Chapter 17
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Tex Young stood a healthy ten feet from the fryer, the steam pouring off of it and into the Wyoming sky oddly comforting. Movement next door caught his attention, and he looked toward the side door on Wade and Cheryl’s house.
Wade emerged, easily holding the door for his sons, Bennett and Wyatt, who both carried dishes of some sort. Though the oil frying the turkey bubbled noisily, Tex still heard Wade say, “Be careful now. I’ve got to fix that bottom step.”
“You said I could do it, Daddy,” Bennett said, and he did indeed step carefully onto the bottom step before making it to the sidewalk.
“Nothing’s stopping you,” Wade said, following his boys down the steps.
“Will you show me how?”
Wade put his arm around Bennett’s shoulders when he reached the sidewalk too. “Sure, bud. We can do it this weekend. It’s only going to get colder.” Wade looked over to Tex then, and he lifted his hand in a general wave of hello for all three of them.
“Uncle Tex, I made candied carrots for our feast tonight,” Wyatt said, and he seemed pretty jazzed about that.
Tex grinned at the nine-year-old. “That’s amazing, buddy. Where’s your momma?”
“She’s still working on the rolls,” Wyatt said, and he arrived at Tex’s concrete driveway pad first, turned, and went up the side steps and into the house. Bennett followed him, but Wade came to stand next to Tex, who hovered next to the corner of the house, using it as a wind block.
“You’re moving really good these days,” Tex said.
“Modern medicine is a miracle,” Wade said, his eyes glued to the pure white steam pouring out of the top of the frying pot. “How long has this been going?”
“About twenty minutes,” Tex said. “Abby’s got another one for me inside, and I was thinkin’ about getting a chair.”
Wade grinned at him. “I’d sit out here with you.
” He turned toward the back corner of the house.
“I’ll get us some chairs.” He moved off to do that, and Tex’s heart filled with happiness to see Wade walking so well.
He and Abby had funded her brother’s new prosthetics, and they’d taken several months to order, tweak, and finally get right.
Before Wade returned, a truck pulled up in front of Tex’s house, and Trace parked in the newly leveled and graveled area Tex had built for such a thing. He waved to Trace as well, then watched as his younger brother twisted and said something to the people in his pickup.
He had three children under the age of ten too, and Tex sometimes wished he and his brothers had gotten married and started their families at a much younger age. “You did,” he muttered to himself, because if Bryce or Harry ever heard Tex say that….
He’d be skewered. They’d mentioned a time or two that they felt left out of the greater Young family, because they came from first marriages and didn’t truly fit.
Tex could admit that life for his oldest—Bryce at age thirty-three—had been and was vastly different than it was for his younger three children—Melissa, who’d be fourteen soon, Carver, eleven, and Pippa, eight.
Almost twenty years separated his two oldest children, and Tex could see Bryce’s point of view.
Finally, the locks on Trace’s truck popped, and he opened the door first. He slid to the ground, his cowboy boots shiny and dark brown, tucked up under his jeans. “Howdy,” he called before turning toward the back door.
He opened that too, and Clay and Keri spilled out of the truck, while his wife, Everly, collected their youngest—Avery—from the back on her side.
“Straight inside,” Trace said sternly, and his nine-year-old and six-year-old headed Tex’s way.
“Stay over on the sidewalk,” he called to them. “I’ll come give you hugs over there.” He moved out of the safety of the corner of the house then, his smile only growing as he went past the piles of snow he’d shoveled off the driveway and front sidewalk and toward his niece and nephew.
“We already gotted a lecture about the fryer,” Clay said.
“Did you?” Tex laughed as he swept the little boy up and into his arms. “Well, your daddy’s probably just makin’ sure you stay safe.”
Clay grinned down at him. “You shoulda heard me play the guitar for family night, Uncle Tex.”
“No one invited me to family night.” Tex pressed a quick kiss to Clay’s cheek and set him on his feet. “Go find Carver and tell him to get out the guitars. Maybe you can do it tonight.”
After all, Country Quad also had a little concert planned for that night.
Tex breathed in the chilly afternoon air and faced his brother. “Hey, my friend.” He chuckled as he hugged Trace, who clapped him on the back.
“Thanks for having us.”
“Yeah, we love seeing you guys.” He released his brother, who tucked his hands in his coat pockets and headed toward the driveway. Frying the turkeys definitely gave the men something to do while the women cooked inside.
“Hey, Ev.” Tex hugged her and little Avery too, who’d just turned four last week.
