Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
Some people’s ‘third eye’ is their butthole.
—Magnolia to Beau
MAGNOLIA
The day of the funeral arrived, and as if the weather was in agreement with the big feelings that were written on all of our faces, the day was dark and sunless.
There was a mixture of snow and rain falling from the sky, and it was so cold and windy that the black dress I was wearing offered zero protection from any of it.
The coat I was wearing went down to mid-thigh, but you would think I was out in the weather wearing nothing but shorts and a t-shirt with how cold I felt.
I wasn’t the only one.
Every single girlfriend/wife/significant other of a Dixie Warden was in attendance in almost the same attire.
Merrill had volunteered to be a babysitter for the kids. All of them were at Denver’s ranch while Merrill ran herd on them in the open-concept living room.
She was having the time of her life when we left and promised to help the caterers get going on the food that was set to arrive sometime after the funeral and the reception.
The only people that would be in attendance at the reception were those directly related to a Dixie Warden, a wife or girlfriend, or a Dixie Warden themselves.
Beau, feeling me shiver, threw his arm around my body and dropped his mouth to my ear before whispering, “We should’ve gotten you some leggings.”
I leaned into his shoulder. “It wasn’t this cold when we left.”
“Welcome to Montana, where the weather changes as fast as you can blink.”
Though his words were said in jest, there was no humor in them. He was still in as much shock nearly a week after Koen’s death as he was when he first found out.
The service was quiet and solemn.
Koen’s family had come up from Texas, and the sister and brother-in-law looked absolutely broken. The kids were just as confused, looking like they didn’t quite comprehend what had happened to their beloved uncle.
A car door slammed, and I turned toward the car park where everyone had pulled up to the curb.
I hissed in a breath and said, “Beau, go help her now.”
He looked, then jerked in his seat as he let me go and headed for the parking lot at a semi-run.
Boone, seeing him take off, followed his gaze and stood as well, smoothing down his shirt as he did.
He whispered something in his grandmother’s ear that had her turning as well, then they were at Ida Bell’s side.
Ida Bell had woken up just forty-eight hours ago from her coma.
She had a lot of broken bones, and she sure as heck shouldn’t be out of the hospital. She certainly shouldn’t be walking on her own toward Koen’s casket.
Shaw, seeing me shiver, slid down to block me from the wind.
I leaned on his shoulder and whispered, “You okay?”
Katana and Shaw hadn’t had a funeral for their little girl. She’d been too small, and Katana hadn’t been up to it.
So instead, Shaw buried her in his backyard, which happened to be on a small ranch just down the road from Denver.
He hadn’t wanted anyone around.
That didn’t mean that the club brothers hadn’t shown up anyway and forced their attention on them.
In my heart, I knew that Shaw felt guilty.
He hadn’t been dealing well with what had happened, and he’d been the reason that everyone had been headed toward his house. In doing so, Koen had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Shaw blamed himself.
Which was clearly obvious by the way he answered my question. “Awful.”
I leaned further into him. “I’m sorry, Shaw. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling or going through right now. This entire situation seems grossly unfair to you.”
He took his jacket off and draped it over my legs. “Shaw…”
“Don’t really feel much of anything right now, Maggie.”
I laid my head on his shoulder. “Did you grow up in Montana?”
“Born and raised,” he answered. “Though I’m new to Sawtooth. I’m originally from the Glacier area. Blackfoot Tribe, to be specific.”
I really studied him hard for a long moment before I said, “I would’ve never thought that you were Native American.”
“Quarter.” He shrugged. “My grandfather was full-blooded. My mom came for a visit to Glacier National Park and met my dad where he lived in Browning. She went home after spending every minute of her vacation with him. Stayed home for about two months before she realized that she missed him too much to stay in California. Moved her entire life to Browning, Montana, and they got married six weeks later. My dad is half Irish. Came for the same reason, to visit Glacier. Met my mom and convinced her to go back to Ireland with them. But Mom passed away, and Dad didn’t know how to raise four kids alone.
He moved back to Browning to have my grandparents help raise us.
He’s been a park ranger for Glacier National Park ever since. ”
“Why’d you move here?” I wondered.
“Wanted to break away from the family business,” he grumbled. “Start something on my own.”
“What was the family business?”
Just as I asked that, Beau took the seat on the other side of me, squishing me in between Shaw and himself.
“Security,” Shaw answered. “Was in the military for a long fucking time. Got out, wanted to jump into business with my Pops and Dad—they’re security consultants for black ops and the government—but they were pretty set in their ways, and didn’t want to ‘rock the boat’ with my new ideas and ‘dangerous ways.’ Fought them for a while on it, but in the end, decided that maybe it wasn’t worth the hassle.
” Shaw sighed. “The final nail in the coffin was a really bad breakup. One that had the possibility of going nuclear if I stayed.”
