Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Wynter
I was supposed to meet Myles in five minutes. When Tate had declared that Myles had to help with ranch work, Mama had been ready to ground Tate like he was ten.
But Myles had taken the challenge. In that case, I’ll stop at the tractor supply. Is it still open?
The thought of him roaming Bourbon Canyon without me by his side to glare at any female who looked his way was strong. I couldn’t let him go to town alone, and he’d agreed to let me tag along.
When he’d gone out to the car to get his suitcase, my brothers had started in on me as soon as the back door had closed.
I’d fled the kitchen to my bedroom. If I’d thought I could get a few minutes to process what had happened this afternoon, I was mistaken.
Autumn, Junie, and Summer burst into my room.
I checked the time. Four minutes. Summer blocked the door.
I could take her. This once. Maybe. She usually overpowered me, having the most experience and sheer stubbornness, but I was riding high on Myles-fueled adrenaline.
“You each get one question, or Myles is going to leave without me.” We’d probably have to go to Bozeman, and Myles likely hadn’t thought of that. The tractor supply store closed early on weeknights. I couldn’t miss spending hours with him. Now that he knew who I was, would he be more open with me?
What if he wasn’t?
“Did you bang him?” Junie asked, clutching her hands like she was praying the answer was yes.
They were going to get it out of me. Resisting was pointless. “Yes.”
She pinched off a squeal and fist-bumped Autumn.
“Was it just now in the car?” Autumn asked, her eyes bright.
The girl lived vicariously through others.
She’d never stayed out past curfew, was always ten minutes early, and religiously put her shopping cart away—along with all the others sitting in the lot.
Autumn loved kids, loved being a teacher, and wanted a family of her own but believed herself cursed with singledom.
“Where’d you go? Was that your first time together, or have you been sleeping with him the whole time? ”
“Yes,” I said and held up a hand when she opened her mouth. “One question. Summer?”
Summer lifted her chin. “Is he a good guy?”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “I think he really is.”
“But you don’t know?”
“He hates explaining himself and all that it comes with, but he respected the hell out of Daddy. He hires people he knows were foster kids and helps them meet their future goals. He works hard because I think he’s afraid to close his doors and leave his employees with nowhere to go.”
“You think, or you know?”
“One ques-tion,” I sang, and Junie winced. None of us had gotten her musical gifts. I threw the strap of my purse over my head to hang across my body, then remembered why I’d really come into my bedroom.
I went to my dresser and pulled out a pair of underwear. Keeping my back to my sisters, I balanced on one foot at a time while I stepped into them. Then I turned around and smoothed my skirt down.
Autumn grinned. “Nice.”
“Oh no, Wynn. What happened to the pair you were wearing?” Junie smirked.
I walked up to Summer and stood until she moved. I opened the door. The hallway was clear, so I turned around and stuck my head in the doorway. “They’re in his pocket.” I darted out on Summer’s annoyed “Oh my god!”
Myles was by his car, talking to Chance. Tate was likely inside, trying to talk sense into Mama, but Chance was fascinated by the sporty car.
“My mom used to have one like this.” He kicked his beat-up athletic shoe against the tire. Tate couldn’t get the kid to wear cowboy boots twenty-four seven like him.
“Oh, yeah? What’s her name?”
“My mom is Tamera. Scarlett’s my stepmom, but she likes driving Dad’s pickup.”
“Pickups are fun, too.” Myles had changed into a pair of black jeans. He was still wearing his white button-up shirt and his loafers, looking like he’d dropped a hundred dollar bill into the casual Friday fund.
“Where do you live?”
“Outside of Denver.”
“Cool. I used to live in Bozeman.” Chance craned his head up to look at Myles.
Myles lifted his gaze to look at me. I gave him a cheerful smile, but damn, they made a cute picture.
“I used to live in Bozeman, too,” Myles said, and I slowed my steps.
He didn’t admit to a lot of his childhood.
That he’d been a foster kid yes, but he’d never given me details about where and how many homes he’d gone through.
Not once had he touched on the reason he’d been put into foster care.
I’d heard drugs. I’d heard orgies. I’d heard abandonment.
I hadn’t heard the town. Had he been born in Bozeman?
Chance bobbed his head. “Bozeman’s a nice place.”
“It can be.”
“I like it better here.”
Myles’s gaze stayed with mine. “I do, too.”
“Heya, kiddo.” I ruffled Chance’s hair. “Did you know that Myles helped train Nugget?”
Nugget was the twenty-five-year-old sorrel gelding in the pasture with Tenpin.
Chance lit up. “Really? I ride him when I help Dad with the grid moves.”
Myles lifted a brow. “Grid moves?”
“A fancy way to say they’re moving pastures,” I explained. “Tate and Teller blocked the pastures off into grids to keep better track of land management.”
“Grandpa could do it all in his head,” Chance said proudly.
I nodded. “It was easier when he was the only one in charge. But Tate and Teller gravitate more toward running the ranch than being at the distillery. They don’t want to be in an office all day. Tenor is the CFO of Copper Summit, but he puts in a lot of hours with the cattle, too.”
“And the chickens,” Chance added.
“Tenor spoils the chickens.”
“Do you know we have two donkeys?” Chance asked, unwilling to let his rapt audience in Myles go. “Buckshot and Pudding.”
“Do I want to know how they got their names?” Myles asked.
