Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
The Ranch
“So, Lenni got suspended for fighting?” Muddy asked the moment Poet and I entered the kitchen of the main house.
I blinked. “Which grape on the vine told you?”
“Multiple grapes. Poet for one. And then Lucy. Here take the scrambled eggs.” She handed me a serving bowl stamped with blue and red geometric designs.
“How did Lucy know?” I asked.
“She’s the contemporary version of a trading post,” Muddy said. “People come into General Merc and tell her all sorts of things. You want to know something? You talk to Lucy.”
“I thought people talked to you,” I said.
“They do.” She grinned. “But I don’t gossip.”
“Ha!” came Salem’s voice from the direction of the dining room table.
“Ha nothing,” Muddy huffed. “Come on, give us the details over breakfast.”
Salem and Hadley were folding cloth napkins and setting them at their place settings. A bottle of orange juice was in the center, along with a platter of bacon and slices of sourdough toast.
“I feel like I’m at a hotel breakfast buffet,” I stated as I set the scrambled eggs down.
Poet came into the dining room with salt and pepper shakers and hot sauce bottles. “I-HOM. International House of Muddy.”
Salem sniggered.
“Sit, sit,” Muddy said. “Eat before it gets cold.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. I took a chair and reached for the bacon.
“So, what happened with Lenni?” Muddy asked.
“I thought you already knew,” I quipped.
Poet poured the orange juice.
“I want it from the source,” Muddy said.
“A kid in her class was teasing her about Brooks.” I sighed and glanced at Poet, who’d finally taken her seat. “About him being an ex-con.”
Poet frowned. “Really?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Lenni thought the kid was lying so she decked him. Got suspended yesterday. She can go back after the long Thanksgiving weekend break.”
“But Brooks is an ex-con,” Salem said.
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“So how did that conversation with her go?” Hadley pressed. “Do you know?”
“I know. I was with Archer when he got the call, and he wanted me to go with him to pick her up from school.”
Salem frowned. “I feel like I’m getting this story in dribs and drabs.”
“Same,” Hadley remarked.
“Start at the beginning,” Poet said.
“I was with Archer when he got the call,” I began.
Poet shook her head. “Why were you with Archer? He was at work, wasn’t he? Did that mean you were here?”
I looked at Muddy, who hadn’t said anything. She was munching on a piece of buttered sourdough toast, watching me with just as much interest as my three friends.
“I was here,” I said.
“Why? Were you dropping off his bagged lunch?” Salem teased.
“Did you bring him a hardboiled egg with a cute note on it?” Hadley added with a grin.
“The reason I was here wasn’t important,” I lied.
Muddy leaned forward, interest in her gaze. “On the contrary, I think it’s very important.”
“Do you want to know about Lenni or not?” I asked, my eyes bouncing around the table.
“I want to know everything,” Poet stated.
“I went with Archer to the school. He went inside to pick her up. She told us why she got into a fight. She thought Robby was lying. Archer said he wasn’t.
He then gave a brief, watered-down overview about why Brooks went to prison and then segued into why Blair didn’t want to raise Lenni around a bunch of bikers.
Told her loyalty was a Keel trait and then we went to a steakhouse in Coeur d’Alene last night. The end.”
“So no grounding for fighting?” Hadley asked. “Was that not part of the discussion?”
“Lenni’s nanny was in a fight at your wedding,” Salem pointed out to her sister. “You really think there was going to be grounding in that house?”
“It’s not up to Wyn,” Hadley said. “It’s up to Archer. He’s her father.”
Her words weren’t said to pierce my heart, but they did it anyway.
I tried not to deflate like a three-day old balloon.
“Right,” I croaked. “And her father decided to take us to a steakhouse to reward her loyalty.”
“Loyalty means a lot to the Keel brothers,” Poet said. “The biker thing.”
“So, were you okay with Lenni’s behavior?” Hadley asked.
“Okay isn’t the right word,” I said. “But as Salem pointed out, I got into a fight at your wedding. Am I really one to judge?”
“You’re one of the adults guiding her,” Hadley said. “I don’t think of it as judgment so much as helping her make choices that won’t get her suspended.”
