Chapter 38
Kipp
The Public House made me relax as soon as I stepped inside with that familiar smell of beer and peanuts hitting me as soon as I pushed the door open.
My shoulders relaxed the moment I stepped inside.
The place was alive with energy. Pool balls clacked in a corner, someone shouted for another round, and the speakers played a country song from about twenty years ago.
The Public House was somewhere that I didn’t frequent often, but it was still nice to come to a place where nearly everyone recognized me.
My brothers made sure to pull me out for company at least a few times each month.
Lately, I’d been plenty busy with Hattie, so I wasn’t quite as alone as I had been in the past. Even this trip into town had been fit in after a sweaty all-day search, but Hattie wasn’t missing hanging out with the girls.
I wasn’t sure it qualified as a night out, and I’d said as much, but she didn’t seem to care.
Her hand swung in mine as we skirted around the tables. “This is very cowboy,” she whispered to me.
“Is it?” I smirked back. It really was. Line dancing had already started on the floor with hips swinging and boots stomping, which Hattie eyed with speculation. “You dance, Trouble?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she teased.
Wade and East had already commandeered a booth near the pool table. Wade lounged in his chair like a man who believed in conserving energy, while East sat forward with elbows planted and hands active as he talked. Both of them turned when we walked up.
“I’m going to leave you here.” Hattie twisted to give me a light kiss. “I see my table over there.”
No doubt about it. Her cheering section was already at their own booth.
My sisters were waving her over, holding up what looked like margaritas and shots.
Hattie had woken up this morning with her period, and shockingly, we were both unreasonably disappointed.
We had to leave to meet up with CID and hadn’t fully processed it yet, but I wanted to talk to her about it later when we got home.
A serious talk this time about what it meant, and where we were going together.
“Have fun.” Returning her kiss, I squeezed her hand, feelings flooding me as I headed over to my brothers.
“There he is,” Wade said, his grin slow and sharp. “We know you had to finish up with Casper, but Jesus, you two took forever.”
Snorting, I pulled out the empty chair. They were both still dusty and sweaty from the search. “Hattie wanted to freshen up before we came. Obviously, you two didn’t bother.”
Wade flicked a peanut shell at me, but East beat him to the punch, laughing so loudly the bartender sent him a glance that was the precursor to a warning.
The Holt boys could get rowdy. We’d gotten past that now that we were grown-up, but there had been times we’d been a bit of a handful.
“There were wipes involved, but it isn’t like we stink too bad.
” East fluffed out his shirt and gave himself a whiff and then wrinkled his nose. “Maybe I should have changed my shirt?”
“You’re fine,” Wade said, but even he didn’t sound convinced.
I took Wade’s beer and drank half of it before he realized what I was doing.
The cold bitterness hit my chest in a warm bloom, slowly loosening the tension I’d been holding since I left the site.
Between starting the day, thinking about finding Allison’s body, and realizing that the grid search came up empty, I felt wrung out.
“Geez, dude. Rude. That’s yours now.” He wrinkled his nose at me, ignoring my grin.
“Fine.” I shrugged. Giving each other shit was basically a sport in our house growing up, and drinking his beer was me letting him get off easy at this point. “Thanks for coming out today.”
“No problem,” Wade grunted. “Glad that CID is involved at this point. Galloway got suspended by the town council today.”
I heard that from Casper when we finished up. Apparently, they had no choice after being presented with evidence from CID. It was either that he was incompetent or that it was criminal, and Casper would prove one way or another, but Galloway was suspended until then.
“Are they going to bring him up on any charges or anything for this bullshit?” East grumbled, breaking a peanut shell and tossing one into his mouth.
“There are a lot of things that would need to happen before they could accuse him of a crime. Did he not do his job? For sure, but can they make criminal charges stick? If they could prove that he was the one who cleaned up the blood in the car, that’d be tampering or concealing.
That’s a crime. Right now, we know for sure that he didn’t place the order to process it properly. That might be enough. We’ll see.”
One of the waitresses came over with a pitcher for us and another glass. “Figured you guys would want one of these.”
“Thanks, Aurora.”
Wade picked up where I left off. “It sucks East, but the legal shit only goes so far.”
“It does suck. Y’all know that guy is dirty,” he grumbled, tossing another peanut in his mouth. “I don’t know how y’all do it.”
“He won’t work again—that’s for damn sure. My goal is to get his pension cut.” It was brutal, but now that I saw the car and the evidence, he deserved no less. Doubtful he’d get jail time, but I didn’t want him fat-catting on his piece of property somewhere. “Least he deserves.”
