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Hank sighed. “I’m sure I’ll have a lot of questions for you in the morning, Cory, but right now I’m too drunk to deal with it.” He got up and weaved on his feet. “So I’m going to bed.”
Corbin didn’t want to go to bed. He wanted to see Belle.
But getting up wasn’t easy. Nor was getting down the ladder. Although he did a better job of it than Jesse who slipped and landed on his ass at the bottom. Which caused all three men to bust out laughing. They laughed even harder when Hank fell into Mimi’s garden on the way up the porch steps.
Mimi and Darla, who were sitting on the porch, didn’t find it so amusing.
“Hank Holiday!” Mimi hollered as both women got to their feet. “You get out of my flower bed before I switch your bee-hind.”
“I’m trying, Mama, but this soil is like quicksand.”
“We got ya, Hank!” Jesse said as he grabbed Hank’s hand. Corbin grabbed the other. But Hank was a big man and it took some hard tugging to get him up. Once he was standing, Darla scowled at him.
“Don’t you dare think that you can come into the house covered in dirt, Hank Holiday.” She hurried down the steps and started brushing him off . . . until he grabbed her around the waist and tugged her close.
“I thought you liked me being a little dirty.”
Darla blushed and swatted his shoulder. “Behave.”
“Never, woman.” Hank lifted her over his shoulder and carried her up the steps and into the house without stumbling once.
When they were gone, Jesse glanced at Corbin. “What do you say, Whitty? Shall we go get our women?”
He was about to say hell, yeah when Mimi spoke. “Absolutely not. Y’all are in no condition to drive tonight. Tomorrow morning will be soon enough to go get my granddaughters. Now get inside before I switch your bee-hinds.”
Once inside, she made them take two aspirins and drink an entire glass of water before she sent them to bed.
As soon as Corbin stepped into his room, Tay greeted him with meows and leg brushes. He scooped her up into his arms and held her close as he made his way to the bed. But before he sat down to take off his boots, he noticed the drawing propped up on the pillows.
He knew his sister’s style as soon as he saw it . . . if not the subject. It was another drawing of the Holiday Ranch. But it wasn’t one of the drawings she’d done as a teenager. This one was recent. It had all the details right down to the flowers he’d bought to replace the ones Gilley had trampled. Sunny had added a few other details as well: Mimi working in the garden. Hank coming out of the barn. The outline of Darla working in the kitchen. Tay sitting on the porch steps. Gilley racing around the yard.
In the porch swing sat two people.
A man and a woman.
The man was looking at the woman as if she hung the moon. She was looking back at him the same way.
Across the bottom of the drawing were two words.
Cory’s Dream.
Chapter Twenty
Liberty was on the warpath.
After she and Jesse got in a huge fight, she moved out of Mrs. Fields’ and into Cloe’s house, then called an emergency Holiday Secret Sisterhood meeting for the following morning.
An in-person meeting.
Noelle came in from Dallas and Hallie from Austin. Since they couldn’t go to the Holiday Ranch, the six sisters gathered at the Remington Ranch—sending Rome, Casey, and Sam Remington fleeing as soon as the doorbell started ringing.
Belle hadn’t stayed the night with Liberty at the Remington Ranch. Instead, she’d stayed at Corbin’s trailer. She had told Liberty it had to do with Sam’s No-Animals-in-the-House rule. But secretly she had hoped Corbin would show up.
He hadn’t.
Now, there she sat in the midst of her sisters at Cloe’s kitchen table, feeling heartbroken. Not because of Corbin’s hurtful words. She knew his words and anger had all been a product of his pain. Trust was a huge issue for him. And now the two people he loved the most, Sunny and Jesse, had broken his trust.
He thought Belle had broken it too.