I sighed. “No, you’re right. It’s my job—and Archer’s job—to teach her that there are better ways to express our anger. But you can’t expect an eleven-year-old girl in Lenni’s situation to emotionally regulate.”
“I’m twenty-three and I can’t even emotionally regulate,” Salem said. “I could use some emotional tools.”
“You are an emotional tool,” Hadley said to her sister.
I looked at Muddy. “You haven’t said anything about Lenni getting into a fight.”
She shrugged. “Not much to say.”
“You don’t have much to say about it? You?” Salem inquired in shock.
“Wyn’s got a good handle on it. And she understands Lenni. That’s what I think,” Muddy finished with a nod.
“New subject?” Poet asked.
“Please,” I said.
“So you went to a steakhouse,” Muddy said.
I nodded.
“Lenni had the appropriate clothes, I’m guessing?” Muddy asked.
“Yeah. When we went shopping, I made sure to get her a dress she didn’t hate and a pair of ballet flats.”
“What did you wear?” she inquired.
I frowned. “Not sure why that matters, but I wore a little black dress and heels.”
“How high were the heels?” Muddy pressed.
“Four inches.”
“Hair up or down?”
“Up . . .”
Muddy leaned forward. “Red lip?”
I straightened my spine. “Yes.”
“What did you have to eat?” Muddy asked.
“Steak.”
“With what kind of sauce?” she fired off. “Cream sauce? Peppercorn? What?”
“Are you trying to live vicariously through her?” Salem asked. “What’s with the line of questioning?”
“Horseradish and dill,” I said.
Muddy nodded and fell silent as she tackled the eggs on her plate.
The four of us looked at each other in confusion for a moment before Poet said, “Don’t leave us hanging.”
Muddy swallowed her bite before answering. “Oh. I just wanted to know if Wyn was hot for Archer. Now I know. She is.”
“Uh. What?” I asked.
“You’re hot for him,” Muddy repeated. “You’re trying your damnedest not to admit it, but what you wore and what you ate make it all very clear. You want his attention. Sexually speaking of course.”
“I do not,” I protested. “I wore what I wore because I wanted to look nice. And I always have a little black dress I take with me wherever I go, I—”
“Sure,” Muddy said with a nod. “Make sense. You wore heels, though.”
“So what?”
“You know damned well what heels do to those glamazon legs of yours,” Muddy said. “You could’ve worn flats, but you didn’t.”
“I like heels,” I defended.
“You didn’t wear your hair down,” Muddy pointed out. “Why not?”
“So it didn’t get in the way . . .”
“Uh huh. Or you wanted to show off your neck,” Muddy said. “Necks are sexy. Red lipstick draws the eye to your pouty mouth.”
“You’re right, Muddy,” Hadley said. “Wyn is hot for Archer.”
“And Archer is hot for Wyn,” Muddy said.
“Oh, definitely,” Poet agreed. “Brooks and I have already talked about that.”
I groaned. “You all are discussing my sex life?”
“You mean your lack of one,” Muddy said with a smirk.
“You think I should end the penis embargo?” I asked her. “He’s a single dad trying to figure it out. It’ll make everything more complicated if we cross that line.”
“You shouldn’t have gone on a date with him last night if you didn’t want to cross the line,” Muddy pointed out. “Talk about mixed signals.”
“It wasn’t a date.”
“Okay.” Muddy cocked her head to the side. “Did he ask you on a date? Without Lenni?”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Muddy grinned. “I’m always right.”
“You’re not always right,” I muttered.
“Yeah, she is,” Hadley said. “It’s annoying actually.”
“You learn a lot after seventy trips around the sun,” Muddy said. “But I think I know the real problem with you.”
“Oh good, enlighten me,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my tone.
“I’m not trying to make you defensive,” Muddy said. “But I guess I have a knack for that. Your problem isn’t that you’re hot for Archer. It’s that you have real feelings for him. Don’t you?”
“You know what I love about you?” I placed another box of homemade candles in antique china teacups into the hatchback of Poet’s car.
“My wardrobe?” she asked.