“That’s for sure,” Wade grunted, raising his arm in greeting. “Cole,” he called. “Come on over.”
We all smiled in greeting as Cole Truman, Wildwood Meadow’s resident fire chief, crossed the bar.
He had come out for a few hours but was called away for most of the day.
His department was small and staffed with limited personnel, so he was often on call.
Like us, he loved the community, and in the year he’d been here, he and his daughter had begun to find their place.
He slapped me on the back as he sat. No denying the guy was a hard worker, and I respected the hell out of his wildfire management experience. I liked him too.
“Sorry, I got called away. I would have liked to have been there the whole day.”
Aurora slid past our table and handed him another mug, receiving a grateful smile before she hurried off to where the ladies were, apparently having ordered shots.
I cringed a little. My sisters were all on the wild side when it came to tequila.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. It was mainly Sage’s fault. She was the tequila monster.
“No worries. We get how call-outs go. How’s Elvie?” I asked.
Cole’s face broke into a smile. We all knew by now that he came alive around his little girl, a dark-haired four-year-old who had him wrapped around her finger.
“She’s amazing as always. Runs me a little ragged, but she’s smarter than all the other kids in daycare. When she calls me daddy, it’s the best feeling in the world.”
“I can imagine.” Wade gave him an indulgent smile.
The thing was, I was imagining what it would be like to be called ‘daddy’ now, too. Just a month ago, it would have sent a wild panic through me, with my bowels quivering, but the idea had settled into my bones now.
“How’s Lila, East? We haven’t been able to get to the bookstore lately, and Elvie has been on my case about it.”
East’s face softened immediately. “She’s good. Making her book club plans always keeps her super busy, but she has a lot of fun doing that. I’m going to build her a new kids’ reading nook next month. Elvie will probably like that.”
Even though East’s contracting business here in town had taken off and he and his partner, Jett, who had another branch in Idaho, were busy, he always found time for side projects.
I’d meant to ask him for some help with the property over on the Annex side of things.
I only had one isolated cabin there right now, and it hadn’t ever been rented.
I needed to build an access road to the main lodge, but hadn’t gotten around to it.
Initially, Lila was going to help with marketing for the cabins, but she’d gotten busy, and truthfully, I hadn’t been ready to rent them out yet.
We had a few more cabins renting this week, and Sage’s portal was up and running.
“I’m sure she will. Anything relating to the bookstore she loves.
It might be because she gets a treat when she goes in, and she feels like a princess.
They do a great job of making sure the kids feel good about themselves when they visit.
Elvie loves the stickers and looking for letters she recognizes in the stacks.
That seek-and-find alphabet setup for the younger kids was ingenious. ”
East smiled proudly. “Lila comes up with great ideas.”
“She does. I can’t wait to see the reading nook you come up with.” Cole popped a few peanuts in his mouth while glancing at the girls dancing on the floor, trying to teach Hattie how to line dance. “Hattie going to stick around?”
“I hope so.”
Wade shot me a sidelong glance. “You want her to stay with you up at the cabins in your secluded wonderland?”
“Maybe I do,” I chuckled.
Wade let out a low whistle. “So it’s like that.”
“She’s special.” Looking at her with her hair swirling around her and her nose all awkwardly scrunched up as she concentrated, I realized I was so far gone it wasn’t funny. “I never thought that...”
East tilted his chair back and raised his beer in my direction. “You like her.”
“Yeah. More than.” I sat back, feeling the truth of it and the weight of everything attached to it.
“That’s great, Kipp,” Wade said, quieter this time, giving me a considering look.
The music shifted, flowing into a steel guitar melody that touched something deep and familiar.
Aurora dropped off a round without asking, but she also brought a pitcher of ice water and glasses, giving us a knowing look.
She knew we were really here to watch after our sisters, and East was here to watch over Lila.
I felt like I’d joined the club, though. Snorting, I laughed at Hattie’s antics.
“She really can’t figure out that line dance.”
East chuckled. “She’s struggling.” Hattie was half-twerking and doing a sort of cute tap dance thing. “She just needs practice.”
“If you say so,” Wade snorted. “We won’t make fun, though. She’s family.”
“So we can now,” East reasoned.
Hattie turned and waved at us, nearly tumbling into Chloe as she did.
I would have never guessed her to be uncoordinated, considering how she moved in bed, but apparently, line dancing was her kryptonite.
We all waved back like fools and started chatting about stupid stuff like East’s newest construction project and Wade’s new parking meters.
I kept my focus on the chaos on the dance floor and thinking up all the fun things I’d do to her later.