Risking Fate(24)

“Well, you seem to be doin’ a lot better.”

“Randa, I’m a little worried about goin’ to Kentucky for the Christening.” Conner looked down at his hands and fidgeted. He’d done so well being away from all of his friends. His first week had been the worst, in fact we found out a lot more than we had wanted to. Conner had been using drugs. He tried to detox cold turkey and got really sick. He ended up spending the night in the hospital and having a very sick first week.

Ty and I did everything we could to make him comfortable, we even kept the worst of it from the family. Conner was trying so hard and he didn’t need extra eyes judging him. Besides, Ty wanted to do it for Conner. He wanted him to be able to trust us.

I grabbed my brother’s hand. “Conner, everything will be okay. The family doesn’t know the bad stuff.”

“What if my friends want to go out?”

I squeezed his hand. “It’s probably better if you don’t. Just hang out with us for the weekend. If it gets too bad then we can come home early. I can make up an excuse that I’m not feelin’ well. Ty will be cool about it.”

He leaned over and kissed my head. “I couldn’t do this without you, I hope you know that.”

Conner got up and headed back to his room. I heard him and Ty talking to each other in the hallway as they passed. I hadn’t thought about how hard things were going to be for Conner on our visit. I knew he missed his friends, but seeing them again, could test his sobriety. He and I both knew that he didn’t want to go down that road again.

It made me very nervous.

That night I told Ty about Conner and how worried I was. He told me that Conner had talked to him about it in the car and that he suggested the same thing. The two of them may have joked a lot and even gotten into heated arguments, but they acted like brothers. If something was wrong, they were the first ones to stand up for each other. Like always, Ty had Conner’s back and I knew we would be able to make it through the weekend if we just stuck together.

The next week flew by and we found ourselves packing up the cars again. This time Ty’s parents were coming. We still had to take two separate cars and of course Bella wanted to ride with her grandparents. I had to admit that I was a bit relieved. My ride was going to be annoying enough with Conner and Ty.

Ty’s parents wanted us to all ride in their new SUV, but thankfully, Ty insisted we drive separately. It would have been too packed for us to be comfortable.

After four stops for pee breaks, we pulled into the ranch. Conner was the only one staying somewhere other than the main house, so we dropped him off at my mom’s first before unpacking our car.

While Ty carried everything up, Bella and I went into the living room to see Lucy and my aunt. Ty met us downstairs at the same time his parents walked into the room. The older adults began a full blown conversation, while Bella was itching to get to Noah. We saw ourselves out and headed toward Colt and Van’s house.





Chapter 8

Ty

Being in Kentucky was one of my favorite places. I loved being with my family. When the three of us walked in the door, Iz went flying past us and headed up the steps to find Noah. We heard him call her name and then a bunch of chattering upstairs.

Van’s mother was holding Christian when I went over to say hello. She gave Miranda a quick wave before giving her grandchild all of her attention.

We sat around the house for the rest of the evening catching up with everyone. It was nice being around the whole family and not having one single argument. My parents as well as my mother in law and John stayed up at the main house for dinner, while the rest of us ate at Colt’s place.

Van was so busy appeasing her parents that she had little time to sit down and relax. Colt was sitting around talking about hunting with her father. I think he really missed doing that with my uncle. He’d been hunting with his dad since we were too small to even hold a gun. It was always a tradition that, while the women hung around the house, all the men got up before daylight and went out into the woods. Miranda was kind of jealous this year. She was the only girl in the family who loved to hunt and since she had a big ole belly, I wouldn’t even let her think about going.

Izzy was still too little, but Colt planned on taking Noah, at least for a little while over the weekend. Once she heard about it, she started giving her mother and me a fit to let her go.

The next morning, the women got up and started making food for the celebration. The smell of home cooking filled my aunt’s giant house. I reached around the bed before opening my eyes and realizing Miranda was already downstairs. I could hear female voices laughing and carrying on.