Chapter 6 Brody
brODY
The sunset stretches over the horizon like a painting, huge and blazing as it sinks down over the western mountains. It’s beautiful and as I sit in the wooden chair James built a few months back, I feel… complete.
That’s the word – complete.
I look at my brothers, then the Bennetts, and something shakes loose inside of me. “The creatures outside,” I murmur, staring down at my hands, “looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again… but already, it was impossible to say which was which.”
“What?” Luke asks, his brow furrowed as he hands me a mason jar filled with Mama Louise’s special blend of sweet tea. The special blend is that it’s full of whiskey and can take out a full-grown man if he’s not careful. “Did you call us pigs?”
I chuckle as I answer, “It’s the last line of Animal Farm.”
“Still not hearing a no,” Luke prompts a bit more seriously.
Bruce pops me in the shoulder, damn near making me spill my tea. “Explain before I let ‘em atcha.”
I shrug, mostly to ease the pain from his backhanded hit. I’d say he doesn’t know his own strength, but he most definitely does. “I meant that, right now… sitting here… there’s no difference. Bennett, Tannen. Tannen, Bennett. We’re all the same.”
“Speak for yourself,” James says, stretching his arms overhead and his legs out in front of him like he’s posing for a magazine cover. “I’m clearly the sexiest man here. Pretty sure the Cowboy Channel even said so, once or twice.”
He’s not lying. They probably did. James was all the rage in the bull riding pros for a lot of years, gathering praise and buckles like he was collecting Pokémon, something I’ve only recently learned about because of the kids Ford goes to school with.
“Well, you’re definitely the man most full of bullshit,” Luke counters, kicking his brother’s foot.
Everyone laughs as Luke continues passing out tea to everyone.
The ladies are all inside, doing the dishes.
Not because we’re chauvinists, but because Mama Louise declared that they’d cheated at horseshoes and therefore, lost the tournament.
Mama’s inside with them, ‘supervising’, which likely means listening to them laughingly curse and cuss about us while she scoops up her famous cobbler and regales them with advice about marriage to an ornery man.
She would know. For all I’ve heard about the late, great John Bennett, I know that man never knew a day’s peace being married to a firecracker like Louise Bennett.
“You’re right,” Bruce says solemnly.
I peer at him, shocked. “Me? Right?” Out of the side of my mouth, I hiss, “Quick, someone write that down… the day Bruce said I, Brody Tannen, was right about any damn thing.”
“Never mind,” he snaps.
When I grin, conceding to him, he continues. “Few years ago, I would’ve bet money none of us would be sitting here like this. I -” His voice falters.
My brother, the hardest shelled nut of us all, breaks. Not into tears, but he does clear his throat roughly and take a deep swallow of tea.
“I know,” Mark tells him.
Encouraged by the next generation of Bennett patriarchs, Bruce says, “I thought I’d lost it all.
My heart, my family, my land. Every damn thing.
But here we are.” He glances around us at the fading light dancing over the wide-open acreage we roam freely across as one big family. “Turns out I just needed Allyson.”
“Well, and me,” Bobby taunts. “I’m the moneybags that got the farm back. Or did you forget?”
Bruce frowns at our brother. “No, dipshit. I didn’t forget.”
“I’m the one that bought it… and sold it,” Mark adds.
“Fuck all of you,” Bruce growls, taking another drink.
“Careful or that’ll give you whiskey dick tonight,” James tells him, gesturing to his glass with his own.
I laugh. “He already fucked Allyson in the barn. They’ll be snoring away by ten p.m.”
“You’re one to talk, old man.” He throws the insult at me like I give a shit that I’m the oldest Tannen.
“Might be old, but I can still kick your ass.” Silently, I add, and stay up past ten p.m. to fuck Rix.
I saw her getting dressed this morning and the pink panties she has on under her jeans have been dancing through my mind all day.
At the thought, I shift in my chair, giving my dick room to breathe.
“Ooh…” a chorus rings out through the group as they mistake my movements for fight prep.
“Oh shit, they’re gonna wrestle,” someone says. Probably Luke. My sister is a bad influence on him. “My money’s on Brody.”
Yep, that was Luke.
James whispers, “Twenty on Brutal. I mean, his name’s literally Brutal, and he’s got tackle experience on his side.”
“Brody’s scrappy though,” Luke argues.
“We can hear you,” I inform them both, but they don’t give a shit, both grinning and Luke opening his arms to invite us to tussle in the middle of the circle like this is Fight Club, not a pleasant family get-together. To my brother, I ask, “You wanna go?”
He shakes his head. “Nah, I’m comfy in this chair with my tea. And I have plans later that do not involve Allyson gluing me back together.”
“Again,” I tack on to his statement. It’s the hard truth of farm life – we break, we bend, we bleed, and sometimes, the best we can do is glue or staple or stitch ourselves back together.
“Hey, did I tell you about the horse I saw in Washington?” Luke interjects suddenly. “Damn thing threw me to the ground on day one. Split my eyebrow open.” He points to his brow, though we can’t see anything in the fading light. “Had to glue it shut.”
Ah, there’s the link. “Shay know about that?” I ask.
