Chapter 28
BOBBY
“Holy fuck.” I stare at the piece of paper in my hands in disbelief. “I’ve never seen that many zeroes. I don’t know what to say.”
Head down, elbows on my knees, I run a finger over the numbers and then the words, trying to feel them. The paper is smooth beneath my touch, but I can feel the importance of what this means.
Willow drops to her knees on the floor next to me, looking over my arm. “You earned it. Every penny. You heard what Stephen said.”
I did hear him when he called earlier this week. I just didn’t exactly believe him.
Promise me the big time, and I’ll be the fool for trusting you.
I signed that contract with Outlaw Records three months ago, and my life has changed since then in so many ways. And it somehow stayed the same in others. It’s an odd twist of fate.
On one hand, almost immediately after signing, I’d gone back to Nashville with Willow by my side. We’d had a week of fun—making music, taking pictures, and making love in lots of places that we’ll never, ever tell anyone.
Willow had sat by Miller’s side while we recorded every song I’ve ever written. Stephen said that would give us lots of options for the album and to release to radio. We’d chosen Dig Down Deeper as my first single, and it’d been an instant hit.
The first time I heard it on the radio, I’d pulled over, yanked the door open, and danced with Willow on the side of Main Street. My voice coming through the radio had been a surreal experience.
I’ve had another single make the top ten list since then, and yesterday, I gave my first radio interview from the kitchen table.
Weird doesn’t begin to describe that. The DJ had laughed when I said I had to go because my brother was waiting on me to harvest a batch of pumpkins.
I’d been serious, trying to talk about my music while Brutal glared at me from the doorway, occasionally glancing at his watch and then out the window at the height of the sun in the sky.
“Holy fuck,” I say again. When Stephen had told me what my share of the profits were, I’d laughed aloud, thinking he was shitting me. But here it is, in black and white.
“You sure about this? We could take this and go anywhere, do anything.” Dream talk of ‘what would I do if I won the lottery’ has become seriously fucking real with this piece of paper in my hands.
She turns my chin so that I meet her eyes and gives me a small smile. “Why would we go anywhere else, do anything else? This is home, yours and mine.”
Her mood-ring eyes swirl with happy light, and that she understands what this place means, not just to me but to my entire family, is nothing short of amazing. I don’t know what I did to deserve this woman, but I pray I can keep on doing it every day.
I bury myself in her arms, in her heart. In our future.
“Okay, let’s do this.”
The dinner table is loud and boisterous, as usual.
Cooper is telling a story about the school’s fall festival, and Brutal keeps jumping in to add details from the several times he’s heard the story before.
Cindy Lou is screeching, “Mama, more!” no matter how fast Sophie loads her plate with tiny, cut-up bits of carrots.
James and Mark are fighting over the best cuts of pot roast, and I’ve got my woman’s hand in mine, smiling as I take it all in.
Once, I thought we were going to truly falter, losing everything. But somehow, I ended up with more than I’d ever thought I would. Mostly, these people, but also . . .
I clear my throat. “I’ve got something I’d like to discuss.”
There’s an instant and abrupt stop of conversation. “You want to discuss something? Like, with actual words?” Brutal’s giving me shit, but this is too important to play into his hand. For now. Later, I’ll get him back.
“Shut up and listen,” I tell him. He glares back, and I’m pretty sure there’ll be a tussle in our future. Fuck, I love that guy.
I turn my attention to Mama Louise and take a steadying breath. I can’t believe this is happening. So many tears, so much fighting, so much lost, and so much found, and it all culminates in this moment.
“When things went bad after Dad, you saved us, truly saved us, and I don’t think there’s any way we could ever thank you for that.”
Mama Louise interrupts, “No thanks needed, Bobby. You know that. I’m doing right by your mom. She was a good friend of mine for a long time, and I think Martha would be real proud of how you’ve all turned out.” She looks around the table, meeting my eyes, then Brutal’s, Brody’s, and Shayanne’s.
“I think she would be too, but at least some of that is your doing,” I assure her. “We were at a crossroads, but now, we’re at another one.”
I can sense confusion around the table, but Mama Louise smiles as if she knows exactly where I’m going. She probably does. She always knows everything.
“Things are going well with the music stuff. Real good, actually.” I clench my teeth, not believing that I’m about to say this, even though I’ve studied it from every angle.
“You have the deed to the farm. I have money now. I want to make a large down payment and start making monthly payments to you so that we can buy Tannen Farm back. We need to own it again.”
Three, two, one . . .
“What? No.” Brody’s response is exactly what I expected.
“Hear me out,” I demand, but his head is shaking vehemently, already having made up his mind.
Mama Louise looks to Mark, but I’m too busy dealing with Brody to decipher their silent conversation.
“I’m supposed to take care of us,” Brody argues, thumping his chest.
“You’ve been taking care of us my whole adult life, literally since I was a grumpy-ass eighteen-year-old kid pouting at the unfairness of life.
God knows, you put up with enough of my shit.
