Chapter Twenty-Five
T.R. watched Bo and Jack’s trucks, then Charlie’s Rover, drive off into the darkness, taillights receding and distant crunching. Stood in the silence for a beat too long, missing their noise as their headlights wound through the trees, disappearing.
He climbed back up his steps and through his door as if prying his feet out of lead.
His cabin was a wreck. Artwork Daisy had scribbled lay upon the coffee table along with a scatter of his grandma’s old crayons from a bucket beneath the sink.
The blankets on the couch were mussed and one of Daisy’s hair ribbons was on the floor, seemingly dropped and forgotten.
The smell of BBQ and remnants of plates and cans littered his counter.
His plaid flannel that had engulfed a goose-bumped Charlie, hung neatly on the hook beside the door, deprived of its girl.
A wreath really would look pretty over the mantel, like that magazine cutting he’d once spied in Charlie’s scrapbook. But for what purpose would a bachelor, who spent more time under the chassis of a truck than on his couch, hang one there?
An ache to watch over them brimmed at the surface and overpowered him.
The restraining order was a small consolation.
His home had always felt quiet when his bandmates left.
But right now, it felt downright … lonely, as he breathed in the scent of lilac growing up his grandmother’s trellises and wished he was breathing it off Charlie’s skin, and fuck, but he was lying to her.
She seemed to think he was some knight in tarnished armor, when he had broken the one rule she’d seemed to have, too chickenshit to fess up because he knew what he might lose.
He didn’t want to stay here, in the vacancy, when the aura of a little family he had no right to imagine still lingered like ghosts, when moments ago, this space had pulsed with life.
He stormed outside. Poured water on the embers in the firepit.
Strode to his tool bucket still sitting by the sawhorses where he and his wing girl had been building a chicken coop.
Hoisted it up and hit the lights on his way back through the house, snagging his keys off the hook by the door.
He dragged it shut and thudded down the steps to his truck, swinging the tools over his tailgate.
Fired up the engine and returned down to the farm, rolling up to his mechanic shop.
He’d work this angst out of his system instead.
He flipped on the shop light hanging from a wire. Dumped out his granddad’s tools and began to sort through them, eyeing his latest engine rebuild and hopefully the ticket to the extra money he needed to make up the cost of the awards entry fee.
He pulled out his phone to call her and make sure she’d made it home alright, make sure she locked the doors, when he noticed a missed call notification.
Tapping his voicemail, he hit speaker.
“Good afternoon, Mr. McClintock. This is Cindy Lyons from the county courthouse records department. I received your voicemail and would be happy to help you with your record request. Your appointment is tomorrow, Tuesday, at eight o’clock a.m.”
He then pulled out his cell phone and opened his contacts, tapping the three bold letters. CUZ.
He hated to interrupt Tyler if he was in the throes of groveling to win back his girl, but the man answered a couple rings later. “What’s up?”
“I’m taking tomorrow off,” he said as he slid on his protective helmet. “You get the girl, man?” T.R. asked.
“Yup.” He could hear the grin in Ty’s otherwise stoic voice. “Put a ring on her finger. It’s official.”
Whoa… “That’s huge, Ty. Congrats.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow to start the ball rolling on some real estate paperwork. Heart, the boys, and I are gonna make a go of it. Let’s meet soon to discuss some responsibilities there, because I’m gonna be selling the farm…”
The words hung suspended in time. The air left T.R.’s lungs.
Ty kept talking, but T.R.’s mind was reeling … sell it?
He stabbed at his phone to hang up. Turned on the power supply to his oxy-acetylene to heat up the crankshaft pulley as he bit back the … pain of Ty’s announcement.
Even after T.R. had confessed how he’d once hoped to inherit this place, Ty would still rather sell it off instead of let it remain with the family delinquent.
He flipped his eye protection over his eyes and fired up the torch. Fuck it. Always the bridesmaid, never worthy enough to be the damned bride.