Chapter Nine #2
“Her ex showed up early with her daughter. She just … like a switch, flipped off. Just like that.” He snapped for effect, slowing, dissecting that morning for the millionth time.
“Does she still want him? She definitely didn’t want me to meet him, or him me, like I was some dirty secret, which ain’t no surprise.
” He’d grown used to being his parents’ dirty secret.
He’d thought he was immune to the hurt. But then why had she divorced the guy? The news report had been scant on details. Tyler stood silently gauging him.
“Why’re you looking at me like I grew another head?”
Tyler had that lawyer look where his vision narrowed at nothing in particular while those Ivy League brain cells fired like NASCAR pistons. “Sounds like she’s scared of him.”
Scared? T.R., getting ready to fix the lug wrench on the nut, paused. She had drained of color that morning, but he’d … what if he’d read it wrong? What if she wasn’t worried so much about her daughter coming home, but rather, of her ex’s reaction? Why had she divorced him?
“Did you meet the guy?” Tyler asked.
“Naw, but he was supposedly on his way over when…” Jason Thompson had driven by.
That couldn’t be her ex, could it? That fraudster and swindler?
The music scene had rejected him. He’d faded to obscurity thanks to his shady business deals and outright theft to support his love affair with Jack D.
But Jason had once been a hot up-and-coming star, right when T.R.
had gotten his footing and started his band.
They’d played a few sets together, until that music festival.
If that was her ex, why hadn’t she been at his shows? All the WAGs came to gigs.
And why hadn’t she not only not been at those old gigs, but why hadn’t Jason featured her?
Because that had been T.R.’s first thought.
This girl could fill in for Hunt, and according to the online scuttle bug, could fill theater halls, not just honky-tonks.
People were dying to know who his Flower Girl was.
“Maybe McClintock and the Disclaimers can fire Hunter and bring her on instead. Twice as talented and a helluva lot prettier …”
“If McClintock knows what’s good for him, he’ll add that blond to the band.”
Had the Jack D addiction become too much for Charlie?
You don’t even know for sure if he’s the ex.
He pulled his cell out again.
6:43.
Tyler’s eyes dipped to T.R.’s phone. “Got somewhere to be?”
T.R. notched up his chin and cranked the wrench. The nut creaked. “Gig. At the carnival in a couple hours.”
“Not checking for Charlize to call for the millionth time?”
T.R. smirked. “Water under the bridge. Why wait for a call that ain’t comin’?”
It was then that he spied a clipboard under Tyler’s arm.
“Why’d you come out here to bother me if it ain’t to fire me?” He finally worked loose the nut, tossing the stripped chunk of metal into the smelting bin.
“Wanted to talk to you about the farm.”
T.R. pulled a new nut from his pocket and spun it onto the riveted rod, replacing his wrench and tightening it on.
“Already got new siding ordered for the barn, got paints on delivery, got the compressor pump repaired and put the summer guys on pond aeration since the storm runoff mucked it up, the calves’re back with their mommas after the rotolactor, got the order for feed into the grain elevator but gonna have to take one of the farm rigs for pick up, and Earl said I can come get the feed vitamins tomorrow—”
“It’s your day off tomorrow.”
“Don’t matter, not like I won’t be able to stop on my way home after slippin’ out of some chick’s bed.” He waggled his brow. “Anyway, got Jayce on hayloft restocking, got meds on order for Bessie’s abscessed hoof, got the new horse blankets ordered for the stable—”
“Not that kind of farm talk. I’m buying land out west.”
T.R. stilled at that. Could feel the Texas heat trickling sweat between his shoulder blades and into the rim of his jeans.
“The boys wanna be close to their uncles and I…” Tyler looked around the dairy operation, as if contemplating something. “I haven’t had to worry about a shoddy job since you got here.” He eyed the tractor, then smirked, like only a cousin who might as well be a brother could do. “Well, until now.”
T.R. flipped him off, inciting Ty’s rare chuckle. “I can swing a hammer.”
“It’s more than that, though. You crunch these numbers for me with our inventories off the top of your head, always knowing what we need, how much, accurately projecting our sales each month. You got a head for numbers. I had no idea when I first hired you.”
“I ain’t completely stupid just ’cause I can’t read right.” T.R. chuckled, returning to his wrench cranking.
Except Tyler didn’t laugh like T.R.’s buddies would have. Kind of like Charlie hadn’t laughed at his self-deprecating cracks. Tingling pricked across his skin. What was Ty getting at?
“This means my foreman”—Tyler leveled his look back at him—“is gonna have a few more responsibilities. How does manager sound?”
“How about owner—”
Fuck, had that just rolled out of his mouth? He clenched shut his teeth.
But Charlie’s words kept curling through his mind like smoke. What’s the worst he could say … no?
“What?” Tyler asked, pushing off the doorframe and narrowing his eyes.
Goddammit, now Tyler Jacob Dixon, JD, who could never let anything go, was not going to let that slip of T.R.’s tongue go.
Time to backtrack. “Nothin.’ Does manager come with a pay raise? I got a new amp I need to buy. Old one’s blown again and been repaired so many times it’s risking its ninth life, and I got barely enough saved for the Homegrown Award registration fee—”
“No, you don’t, Thaddeus—”
T.R. cringed at his full name. Said nothing.
Tyler didn’t know how much he hated it. “What do you mean, owner?”
T.R. laughed to himself, but God he was an asshole.
This was Tyler’s baby and here he was, saying he wanted to sweep it away from him?
And did he? Or did he just like the illusion of having some family roots like this farm where so many of his happy childhood memories had been made, where a McClintock like himself could build onto his family’s legacy, like Charlize had felt out west with her uncle—
Goddammit. She was living rent free in his head. He checked his phone again.
“Just shootin’ the shit, man. Tell me what you want me to do as your here manager, and I’ll figure it out—”
“You said owner,” Tyler pressed, his folded arms tightened across his chest, his dad pose perfected over the years to drag answers out of wayward boys.
Oh man, had he … pissed Tyler off? The last thing they needed was trouble in paradise. Nothing but trouble.
“Sorry, man, I wasn’t serious. Just cracked a joke about all the things I do for you here.” He waggled his brows with mock exaggeration as Tyler rolled his eyes. “But guess it wasn’t funny.”