“I forgot the cranberry sauce,” Ev said with a sigh.
“Great,” he said in a deadpan. “Thanksgiving is ruined.” He gave her a grin and let her go by him, up the front sidewalk, and shoo her other two children into the house.
Tex returned to the alcove of safety, where Wade had set up a few chairs in his absence. “I didn’t see any guitars,” he said to Trace.
“Harry’s bringing them all,” he said. “He took them to polish and tune them,” Trace said. “And Otis’s are all here.”
Tex nodded, his eyes moving right back to the steam pouring out of the fryer. “Pie Bar at eight. Concert at eight-thirty.”
“Headed home by nine.” Trace grinned at him, and Tex loved their family traditions.
No, they couldn’t host everyone for a single meal here at the house where Tex had grown up with his nine brothers.
They’d lived on top of one another then, and when all of them—plus their in-laws—got together, the capacity count could exceed that of a small restaurant.
They saved those whole family gatherings for twice per year—New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July. At other times, individual families celebrated however made the most sense to them, usually in small groups of two, three, or four families.
Tonight, Tex and Abby had a completely full house for dinner, as Trace, Wade, and Blaze—with their wives and children—were coming for a fried turkey feast. Cash was also bringing his new girlfriend, Lark, and Harry and Belle would be there as well.
That was twelve adults, and Tex sent a quick prayer of gratitude heavenward that he and Abby had been able to extend their dining area out onto what was once the back deck. Fitting half that many people had been tight previously.
Between those twelve adults, they also had twelve children. Nope, thirteen, as Bryce and Codi had their son, Matty.
Tex’s grandson, who made his soul light up with a single thought. As if summoned by those thoughts, Bryce’s truck pulled into Wade’s driveway, and Tex got right back to his feet to go greet them.
He found Harry dropping to the ground from the back driver’s side, and he grinned at Tex and said, “Heyo, Uncle Tex,” before moving to the tailgate to get the guitars. “I’m assuming the studio is open.”
“Should be,” he said, and he moved into the still-open back door to unbuckle his grandson. “Howdy-ho, Matty-boy.” He grinned as the almost two-year-old kicked his legs and started to babble about something.
He got the child out of his seat and settled on his hip and met Bryce and Codi at the front corner of the truck.
“Hey, you two.” He hugged his son with one arm, and then Codi, wanting to pull them close, closer, and straight into his heart.
He tried to show and tell his son and his wife how much he loved them and appreciated them, but sometimes, he honestly wasn’t sure if they truly knew.
“I love the dark wig,” he said to Codi as he stepped back, whose cheeks seemed a bit pinker tonight though she’d just been reintroduced into the cold air.
“Thanks,” she said, reaching for one of the bags Belle had swinging from her forearm. “Let me take that.”
Belle released the bag to her, and Tex gave her a one-armed hug too before looking at Matty. “Come on, baby-boo. Let’s get you inside where you won’t freeze.” He grinned at the blonde boy who reminded him so much of Bryce at that age. “And hey, Belle, congratulations on your pregnancy.”
“Thank you,” she said, and she did look a little more tired than Tex had ever seen her.
He ushered them all inside, where the warmth greeted him like a punch to the face. The scent of sautéed onions and butter came with it, and Tex’s stomach growled. “Let’s go see Grandma.”
Abby stood at the end of the counter with both Melissa and Pippa, and they seemed to be getting a lesson on how to cut asparagus spears. She turned as Bryce reached her, and Tex’s heart warmed all over again at the sight of the two of them embracing one another.
She too complimented the wig, told Belle congratulations, as her announcement about expecting her first baby had just gone out on the family text a couple of days ago, and faced Tex. “And there’s the light of my life—come see me, Matty-poo.”
The little boy practically launched himself out of Tex’s arms, laughing and babbling to Abby.
She gave him cookies every time she saw him, so no wonder he liked her best. In fact, right now, she reached up to the cupboard above the microwave and said, “Yes, you may have a graham cracker,” as if she understood what Matty had said.
She smiled at him, swept his hair off his forehead, and planted a kiss there. “How long on that turkey?”
“Ten-ish minutes,” Tex said. “I have an alarm on my phone.”
“The second one is ready,” she said. “We have forty-five minutes left on the potatoes, and Cheryl’s doing all the rolls at her house.”
“Yeah, Wade’s outside. Are the boys okay in here?” He swept his eyes down the countertop to where Wyatt stood with Pippa and Melissa. “What are you guys doing?”
“Daddy, Mel’s hogging the knife.”