Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
AUbrEY
I heard Rye’s boots behind me in the hallway, and I braced for impact.
“That’s enough now,” Rye rumbled in his deep voice.
Micah puffed up his chest and stepped up to Rye, who was a good five inches taller and twice as wide and muscled. “Who do you think you are?”
“I’m the guy who wants you to treat your mama with a little more respect.”
Oh man .
“This joker has some nerve, Ma,” Benji said with his hands on his hips. He glared at Rye, but Benji knew he was outmanned. It seemed Micah hadn’t figured it out yet.
“Boys, sit down,” I said, tugging gently on Micah’s arm, but neither of them obeyed, so I yanked harder. “ Now .”
Benji took the chair behind him. He almost fell into it, and Micah backed up with narrowed eyes, like he needed to keep his eye on Rye in case Rye decided to pick me up and make a run for it. If I hadn’t been so embarrassed that my kids had walked in on me riding a cowboy, I would’ve laughed.
Leaning down to kiss my hair, Rye said softly, “I’ll head out, Spitfire,” and he turned to leave.
“I’ll walk you out.”
One at a time, I looked at each of my boys, communicating through the motherly rage on my face that if they moved, hell would rain down on them both. Apparently, they still had good survival instincts because neither of them so much as twitched or said a word.
Rye led us to my front porch. The light was on now, and when the door had been securely shut behind us, he turned to face me.
He touched his fingers to my cheek and smiled. “Sorry ’bout that.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m sorry they were so rude to you.”
“Naw, baby, I get it. They’re young men, and you’re their mama. Protectin’ and defendin’ is kinda in their job description, but I wish they’d been kinder to you. Ain’t a thing wrong with you livin’ your life however you see fit. You deserve to be happy.”
“They know that.” I think.
“Alright, well, you sit ’em down and let ’em know what’s up. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I blushed. I felt heat rising from my core all the way to the top of my head. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to finish our…” God, even just talking about sex with the boys around felt weird.
Rye chuckled. “We did finish. We just didn’t get to bask in the afterglow.”
“It’s not funny!”
“It’s fuckin’ hilarious.” He kissed me, but all I could think about was that the boys were probably watching, peeking through the curtains in the front window. “Spitfire, that was the best sex of my life, until the last thirty seconds anyway. We made love tonight. I’ll never forget it.”
He lifted my hand and placed a sweet kiss across my knuckles, and then I watched as he climbed into his truck and drove away.
Goddammit!
Back in the house, in a voice Benji thought was a whisper but was definitely not, he said, “That guy’s a douche.”
“Shut up, dumbass. She’ll hear you,” Micah whispered loudly too. “She’s happy to see me. You, not so much.”
An audible scuffle broke out between them. I heard grunting and what I imagined was the two of them trying to kick each other’s shins under the table. If I hadn’t given birth to them, I wouldn’t have believed anyone who told me the twins were adults.
As soon as my foot hit the kitchen floor, I crossed my arms and cocked a hip, and Micah tattled like a six-year-old. “We got kicked out of our apartment. Moronic Monty over here forgot to pay the rent. Three months in a row.” He rolled his eyes and kicked his brother again.
“Ow! Whatever,” Benji said. “The place was a shithole anyway.” He smiled his infamous grin, the one meant to manipulate me. “Besides, Mom misses us, don’t you, Mama? And I bet you wanna cook us dinner too. I’ve been drivin’ all night. I’m starvin’.”
“I told you I’d drive,” Micah said. “You act like it’s some great service to mankind to drive four hours.”
“It would’ve been four hours if you’d remembered to put gas in the truck.” Benji flashed me the most pathetic puppy dog eyes. “Mama, we had to walk two miles to fill up the gas can and back. I’m so tired,” and he leaned closer and hugged me, throwing his arms around my waist and dropping all his weight there, like a baby orangutan. “I love you, Mama.” He batted his eyelashes. “Wanna make me some pancakes?” But then he stiffened and released me, probably remembering whose hands had been all over me a few minutes before his.
“What did you do with the money I sent?” I asked in a tight voice. “If you didn’t use it to pay your rent, where did it go?”
