Chapter 4
Chapter Four
BAYLOR
A grunt escapes as I move through the barn and grab the tools I need for my second job, a job I had no fucking intention of doing ever in my life. But also, it’s peaceful, even for all of my bitching.
“Hey,” Beckett calls out.
Turning my head, I look over to watch him approach me. Standing tall, I turn around, curious. Strait is at his ankles, following beside him as he takes long strides to close the distance between us. When Beckett stops, Strait does not and crashes into my shins.
Reaching down, I give him a hardy pet, making sure to scratch behind his ears the way I know he likes, before I pat him on the side of his chest a few times.
“What’s up?” I ask when Beckett doesn’t say anything immediately.
His arms are crossed over his chest, his chin dipped slightly, and when he speaks, his words surprise me a bit. We’ve never been a touchy-feely family, especially since our parents and grandparents passed. It hardened us in a lot of ways, but also made us realize what was important in life.
Family.
“You moving into the Ackermans’ old place, along with the others. I wish you’d think about settling down with someone instead of moving the other brothers in with you.”
“What’s the matter, Beck?” I ask. “You miss your brothers?”
He rolls his eyes to the ceiling, then flicks his gaze back to meet mine. “It’s not like any of y’all even moved out,” he mutters. “You’re all in my kitchen eating my food all the fuckin’ time.”
It’s my turn to roll my eyes, and that’s because there’s no fridge in our place. We gotta overhaul the whole fucking kitchen before we buy one. That’s my first priority after I build a new deck and steps. Fuck me, I don’t think I thought this whole thing through.
Reaching up for my hat, I grab the bill and move it up and down over my head a couple of times before I tug it down a little too low. I start to tell him to fuck off, but he speaks before I can get the words out.
“You know I’m giving you shit about the food, but I’m not about the settling. Whatever happened to Sabrina Deen?”
I think about that girl. Sabrina Deen. The girl I thought I loved a long time ago.
Looking back now, I don’t think that’s what it was.
I’m pretty sure I just needed to feel something that wasn’t the sadness in my life at the time.
I needed someone who made me feel alive, not six feet under, like so many people I loved.
“Don’t know,” I lie. “It didn’t work out.”
Not a lie but also not the full truth. I didn’t want it to work out. I ended things. And I started going through all the women in town who would bat their lashes at me, or better yet, the ones who made me work a little harder than giving them a crooked smile.
“Love to see you find someone, Baylor.”
The irony of my brother, who swore to fuck he would never settle down, almost counseling me to do that is not lost on me.
He’s found something he didn’t even know was possible, and he wants it for all of us.
And if my grumpy-as-fuck brother can find someone, there assuredly is hope for the rest of us.
But not today.
At least not for me.