Chapter 7 #2
“Well, I do, and when you’re feeling like you can stand and help, then next time I make it, you can do it. You got bulk sausage in here somewhere?” He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t. Not that cowboys didn’t, contrary to what people thought, but now was not the time.
Coop nodded to him. “Yeah, I got a deep freezer with everything known to man in there. It’s all labeled and stuff. It was one of the things the Chiaras brought me when the kids came, a freezer full of food.”
“I can’t wait to meet these folks. Can you show me where the freezer is?” He knew Kase, but not the rest of the crew.
“Sure.” Coop nodded to Benji. “Be right back. You sit, son.”
“Yessir, boss.”
Coop took him around through the courtyard and out back to this amazing kitchen area—complete with grills, pizza oven, a flattop. Oh, he was going to use the hell out of this…
“This is nice.”
“Thanks. I like it a lot. The big deep freeze is over here in the outbuilding. Four-wheelers are in there too. Tools, all sorts of stuff.” Coop pointed to a pair of storage containers that had been converted. So cool.
Beyond the storage containers there were a ton more structures—a feed and tack shed, a lean-to, three big barns.
“So what you got over in the barns?”
“I haven’t really gotten out to the barns yet to see if they’re solid. They’ll need to be redone before we put anything in there, I guess. I imagine that we’re going to have to run something—that I’m going to have to run something for the kids. For 4-H or FFA, what have you.”
“Huh. Good to know.” He glanced at the barns again. “ Do you mind if I run out there and look after I start all the food?”
“Not at all, but you don’t have to do everything, you know. I’m more than willing to help. All I have to do is pick up some of the kids. Just like I said, I haven’t been out there since I bought the place, so there’s probably snakes.”
He wasn’t worried about that. Once he cleaned up, the mice would leave, and then the snakes would move on. “There won’t be snakes for long. How many acres you got?”
Coop grinned at him, leaning against the porch railing, and Brooks was shocked at how the man suddenly seemed younger, as if a weight had been lifted from his huge shoulders.
“Fifteen. I didn’t buy the house for the land, really.
I bought it…well, I bought it because the family who owned it needed the money, and I thought, I like the Chiaras.
I work for them all the time. The house needed work, and I like to do that.
I got a good deal, and the people who needed cash got their bit out of it, so… ”
It was hard to wrap his mind around all of this. This huge weird-ass house dropped down in the middle of nowhere. Those barns, the kids. Hell, even the fact that Benji was talking to him.
What if he fucked up the queso? It wasn’t a stretch to think what he remembered as his momma’s queso and what Benji remembered weren’t the same thing anymore.
“What do you do for the Chiaras?” He had to stop thinking. It wasn’t good for him.
“I’ve trained some bullfighters. Periodically, I cast my eyes at the guys that they’re thinking about hiring. Every so often I’ll give an opinion on a bull. I have a knack for them. You know I’ve fought a few, and I’ll tell them what I think. I have a unique perspective.”
“I bet you do, Mr. Coop, I genuinely do. I’m going to go get the meat. You said it was all labeled? ”
“All packaged, all labeled, all dated. It’s kind of creepy how organized they are. But there’s breakfast sausage in there and Italian sausage. Anything you could want.”
“Cool.” He’d actually dreamed of a setup like this all the time. The stations in Oz were cool, but he loved a smaller place, and he loved to spend time outside. This had the advantage of way fewer bugs, venomous snakes, and other crazy creatures, and those barns…
They weren’t his.
But he still wanted a look. Brooks grabbed sausage and headed inside to start the sausage cooking for the queso. He’d have Benji cut up the Velveeta.
Benji was dozing at the kitchen table, head nodding.
“You want to go back to bed, kiddo?” Coop asked him.
“Huh? No. No, I can help.”
“Hey, y’all!” A knock sounded at the kitchen door. “Miss Nell and Dani and Naomi have come to save the day. They said if we came over this morning, we could help.”
Kase came in with the girls, and he was looking a little wild around the eyes.
Uh-oh. He wondered what could make the cheerful cowboy he’d met the other day look so stressed.
“Hey, ladies,” Coop said, “why don’t you go put your stuff in Mina’s bedroom? You’ll change there, even if we all sleep in the family room.”
“Okay, Mr. Coop!” Nell, who he’d met, led the way.
“You okay, Kase?” Coop asked, pouring him a cup of coffee.
“This is the best day for a sleepover, man.” Kase took the cup with a grateful smile. “Hey, Brooks. You look busy.”
“Cooking fool,” Brooks agreed.
“Anyway, one of the teenagers we’ve got on respite care for two weeks had a total meltdown.
Come to find out, he was using at his foster home and went into withdrawal since he couldn’t get anything while he was at the ranch.
