Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Myles
I’d worked all goddamn weekend. It was Monday, I was in a shitty mood and hadn’t left the distillery for days.
Some fresh air would help. So would getting laid after suffering blue balls for days.
Weeks. But my gut told me that a random lay wouldn’t satiate me.
Nor would another girl match the sounds Wynn had struggled to hide when I was between her legs.
Fucking heaven.
I liked sex as much as the next guy. Sometimes, I craved it. Being with Wynn had elevated the act to a transcendental level. I wasn’t the same man once she’d come on my tongue. I could never be the same.
And she’d left.
My sympathy welled for what she was going through, but my cynical brain also wondered if she really had a dad. Had he indeed passed away?
I could look it up, but I didn’t know where she was from.
She hadn’t talked in specifics about her family.
The stories she shared had made me wonder what it would’ve been like to have been incorporated into a real family.
To have siblings who cared. To have fun stories to tell some uptight boss who lived vicariously through them.
To share them with a pathetic man who was grateful a girl like Wynn had happy memories and none like mine.
I caught myself glowering at my black computer screen. For fuck’s sake.
I should be busier than ever. I had no assistant, and I wasn’t going to comb the temp agency looking for someone to fill in for a month.
Mrs. Crane had backed off my schedule to keep her replacement from getting overwhelmed.
She’d probably been astute enough to know I’d need a breather after the pitch.
I’d planned to take a good three days off and bury myself inside that pretty temporary assistant with a taste for quality.
Pressure grew behind my zipper. Sitting at my desk was worse, but I couldn’t bring myself to stand and have it be obvious. I needed to bury myself in work instead. More than anything, I wanted Ms. Kerrigan to walk in on a cloud of sweet lemongrass and give me some sass about being moody.
My screen lit up at the same time that dreaded ringtone came through. Gianna.
I let three more rings chime before I answered. “Foster.”
“Hey, Myles.” Her roughened voice came through the line and I let my eyelids fall closed. “I didn’t think you were going to answer.”
My blood pressure was ticking up, as it usually did when Gianna was involved. “I always answer if possible. You know that.”
“I know, honey. You just work so hard. You and I both know what it’s like to toil away all day.”
“Sure.” While I found no fault in the work Gianna did, grilling hamburgers and running the fry vats wasn’t quite like being responsible for over fifty employees’ livelihoods and health and retirement benefits, even more people depending on your business to keep a roof over their head, and never being able to walk away from the work because too many people counted on you.
“Listen, about what we’ve been discussing…”
My shoulders cramped with the tension. She could spin the story a million ways. “We haven’t been discussing anything. I told you no.”
“Come on, Myles-high.”
“Don’t call me that.” She couldn’t see how inappropriate the nickname was. It burrowed under my skin to rot. The “high” part of it was the worst, and she was oblivious, which just fucking stung.
“Right, Myles. Sorry. Old habits, you know.”
I fisted my free hand. Otherwise I’d bust the phone. “The answer is still no. I’ve paid your rent for the year, and you have groceries delivered every Saturday when you’re not working.”
“But it’s my car.”
The car I had bought her. “I told you, take it to the repair place, and I’ll settle the charge.” I shouldn’t be doing any of it. Not the groceries, not the rent, not the repairs. Nothing. But I wasn’t the one who abandoned people.
“Myles, you get more stubborn each year. I blame those places they put you in. Speaking of—” She made a disgusted sound. “Did you hear? Darin Bailey died. His funeral’s Thursday.”
I flinched. A well of emotion I couldn’t identify swelled in my throat, choking off a reply. Darin had passed away?
The past I tried not to remember pushed at the doors of my brain. I’d had to crack the door way too many times in the last month, but Darin had never been fully blocked behind that door. Not even I was that coldhearted. “What happened?” I asked gruffly.
“I dunno. Cancer or something I heard. Bet he thought he was too good for cancer.”
“Jesus, Gianna.”
“You act just like him sometimes.”
I couldn’t respond, or she’d get more belligerent, more insulting, and I wouldn’t be spared. “Listen, I’ve gotta go.”
“Gotta make all that money.”
“Someone has to do it,” I said. This was how we usually parted. A tradition that should fill me with warmth but left me empty.
“Wait—I need a deposit for the car’s repairs.”
Was that a thing? “Have them call me. No, you know what, let me know, and I’ll call them.” I’d look up the repair shop online and make sure they were legit and not someone Gianna had conned into talking to me to get cold, hard cash. “Goodbye, Gianna.” I hung up.
