Chapter 20
Beau
Funerals were godawful. Every single last bit of them, from the flowers to the tearful eulogies to watching the casket drop. It all just fucking sucked.
The sky was too blue, the sun too bright, and the breeze was too soft.
There were even birds chirping. It felt wrong, like the world hadn’t caught up with the fact that Charlotte Hayes was no longer in it.
Or maybe it was Charlotte herself, reminding us all, especially her children, that everything would be alright and there were better days ahead.
We all stood gathered, dressed in our finest black, as we laid Charlotte to rest next to Ben.
Claire’s head was on my shoulder, her hand gripping mine so tight I couldn’t feel it anymore.
She clung to me like I was a life preserver and she was lost at sea.
And despite my own mixed feelings being here brought up, I had to stay afloat for her, for both of us.
I looked around, seeing all of my siblings and Claire’s. Everyone but one person.
Weston.
I had no clue where he was or what he was doing. All I knew was he better have one hell of an explanation when I saw him next.
Savannah was next to me, looking stoic, but I saw right through it.
Her swollen, bloodshot eyes and the way she kept tensing her jaw gave her away; she was crumbling.
Delilah was holding Savannah’s hand in one hand and Tess’s in the other, sniffling.
The youngest Hayes was silently crying, while Luke clung to her leg, looking lost. Emmett stood behind the four of them like a silent wall of support, his face grim yet controlled.
After the final prayer, everyone left the gravesite one by one, until all that was left was Claire and me. “I don’t want to leave her,” she whispered, a tear rolling down her cheek.
“We’ll stay however long you want, baby.”
Her chin quivered as she stared at the hole in the ground. “Then we’d just stay here forever,” she said. “And that’s not a life, not one she’d want me to live.” She let out a heavy breath, took a step back from the gravesite, and looked up at me, eyes teary. “Let’s go.”
I wiped a tear off her cheek. “You sure?”
She nodded. “I am. Let’s go,” she said again, and pulled me along with her.
I gave one last glance to Charlotte—and to Ben—and silently promised: I’ll take care of her, all of them. Always.
We went over to our siblings, who were standing together under a nearby tree, talking. They gave us tight-lipped smiles as we approached. Anna hugged Claire long and hard.
“This is the first time we’ve all been together in almost twenty years,” Colt said. “I hate it was under these circumstances, though.”
“Not all of us,” Savannah, of all people, said.
“Has anyone heard from him?” Delilah asked.
“Just that he couldn’t make it,” Emmett replied. “Told me to extend his condolences to everyone.”
“Not like Weston to do something like that,” Anna said as Joseph wrapped an arm around her. “I hope everything’s okay.”
“Bull riders don’t like to stick around when things get hard, that’s all,” Savannah snapped. I gave Claire a sideways look.
Colt cleared his throat awkwardly. “So anyway…the merger.”
“Don’t think now’s the best time for that,” I said, shooting him a glare.
“I know, but…the majority of us are all here.” He waved a hand towards Tess, who shifted towards Emmett. “Even the long-lost baby Hayes. I just thought now would be an okay time to pick a name.”
“A name for what?” Delilah asked.
“The ranch,” he replied. “The new, combined one. We can’t keep calling it Golden Bridle Circle M Ranch.”
“That is a mouthful,” Claire said. She looked at the ground, her bottom lip between her teeth. “Bridle M?”
“What about Golden M?” Emmett suggested.
“That’s a little too McLeod worshipy,” Delilah said, and then looked at my siblings and me. “No offense, guys.”
“Golden Circle,” Tess said softly. “Represents both ranches equally, and it sounds nice.” When she noticed all of us staring at her, she flushed. “Or not. Forget I said it.”
I smiled warmly at her. “I like it.”
“I do, too, bug,” Claire said, giving Tess’s hand a squeeze.
Everyone else joined in agreement, and just like that, our new ranch was named. Despite what I said before, it felt fitting that we agreed on a name here, now. Almost as if everything we had gone through led to this moment.
“Mom would’ve loved it,” Savanah added.
“I think so, too,” Emmett said.
I looked at Claire, squeezing her hip. “Should we tell them now?”
“Don’t tell us you’re pregnant,” Delilah groaned. “It’s been like a month.”
“Oh my God, no!” Claire laughed. “Nothing like that.”
Now that it had been brought up, I pictured Claire with a baby bump like Anna’s, and my stomach fluttered with excited anticipation. And while it was definitely too soon to even be thinking about babies, I knew Claire would be the most incredible mother to my kids, whenever that time came.
“We don’t want to be the sole owners of the ranches anymore,” Claire continued, leaning into my side. “We want to own it equally with y’all. We want this to be a true family business. That’s if y’all want ownership in it. If not, that’s okay too.”
“We all know I do horribly with being bossed around, so sign me up,” Delilah said, making everyone laugh.
“We’re in,” Anna added for her and Joseph.
And one by one, the rest of our siblings agreed, even Tess. “It’ll be a fresh start for Luke and me,” she said with the boy on her hip. They both seemed far less timid today than they were last night, and that gave me hope that being home would be good for them.
“There’s just one problem,” I said, turning to Claire.
Her brows furrowed. “What?”
I took her hand in mine. “Last week, the night your mom died, Preston Hollis texted you.”
The crease between her brows deepened. “I never saw a text from him.”
I looked down at our hands and swallowed. “Because I deleted it.” I winced as the words came out, knowing her reaction wouldn’t be good.
