Maybe another time—another place—but not now.
Not when everything feels so out of control.
This must be what it feels like to miss something so deeply you crave it . . . even if you never really had it to begin with.
7
CLAYTON
“Hometown Girl” by Josh Turner
“A little higher on the left,” my sister says for the umpteenth time. I do what she wants and lift the banner up—again—to the left. “No, my left.”
I turn on the ladder and look down at Quinn. “Your left is the same as my left, Quinnie.”
“Oh, then the right.”
Fighting the urge to roll my eyes, I adjust my hold and move the banner again. From my perch, the thing is right as rain, but no damn way am I arguing with my hormonal sister. Tried that once and I swear to all things holy, the devil came out of her body and tried to pull me down to the pits below.
“Quinn, you’ve got that thing so high, no one’s gonna be able to see it!” Leigh calls from just outside the barn, coming into the large open area with one hand on her hip. “Why do you have Clay up there anyway; we decided the other night to put it above the door—outside.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I mumble under my breath. I close my eyes, count to ten, then do it all over again because I’m still seconds away from blowing the top of my head off.
“Need some help?”
I look down, hoping that Maverick can tell without words just how close I am to wringing our little sister’s neck, but keep my mouth shut out of fear that I’ll lose my temper if I open it.
Control.
I don’t just like it—I need it. Without it, I feel like I’ve lost the reins on everything around me.
Quinn and Leigh continue to bicker about the best place for the stupid-as-fuck banner while I continue to level Maverick with my seething gaze. His eyes dance, that lighthearted happiness that he developed in the past few years now pissing me off while I’m stuck up here.
“Come on down. I’ll take care of it and you can go do whatever the fuck Tate’s been doin’ for twenty minutes with the fuckin’ drinks.”
I look over at my brother in-law and laugh when he steps away from the cart we pulled in here early this morning and looks at the drink table in confusion. Why so much shit is needed for a joint baby shower, I’ll never know. Especially since this is something I never thought I’d experience personally, much less as an uncle.
“Why does he look so damn confused?” I ask Maverick, climbing down carefully and handing him both ends of the banner.
“Quinn said she wanted everything set out in the shape of fuckin’ rattles. Can you believe that shit? Since when does she give a damn about all this stuff?”
“Since she and your wife have been planning what our baby showers would look like from age ten, Maverick Austin Davis-James.”
I burst out in a loud bark of laughter at the sound of my baby brother’s legal name. I understood his reasons for not wanting to keep our family name when he married Leighton, instead choosing to take hers, but hearing Quinn sass him with that mouthful never fails to crack me up. “You heard her, Mr. James.” I laugh, slapping him on the shoulder before walking away to help Tate figure out how the hell a bunch of cans are supposed to look like baby rattles.
An hour later, I make myself a promise that the next time either one of them winds up pregnant, I’m moving to Alaska until the birth so I miss all this party shit. Or fuck, I’ll just buy them all the stuff they need if it means I don’t have to hang streamers, arrange food and drinks into shapes, and, worst of all, put a bunch of melted chocolate into diapers so they can play some fucked-up game of Sniff the Shit.
Thank God I’ll never find myself in this position.
Shaking my head, I walk away from the last table I sprinkled a bunch of pink and blue confetti on, dusting my hands off on my jeans. The party isn’t set to start for another hour, and I’m about to use every second to find a secluded, not fucking pastel corner in which to enjoy some silence. Maybe then I won’t jump on the back of Dell, my palmetto, and hightail it back to the ranch.
Stepping out of the barn, I adjust my hat so the sun isn’t so harsh on my eyes after being inside for so long. Sometimes I still can’t believe the changes Maverick made to the old James property since he came back to Pine Oak. He’s built himself one fine rodeo school: even from this distance, I can see some of his students out in the training arenas, working with their teachers despite the fact that it’s Saturday. I come over here from time to time to watch Maverick in his element, beyond happy that he’s been able to retain such a big part of his life after being forced to give up riding professionally.