Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
CALDER
Landry wipes a hand across his brow. “I forgot how much cleaning is involved in this shit.”
He’s actually in jeans today. They’re more pristine than mine were before I started working in them.
As for shirts, he didn’t pull any of his old clothing out of the boxes downstairs at the house.
His polo is infinitely better quality than the ones purchased for the Jules Creek logo.
Its charcoal-gray color is nicer, but there’s a small hole in the side where he caught it on a valve.
When I arrived for lunch, the guys had already tipped a delivery driver a couple hundred dollars to bring lunch from Williston. Now I’m playing catch-up. “Did one of you get the original gravity on the wort?”
Landry drops his arm. “Of course, boss.”
“It’s McBossy.”
Bowen rounds the stills from where he was securing the pallets for tomorrow’s shipment. “Who’s McBossy?”
“Me.” I grin. “I’ll let you figure out which of you is McNerdy and McModel.”
“McModel?” Landry screws his face up and leans against the edge of the mash tank. “I haven’t modeled in years.”
“You’re doing it right now.” Bowen shoots him a shit-eating grin.
Landry pushes off the tank, scowling. “McNerdy fits.”
Bowen clutches his chest. “That hurts so much. I’ll staunch the blood with my money.”
This could go on forever. “Circling back to the OG, can you write it down?”
“I forgot it already.” Landry shrugs. “Oops.”
It’s not the end of the world. We track the specific gravity to estimate fermentation times and alcohol content, but having that first reading helps. And makes Meredith stress less when all the logs are filled in.
“Kidding.” Landry flashes me his million-dollar grin. “It was ten thirty.”
“Then write it down. You can’t just smile at the software to have it do what you want. You have to write one point zero three zero.”
His lips twist in an arrogant smirk. “Okay, Dad.”
My irritation cranks up. “I’m not like him.”
Bowen makes a tsking noise. “We’ll see ‘bout that next Friday, when I drive a heifer right into you.”
“The reason Dad got upset is because you did it on purpose, and it was always the mean ones.”
“Nah. The mean ones never lasted long.”
For all his faults, Dad watched out for us. If there was a cow that got too aggressive, she was gone. If a horse was too unpredictable, he sold it. Even if a rooster charged us, we had a fresh bird in the freezer. It made what he did feel all the worse.
“Knock, knock,” a familiar woman’s voice calls. “You boys in here?”
I didn’t lock the door when I arrived. With the three of us, an intruder would be an idiot. Doesn’t mean I want an interruption.
My brothers follow me, and we find Shirley from the bank walking in. She pushes large sunglasses into her blonde-and-gray curls and beams at us. Her husband, Charlie, enters behind her. They’re both dressed like we’re a pit stop on the way to the golf course.
“Sorry, guys,” he says. “I told her ain’t nothing that can’t wait until Monday, but we ran across Esme in the grocery store. Said you’re working here all weekend.”
“It’s not a problem,” I reply. “Do you need one of us, or all three of us?”
“All of you, if I can get you.” Shirley pulls a chair out and sits like she’s going to hang out for a pint. “We’re dedicating the new baseball diamond to your dad during A Scandalous Affair days. Can you be there? It’d mean a lot to have all of you.”
None of us answer immediately. A Scandalous Affair is a street fair that attracts thousands. It keeps Scandal on the map. Will the brewery have a booth there? Hopefully, we’re already registered so my brothers can’t abandon the idea and tank an excellent three days of income.
Shirley is waiting for our answer. I don’t want to be the first to tell her that none of us plans to stay longer now Dad’s funeral is over, and I’m sure my brothers don’t want to announce that they would have already left if it weren’t for Carlos and the cattle.
After her request, it feels like I’m letting down the town.
Why would a baseball diamond be dedicated to Dad?
The atmosphere turns awkward. Charlie inspects the tips of his white New Balances.
“It’s like that then,” Shirley says decisively. “I thought maybe you were sticking around. I’m guessing all of this is yours now?”
She’s being nosy, and she knows we know it. Carlos, Esme, and Bea haven’t spread the word. Might as well rip the bandage off. Shirley’s not here in an official capacity with the bank, so she’ll probably tell everyone she can.
“Yes, ours and Meredith’s.”
“A four-way split, eh?” Charlie’s grinning at the top gossip we just dropped. He smells the hint of scandal to go with the town’s name.
A smile plays over Shirley’s lips. “So who do I deal with? All of you?”
“We won’t be taking any more loans.” I didn’t mean to say that, but I don’t regret it. I want to help the community, but I don’t want to be used by them. The interest from our properties on loans is covering Shirley and Charlie’s golf afternoon.
Shirley lifts a shoulder, undaunted. “With more help, you might not have to. Ram ever tell you the something big he was working on?”
My curiosity piques, and my brothers check each other out to see if Dad said anything. Damn, they don’t know either. “Something big?”