She ripped her hand from mine. “What? Why would you do that? What did it say?”
“He offered his condolences and, in the same breath, offered to buy Golden Bridle from you. I didn’t want you to wake up to that the next morning, so I deleted it. I was always going to tell you, I promise.”
“That wasn’t your choice to make, Beaumont.” Her voice cracked. She turned away from me as if she couldn’t trust herself not to say more. Something she couldn’t take back. “We’ll talk about it later.”
I glanced at everyone. “I think the Hollises are going to be a bigger problem than we thought. A much bigger problem. For whatever reason, they want the ranches. I don’t know if it’s for the land, the ranches themselves, or what. But they want something, and they aren’t taking no for an answer.”
“Shit,” Colt hissed under his breath, resting his hands on his hips. He ran a hand over his mouth. “Maybe we should get Levi to help Savannah with this after all. I know Weston was pretty outspoken about it, but I don’t think anyone else had a problem with it, right?”
“Levi, as in your cousin?” Tess asked, and Colt nodded. “He’s a lawyer?”
“Yeah, he practices family law,” he replied.
She gave everyone a wary glance. “I might actually need to meet with him,” she said quietly.
“About what?” Claire asked, her face going from angry to concerned, that mama bear side of her coming out.
“Custody for Luke. It doesn’t matter right now, I just”—she looked at Colt—“can you give me his number later?”
He nodded once. “Of course.”
Claire, Savannah, and Delilah all exchanged questioning looks. “Well, whatever Hollis wants to try, he can go for it,” Claire said. “We aren’t gonna budge.”
I smiled down at her, loving the determined look on her face. “Damn straight.”
“We should go. It’s nap time for this one,” Anna said, gesturing to Henry asleep in Joseph’s arms.
“Luke, too,” Tess said.
“We should get them together sometime for a playdate!”
Tess blinked as if Anna had just spoken in a foreign language. “Uh, yeah, sure.”
We all parted ways, the silence heavy in my truck with just Claire and me. “I can’t believe you hid that text from me,” she said under her breath. “And then you told me about it in front of all of them. What the fuck, Beau?”
I let out a heavy sigh, hanging my head.
“I’m sorry. I just thought I was doin’ what’s best. I wanted to protect you.
” I ran the back of my finger along her cheek.
“You were already hurting so much, I didn’t want to add any more stress on you.
And then there never seemed to be a good time to tell you about it after. ”
She pulled her face away, glaring at me. “And after my mother’s funeral in front of all our siblings was?”
My lips pressed together in a flat line. That was fair. “No, it wasn’t. But we were already talkin’ about Golden Circle, and everyone needed to know.”
“I don’t appreciate being blindsided like that, Beau. We’re supposed to be partners.”
“I know, baby, and we are partners. I won’t hide anything like that from you again. Cross my heart.” She let me take her hand in mine and kiss her knuckles. “I’m sorry. Really. How can I make it up to you?”
She pursed her lips, giving me the side eye like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to be pissed still or not. “Groveling,” she said, looking out the window, her head held high. “Lots of it.”
I smiled against her hand, pulling out of the cemetery. I had missed that fiery, flirty spark in her that had been vacant for the last week.
“You know I love to earn your forgiveness.” My voice was low, rough. It’d been over a week since I had her last, and God, if I didn’t miss the way she felt. But I wasn’t about to push her if she wasn’t ready for it, and this was a perfect test to see if she was or not.
I watched her throat move with a swallow. “Well, I’m really mad,” she said, trying so hard to stay serious, but I saw the subtle curl of her lips. “So you’ll have to work extra hard.”
Pure need ran through me like I’d never felt before. “I don’t mind hard work.”
She let out a long hum, some of the edge gone from her voice when she said, “We’ll see about that.”
We rode in silence, her hand in mine, while she watched the fields pass by. “I’m pissed Weston wasn’t here,” I admitted, unable to hold it in anymore.
“Did he tell you why he didn’t come?”
“No.” And that pissed me off even more. It wasn’t like him to drop the ball like that.
“Funerals can be hard for some people,” she said. “Don’t hold it against him. I don’t.”
“I called him that night,” I said. “Told him to get his ass here and that Savannah needed him, and then he didn’t fucking show.” Claire was quiet, and I glanced at her, doing a double-take when I saw the horrified look on her face. “What?”
“Why the hell would you say that to him?”
“Because it's the truth. Have you not noticed the weird tension between them? Something happened with them, I know it.” And with this merger, we couldn’t afford for there to be tension between our families, not anymore, not with Hollis gunning for us.
“Of course, I have, but that doesn’t mean I go shove my nose in it! God, Beau, it’s like you’re collecting information for the Whispers or something. There’s tension there for a reason. We need to stay out of it.”
I let out a long sigh. “You’re probably right.”
“I know I’m right. Just like I’m not pressing Tess to talk about whatever the fuck is going on with her. If they want us to know, they’ll tell us. Until then, we just need to be supportive.”
“You’re so smart.”
She smirked, shifting towards me in the passenger seat. “Is this you groveling?”
“Only a little. Need my hands to do it right.”
She rolled her eyes, shaking her head at me. “You’re a mess, Beaumont.” The little smile she gave me felt like the moment after a storm cleared and the clouds were parting. It gave me hope that the worst was behind us and that the best was yet to come.
“Your mess.” I shot back with a boyish grin. Her hand settled on my thigh as I drove us the rest of the way home, ready for whatever Hollis had in store for us.