Chapter 5
FIVE
CALDER
Staring out the window of my Cadillac Escalade, I take in the towering red barn housing the brewery.
Although it was a fruitless yet informative visit, I don’t drive off immediately.
I stroke my gaze over the patio to the side.
Grief pushes at my conscience, but the guards hold firm.
Still, I can’t tear my attention away. The same pergola my brothers and I toiled over one summer still stands.
It’s been stained a darker, trendier shade of brown.
The change makes my molars ache. Mama and I picked out the original stain.
I intentionally relax my jaw. It’s surprising I have any teeth left after facing Meredith Winslow. It’s surprising I can think straight after catching a glimpse of yellow peeking out from a hole by her back pocket. Hell, I need a vacation.
The wide-eyed girl who used to hide in her room when my brothers and I were home from college is taller now. At least, I didn’t get a kink in my neck looking down at her when she told me to protect my junk from Dad’s ancient computer. The memory of her comment almost elicits a smile. Goddammit.
“What the hell, Dad?” I mutter. “Why’d you have to roll that damn car and leave me with this mess?” I kick the Escalade into gear and turn onto the short gravel path that’ll lead me to the highway.
I take the all-too-familiar road to the outskirts of Scandal. Five miles outside of town, I turn west toward Crossroads Ranch.
I punch a button on the steering wheel. “Call Bowen.”
An electronic voice echoes my command, and the sound of a ringing phone fills the cab.
“Cross,” my brother answers.
“Cross.” I can’t help pointing out how he answered when he knew damn well it was me.
“I’m the better Cross.”
I grunt. Rubbing the back of my neck, I suppress a yawn. “Where are you?”
“I have an investor’s meeting on Monday, then I’m flying out. You there yet?”
So Bowen’s still in Las Vegas, while Landry is who knows where. I’m the only Cross within Scandal’s city limits. Rolling my shoulders, I regret not taking off my suit coat.
“I stopped at Jules Creek first.”
There’s a moment of silence. “How was it?”
Disconcerting. Uncomfortable. Sad. “She was there.” Bowen knows who I mean.
Dad and I talked more over the past few years. Bowen mentioned Dad’s calls to him had also increased recently, but as for Landry, Dad told me my youngest brother rarely answered. Will Landry regret that now?
That’s not my concern. I have my own emotions around my falling-out with Dad to deal with.
“He always gushed about her. Sawyer too,” Bowen says with more than a hint of resentment.
Dad told me that regardless of our feelings toward his relationship with Holly, Meredith was as good as gold.
He claimed he couldn’t run the brewery without her.
Meredith is a genius when it comes to brewing, and she manages the employees and the taproom better than he ever could.
He adored Sawyer Booth, too, and hired her on for the ranch.
He claimed they had an arrangement, but he wouldn’t tell me all the details.
I didn’t ask. I didn’t think I’d be back so quickly.
My knuckles turn white on the steering wheel.
Ultimately, Dad chose Holly Winslow over his own sons.
Every single day, every year, he made his choice.
We were left homeless. I scrambled to get a job to support myself, and I took Bowen and Landry in.
We all worked, and they finished college. Some days, we fucking starved.
Dad never apologized, and now he never will.
Acid burns its way up my throat. “Call me when you get to town.”
“Will do.” The line disconnects.
I fly by green pastures teeming with grazing cattle.
Black Angus are scattered on one side, and red Simmental on the other.
In the distance, the peaks of windmills rise above the rolling hills.
A few miles later, I pass an oil well on Sterling land, our closest neighbors.
The pump isn’t moving. A few miles farther, there’s another well, the arm slowly moving up and down with a mesmerizing rhythm.
Finally, I reach the road that’ll take me in the opposite direction.
“Fucking Sterlings,” I utter, as if muscle memory kicked in and I couldn’t not say it.
Dad and Gil Sterling never got along. Same with the boys of each man. I don’t know about Gil’s daughter. She’s ten years younger than Landry. From what Dad said, she manages the Sterling ranch, while her brothers profit from the oil money.
Growing up, it was a case of the haves and have-nots, and back then, it was all about who had the oil and who did not.
The Sterlings ensured everyone knew they possessed it and proudly displayed their Pedigree Oil merchandise.
Our land did not yield, but in this region of the state, there’s still a unique beauty in a stretch of land without windmills or oil wells.
