Chapter Nineteen
Brynlee
Rhett canceled on me last night, saying something came up at work, and he’s been cold since he picked me up. The drive to his childhood home was silent, and even though he introduced me to his family, he acts strangely.
I pull him outside, away from everyone, and I try to look into his eyes. He avoids my gaze, and I know something’s off. I feel it, and it stirs something sickening in my stomach.
“Do you not want me here?”
“Do you not want to be here?”
“Not if you don’t want me to be.”
He finally looks at me. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“And you didn’t answer mine. What’s wrong?” I ask. “Did I do something to upset you? You’re pushing me away, and I don’t know why.”
All Rhett does is shake his head, and he completely shuts down. Cuts me out. “It’s nothin’.”
“Then why haven’t you touched me since yesterday morning?”
When he came to get me, he didn’t hug or kiss me.
When we walked to his pickup, he didn’t open my door for me.
The drive here, he had his right hand on the wheel with his left out the window like the night of Carter’s birthday.
And when we parked, he walked up to the house, again not walking around to my side.
“It’s just busy at work.”
Busy at work? “I guess that makes sense. I wouldn’t want holding my hand in the pickup to get in the way of your busy work,” I say. “Thanks for helping make the nerves worse instead of calming them like you usually do.”
I walk back inside where the screaming chaos welcomes me, and I feel sick.
Maybe being around his family will calm him down.
Or maybe this is just a step too far for us right now.
Meeting the parents is big, and he’s the only one who can do that.
We’d need a medium to introduce him to Mama or Daddy, and I’m glad that’s not possible.
Mama would have him running for the hills for sure.
Every one of his siblings, in order, and their spouses were introduced, and they all keep tabs on me.
Edwin, the oldest and the sheriff, and his wife Sarah.
Darin and Rosemary. Clint and Lucy. Elena and Hayes.
Gemma and Isaac, who I thankfully already met when I bought my jeep.
Julia, who’s the seventh kid, and Elija. Then there’s Hardy and Zoey.
There are quite a few kids, but thankfully, no one does introductions for them.
I can remember his siblings and spouses, but the kids prove to be a challenge.
Especially when a few of them haven’t stopped running around for me to get a proper look at them.
It’s exactly what I always dreamed of for holidays.
Big and boisterous, rather than ridiculously large and gaudy.
Everyone has been welcoming, but I feel like I’m under a microscope. At least whatever issue Rhett seems to have taken with me hasn’t been shared with the rest of his family. If it had, they’d probably hate me as much as it feels like he does right about now.
His mother, Lydia, is a plump woman with cotton candy white hair, and I love her immediately. I have yet to meet his father who is in the yard with more of the kids.
I don’t really know where to go with Rhett acting like this, and I wish I’d driven separately. I could fake an illness and go curl up on my couch to wonder what I did wrong.
“Bryn—”
“Rhett, go watch the game with the others,” Lydia says. “I’d like to talk to Brynlee.”
She waves a hand to shoo him away, and he sighs. “Mom—”
“You waited this long for me to meet your girlfriend, so you must pay the price by lettin’ me interrogate her. Now, go, young man.”
My eyes widen as he gives his mother a look I can’t quite decipher, but he pats my shoulder. It’s a weird, almost unfriendly gesture that makes me feel even worse.
As I sit on the stool on the other side of the kitchen island where Lydia works, I realize no amount of pageants or meeting any other suitor’s parents have prepared me for this. This is scarier than standing on stage in a bathing suit being judged.
“I should probably warn you that I’m not strong in the kitchen. I’ve been teaching myself, but I’m kind of a disaster,” I say, terrified she’ll ask me to help with what looks like pies.
Her warm brown eyes match Rhett’s, and it gives me a little relief. “Your mother didn’t teach you?”
“She taught me many things, but she wasn’t big on domestic duties. That’s what you hire out for.”
She gasps as she rolls out the dough. “What did she teach you, then?”
“How to marry rich, mostly,” I say with a shrug. “Didn’t quite stick.”
To my surprise, she laughs and leans on the counter. “So, you know Rhett’s not a rich man, then. He won’t be buyin’ any castles in the sky anytime soon, and you’re okay with that?”
“Let’s just say I don’t quite share my mother’s sentiments when it comes to seeking out companions,” I say, hoping my training of staying cool under scrutiny kicks in soon.
