Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
BECKETT
I’ve spent the afternoon running numbers, reshuffling work schedules, and wondering if I can squeeze in a quick run before dark so I don’t explode out of sheer frustration.
Obviously, this isn’t the first schedule delay I’ve ever dealt with. Equipment breaks down and weather turns shitty all the time, so I’ve got alternate felling sequences mapped out that will help us make our next few deliverables. But this isn’t like a normal delay.
When the weather turns, I wait out the storm. When equipment breaks, I fix it. But this clusterfuck? I have no idea how to solve it, and I have a couple of months max before winter shuts us down.
Forestry’s a delicate business, and it doesn’t work like people think. You can’t just point to a patch of woods and start cutting unless you want to lose the forest for good. Every tract’s on rotation and managed years in advance with an eye to conservation.
The Far Tract is the one that’s ready now. The other parcels I can reach might look fine to the naked eye, but they’re either too young, too thin, or—like the parcel Dad sold to Derek Sullivan—too wet and too close to the river to get equipment in without devastating the whole area.
My margin for error is razor-thin, and if I can’t start cutting soon, I’m going to have to cancel contracts, which means Axford Lumber slides deeper into the debt pit I’ve been trying to claw us out of.
So, the obvious answer is to talk to Griffin, right? Like Holden said. Be reasonable and whatnot.
Except every time I even think about talking to him, I remember our interaction yesterday—how he looked in my flannel, which I assume he’s burned in effigy now, and how I lost my cool—I feel the opposite of reasonable.
Am I supposed to apologize to him? Am I supposed to grovel? Because there’s no way.
All of which is to say that when my phone dings with a text alert, I’m almost grateful for the distraction… until I turn over the phone on my desk and see the message from my youngest brother.
Ames
We need you at the farmhouse, Beck. Right now.
My blood turns to ice water, and I don’t even bother shutting down my computer. I bolt up the long gravel driveway that connects the lumber yard to my parents’ farmhouse, thankful for once that the lumber office is only a few hundred yards from my parents’ house.
My work boots pound against the packed earth as worst-case scenarios cycle through my head—another heart attack, a stroke, an accident with one of the tools in Dad’s workshop.
The last time there was a family emergency, there was no text.
I was standing right there when Dad collapsed, and when I close my eyes sometimes, I can still see it.
One minute, he was explaining new safety protocols to Rocky, a smile on his face.
The next, he was crumpled on the sawdust-covered floor, clutching his chest and gasping.
I’d never felt so fucking helpless in my life.
By the time I burst through my parents’ back door, my lungs are burning, and my heart’s thudding against my ribs.
“Ames?” I demand, scanning the kitchen for signs of crisis. “Did you call an ambulance? Where is… wait, Dad?”
I belatedly spot my father sitting at the big farmhouse table. There’s a can of root beer in front of him, his reading glasses are perched on the end of his nose, our old dog is spread out like a rug over his feet, and he’s tugging at a lock of his gray hair.
When he spies me, his expression brightens. “Beck! You’ll do. Celestial body, six letters.”
“I don’t… are you having chest pains?” I demand, my heart still ricocheting around my chest. “Shortness of breath?”
“Planet!” he says, pulling a pencil from behind his ear. “Or wait, Saturn? No, has to end in T. Planet it is.”
I have absolutely no idea what’s happening at first, but then I notice a few things.
A few suspicious things.
The kitchen smells strongly of sweetness and spices. Pots steam on the stove. The wooden table around my dad is set with bowls and napkins for a crowd.
Then the back door opens behind me, and Mom bustles in, hanging her jacket and purse on the peg by the door without even looking at us.
She’s wearing navy slacks, a flowery headband, and a cream sweater with her name tag still pinned to the collar, like she’s fresh from the front desk of the Abigail, our family’s inn.
“Wilder’s right behind me, but he insisted on checking my wiper fluid, even though I told him—oh!
” She turns finally and notices me. “Beckett! What a wonderful surprise! And you’re the first to arrive, looks like!
” She busses my cheek, then thumbs away her lipstick residue and holds my chin in her hand as she assesses me. “You look stressed, honey.”
“Yeah, getting a text that there’s an emergency at home does that to a person,” I fume. I pull away and bellow, “Ames! Get your ass in here!”
“Language.” Mom swats my hip as she moves to check the pots on the stove.
