7. brooks
seven
brooks
. . .
You Make That Look Good - Scotty McCreery
A few mornings after the Sunday evening cookout at the main house, Everett and I find ourselves at a loss. We both have a rare day off, and after taking Periwinkle and Della out for a long ride at sunrise, we’ve walked aimlessly around the ranch and found ourselves at the Hart property.
My parents’ home is exactly as it always is: every surface holding trinkets and memories, all natural wood edges and ocean blues.
It even smells kind of like sea salt and driftwood.
It’s a little like being in a seaside chalet…
except that we’re landlocked in Texas and about a gazillion miles from the nearest coastline.
The sights and smells are something I’m trying to be more conscious of. Take a little less for granted as my parents get older. As I get older. I close the fridge, juggling two bottles of water and an apple, and head for the back porch.
Mom and Dad grew up together on the ranch.
Their parents all worked for Everett’s Grandaddy Smith, who used to run the place, and I guess when they got married, they just never left.
My parents were born here. Harriet was born here.
I was born here. My grandparents—family friends since before God himself was born, I’m pretty sure—all moved to Florida when they retired from ranch life, and now they live a mile and a half apart in cute little condos with ocean views and a better social life than I could ever hope to have for myself.
Growing up, we used to visit for a week twice a year.
It’s been a little while since I’ve seen them.
Far too long since I’ve called. I gotta fix that soon.
When Mom and Dad got married, Grandaddy Smith gifted them a parcel of land.
It’s not huge, not compared to the vast amount of land the family owns, but it’s a good three and a bit acres, and they built themselves a home.
When Harriet met Dean and moved out, they built a small cottage over on the far side of that same parcel of land.
Now they live there with my niece, Emmy Jean, their dogs, and a handful of chickens in a coop Dean and I built.
And in a few months, my nephew will join them.
It might not be our ranch in name, but this ranch is home to us.
And the Tanners? Well, they’re as much family to me as my own parents are.
To all of us, really. And as if to prove that point, a familiar screeched giggle assaults my ears as Emmy collides with Everett’s legs.
He scoops her into his arms and swings her up until she’s sat on his shoulders.
She’s almost at eye level with me now, and she pats my face delightedly with clammy hands.
“Hi, Miss EJ.” I lean in and press a smacking, noisy kiss to her chubby little cheeks.
“Unky Ev-itt! Unky Book! I walk doggies!”
“You walked the dogs?” Everett asks. He looks up, staring directly into Emmy’s face as she grins down at him.
As if summoned by his words, two golden retrievers bound over, leaping around one another and barking playfully.
I squat to rub both of their heads, receiving two large licks to my cheeks as thanks. Emmy shrieks with laughter.
“DADDY! Look, I big!”
“You sure are, Emmy Bug!” Dean tosses the dog leashes on the table and collapses onto the sofa.
He throws an arm up over his eyes and sprawls out, feet apart and legs stretched out in front of him.
Poor guy looks exhausted, and it’s barely eleven.
Everett lowers Emmy to the ground and she dashes off to inspect the flower beds.
She and Mom planted them at the start of the summer, and as the flowers have begun to bloom and grow, Emmy has been watching with the kind of wide-eyed wonder only a toddler can muster.
Ev and I take seats: I drop onto the sofa beside Dean, and Ev sits opposite us in one of the armchairs.
My parents’ back porch is newly remodeled, with a top-of-the-line grill and the most comfortable weatherproof furniture I’ve ever sat on to anchor the outdoor space.
It’s almost enough to have me coming straight here instead of my own cabin after a long day on the ranch.
Almost.
I like my own space too much. But I love being here. Being close to my family.
“You look pooped.” Everett looks pointedly at Emmy as he speaks, censoring his language.
“Ran 5K this morning before sun up. Vacuumed the whole house, top to bottom, while Bug threw her breakfast around the kitchen for me to clean up.
Little man is keeping Harriet up all night, and she needed some rest, so I brought Bug and the dogs over.
All three of ‘em were getting a little too rowdy at home. Hoping a nice long walk tired them out some.”