I let out a long, heavy exhale. Another call with her was done. The relief was short-lived.
Darin Bailey had passed away.
I owed him a lot. More than he’d ever know, and more than most people would assume.
And then there was Mae. She’d been lumped in with people I tried not to remember, but when I did allow myself memories, she was a fond one. Mae and Darin had been one of the good homes I’d been in. They’d been resilient enough to let me stay.
Mae must be devastated.
She had a ton of kids. She didn’t need me bugging her.
I want you to call—anytime, Myles. Do you understand? You’ll tell yourself you’re going to bother me, but listen to this and listen hard. You are never a bother. Pick up the damn phone and call.
I had once. And she’d given me much-needed advice during my time at the Baileys’. I owed her, too.
Pick up the damn phone and call.
Since when had I listened to anyone?
Wynter
When my bio parents had died, my sisters and I had been in the hospital for much of the funeral preparations. All I could remember were hushed tones and dour expressions. I’d been too young to be of use, and there’d been no one to help us until Mae Bailey had arrived at the hospital.
Darin Bailey’s funeral was the opposite. My brothers were home and staying with Tate and his wife. His house was on Bailey land and large enough to fit the guys.
My sisters and I were staying with Mama, and I was outside by the pasture with Summer and Autumn. Junie was inside with Mama. We were on constant rotation, but if Mama wanted a moment to herself, she wasn’t getting it.
When my sisters and I first came to live with her, she hadn’t let up on us until she’d known we would be okay, and I was doing the same for her.
“Have you decided where to live yet?” Summer asked. Her blond hair was kissed by a reddish tint and secured in a high ponytail. Somehow she still looked office ready when she was in worn jeans and a camisole. Her cowboy boots were almost as colorful as the ones Junie wore on the road.
“Not yet.” I kicked the toe of my own plain brown boot in the grass at the base of a metal fence post. “Scarlett offered me a room, of course, but I don’t want to be in the way.
I mean, I could be Super Auntie and help Chance with his homework and be on baby duty so Scarlett and Tate can nap, but I can do that from here, too. ”
“She’s pregnant again.” Autumn snorted and scratched at the star on the forehead of Tenpin, a roan gelding who loved attention and treats and knew when we were home he’d get both. “I don’t think it’s napping they’re doing.”
“Gross.” I snickered anyway. When I was at home, when we were all home, I devolved into the youngest, allegedly most spoiled, child. “Tenor said he wears earplugs at night, just in case he might overhear anything.”
“Teller is probably ready to record it and use it for blackmail.” Summer combed her fingers through Tenpin’s wiry mane.
I squinted at her, the sun obnoxiously bright during the day.
“Tate would blast it as a badge of pride, and Scarlett might blush like she was embarrassed, but you know she’s proud as hell.
” Sadness crashed over me, a surprise wave of grief that wouldn’t go away.
“I’m glad they’re having a baby. Gives Mama something to look forward to. ”
“Yeah,” Autumn said sadly. “Daddy Bailey loved welcoming babies into the family.”
“Daddy Bailey had two passions—bourbon and family.” Summer started a small braid in Tenpin’s mane. “Ranching was a close third.”
“Probably why he kept taking on fosters. He loved working with children.” And with one foster in particular who Daddy must’ve taken an interest in more than any of us knew. “Are any going to be at the funeral?”
Myles wouldn’t show. He wouldn’t leave the empire he’d built with his own hands. How long would pass before he even knew?
How’d he handled my departure? I’d thought of him constantly in the days I’d been home. His strong, talented hands. That wickedly skilled tongue of his.
I almost groaned.
“Looking a little flushed there.” Autumn squinted at me. Her gaze narrowed on me the same way she must study students who claimed to have a tummy bug. “Jet lag?”
I rolled my eyes. “I was in the same time zone, Autumn.”
“And what were you doing in that time zone?” she asked primly.
“Work.” More than the sun heated my cheeks. I was a terrible liar, and my sisters knew it.
“Who’s getting some?” Junie jogged toward us, the pink ends of her hair flying under her hat.
Her belt buckle rivaled the size of a top bull rider’s, but her jeans were a pristine blue, so sharp they should crackle while she walked, and her button-up purple shirt wasn’t buttoned but tied at the waist.
“Geez, Junie.” Summer put her hands on her hips. “Are you putting on a performance tonight?”
Junie glanced down at herself with a confused frown. “What?”