here. Tuck would be all nonchalant, find the third site, and make a benign comment on it. This would drive Deacon insane, and Jane would roll her eyes.
Hunter, as the oldest—and sixteen years older than Jane—usually sat back and simply enjoyed the show.
“Huh.” Tuck flipped the folder closed and handed it to Deacon. “I see the potential.”
Hunter chuckled and shook his head. Deacon didn’t open the folder, but Ryder picked it up and opened it.
“I’ve got the Double Hammond,” Hillie said, interrupting them, and Hunter looked up to find her sliding a plate with his hamburger and French fries on it.
“Oh, boy.” Hunter reached for the fry sauce in the middle of the table as more food got passed out.
“Anything else y’all need?” Hillie grinned around at all of them, and Jane shook her head.
“Thank you, Hillie.”
“Just holler,” she said, and she left them alone again.
Ryder had set aside the folder, and he dunked one of his fries in a pool of ketchup. “I think remodeling the old hay barn is actually kind of genius, Aunt Jane.”
Hunter’s gaze flew to his sister, then the folder sitting closed on the table on the other side of his son. “The hay barn?”
“It’s out of the way,” Jane said, her voice pitching up. “It has a road to it already. It sits right on the border of the farm and has amazing views.”
“It’s decently close to the cabin community and family farm,” Tuck said.
“But not too close to you and Momma and Daddy,” Deacon said.
“We don’t need privacy,” Hunter said. “Momma and Daddy won’t either.”
“It might just be nice to have your place be family land,” Deacon said. “Because while we’d like to think my house will be too, it’s kind of like the foreman’s cabin. It’s business and personal.”
“Sure, I’ll concede that,” Hunter said. “But Molly and I aren’t bothered by the cowboys and cowgirls on the farm.”
Deacon lifted his double bacon cheeseburger and took a big bite, his way of saying, No, I know, but it’s still something I’ve thought about.
He wiped his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “Thanks, Janey,” he said. “I’ll think about it, and we’ll get started on the construction in a couple of weeks.”
“Who did you hire?” Tucker asked.
“When are Grandma and Grandpa moving back?” Ryder asked.
Hunter looked between him and Deacon, who simply took another bite of his burger. “They’re going to list the house and come back when it sells,” he said.
“It’s listed,” Jane said. “It went on the market last Friday, but they’re not expecting much.”
“Summer’s the best time, though,” Tuck said, just before cramming three French fries into his mouth.
Hunter took a juicy bite of his barbecue-and-onion-straw burger. Deacon wiped his mouth again and said, “I’m going to have Paul Case be the general contractor. He can start at the end of the month.”
He tapped the folder. “I just need to choose a location.”
“Well,” Hunter said. “I think any of them would work.”
“My vote’s the meadow,” Tucker said.
“I say barn,” Ryder said.
“I’m going to go with the meadow too,” Jane said.
All eyes came to Hunter, though he hadn’t known he’d need to cast a vote. His siblings had always looked to him to state his opinion or pick a side, and he grinned at them.
“Just to put this all on Deacon, I’m going to vote for the barn.”
“Great,” Deac said dryly. “Thanks so much.”
“Hey, at least our lunch was free,” Hunter said, and he lifted his burger to enjoy another amazing bite.
“I can’t wait to see it,” Tucker said. “It’s going to be great for the farm.”
“I agree,” Jane said, and they all looked at Hunter again.
“Yes,” he said. “The farm has been stagnant for a while, and this will be great. Deacon’s going to modernize everything, and he needs an amazing home to do it.”