Chapter 25 #2
“That’s your Uncle Eli, right?” Reeves asked, remembering that Eli and his son, Stockton, had come to help Bailey move in the day Reeves had found her passed out in the snow.
“Yes,” she said. “And my uncle Beau is helping at the grill too.” She glanced around. “I don’t see Uncle Andrew.”
“Andrew’s not here yet,” OJ said. “I guess he went out to get in his truck, and it had a flat tire or something.” He barely took a breath before bellowing, “Grandma Laney, Bailey’s here!”
Those two words—Bailey’s here—caused every person who’d been working at the food table—a woman laying out tomato slices, another unwrapping cheese, and a third down at the end opening the condiment bottles and removing the little plastic pieces so they could be used—to look their way.
Bailey’s hand in Reeves’s tightened. “I told you he was exuberant,” she said. Then she painted a smile on her face and started toward the tent.
Reeves felt the moment they all moved their gaze from her to him, and that only took a second. He shouldered the weight of their eyes, glad he’d been able to go home and shower, put on fresh clothes and cologne, trim up his beard, and make sure he looked presentable.
Bailey took him under the tent, where her mother greeted them.
“Hello, my darling.” Her momma hugged her, a wide smile on her face as they pulled apart.
Bailey looked at Reeves. “Momma, you remember Reeves Durham. He’s my next-door neighbor.”
“Of course. How are you, Reeves?” Laney stepped in and hugged him, too. “Bailey told us you two have been seeing one another for a couple of months now.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Reeves said.
“And remember, Momma,” Bailey said, her eyes skirting to his. “We’re not moving fast.”
Laney cut her a look and then focused back on Reeves. “I remember.”
Graham joined them, and Laney said, “You remember Bailey’s daddy.”
“Of course I do,” Reeves said, and he extended his hand for the man to shake. “Good to see you again, Graham.”
Graham shook his hand, then pulled him into a hug, the same way Reeves had done with OJ. He laughed as he stepped back. “Welcome,” he said. “I see you guys met OJ on the way in.” Graham leaned forward. “He’s been watching for you for twenty minutes.”
“You don’t say,” Bailey said dryly.
Reeves chuckled, and that only brought every eye back to him.
“Grandpa Graham, do you think Bailey has time to look at the horse before we eat?” OJ called from the other edge of the patio.
Reeves looked that way and saw barns and stables standing at the end of a long sidewalk.
“No, son,” Graham said. “She can do it after.” He looked over to Bailey. “If she wants to do it at all.”
“Oh, all right.” The teenager didn’t seem happy with this answer, and he shaded his eyes as he looked back toward the stables.
“Come on over here, OJ,” Laney said. “I need you to run inside and get the ice.” She smiled at him as he returned to them, and he looked around at all of them.
“Oh, I know what’s going on here.” He stopped and cocked one hip.
Bailey grinned at him. “What’s going on, OJ?”
“You want to get rid of me, so you can tell Reeves all about me.”
“I’ve already told him all about you, OJ.”
Still, he narrowed his eyes. “I’ve seen this look on my uncles’ faces before—and my daddy’s. And then they always send me away to get something.”
Bailey burst out laughing, but she continued to shake her head.
“I’ll get the ice,” Reeves said.
But Laney said, “Absolutely not. You’re our guest, and you will not be doing anything to help with dinner. Besides, I want to introduce you around to Bailey’s aunts and uncles.”
She extended her arm toward Reeves, and he saw no other choice but to link his through hers and go with her. So he did.
Graham, Bailey, and OJ followed, and it seemed like they were going to tag-team introducing him to the other Whittakers. Laney introduced him to Beau with, “He’s Bailey’s new boyfriend.”
But OJ introduced him to Eli as “He’s a total online celebrity, you guys.”
And Bailey introduced him to Eli’s wife, Meg, by saying, “This is my boyfriend and my next-door neighbor, Reeves.”
He didn’t mind any of the introductions, and he shook hands and accepted quick hugs until he’d met every person there. Finally, a tall, broad-shouldered man clapped his hands together three or four times, creating a loud, booming sound.
“All right, all right, all right, we’re ready to eat!” he said.
Bailey leaned into Reeves’s arm and whispered, “Colton Hammond.”
“I’d forgotten his name,” Reeves said. “Thank you.”
“He got snowed in at the lodge one year,” Bailey said. “And he met Annie, his wife, who was our head housekeeper at the time. They live down in town now.”
Reeves nodded, and just as Graham said that he would offer grace, Bailey’s last uncle bustled outside carrying a sheet pan of what Reeves hoped were mint brownies.
“I’m sorry we’re late,” Andrew said, and he slid the brownies onto the end of the table and turned to take the big bowl from his wife.
Reeves couldn’t remember her name at the moment, and he told himself he didn’t have to memorize all of them in the first twenty minutes. Andrew’s eyes met his, and they both nodded at one another.
“We were just praying,” Graham said, then he ducked his head to do exactly that.
He didn’t start right away, and that gave Reeves time to reach up and remove his cowboy hat. A sense of peace and stillness fell over the space, and it reminded Reeves of the way the mountains could make all the nervousness inside him even out.
He’d never had a family unit like this. He’d never seen it, or felt this before, and Reeves swallowed hard, because he had no idea what to expect next. But he sure enjoyed this feeling as it trickled through him, and he wanted to bottle the pure serenity and let it out the next time he needed it.