Dad used to call us “happily Pedigree-free.”
Being Pedigree-free also meant we did not get the payouts for mineral right for Pedigree to drill and put wells on our land, or for running pipelines through our property. If our parents suffered for the lack of extra income while I was growing up, I didn’t know it.
I glance at the empty pastures. It’s only June. The Crossroads Ranch manager will move the cattle any day now and introduce the calf-cow pairs into these pastures for the summer.
After two more turns, I approach a long gravel drive with a log arch over the entrance. “Crossroads Ranch” is carved into the highest log, and our brand is burned into the adjacent wood. A “C” seamlessly blends into an “R,” with the ends of the “R” tipped with arrows.
I’m home.
Stepping on the gas, I lurch down the drive. The house comes into view.
“Are you fucking serious?” The old white two-story farmhouse Mama cherished is now painted robin’s-egg blue. The black shutters remain the same, but the sprawling porch is new. Newer. Hell, Dad could’ve built it the day after I left, for all I know.
A shadow moves by the shrubs next to the house. A dog? It’s too big to be a cat, but it slips through the lilac bushes. Are the coyotes getting bolder than when I was younger? Regardless, it’s gone, and I’m not getting scared off by wildlife on my first day back in the country.
The drive loops past the house and the garage, toward the barn, past the oldest shop, where we keep the farming equipment, and back to the smaller shop, where Dad restored the classic car he and Holly were killed in.
A red-and-white 1955 Chevy Bel Air convertible.
It’s not there now. It’s probably mangled in the police lot.
I park by the house and get out. A strong breeze ruffles my hair, so I unbutton my coat and take it off.
I drape it over the front seat and stroll toward the barn.
Where the hell is this pavilion Meredith mentioned?
I scan the yard, but the same buildings, including the chicken coop and the garden shed, are all I find.
She was messing with me. Infuriating woman.
Chickens dart out from behind the old garden shed.
Birds chirp and sing around me. Mama’s lilacs are in full bloom, creating a stark purple contrast against the green grass.
The last time I talked to Dad, he mentioned it was a good spring for rain.
Fucked with calving. Rather calve in snow than mud, but it’s too late to adjust the timeline now. His grumbles echo in my mind.
An emptiness opens wide in my chest. I tuck my chin down and continue toward the barn.
The lilacs’ soft scent wafts across my nose.
A dusty silver pickup is parked outside the wide-open sliding door.
Another summer memory streams through my mind.
Me painting the highest points of that damn barn, my brothers tackling the lower spots, and Mama and Dad working on the trim.
You missed a spot, Calder! Mama would yell. She and Dad would dissolve into laughter.
I stop as the image replays through my mind: lemonade and brownies during breaks, working until sunset at ten o’clock.
Then we’d wake after dawn and do it all over again.
I thought that was my future at one time.
That instead of running a finance company with a team of driven professionals, I’d be the one painting that damn pergola on the brewery.
Bringing out cold beer and snacks for my family.
I thought I’d be running all this with my almost-retired dad and my brothers.
Instead, I started a finance company from scraps, and it saved all our asses.
Now us boys are all millionaires and never have to paint a damn thing again.
My chest is tight as I draw in a breath.
“Well, I’ll be. Calder?” An older man’s deep growl breaks through my reverie. A dog barks.
Finally. Someone I want to see. “Uncle Carlos.”
Carlos Garcia isn’t related to us, but he’s been like an uncle my entire life. He was Dad’s childhood best friend and later worked in agricultural sales for three decades. Ten years ago, after a brief early retirement, Dad hired him as the ranch manager.
I clap my hand against his. He yanks me toward him with a surprisingly strong grip and thumps my back. A cough puffs out of me. I don’t get greetings like this in the boardroom. A blue heeler I’ve never seen runs laps around us.
When Carlos releases me, he steps back and takes me in. I do the same. He’s older now, with more gray in his black hair and scruff, but he’s wearing the same striped pearl-button shirt and worn blue jeans I’ve always known him to wear. A grungy gray Crossroads Ranch ball cap rests on his head.
“Look at you.” He squints at my slacks. “Ram said you were some slick hotshot.”
“I don’t know about that.” It’s the second time “slick” has been thrown my way, but the way Carlos says it doesn’t hit me in the gut like when Meredith said it.
The dog runs his nose along my shoes, sniffing.