And he’d come here, gotten that new start, and had lost a child.
How awful.
I tapped him with one shoulder. “Are you sure you’re not cold?”
“Positive,” he grumbled just as Denver walked up to the front. “Got more meat on my bones than you do, anyway.”
Beau’s arm curved around my shoulders, and though I wasn’t warm, I didn’t freeze either.
It didn’t help that I sobbed from the moment that everyone started to speak to the end when Denver ordered us all to his place.
At some point during the ceremony, Beau must’ve started his truck up, because it was toasty warm when we got there.
“Ahhh.” I shivered as the heat started to seep into my bones. “This.”
Shaw, who’d ridden with us, took the seat in the back and said, “Jesus. Feels like I’m suffocating.”
I tossed a toy of Iris’s at his face and said, “Just keep suffocating back there until I can feel my toes again.”
Beau got into the seat on the heels of me saying that to his friend.
“Sorry, Thumper. Can’t have my girl’s toes getting frostbite.”
His lips quirked up, but he didn’t complain the rest of the way to Denver’s place.
“Someone knocked Denver’s mailbox down,” I mused as we pulled into his drive.
“Probably the caterers,” Beau mumbled. “Texted Merrill to check on Iris and the rest of the kids, and she said that the caterers were a train wreck.”
I frowned. “What?”
He shrugged. “That’s just what she said. That there were eight of them, and not a single one of them looked like they knew what they were doing.”
I was curious what I would find when we walked in the door—the first to arrive, might I add—and blinked when I saw the food.
“Ummm.” I hesitated as I looked at it. “What was ordered again?”
Merrill came in with baby Margie on her hip and said, “I asked that, too. Apparently, man food. Hot dogs, burgers, potato salad, macaroni and cheese, and more.”
“Then what is this?” I shook my head.
I had zero clue what I was looking at to be honest.
“Salad,” she said. “Potato salad with honeyed pecans in it. Greek Goddess Salad. That one is apparently one that has regular pecans in it. And every dressing that you can think of.”
“What happened to the ‘man’ food?” I shook my head.
“They were out, so they brought the ‘next best thing.’ For free, might I add. They left the check on the table that one of the club brothers dropped off two days ago.”
I looked at the salad, then made an executive decision.
I pulled out my phone and ordered pizza.
I was munching on pizza crust—all of the crust that Lysander and Iris refused to eat—and dipping it in a cup of ranch when Nettie found me.
“You have my baby.”
“It’s nice to have one that doesn’t complain when you give her kisses.” I laughed.
Iris would do hugs, but kisses were a big, fat no—Unless you were named Beau.
She walked up to me and nuzzled her nose against Margie’s sleeping face.
“You can love on her all you want.” She frowned. “Are you ready to go?”
No.
No, I was not.
But we didn’t really have a choice.
“One more game,” I said. “I’m lucky we know the owner, and they had no problem with us arriving the day before the game.”
“No joke,” she said. “I just heard Beau in the hallway bitching to Apollo about his sister. Any news on that?”
“Just that she ‘worked it out with the judge’ that she can leave the state for games. As long as she’s back within forty-eight hours,” I grumbled.
“And Cain?” she asked.
“He hasn’t left that ski resort since he was released,” I answered as I passed Margie back to her mother and led her out of the room with my arm looped through hers. “Gentry and Black have a hawk eye on him. The man won’t be going anywhere without someone following his every move.”
When we got to the living room, it was to find the Dixie Wardens drinking whiskey, passing around a bottle.
Boone was in the middle, looking clearly heartbroken as his sister leaned into his side, asleep.
The rest of them were passing the bottle around but not saying much, not wanting to wake Ida Bell.
I let Nettie go and went in search of Beau.
I found him on the porch, looking angry.
“What’s wrong?”
His jaw worked. “My sister decided to take the company jet and take off to Seattle without letting us know. Court is currently filing a report with the FAA and any other agencies that’ll listen. The plane was made to turn around, too.”
“It’s not very easy to steal a plane,” I admitted. “How did that happen?”
“She knows the pilot,” he growled. “She actually tried to do it several times this season. Once because she wanted to fly to Paris, and another because she wanted to go to Milan.”
I hated his sister.
With a passion of a thousand burning suns.
If I could erase her from his memory and this planet, I’d do it without hesitation.
I never thought it possible that I’d find someone that I hated as much as I hated Cain McDuff, but Seraphina Vanderbilt was definitely competition.
They’d both tie in the worst person in existence award.
“What now?”
“Now, I guess we go up in the morning instead,” he growled. “As long as we get there by nine, we should be on time for the game at noon.”
There were rules and regulations with the league that I didn’t understand and had no desire to.
This time tomorrow, I will have played my very last soccer game. Maybe not ever, but definitely professionally.
I was so dang excited, I could barely stand it.
If only everything else in life wasn’t so bad.