But I’m grown now, Brody, and in case you haven’t noticed, we’re a team.
We each pull our weight, take care of each other, and this is something I can do for us. For the Tannens.”
We don’t beg or plead. This is two bulls ramming heads against each other, immovable forces battling for dominance. Mama Louise doesn’t even bother correcting my language, letting us work this out between ourselves.
“No, absolutely not. No.” He’s not going to budge, but I’ve got an ace up my sleeve. He doesn’t want me to do this, but he wants to own our farm again more. I just have to make him admit that.
“That name on the fence used to mean something. It was ours. Tannen Farm, remember? It can be that way again—our land, our property, our farm . . . if you let me do this for us.”
Family roots, deeper than dirt, run into my soul and grow toward the sun.
“Maybe if you explain what you’re thinking,” Mama Louise says gently.
I swallow, feeling like I’m stepping onstage for the first time—those nerves, the questions of whether I’m good enough, and the excitement that I could make something happen.
“We’d make a down payment now and work out monthly payments, like I said.
You’d essentially be the mortgage company, Mama Louise.
And when we’ve paid off the loan, it’ll be ours again, free and clear. ”
“That sounds good,” Mama Louise agrees easily.
Mark isn’t such an easy sell, following Brody’s refusal but for a different reason.
“Land aside, how’re we supposed to figure out the rest of the ranch? We didn’t just buy your acres. We bought the whole operation—animals, crops, and equipment. They’re all Bennett assets now.”
I shrug heavily. “I’m not sure, but I figure between all of us, we can work it out.
A co-op, working together? Or we can buy cattle back for a price per head?
Ranching and farming have been going well so far, so maybe there’s a way to keep things how they are, sharing the profits and the work.
We’ll still be family, all of us. I don’t want that to change.
We’ll just have our own land, our own legacy back, but a shared future between the Tannens and Bennetts. ”
I don’t have all the details worked out. That is Brody’s area of expertise, and I trust him to work with Mark to figure it out, and Allyson can do whatever legal contract work we need. But first, they have to agree to let me buy the farm back.
Mama Louise sets her fork down and interlaces her fingers. “Sounds good to me if it’s okay with the boys.” She looks at James, who nods, Luke, who holds his hands out, and Mark, who grunts but looks at Brody.
The ball’s in his court.
“It’s yours, Brody,” I tell my brother, sharing business I know he’d rather keep private, but if I don’t lay everything out now, we’ll all pay the price of his stubborn pride. “I know you need it. But it’s ours.”
Rix lays her hand over Brody’s. I don’t know what conversations they’ve had about our family and our farm, but she seems to know how much this means and how difficult it is for him to agree.
I need to give him a way to save face, a reason to say yes.
Lighter, I joke, “Besides, I’m gonna need a place to come home to after my concert tours.
Roughing it in one of those fancy RV buses with my name on the outside is gonna be hard.
Actually, I might just buy one and park it where your truck is now. ”
He chuckles, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “You’re such a shit. Had to rub my nose in that, didn’t you?”
To her credit, Mama Louise still doesn’t interrupt to correct his language, though I think she’s literally biting her tongue not to do so. I’m sure she can sense that we’re on the verge of something major.
“I could probably get you tickets next to Shay’s if you want? Probably not free, but at a discount, at least.”
Brody throws a solid punch at my shoulder, and I rub at the bright spot of pain. For a moment, I think he’s going to agree that easily. But he sobers and shakes his head. “Bobby—”
Willow interrupts his sad tone, musing aloud, “Sometimes, you love by doing things for people. I get that, believe me, I do.” Her eyes pin Brody.
“You get that. Maybe we do things differently, but you take care of them.” She doesn’t have to explain who she means.
We all know what Brody has done for us, how much he’s given up to handle everything when Dad went off the rails.
And they all understand why Willow did what she did too.
“But I’ve learned that doing things for others sometimes means letting them do stuff for you. ”
Brody looks at Shayanne, who’s smiling wide enough to see nearly every tooth in her head. Then Brutal, who grunts.
Finally, we’re eye to eye.
“It’ll be rough out here without you, but I reckon we can make it work while you’re on the road in that fancy tour bus with people chanting your name.
Can’t say I understand it.” He scratches at his lip with his thumb.
“But I can’t fault people for their poor taste if it’s buying the family farm, now can I?
” The sarcasm runs deep through every syllable.
If he’s back to giving me shit, that means we’re going to be okay.
And it means that he’s agreeing.
“To be clear, I don’t care whose name is on which acre or what tag is on each cow’s ear.
I’ll expect you all to dinner at six thirty every night like usual, and polite manners require a phone call if you’re skipping out.
Understood?” Mama Louise’s tone allows for zero disagreement, not that any of us would.
“Yes, ma’am,” we all say. We might be big, strong, rough country guys, but we know where our bread is buttered and who does the buttering, so we won’t ever piss Mama Louise off by not showing up at her dinner table.
With that decree, Mama Louise picks her fork back up and gets back to eating. Following her lead, we do the same.