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Dad opens the gate and walks through to the family plot, holding the gate open for Clayton. We all file in, and I shut it behind me.
Dad walks up to my mom’s headstone first. “Hey Daisy, the boys are at it again, but we have exciting news.” He kisses his fingers and presses them to the stone. “This is Ben and Gillian’s boy, Clayton. He’s a first-timer.” He nods at Clayton. “Say hi to Grandma Daisy.”
“Hi,” Clayton says, touching his fingers to the top of the tombstone.
He stands off next to Dad.
Jude steps up with Sadie. “Hey, Mom. I knew better. You taught me better. I’m sorry. We had the shower today, and we were spoiled rotten. Wish you were here to see your first granddaughter, Daisy.” Jude kisses his fingers and places them on the headstone, stepping aside so Sadie can say something.
“Hi, Mrs. Noughton. We miss you, and we’ll tell Daisy amazing stories about her namesake.” Tears fall from Sadie’s face onto the headstone.
Ben goes next. “Hey, Mom. Yeah, I have a black eye. It’s my second one from Emmett in three weeks.” He glances over his shoulder at me with narrowed eyes. “You remember Gillian? We’re getting married in a few months. Can’t wait to finally make her my wife.” He does the same thing as my dad and Jude, kissing his fingers and touching the top of her headstone.
I bring Briar up by the hand and stare at my mom’s name etched in the stone, my chest painfully tight. “This is Briar, Mom. I know… you’re as shocked as anyone else that I’m in love, but she blew into my life, and I was lucky enough to catch her. Thankfully, she loves me too. And she’s pregnant. The baby isn’t mine by blood, but they are in my heart. I’ll raise him or her no different than I would my own. I’ve been keeping secrets from the family, which is probably the reason we’re all here.” I bend down and kiss the top of her headstone.
We both step to the side.
“Even as adults, Daisy, they’re fighting like cubs.” My dad shakes his head. “Tackling one another, punching each other. It’s embarrassing. I thought I raised them right.”
“Come on, Dad,” Jude says. “We weren’t that bad.”
“Yes, you were. It was on The Canary Wall. And I had to hear it down at Bingo Friday night. How, in the middle of a softball game, two of my sons couldn’t handle their tempers. We’re a family, and I brought all of you”—he scans the area—“up here because our family has grown. I’m blessed to have the women you love treat you so well. That you’ve each found your person, like I did with your mom. But now it’s time that you all set your shit aside and get along.”
“They think I’m stupid,” I blurt. “That I can’t handle the ranch.”
Dad looks at Jude, then at me. “Emmett, I’ve always allowed you to be laidback, goofy, funny. I let you distract everyone with jokes and a good time, but you haven’t been as responsible on the ranch as you could be. I blame myself. Jude took to the ranch quick, and he loved it. Ben left to play football. And you, I just let you be. You never said you wanted to leave Willowbrook, so I assumed that one day you and Jude would run this place together. But I see now that I never let you find your passion like your brothers did.”
I always figured I’d find that love too. That one day, I’d just enjoy being a rancher. Herding cattle and planting corn. That if I did it long enough, that feeling of pride after a hard day’s work would come. But it never has.
“Someone helped me get to your videos on my phone, and I watched them. Of course they’re getting views,” Dad says. “I see how naturally it comes to you.”
“You mean showing off?” Ben grumbles.
“Ben, I wish you would’ve guided him more,” Dad calls him out.
I want to grin at my brother, but I don’t because I know I’ll get shit for it if I do.
“I’m being blamed?” Ben thumbs at himself.
“You got the opportunity to live out your dream. I’m surprised you never saw how unhappy Emmett was either. That he wasn’t living up to his full potential because he was miserable.”
“I’m the one who told him I’d get him the votes if…” His attention moves to Briar.
Gillian looks from him to me and back. “What?”
I turn to Briar. “Whatever is about to happen, just hear me out, okay?”
She inhales deeply, but her hand stays locked in mine.
Ben says, “I made a deal with Emmett that I’d help him get the votes at the quarterly meeting for a dude ranch if he…”
“If he what, Ben?” Gillian asks.
“If he stayed away from Briar.”
A rush of air whooshes out of Briar, but she doesn’t say anything.
I squeeze her hand and turn to her, shielding her from my family. “It was before anything went down with us. When you hated me. I promise.”