Footsteps gallop down the stairs, accompanied by the sound of laughter, and my brother appears in the kitchen.
“Told you it’d fit,” Ames says over his shoulder. “You’re not much bigger than me, Rob. You just pretend you are.”
His best friend and permanent shadow lumbers in behind him, wearing an old Axford Lumber sweatshirt that’s at least two sizes too small for him and makes him look like Winnie the Pooh.
“Guess you’re right,” Robbie says, agreeing with whatever ridiculous thing pops out of Ames’s mouth, as usual.
“Ames,” I say sharply, gesturing at my phone. “What the fuck was this about?”
“Language, Beckett James,” my mom repeats.
“Well, I just thought…” Ames begins with a sheepish shrug.
Before he can reply, the back door opens again.
“Hey, hey! The whole gang’s here for Tuesday dinner, huh?” Holden saunters inside, still wearing his uniform. He’s got one arm slung over our sister Eliza’s petite shoulders and they’re trailed by our cousin Wilder and then our brother True.
True makes a wide arc around everyone and immediately slides into his spot at the table.
“If I’d known Beck was coming tonight, I’d’ve gotten here earlier.” Wilder slaps my arm with easy humor. “Gotta make sure I get some of Ames’s maple cornbread before this one hoovers it all down.”
I glare at him while moving over to give my sister a hug. “I was lured here under false pretenses.” I drop a kiss in Eliza’s hair. “How’s the bride?” I murmur.
She beams up at me. “Good now you’re here.”
Ames ignores us. “I made three trays of cornbread, Wilder. You act like you don’t come to Watchfire for cornbread nearly every day.”
“And get the friends and family discount,” Robbie adds with a grin.
Mom laughs, and though Robbie is a heavily muscled firefighter half a foot taller than she is, when she shakes his shoulders like he’s a little kid, he not only allows it, but he gives her an adoring look, not unlike Greta the dog when my dad rubs her belly.
Mom looks beyond him and narrows her eyes. “Truett Andrew! And you, Wilder Thomas! Have you washed your hands?” she demands.
True looks at his hands, then looks at Wilder, who shrugs. They both head for the kitchen sink.
“So why is it,” Eliza asks, “that you only come to family dinner if you’re lured here under false pretenses, Beckett?”
I can’t think of a single thing to say to that. My eyes flash toward my dad almost against my will, but he’s sitting there focused on his crossword, tuning out the chaos.
“I didn’t mean—” I begin, then stop. “It’s not that I don’t…” I hesitate. “I’ve been…”
“Working?” Eliza, Holden, Wilder, Ames, Robbie, my mom, and even True finish simultaneously.
Dad doesn’t take his eyes off his crossword but harrumphs loudly.
“Well, you’re here now,” Mom says, patting my cheek. “So let’s eat.”
The smell of Ames’s famous honey chicken is making my stomach growl. And the truth is, I’ve missed these fuckers, even if I can’t remember why at the moment, so I move toward the table.
My mom, who’s busy moving trays of cornbread from the oven to the counter, says without even turning her head, “Ah ah ah. Hands, Beck.”
I roll my eyes as I stomp my thirty-six-year-old self to the hall bathroom to wash up.
By the time I get back, everyone’s seated. My usual spot—at the end, across from my dad, beside True—is waiting for me.
“That’s quite the outfit you’re wearing,” Holden’s telling Robbie while he holds out his bowl for Ames to fill. “Shopping the kids’ section, are we, Roberto?”
Robbie blushes, but Ames is the one who answers as he serves Holden some chicken. “Robbie was out with Alyssa earlier, and she got chilly, so he gave her his sweater, and he borrowed one of mine.”
“Lissa,” Robbie mutters, blushing harder. “She goes by Lissa.”
“Bart Cagney’s daughter?” Wilder hoots. “I was just working on his Lexus earlier in the week. I told him he needed new brakes, and he asked me with perfect seriousness if he should just junk the car and buy a new one.”
“More money than sense,” True agrees.
“Well, I think Lissa Cagney’s a very sweet girl.” Mom hands Robbie a basket of cornbread. “And so stylish!”
Ames passes me a bowl of honey chicken and rice.
For a little while, I sit there, filling my stomach and letting their overlapping conversations wash over me.
I’m in a shit mood still, so I don’t say much—which makes our half of the table pretty silent since my dad and True don’t speak either—but otherwise, it’s like a million other dinners I’ve had in this kitchen.