He recoils, “Hell no. She would’ve come out there and kicked the horse’s ass. He didn’t mean nothing by it, just got spooked. He was good by the time I left.”
We all chuckle. “She would’ve done that,” I tell Luke and he nods knowingly.
Looking around again, I realize something. “She’s the link. The one that started this chain reaction, connecting Bennett and Tannen, Tannen and Bennett. Though it nearly ended before it started when I found out about you two. I damn near killed you.”
“You wouldn’t have,” he counters.
“I wanted to,” I say truthfully. “But you’re right, I wouldn’t have. Shay would’ve killed me first.”
He grins proudly. “That’s my girl.”
“It’s all of them,” Mark says quietly, his sage wisdom ringing through us all. “The women. Mama too. They’re the links. We’re just the dangly bits that get brought along with them.”
“Huh, you said dangly bits,” I echo like the twelve-year-old boy I haven’t been in a long time.
He doesn’t let my moment of juvenile laughter deter him, continuing right on. “I think we’re the ducks,” he says hollowly.
Ducks. Ducklings.
It’s what Mama Louise calls the kids as they line up behind her, weaving this way and that as she leads them around the yard like the Mama’est duck of them all. In a way, the women are that for us, leading us men here and there… like their ducklings.
“Oh shit, we are,” someone says as we all come to the same realization simultaneously.
“Quack, quack,” I deadpan. “Wherever Rix wants to lead me, I’ll fucking follow. Straight to hell or right to heaven. I’m in for the long haul with her.”
“Me too.”
“Me three.”
In the end, we all nod, agreeing that we’d follow our wives anywhere. They lead us around by our dicks anyway, and our hearts.
We go quiet, staring into our teas and in the silence, I can hear the tinkling laughter of the ladies inside. “We got a good thing here, fellas. Family, friends, whatever you want to call it.”
“Brothers,” Bruce says.
“Brothers,” Mark agrees.
I hold my glass to the middle of our group. “To a brotherhood I never wanted, but one I’m fucking glad to have.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Luke says, clinking his glass to mine.
Bobby closes his eyes for a second and I peer at him questioningly.
When he opens, he taps his forehead, “Writing that down as inspiration.” With a grin, he knocks his glass to mine too, then around the group before taking a sip.
“Always thought if I could see those bright lights of Nashville, I’d never come back here.
Turns out, those lights just led me back to you assholes. ”
“And Willow,” I remind him.
His grin is lovestruck drunk. “And Willow,” he agrees.
“So we’re stuck with your caterwaulin’ around here?” James asks, not meaning any offense but just shit-talking like brothers do.
Bobby nods. “For a bit longer. I’ve got a few months before my next deadline, but the music’s flowing, and the trips will be shorter. My days of months-long tours might be over for a bit. At least until the girls are older.”
“Out and backs are where it’s at,” Luke says, talking from experience after his years of doing just that for his horse training and breeding programs that take him all over the world. “Just long enough to make ‘em miss you, but not so long that they figure out they can do it all without you.”
“Shayanne already knows that,” I deadpan.
“I fucking hate it when Sophie’s gone.” If the Cowboy Channel saw James’ pout right this second, they’d rescind their Sexiest Cowboy label for sure. “She’s been going clear over to Henderson county. Has to spend a couple of days to see about the livestock over there and it sucks every time.”
We know. When she goes, we all pitch in to help with Cindy Lou and Maisie. Not because James can’t take care of his daughters alone, but because those girls are their momma’s mini-me’s and would have him tied up in barn chores for days if we didn’t keep them distracted.
“Me and Johnny go stay at the resort when Katelyn has long events just so I can sleep next to her,” Mark admits. I swear if there was enough light to see him better, I think I’d find that he’s blushing at the confession.
“Rix won’t let me go with her to races. Says I distract her with my dick,” I offer, half-pouting and half-bragging.
Everyone laughs, but I’m dead serious.
Mark is the one to raise his glass this time. “To rough assholes turned ducks. May we remember who we are, but still be better tomorrow than we are today.”
“Language,” Mama Louise says, appearing from nowhere right behind Mark with Juniper in her arms. “You boys all know the love of the right woman can be a magical thing.”
“That it is,” we agree.
We drink, letting a comfortable silence settle as our bond hammers deeper into place. But before long, I’m thinking about Rix – and those damn panties again – and I’m sure the other guys are doing the same. About their wives, not mine and not her panties.
“Where are the ladies?” I ask finally.
Mama Louise’s smile is chilling. It looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, which means she’s up to something. And suddenly, the quiet evening starts to feel creepy.
“Oh, they’re around,” she says airily. “I’m sure they’ll come find you shortly, but I’m going inside to start some wind-down activities with the babies. They’re all sleeping over here tonight.”
That sounds great – the sleepover part, not the ladies finding us. The hairs on the back of my neck rise and I glance around at the dark surrounding us.
When Mama Louise makes her exit and the door clicks closed behind her, I scan the guys’ faces. “Should we be scared?”
Five nods answer me.
I toss back my tea. “Just checking. Let’s see what they’ve got in store for us.”