“Probably not,” I said. “Chance, I have to steal Myles so we can get to town before the store closes.”
“Everything closes early here.” Chance had made the move to Bourbon Canyon well after Daddy got sick, and Tate had to take over the ranch, but he was still adjusting, according to Tate.
I smoothed out the mess I’d made of his hair. “Tell your dad I said you could have an ice cream sandwich.”
“Thanks, Aunt Wynter!” He ran into the house.
Myles chuckled. “That was dirty.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Nugget’s still alive?”
“He’s the most mellow horse. Tate could put Chance on him when he was five and let him ride on his own.” I went around the car and got into the passenger seat. My phone buzzed.
Tate: You’re a menace.
Grinning, I tucked my phone away. Aunt privileges.
Myles and I got in the car. He backed out.
“You guys all seem close.”
“We are. Sometimes, it was us against the foster—” I clamped my mouth shut. I might not be a menace, but I’d sound like a shitty person.
“Go ahead and say it.” The muscle in his jaw was tight as he drove with one hand on the wheel.
“I’m sorry, Myles. Not all kids were as well adjusted as you.”
“A lot of us learn to hide how maladjusted we are. Sometimes, the pretending becomes permanent.”
I put a hand on his leg. He flexed under my touch, like he would’ve pushed my fingers off if he weren’t driving.
“Some of them were very troubled. Mama and Daddy tried to get them the help they needed and offer them the support they should’ve had from the beginning, but it was still hard.
From our point of view, as kids, it was…
scary at times. Some experiences were worse than others. ”
The tension leaked out of him. “I know.”
He knew the effects of his families being unable to have him under the same roof. “I think that’s why Tate and Teller took such issue, thinking you stole from Copper Summit.”
“All the recipes are mine. Darin helped me buy the building and set up the processes and hire people. He taught me leadership and management and the industry, Wynn. The product comes from me.”
“Then say that.” I shook my head. “Never mind. I know why you don’t.”
“Why do you think I stick to whiskey? I have no lines of bourbon.”
“Why?” I needed to hear him say it. With Myles, I doubted the answer was one-dimensional.
“The Baileys do bourbon, and they do it well. I like to play with the whiskey.”
“Which Daddy never did.”
“He was a purest. Your brothers are, too.”
Talking with Myles like this was different than before, when I hadn’t revealed who I was.
Instead of shutting me out because of the deception, he was opening up.
He probably didn’t realize it, or he’d shut down.
“They are. They’d rather have me play with the flavors as a mixologist since the younger generations are more likely to drink bourbon and whiskey cocktails. ”
“So you are a mixologist.” His hand tightened on the wheel. And there was his reminder that I’d been deceitful.
“It’s more like a side gig. I was hooked as soon as Daddy taught me how to sniff the white dog.
” I’d been well under the legal drinking age, but Daddy had wanted me to study the sample he took straight off the still before the alcohol was poured into the barrel.
“I did an online bartending course and then continued from there. Daddy wanted to draw a bigger crowd into the distillery in Bozeman by opening to the public, so I worked there after college. I’d help with the marketing by day and bartend at night.
In between, I’d create Copper Summit signature cocktails and teach them to the other bartenders. I’ll start up again after the funeral.”
“Marketing?”
“I like it. We all have our roles, big and small. I’d like to keep creating recipes, but I think I got burned out for a while there. Then Daddy got sick, and I couldn’t stay.”
“Why not?”
Was he making conversation or was he really interested? My family knew why I couldn’t stay, but I rarely talked about my past to non-family members. Myles was easy to talk to. Perhaps because I knew he wouldn’t talk about what we said to anyone. Or perhaps because he understood. “The accident.”
“Your parents’ accident?” We were on the outskirts of town, and he was looking around, probably cataloging the changes from when he’d been here last. He must’ve driven from Denver straight to Bourbon Canyon without going through town.
“I witnessed two parents die already. I couldn’t take watching a third.”
“Jesus.” He slowed to enter city limits. “I’m sorry, Wynter.”
“Thank you.” I was putting too much significance into the way he used my real name.
Why did I even want us to grow closer? I wasn’t delusional enough to think having sex earlier had meant anything other than that we’d finally succumbed to the raging chemistry between us.
“Anyway, I’d love to live closer to my family.
We’re all around Bourbon Canyon, except for Summer. She’s in Bozeman.”
“I’d never live there again.”
“There’s no reason for you to, so you’re in the clear.” I caught a small flinch out of the corner of my eye. “Right?”
“No one’s there for me.” He said it so woodenly, there had to be more to the story.
“That’s good.” The tractor supply store was coming up. “Then you won’t mind having to run there for your clothes.”
He whipped his head toward me. “What?”
“The store closes at four most days.” When his incredulous gaze turned toward me, I shrugged. “They can’t keep help, and they claim it’s workforce shortages.”
“It’s awful management.”
“Probably. The owners are in their eighties and think kids should want to work full-time after school.”
“And there’s nowhere else to shop.”
“No. There’s really not.”
The level of dismay rolling off him only hinted at what was bothering him. There was someone in Bozeman he wanted to avoid. He was back to being rigid Mr. Foster.
I could ask why, but he wouldn’t tell me. I couldn’t imagine a day Myles would ever open up to me, but I couldn’t stop from wishing someday he would.