It looks like the dogs are tuckered out, at least. Flo yawns and settles down on the porch steps, paws outstretched to soak up the warmth in the wooden boards.
Dougie sits calmly near Dean’s feet, blinking slowly.
Dean reaches down to rub Dougie’s ears and the dog settles down, lying on his belly, head on his paws and eyes closed.
My brother-in-law loves those dogs almost as much as his wife and daughter.
He’s a canine specialist vet, and these two were brought to him as sickly newborn puppies, right around the time he and Harriet met.
He tube fed them hourly for days until they were strong enough to graduate to bottles, and eventually, solid food.
He never planned to keep them, but when the time came, he couldn’t give them up.
I think that’s part of the reason Harriet fell in love with him.
There was something so beautiful about the way he put everything he had into caring for those dogs, and he, Flo, and Dougie have been part of the family ever since.
“Training going well, I take it?”
“Yeah.” Dean sits up and leans his elbows on his thighs.
He’s running the Texas 10K in March in aid of the Tri-town Pups, a dog rescue he set up a few years ago.
“I don’t know how I’m gonna survive 10K in Texas heat, but running half that before sun up is going well, at least. Least I’ve got eight more months to train. ”
“How are the donations looking?” Everett tosses his bottle of water to Dean, who accepts it graciously.
“Good,” he says. “Maryanne says most everyone is donating a few extra dollars when they pay for their visit, so that certainly helps. And we’ve had a couple big ones, too. Most businesses in the whole Tri-towns have donated.”
“Has the ranch donated yet?” Everett asks. “Because we should.”
“I don’t know,” Dean says. He takes a long drink of water before twisting the cap back onto the bottle. “Josie would know.”
“Mom’s out at the main house.” I crunch into the apple, taking a large bite.
Mom started helping out with the financial side of the ranch business when Harriet was young, and after I was born, she finally put all of her work experience together, enrolled in online classes, and got her CPA license under the supervision of the ranch’s previous financial controller before he retired.
Now, Mom is in charge of the ranch finances, and she splits most of her working time between her own home office and the main house, where she gets to hang out with her best friend Edie Tanner all day.
And she spends half of that time watching Emmy whilst Harriet works. “Think Dad’s out at Skillett Creek.”
Beside me, Everett nods. We’d be out doing ranch chores today, too, if Mama Tanner hadn’t forced us to take a day off. She sat us both down last week and whipped our hides about working too much and how heavy it is on her heart to see us working ourselves to the bone.
She’s not wrong, though. As great as it is for my savings account, I’ve done nothing but work lately.
Even though a lot of days I’m done by early afternoon, or I get to sleep in and not start working until lunchtime, every day has been a work day.
I love my job, and I love this ranch. I love that I get to work with my family and with my best friend—and that our other best friend is a short horse ride away right over the property line.
But as thirty looms closer, and I see how happy my sister is with her growing family, I can’t shake the desire for more.
The idea that there’s more for me out there than simply being a cowboy.
I want what my parents have. What my sister has.
What I see Everett building with Ruth. I’ve been blasé about it up to now, content to have fun and live in the moment, but I’m noticing other peoples’ happiness more and more, and the angel and devil on my shoulders seem to be in cahoots.
They’re telling me it’s time to buck up and settle down.
“No tank you, bee!” Emmy says loudly, distracting me from my thoughts.
She stands stiff as a board as a fat bumblebee buzzes around a flowerbed nearby.
Dean looks up, immediately reaching for his pocket.
We found out the hard way about Emmy’s bee sting allergy last summer, when a bee got into the Tanners’ kitchen and stung her ankle.
Luckily, Mama Tanner had an EpiPen in the drawer, a spare one Ashton left behind after her last trip home.
Using someone else’s medication might not have been the most sensible thing to do, but Dean grabbed it and used it in time to overcome the worst of the allergy attack.
He rushed Emmy to the hospital in Farrow, and the doctors there said his and Mama Tanner’s quick thinking with the EpiPen saved her life.