“No one can pull off grandpa sweaters quite like you,” I said with a smile. “But no. What I love about you is that you had an idea and you just dove in. You did that when you decided to open the bookstore, and you decided to do that when you saw a video on how to make candles.”
Poet’s shoulders straightened and she beamed. “Thanks. I’m trying this new thing in life.”
“What thing is that?”
“Making myself happy. As long as it doesn’t result in a felony, everything’s pretty much fair game.”
I laughed.
She looked at her cell phone and frowned.
“What’s that face for?” I asked.
“Brooks hasn’t texted me in more than an hour.”
I blinked. “He’s out hunting turkeys and he’s finding time to text you?”
She nodded.
“You’re not worried, are you?”
“No. I just miss him.” Her eyes grew watery, and she settled a hand on her belly, which had just started to show.
“You’re too cute,” I said as I closed the hatchback.
“You don’t think it’s pathetic?”
“Pathetic that you love him so much that you want to be with him all the time? No. That’s not pathetic. That’s beautiful. I envy you.”
She cocked her head to the side and nibbled on her lip. “Get in the car. I want to take you somewhere.”
I climbed into the passenger side of the car Brooks had bought her and buckled myself in.
While Poet drove, I glanced at my phone. I lit up the screen but there were no missed texts or calls. While Archer’s friends were out turkey hunting, he was helping his suspended daughter with her family tree project. I was curious how it was going.
A few minutes later, Poet parked the car and cut the engine. We were in the middle of a flat stretch of land, surrounded by trees that had lost their leaves, but the snowcapped mountains were visible in the distance.
“This is where we’re going to build our dream home,” Poet explained as she looked at me.
My heart shuddered in pain.
I forced a smile. “You couldn’t have chosen a better spot. It’s gorgeous.”
“I didn’t choose it. Brooks did. He only brought me out here after the fact.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Aren’t you pissed about not being involved?”
She frowned. “Pissed? No. Why would I be?”
“Because he didn’t include you in the decision-making process.”
She peered at me for a long moment before saying, “He knew it was perfect. And that it would make me happy. So, he took care of it. He took care of me. Brooks always takes care of me.”
I swallowed the lump of emotion in my throat.
I didn’t want to cry in front of her, so I wrenched the door open and spilled out of the car.
It was cold and I turned the collar up on my coat.
I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets.
There was nowhere to really walk to, so I took a few steps and then stopped.
The driver’s side door opened and shut. Poet sidled up next to me.
“Remember when you were the last to know about Salem’s pregnancy and you felt left out?” I asked, looking down at my petite friend who reminded me of a fairy princess.
“Yes.”
“Did you also feel left out because Salem and Hadley had this new life they were building with their husbands, and you didn’t? Did that all change when you found Brooks?”
She nibbled her lip. “Yes and no. Priorities shift. It’s inevitable. But it feels like . . . there’s more room now.”
“More room? I don’t understand.”
“Like, you don’t just love one person in your life. You love your friends; you love your family. You love a man. But like, your heart just grows bigger. So there’s more space . . . but that also means rearranging and reorganizing.”
I swallowed. “You can say the truth, you know.”
She looked at me and cocked her head to the side. Her eyes looked doe-ish behind her glasses. “I’d drop anything for you. Hadley. Salem. You call in the middle of the night, I’m there. No questions asked. I’m coming in pajamas and slippers, but I’m coming.”
My lips flickered with an uncertain smile.
“But when I want advice, you’re not the first person I go to anymore.”
“Ouch.”
She sighed. “Yeah. It is kind of an ouch. And it’s not because I don’t respect your opinion . . . but we don’t share a bank account. We’re not building a house, a life together. You know?”
“I know.”
And I did understand. Conceptually anyway.
“It hurts though,” I murmured. “Not being chosen.”
Poet reached out and stuck her hand in my coat pocket. Her hand was so much smaller than mine. Poet had always been the one we’d all protected and sheltered. We’d been the trees in the storm, offering her refuge and safety.
Now she had Brooks for that.
And who did I have?
We climbed back into the car and Poet started the engine.
My phone buzzed. Archer’s name flashed across the screen. With a frown, I put the cell to my ear.
“Hello?” I asked.
“You have to come home,” Archer commanded. “Now.”