“Benji likes bettin’ on games,” Micah said, “but he’s not so great at pickin’ the teams.”
For fuck’s sake! That’s what I’ve been spending my money on? That’s why all the goddamn oatmeal?
“You’re payin’ that back, Benji,” I seethed, almost ready to cry as I realized just how much money I’d wasted. “And boys, next time call ahead. Also no, I’m not makin’ pancakes. It’s almost one a.m.”
“I’m sorry. Please, Mommy,” Benji whined.
Micah seemed to be feeling bolder than usual. “We did call, several times, but you didn’t answer. Besides, this is our house too. We shouldn’t have to call.”
“It is and it will always be, unless I sell it. But we’re all adults, so maybe we could act like it and respect each other’s boundaries?”
“Sell our home?” Benji said incredulously. “I don’t think so. And moms don’t have boundaries.”
Well, that’s the end of your newfound sex life, Aubrey. You shoulda waved goodbye when it drove off in a shiny RAM dually with a HEMI V-8.
“Oh my God!” Roxi screeched into her phone the next morning when I told her what happened.
The cool front that had moved into Wisper the night before was perfect because no one would think anything of me hiding in an oversized hoodie and beanie. Maybe if I pulled it down over my face, I could avoid looking my kids in the eye.
“Did they see?—?”
“I have no idea! I’m too embarrassed to ask.”
“What’d Rye do?”
“Pulled the covers over his straining erection, I hope .”
The bell jangled on the front door.
“Gotta go. Customer,” I told Roxi. “I’ll call you later.”
Whoever had stepped into Your Local Bookie was hidden behind a tall spinning rack of Harlequins and used cowboy romances. You’d think they’d sell more given our location, but maybe Wisper’s female population got enough cowboy in their real lives. Maybe my Bag a Cowboy idea was a non-starter. I’d have to get some outside input. But if the genre was wrong, maybe I could tweak it to something else.
“Welcome to Your Local Bookie. What kinda fictional trouble can I help?—”
“Hello, Aubrey,” Calla Graves said when she stepped around the rack, holding a used western stepback romance in her hand.
“Mrs. Graves. Hi.” Uh oh . Her being in my store first thing Monday morning did not bode well for me, especially not after my performance at Rye’s birthday dinner. “How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine, dear, but please call me Calla. How are you?”
“I-I’m… okay. It’s nice to see you again so soon. Are you lookin’ for somethin’ specific?”
“I am, in fact.” She looked me up and down, focusing on my Montana State sweatshirt that was three sizes too big and my disheveled hair beneath my hat. “I’m lookin’ for you.”
“Oh?” I asked, slipping the beanie off and tossing it behind me.
I combed my fingers through my hair but gave up trying to tame the frizz when I realized my appearance wouldn’t change the direction of wherever this conversation would go.
Glancing around the shop, she took a few graceful steps toward the contemporary fiction shelves. Even the way she moved seemed rich. Her cream-colored slacks and matching blouse with its wide, sweeping sleeves felt out of place in my dusty store. She looked more like the head of a publishing house than she did a customer.
She touched the cover of a popular women’s fiction title written by a fabulous Crow author from Montana. “I’ll take this,” she said, and she held up the cowboy romance still in her hand. “This as well. Do you have anything that’s maybe… a little risqué? Somethin’ different than what you might imagine I’d read?”
“Um. Yes, of course.”
Without Rye here to make me brave, I felt like a teenager again in her presence. Man, you really picked the wrong day to show up to work lookin’ like a ragamuffin.
When I walked around the counter, straightening my sweatshirt, though nothing I did would make me look like her, she smiled demurely. “Are you not feelin’ well, dear?”
“No, ma’am. I feel fine. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, no reason.” Except there was a reason. She clearly didn’t approve of my work attire.
“Here,” I said, hoping to take her attention away from anything she thought distasteful. I reached for a wildly popular book called Truth , about a woman who moves into a wealthy family’s home in the Pacific Northwest to homeschool their children, but she falls for the husband, and a whole bunch of hot—but disturbing—stuff happens. “This one had me up at night for two weeks. It’s very good.”
