Chapter 13 #2
Autumn groaned. “Don’t tell me that’s so normal for you that you don’t even know you look like the Bourbon Canyon rodeo queen.”
Junie pouted her expertly tinted and glossed lips. “I’ve never done rodeo.”
Junie could seem like a clueless, high-maintenance diva, but she was smart and used to being underestimated. She used it to her advantage.
I smirked. “Going to town and afraid you’re going to run into your ex?”
Her frown deepened. I’d hit on a real nerve. “No. He’ll probably be with his kids anyway.”
“Who have June Bee posters on their walls?”
She smiled, and her dimples flashed. “I can’t help it that girls between the ages of two and forty-two love June Bee.
It’s the men of America I’m working on. I have a better chance of making it if I hit sex-symbol status.
Anyway, I stopped to ask if anyone wants to go to town with me.
Mama got a call and told me to go get more groceries. ”
“Mama’s fielding so many calls, and she refuses to give the damn thing up.
We need to go to Bozeman to get the kind of groceries we need.
” Summer undid the braid in Tenpin’s strands while he stretched to get some pets from Junie.
“I’ll go. I can swing by home and pick up a few things and check in on Boyd. ”
I exchanged a covert glance with Autumn. Shouldn’t Summer’s boyfriend be checking on her?
“Mama’s going to get you to move back home eventually.” Junie’s smug look said she thought she was exempt from the lure of Bourbon County.
None of us were. I was back. Finally and for good after ten years of being away.
Autumn had only left for college, being the biggest homebody of us all.
Summer hadn’t gone far, but Bozeman was too far for Mama.
Same with Tenor, but he split his time between all the locations.
Teller was such a recluse and lived in the cabin he’d built on the far edge of Bailey land in the shadows of the mountains.
The distance was almost a commute, almost impossible depending on the weather, which was why he was staying with Tate until after the funeral.
He claimed to prefer game trails over bike paths.
Summer waved her off. “I’m a city girl, even if that city is getting kind of bougie.” She pointed a finger in my direction. “Don’t think you aren’t getting away that easy. Who is he?”
“No one anymore.” The empty chasm close to my heart yawned open. “We didn’t have a chance to be a thing, and now I’m here.”
I was yanked into Summer’s warm embrace. Her strawberry-and-sugar scent surrounded me, as much of a reminder of home and family as the scents of musty barns and wildflowers on the wind. “I’m sorry, honey.”
My face was crushed against her bony shoulder, and I let out a grunt. “Jesus, Summer. I’m not crying in my beer.”
She squeezed me tighter. “You’d better not be, or Daddy is going to return from the afterlife and haunt you.”
Laughter burst out of me, but tears pricked the backs of my eyes. “He would, wouldn’t he?”
“He’d do it for posterity,” Autumn said, both humor and sadness in her voice. “But I caught him drinking beer a few times.”
“Me, too,” Junie said. “I think that’s why he helped me move to Nashville.”
We all laughed. Our family enjoyed alcohol as a hobby. Daddy would visit breweries to taste products, study their marketing, and siphon details about their processes, but he always ended the day saying, “Spirits are better for the spirit.”
He’d claim the distillation process was a metaphor for life. Leave the worst behind and take only what you need to make you the strongest.
I blinked away tears but lost the fight. “God, I miss him.”
Junie and Autumn added themselves to the hug.
“Aw hell, am I going through puberty again?” Teller’s voice drifted to us. To others, he’d sound disgruntled, but I could hear the thick emotion he was fighting to hold back. Teller would never join in on a group hug, but he was hurting like the rest of us.
Summer pulled away, and the rest of us broke apart.
She put her hands on her hips and squared off with Teller.
As the oldest of the Kerrigan girls, she and Tate might have felt like competitors, but it was Teller she often faced off with, like both of them were vying for the second-oldest position.
She was younger than Tenor, but her attitude was stronger.
And Tenor seemed to understand what she’d been through as the oldest sister and the one who remembered our parents and the crash the best out of all of us.
Teller wasn’t oblivious, he just wasn’t going to let her trauma bamboozle him into doing her chores like Tate used to do.