He’s in the hospital, his sister is in hysterics, and we’re crawling with social services. ”
“Oh, shit.” Coop shook his head. “Anything I can do to help?”
“No, you got your hands full.”
Brooks turned, spatula in hand. “Benji and I can handle this if you need Coop.”
“Thanks for that, but really, getting Nell and Dani out of the house is a huge help. They get so upset when something happens with the other foster kids because they don’t know how to make it better yet.”
That sounded like a shit situation, but he wasn’t one to judge anyone’s life choices. Help yes. Judge no. He’d made that mistake with his brother once, and it had cost him too much. Brooks had learned his lesson.
“They’re just little,” he agreed, not knowing what else to say.
“Hey, if Elijah wants to come over, Ricky has a date tonight, but he can play video games with me.”
Kase snorted. “Elijah is double-dating with Ricky and his girl.”
“Oh.” Benji hooted. “Figures.”
Brooks laughed. “They’ve been here what? Six months? How is Ricky dating a girl long enough to double-date?”
“They go faster than we used to even,” Kase said. “But then their teenage love is way shallower, right, Benj?”
“God, yes. It’s all like a TikTok video.” Benji snorted. “Thank God I’m a cowboy.”
That had them all hooting, because if anyone got that, it was this group of men. “Do you want some fairy bread for the road?” Brooks asked.
“What?” Kase asked.
Coop gagged again. “Don’t ask. ”
“Oh, you know those girls will want it when they go home,” Brooks teased.
“And that will be soon enough, Kase, trust me.”
“Hey, you’re the cowboy protection. I believe you. I got to get back.”
“Go on.” Coop waved him off. “We’ll take care of the wee ones.”
“If anything happens, Wat and Tygh are on duty.”
“Got it.”
“Come kiss me, girls!” Kase bellowed, making Benji jump since he’d dozed off again.
“Son, will you go back to bed?” Coop rolled his eyes. “Seriously, just go to sleep, and I’ll wake you up this afternoon. You can help when I’m tired.”
“I just need a quick nap, Coop. That’s all.”
“Go nap.”
Mina came stomping down with the girls about the time Benji leveraged himself up. “Everybody came early, Benji!”
“I see! Uncle Coop’s going to watch y’all. I gotta sleep.”
“Love you, Uncle Kase!”
“Love you, daddy!”
“Don’t forget to feed Mookie!”
“Can we watch TV?”
“I’m cold!”
“Can we put on our jammies?”
The cacophony threatened to send Brooks running. There was no way—no way this was reasonable or sustainable.
The worst part was that neither Coop nor Kase seemed to be the slightest bit worried about all this noise.
Kase gave hugs and offered Coop another grateful grin. “I owe you.”
“Nonsense. Go on, it’ll be a good day. We’ll see y’all tomorrow.”
Kase hurried out, and suddenly there were four pairs of little girl eyes on him. There were two new little girls there. One was a husky little thing with blonde braids and a flannel shirt and Ropers. She stared right at him, focused as a laser.
“Hi. I’m Naomi.”
“This is Uncle Brooks.” Mina launched into his arms for a hug. “He’s my dead daddy’s brother.”
“My mom is dead. She burned up in a fire.” Naomi held out her hand to shake and then held up her other arm, the place where a hand ought to attach nothing but smooth skin and scars.
“I don’t have a hand on this arm. Momma took it with her in the fire, but it doesn’t hurt and it shouldn’t freak you out, okay? ”
Brooks was fixin’ to die. “Fair enough. I’m glad it doesn’t hurt.”
He glanced at Coop, who was obviously unconcerned, little Nell in his arms.
“Me too.”
“Have you, have we had breakfast yet?” That was another little girl he’d never met, but she looked just like little Nell. He assumed they were sisters.
“I don’t know, Dani, have you had breakfast yet?” Coop asked.
It was little Nell who answered and nodded. “We did, but it wasn’t very good breakfast. It was only cereal.”
“Can we have pancakes?” Dani asked.
“I like pancakes!” Mina piped up, and, boom, there was Johnny.
“I like pancakes. Did you know we were having a party tonight? My friend is coming, Mike. We’re gonna do Legos.” Johnny bounced a little before plopping into a chair.
“I’ll start bacon.” Coop grinned at him. “Welcome to the main event, man. You know how to make pancakes? Because I guess we’re making pancakes.”
Brooks nodded. He could do this. He’d said he was going to help, and be a part of this family, dammit. “I know how to make pancakes.”
“Excellent, let’s do it.”
Lucy came in out of the front yard where she’d been playing with the dogs. “Pancakes? Mason, there’s gonna be pancakes!”
For a quiet little girl, that teenager could beller.
“Coming! Is there gonna be bacon?” Mason called.
Brooks tilted his head. “I notice you didn’t call Ricky.”