I desperately want Lydia to like me. “As I’ve gotten older, it’s become glaringly apparent that Mama was a bit of a shallow woman.
She wasn’t a bad person, and I don’t feel she was a bad mother, but she and I have very different ideas of what a successful life looks like. ”
“Tell me about yourself.”
The kitchen has ingredients spread out everywhere, and she has multiple pots and pans on the stove as well as pies in various stages of completion.
I watch in complete fascination as Lydia just floats around, adding something here, stirring something else over there, putting this in the oven over here.
“I, uh, I was raised in Ohio and moved around until we landed in Chicago around four years ago. My parents divorced when I was five, and I didn’t see much of Daddy after that. His parents left me their house, and that’s kind of how I ended up here.”
“Carmichael, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Jensen and Kathleen?”
I nod. “Yes, ma’am. Joe was my father.”
Two boys who look to be around six years old run through the kitchen. Gemma hurries after them, shouting, “Stay out of the kitchen, do you hear me?”
They sprint outside through a door I hadn’t noticed, and I can’t help but smile when they both shout, “Yeah!” over their shoulders.
“Your father was in the same class as my youngest brother,” Lydia says, and it amazes me how easy it is for her to just move on from the chaos around her. “I’m from a family of twelve. From what Barry says, your father left this town in the dust the minute he graduated and never looked back.”
Twelve? She’s one of twelve and went on to have eight? “That sounds right.”
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
“No, just me. Mama was from Fox Trot Valley, and she left with Daddy. It still makes me laugh that they wanted out of here, and this place is all I want. It’s been nice to slow down.
I like it out here, but Mama would hate it.
She always wanted to be in New York City, but she settled for Chicago in the end. ”
“Where is she now?”
I look at the counter. “Um… behind Saks Fifth Avenue in Chicago. It’s where she wanted her ashes spread. It’s strange, I know, but that was my mother.”
“She passed?”
“Just over a year ago. Cancer. And a car accident took Daddy, so it’s just me.”
“Oh, dear, I’m so sorry to hear that. Well, I’m glad Rhett brought you here today. It has to be a bit of a culture shock, huh?”
Laughing, I nod, relaxing a bit in my navy dress that is far too overdressed compared to everyone else. “It was hard for me to imagine Rhett as one of eight. This is amazing. I always wanted a big family.”
“Rumor around town is that you’re a beauty queen.”
I pinch my eyes shut. I really wish I hadn’t opened up my big mouth. “When I was nineteen, I won Miss Ohio. It earned me a modeling contract, but that was all Mama. I… I hated pageants. I was basically a trained poodle who wore evening gowns and walked on two legs instead of four.”
When I open my eyes, Lydia’s watching me with amusement. “I like that image. Except it’s poodles wearin’ bikinis in heels on two legs.”
I laugh. “That’s not that far off, actually. I really don’t like being the center of attention, which is kind of all I seem to find myself in around here. But I still like it here better than Chicago.”
“You ran from Chicago? Were you runnin’ from somethin’?”
This really is an interrogation. “I was engaged to a man named Kevin. Mama loved him. I didn’t.”
“But you were goin’ to marry him?”
How do I explain this without sounding like a total jerk with no backbone?
“It was all right after Mama passed, which was really quick. We weren’t what a lot of people would consider close, but she was my only family.
And she was just… gone. Kevin came from a powerful and rich family, and Mama loved him.
He was there when I had no one, and I always wanted to please Mama.
I felt like I had to honor that until I realized I would be miserable for the rest of my life if I did. ”
“You never really wanted to marry him?”
This makes me sound like the worst person in the world.
“No. I didn’t. I know it sounds bad, but it’s the truth.
Nothing with us ever felt right. The more the planning got underway, it started to suffocate me.
The walls were closing in. I didn’t want this life that Mama wanted for me.
Then there was the whole affair with a twenty-two-year-old secretary that kind of did it for me.
I packed up and left while he was on a business trip with her and never looked back. ”
Lydia stops and stares, her mouth wide open. “What?”
“Yeah, you’d think it would be shocking, but it’s actually really common. The cheating thing. It’s not about love as much as it is appearances. Everything feels like a business deal.”
“Appearances?”