“You might have to go through puberty again and learn some manners.” Summer pulled herself up to her diminutive height. “Did you really tell Finley Porter that she didn’t need to stop by and see Mom?”
He strode toward us, and Tenor rounded out of the barn.
I’d never admit this out loud, but I often wondered if Tenor was a foster kid, too, and our parents just forgot.
Where Tate and Teller were wide-shouldered, bearded mountain men, Tenor was not quite as tall.
He was lanky and clean-shaven, and he dressed in baggy T-shirts and loose khakis—jeans, if he was working the ranch like he was today.
Tenor had been the smaller kid with two adored older brothers.
When those two were around, he was forgotten.
When they weren’t, he was teased and bullied.
Tenor had a streak of pride buried as deep as the coal veins of Montana, and he hadn’t told anyone.
Four nosy younger sisters had found out and put a stop to it.
Tenor might’ve grown up to resemble a lighter-haired version of his brothers, taking after Mom’s side, but he still dressed and acted like that kid who’d been afraid to be noticed.
“Tenor,” Summer called, knowing he’d never disagree with her.
We were all baby sisters to him, but Summer had headlocked the worst of his bullies and given the kid two black eyes and a bloody nose.
In the principal’s office, she’d told Mama the kid had touched her boobs instead of revealing what Tenor had been going through when he wanted it to remain a secret.
Tenor had let Summer get away with murder ever since.
“Your brother was rude as hell to Finley, wasn’t he? ”
“He’s rude as hell to everyone,” Tenor replied, pushing his glasses up and keeping to his typical middle ground.
She rounded on Teller. “To Finley? She’s as sweet as molasses. You know Mama would enjoy her visit.”
Teller was unrepentant. “Mama has a full house and has a million calls to make to finalize all the funeral arrangements. Everyone’s coming out here after the funeral. Until then, I want Mama to have a chance to rest and catch her breath. You know how the last few months have been.”
Mama had taken care of Dad to the end, minimizing his hospital stays and keeping him from dying in a stale room surrounded by unfamiliar scenery.
I’m a part of this land, he used to say. And you are, too.
Teller crossed his arms over his impressive chest. “You and Junie come back with groceries only. No people.”
Summer wasn’t cowed. “Mama thrives on company as much as Daddy did.”
“She has a house full of seven kids, a daughter-in-law, and two grandkids. Thursday is for everyone else.” The muscles in Teller’s jaw flexed, and then I understood. He needed a mellower environment. We were all grieving.
“You know, I’m with Teller on this one,” I said, or Summer would invite all the residents of Bourbon Canyon over for dinner tonight. “Not for Mom, but for myself. Can we keep it low-key until the funeral?”
Grief ran through Junie’s eyes. Tenor crossed his arms, but he was hunched over like he was forming a wall like Teller.
Autumn nodded. “Low-key sounds nice. I know we were expecting this, but it’s an adjustment, and we’re going to have visitors stopping by no matter what. Might as well encourage the masses to wait until the reception.”
Teller shot me a grateful look, and I dipped my head to him.
“Then we’ll have Daddy’s party, just like he wanted.” Junie lifted her hat, ran her hand through her silky hair, and put the hat back in place. “Ready, Summer?”
Summer studied all of us. Would her stubborn side overrule common sense? Some days, she could argue until sundown with a fence post, demanding it move out of her way.
“Anyone need anything from town?” she asked sweetly.
Teller’s shoulders unknotted, and the rest of us relaxed.
“Toilet paper,” Tenor said. “With all of you back under one roof, I can’t imagine the amount we’re going to go through.”
“I’m going to sneak a roll every time I use the bathroom just to piss you off,” I teased.
Teller gave me a shocked stare. “You mean you don’t?”
Laughing, I punched him in the shoulder. Dammit, now my fingers stung. He put an arm around my neck and noogied my hair. My laugh grew stronger.
Dad wasn’t here, and I’d have to get used to not seeing him read the paper around the table in the morning.
Just like I was getting used to not driving to an office by the mountains every morning and seeing a scowling, stern, handsome man in a suit sitting across the desk. But at least I was back with my family.