She took it from my hand and studied the hazy pine forest on the cover and the title’s blood-red font. “Thank you.” And then she continued her assessment of my store. “It’s very quaint in here, isn’t it?”
“That was my goal, to make it feel like you’d stepped into your auntie’s or your sister’s house to borrow a book.”
“Well, thank you for the recommendation. I think I’m ready to check out.”
“Sure.”
She followed me back to the register and handed me a very black and very stiff credit card. “Just ring it up.”
“Thank you.” I finished the transaction and pushed the receipt in front of her to sign. She penned her name with a flourish and pushed it back to me. “Was there anything else you needed?”
“Now that you mention it, there is. Rye returned home quite late last night. I assume that’s because he was here in town with you?”
“Yes, he was.”
“He hasn’t mentioned anything to his daddy yet, but I know my son’s thinkin’ about movin’ on. He’s been obsessed about a new farmin’ idea for a while now.”
Rye had told me all about his plans with Bax and Brand Lee. I’d been excited to know he’d be closer to Wisper. But he’d also said that he still needed to talk to his parents about his plans and how he worried about what it might do to their relationship. I wasn’t about to get in the middle of it.
“Oh, I don’t… It’s not really my place?—”
She waved away my hesitance with a flick of her thin, elegant wrist, and the gold bangles there jingled against each other. “I wouldn’t ask you to tattle on Rye. He’ll come to us when he’s ready, but I have a feelin’ it’ll be soon. And I’ll be very happy when he does.”
Wh-what?
My face must have displayed my surprise because she smiled and grabbed hold of my hand on the counter.
“You mistake me, Aubrey, but I don’t blame you. I know what you see when you look at me and our ranch and house. But underneath all of that, I’m still just Calla. A mom first. A rancher’s daughter who also married a rancher. And I’m a wife who loves her husband, stubborn ol’ goat that he may be.
“But I see the way he and Rye butt heads. Grady has no plans to retire anytime soon. He believes strongly in our way of life. He will never give the farm over to our son if Rye insists on changin’ the entire structure of the way we do things.
“The only chance Rye has to change his daddy’s mind is if he goes out and does it himself. If Rye can show Grady how this plan of his can work, it’s the only way his daddy will ever respect the idea.
“It’s sad but true. I’ve known for a long time that this is what it would take. But you see”—releasing my hand, she tapped her temple with one finger—“I know better than to get in their way. If they don’t figure these things out for themselves, well, I’m sure you know men can be a little proud.”
“Why are you tellin’ me this?” I asked. “I don’t have anything to do with Rye’s plans.”
“Oh, but you do,” she said. “He’s in love with you. And soon, if he hasn’t already, my son will lay his heart on the line for you. He’ll want you to be a part of everything he does.”
“And you don’t approve?”
“Well,” she said, shrugging, “that all depends on you, I suppose. But don’t you think there’s too much… distance between you?”
Distance? She said it like she meant that there were miles of road between Rye and me, but what she refused to come out and say straight to my face was that she thought I was too old for her son. The grandkid thing slammed home again. Why I was letting it bother me when it never had before was beyond me, and it made me so mad, letting her have that power over me.
I’d spent far too long thinking the same things about myself. Finding things to love about myself and the fact that I was getting older was really fucking hard. I didn’t need Calla Graves pointing out all the reasons I shouldn’t.
“And besides that,” she said, “you have your own family to tend to, and if my son really does leave the nest, so to speak?—”
I tried hard to hide my scoff, but it caught in the back of my throat anyway. Was she under the impression that her thirty-five-year-old son was a baby bird? Or just a baby?
Calla heard it and she arched an eyebrow. “All I mean to say, Aubrey, is wouldn’t you feel awful if Rye went after his dreams, but instead of focusing on them, he focused on you because he’s so infatuated with you?”
She straightened and grabbed her bag of books from the counter, then dropped her hands to her sides. She took one slow, last look around my store then fixed her stare on me. “You have boys. You can understand that Rye’s a proud young man, and if he had to come home with his tail between his legs, penniless and defeated… Well, you wouldn’t want that, now would you?”