Page 82 of Slow Hands Cowboy

Lila hopped up and down. “Thank you,” she said.

Cody shook his head. “Y’all are annoying as hell.”

Poor Cody. He liked a comfort zone, but being a business owner meant never quite having one. It wasn’t that Walker had a whole heap more experience with that than Cody. Though, he had gotten a degree that had given him a little bit of insight into different processes and had helped fix his expectations.

Cody hadn’t needed to go to college because he was pedantic all on his own and thought of all the details. But Walker just liked to decorate himself with things. A beautiful house, a degree on the wall. All the things that might prove that he was succeeding.

Maybe that was why he could accept that underneath the facade it was always going to feel terrible.

The only thing he let himself care about was the facade.

Cody, being Cody, cared a hell of a lot more about the depth of it.

Standing there looking at his sister, who was so excited, Nolan, who was trying not to smile at that excitement, and Cody, who was exasperated, but also visibly proud, yet again, Walker felt distant. Because they were not about the facade. They were real. And he wondered then if he ever had been.

“I’m going off to work on a business plan. Because I got my way already, but I want you to help me. I want you to be on my side,” Lila said, practically scampering away from the group.

“I have work to do,” Nolan said, turning away. He saluted off the edge of his cowboy hat as he left.

“Dear God,” Cody said, looking up at the sky. “What have I done? To deserve all of this.”

“Raised fiercely independent siblings?” Walker asked.

“Nolan is not my brother.”

“You helped keep him alive. Therefore, your stray and your problem.”

“Usually he takes my side.”

“Regret to inform you, bro. Lila is right in this case. I’m not just being a contrarian. We have, at the moment, an opportunity for real growth. We have eyes on us right now, we need to capitalize on that. That’s my thing. I might not have facts and figures for you, but you can trust me. Marketing has never been easier. I’m getting inquiries all the time. Different brands wanting to know if we can sell their wine, their beef, different products in gift stores. It’s making me think we really need to up the offerings in the resort hotel.”

“Really? All that is happening?”

“Yes. I heard that Cara got a call about distribution for her baked goods. Or even having them manufactured somewhere so they can be sold in the store. Because from the whole runaway bride story, we got more focus on the strawberry rolls.”

“I just... hell. I just can’t believe it.”

Cody stood there, looking some kind of baffled that Walker had never seen before.

“You really don’t know what to do when things go well, do you?”

“No,” Cody said. “I surely don’t. And here I am... I’m going to propose to her,” Cody said.

Walker felt like he got whiplash. “What?”

“Marlowe. I’m going to propose to Marlowe.”

“You’ve only been with her for three months.”

“I know. I don’t care. I love her and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I know that. And the only thing holding me back has been this horrible feeling that nothing actually works out for us. I mainly worked through that. Mainly, but every so often it all creeps up. And now the business is going really well, and I’m afraid to touch anything. If I touch it, it’s all going to fall apart. I had already decided that I was going to propose, and then Lila brought all that up⁠—”

“Nothing’s going to crumble,” Walker said. “This is actually the effect of all your hard work. I know it’s difficult to believe, but it is. You made this happen. You worked your fucking ass off in the rodeo, you earned all that money. And before that, you took care of us. Everything that I’ve achieved is because of you.”

Walker felt discomfort rise up in his stomach, and he knew that he had to be sincere. Fuck. But he had told Addison. And it wasn’t actually that he didn’t trust her, but it was possible that she could tell somebody and...

“I just need to tell you, you’re more like a father to me than... no, that sounds weird. You’re my older brother. And the position of father doesn’t mean jack shit to me. Because I had you. Because you looked out for us. You protected us. Because you set me up so that I could go into the rodeo, so that I could use that money to send myself to college, so that I could get everything that I have now. It’s all because of you, Cody. Without you, none of it exists. And we help you along now, I’m not minimizing that. But if it weren’t for you, if it weren’t for the way that you took care of us all that time, we would have nothing. We would just be part of that same cycle.”

Cody looked like he wasn’t sure what to say to that. Which was fine. Walker sort of wished that he hadn’t said it. But he had to. And then more.