Chapter 20 #3
Tate: We’re doing grid moves this week. If you think you can still stay upright on a horse, we could use a hand.
“Grid moves?” I asked Autumn. “Is that a new term?”
“I don’t know. Tate started using it when he took over. He’s got books for his books.”
“When you say things like that, I feel like Tate and I could actually get along.”
She giggled. “You’d either be best friends or mortal enemies. Do you know how he and Scarlett got together?”
“He demanded she date him?”
“He agreed to the local bachelor auction fundraiser.”
I’d have loved to see him paraded in front of a bunch of women and sold off, but Autumn’s tone made it sound like the fundraiser was a light, fun time. “Since when does Bourbon Canyon have a bachelor auction?”
“I don’t recall when it started, but I knew Scarlett had a thing for Tate. Summer and I suspected Tate felt the same. Scarlett was Chance’s fourth-grade teacher, so they knew each other.”
“So you encouraged Scarlett to bid on him?”
She shook her head, her smile mischievous. It was one of my favorite looks on her. “We invited her to the auction, and we bid without telling her it was her name we were bidding under.”
“You bought your brother for your friend?”
She grinned. “The rest is history. All of us pitched in. Summer had to bid crazy high. He was a hot commodity.”
Instead of being disgruntled at how amazing everyone thought Tate was, I chuckled. An entire family pooling money to help their loved one find love.
What would it be like to have a big family like that? To have all that support when things went to shit? To have someone to celebrate with during the good times?
College graduation had been just another day, only one without classes. I’d had no one to tell when I’d gotten my first real job. And when I’d landed the role of Silver Casino and Hotel CEO, I’d treated myself to a dinner out. Then I’d gone home alone.
The emptiness inside me turned restless. I was married into that same family, but I doubt they’d celebrate me. “Are you going to buy a significant other for Teller and Tenor?”
“We might have to.” She brushed the backs of her fingers over my cheek. “Are you going to help my brothers move cattle on Monday?”
“I’m curious to see if they plan to get me trampled and call it an accident.”
“That’s dark.” Yet she was grinning. “You might have to dust off those country-boy skills to keep up.”
“They’ll keep up,” I growled. It’d been more than a few years, but fencing had come back like I’d been doing it around Silver my entire adult life.
“I wish I could see it.”
“I’ll just be another guy on a horse.”
“You’re not just any guy.”
When she said shit like that, my chest threatened to puff up. She didn’t drop superficial compliments on me like other people had my whole career. When she said something, she meant it.
My wife was generous, realistic, and honest. Traits that’d make returning to work difficult.
A few strands of her hair escaped her bun. I let them slip through my fingers. The color was bright against the bronzed skin of my hands. “Why can’t you witness me be a superhero cowboy?”
“The fourth- and fifth-grade music programs are this week. I usually help, and now I’m on the hook because their students wanted to do skits at the last minute.”
“They guilt-tripped you?” I asked lightly.
“You could say that. Scarlett and Joseph aren’t upset, but I said I’d help. Joseph would help anyway, but since he helped me, I owe him.” She hooked my hand and threaded her fingers through mine. “I’ll miss you being a cowboy, but you have to promise me something.”
Sitting with her, across from the place my mom had died and where my dad must still stop by and pay his respects, I was ready to promise her the world.
“If Mama offers to cook for everyone tomorrow night, you need to stay and then bring a plate home for me.”
“How do you know I’ll be invited?”
“She’ll make sure you’re there. In her eyes, you’re family.”
My heart constricted and pain radiated out from my ribs. I wasn’t family. I only had Dad and he’d never been there.
But he had tried . . .
I shook the thought off. He wanted to foster a relationship and I wanted him to get his head out of his ass. The Baileys were my in-laws for only another couple of weeks.
My gaze landed on that white cross and the flowers that weren’t very old.
A tangle of emotions swelled in my chest. Dad had never talked about Mom after she’d died, and I didn’t speak with him enough to know if he did now.
My grandparents had been gone for years.
Dad was the only one who knew where Mom had died and would care enough to maintain the cross and flowers.
Was Autumn right? Was this sale a way for him to purge the grief he’d been hanging on to? Those emotions that had driven him to drink? He had AA, but then, after every meeting, he went home to an empty house that used to be filled with love and family.
He’d promised Mom ’til death do you part. After that, he’d had nothing to hang on to. I hadn’t been enough then, and I wasn’t sticking around now.