“We talked here and there.” She doesn’t have to say about what. The debt and the failing businesses. “He mentioned he had something in the pipeline that could solve a lot of problems.”
I file the information away to ask Meredith. She said he’d been in his head. She would’ve told me. Unless she was waiting to see how it all played out.
No. That’s not like her.
“We haven’t finished going through his things,” is all I say.
“Sure, sure.” She drums her fingers on the counter. “Well, you know where to find me. About the dedication—you sure none of you can make it? I’m certain Meredith will be there.”
She will be, and it’ll be to represent all of us now. I’ll be in my office in Denver, fielding half the calls lighting up my phone and answering a billion emails. I’ll have two monitors filled with numbers pulled up in front of me.
“Sorry, Shirley,” Bowen says. “I’m heading home after the cattle drive.”
Her face lights up. “Oh, exciting. I’m going to miss Ram’s stories. I was hoping I’d keep hearing them through all of you.”
“Bowen herds ones and zeros now,” Landry says, “and I herd marketing campaigns. I won’t be there either.”
“Darn.” Her shoulders droop. “Your dad did so much with the place. He couldn’t kick in any donations, but he was there with the Bobcat smoothing out the dirt. That guy was always willing to lend a hand. He couldn’t drop cash like Gil, but he dedicated his time and energy to what mattered to him.”
Dad is imprinted all throughout this community, and the people want to acknowledge him. I make people wealthy but rarely receive thanks. Sometimes, I get a Christmas card I barely glance at. There won’t be any baseball diamonds named after me. My community doesn’t spread beyond my office.
“I’ll see if I can make it,” leaves my mouth before I can think twice.
With Shirley and Charlie’s attention on me, Bowen mouths, “What the fuck?” Landry crushes his molars together.
My gaze strays to the windows. Fluffy white clouds fill the blue sky. I’m supposed to be gone by the time my brothers leave, but I left an opening to stay longer. I’m not upset about it, but my clients will be, as will my staff.
“Let me get your deets.” Shirley logs my number into her phone and promises to send me the information. When she and Charlie are gone, the guys round on me.
“Why did you tell her you might be there?” Bowen demands. “Your phone is going as crazy as mine, but you’re going to risk what you built for a baseball diamond?”
I should’ve prepared for this, but I don’t have any more answers. “To represent the Crosses, since you fuckers are heading for the hills.”
“Damn right, we are.” Landry pushes in the chair Shirley was sitting in. “I haven’t been on a baseball field since my senior year.”
Bowen snaps his fingers. “Did you do that one shoot—”
“Jackass.” Landry glares at him.
“—in nothing but a jockstrap? On first base?” Bowen snickers and poses with a leg kicked out, and Landry struggles to hide his smile.
I can’t hold back my chuckle. Hell, I missed this the most. “We mean something to the town. Like it or not, we are still a part of it for longer than we thought.”
“And only one of us doesn’t seem to mind.” Landry rubs his lower lip between his thumb and his forefinger. “The reason seems pretty clear. It has the last name Winslow.”
“Or are you taking the extra time to convince Meredith that selling really is best?” Bowen asks, as if he thinks I won’t.
The tug-of-war continues. I’m not coercing Meredith. I may be ruthless in business, but I’m fair. It’s my brothers’ insistence to offload everything that created our foundation in life that’s giving me pause. It feels… wrong.
“The Crosses are part of Scandal. That’s going to be our name on that baseball field—a place Dad helped with, because we all played on the old one, and he wanted future generations in Scandal to keep playing.”
Bowen sucks his lips against his teeth. “If he wanted future Cross generations, he should’ve thought of that instead of thinking with his dick. With us gone, keeping everything going will be too hard for Meredith.”
My frustration heats the back of my neck. “It doesn’t have to be.”
Bowen knocks on the tabletop. “We already decided what we were going to do. Now you’re changing your mind, which affects all of us.”
“You’re thinking with your dick like Dad,” Landry adds.
“Never”—my voice goes low—“demean Meredith to nothing but a fuck.”
Bowen and Landry exchange a loaded look.
“Funny,” Landry drawls. “I remember Dad saying the same thing about Holly a long time ago.”
I clench my fists. “Fuck off.”
Bowen pushes away from the table and stalks to the mash tanks. “Why don’t you go up to the office and look at all the red on your precious spreadsheets, then tell us just how far to fuck off?”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” I call after him.
“Yes,” Landry answers instead, “it does. We’ve lived an entire life since we left, and you made that happen for us.
Now you want us to risk it, to split ourselves between everything we’ve built and a place that didn’t even notice we were gone, and you’re willing to do it at the expense of Meredith, when you know the stress of it all could crush her.
You think we hate her and want to drag her down with everything else, but selling this?
It’s like putting a suffering animal out of its misery.
Sometimes, we have to be the bad guy in order to be good stewards of what’s in our care. Dad taught us that.”
He saunters to the stills, leaving me alone in the taproom.