My conversations with Dad click into place. Sawyer Booth. Meredith’s best friend. Someone Dad adored and employed. Another woman he doted on instead of his own kids.
The ranch records reflect how much she’s worked on Crossroads. She treats and cares for every creature on the ranch, and she likely provided some under-the-table care for Carlos when he required minor mending.
I remember the Booths. They were an elderly couple who lived in town. He worked for the newspaper, and she was the lunch lady. They had a daughter late in life, and I wouldn’t have pictured that proper little girl turning into a woman wearing square-toed cowboy boots, durable jeans, and a short-sleeve button-up shirt. A rope belt cinches at her waist. I can picture Meredith and Sawyer clambering over fences and chasing barn cats as young girls.
“Sorry I’m late. An abscess took—” Her gaze lands on me, and she blanches. She seeks out Meredith, and they exchange aloaded look that only close friends can manage. “Calder Cross, in the flesh.”
“What are you doing here?”
Both women kick up a brow, and yeah, it’s a pointless question, but I’m feeling outnumbered. Like the villain who rides into town and gets confronted by a line of townsfolk on Main Street.
Her disdainful gaze shifts to my loafers, and she sneers. “You’ve got some dust on your shoes.”
I’m about to tell her she has dust every-fucking-where when James claps his hands.
“Perfect timing, Sawyer. I have copies of the readings for you to look over.”
She shoots me a glare before following James to his office.
Is she reading during one ceremony, or both?Again, I’m on the outside, lost in my own hometown.
I’m left with Meredith. She folds her arms, her face drawn. Instead of engaging in a tense conversation, she wanders to the window, squinting as the sunlight lands on her.
The silence affects me, and that makes no damn sense. I work alone in an office. I dread meetings before they even begin and will completely opt out if possible. Yet I’m waiting for her attention, and she’s not giving it.
“I’m planning to visit the brewery today. I should meet the other employees.”
That makes her turn, her eyes blazing in the sun. “Then you’ll need to go later. Molly’s only there early when we have inventory and stocking to do. The others work the taproom shifts.”
“Molly?”
“The girl who was working with me yesterday.”
There was another person there? I knew Meredith was there as soon as I opened the door. But yes, now I recall another woman bustling behind the bar.
“When is Bea usually in?”
Her expression softens, letting fondness in. “She comes in the afternoon and sometimes stays for a pint.”
A pint with Bea sounds like a better night out than I’ve had in a while.
Sawyer and James emerge from the office. He smiles, the dark skin around his eyes crinkling.
“I’m all yours, Calder.”
My gaze connects with Meredith’s shadowed one. There’s nothing for us to say to each other, and I should have an easier time accepting that. It would bother my conscience less, but the plans for everything Dad left behind aren’t just up to me.
Leaving the women, I head into James’s office. He chats with them for another minute before joining me. As he sits behind his desk, I experience a fleeting sense of longing for my brothers to be here. Why couldn’t one of them take time off? Our father died, for fuck’s sake.
I push my irritation aside. I should be accustomed to the distance between all of us. It’s been a long time since I flew to visit either of them. We’re all unapologetically busy with our careers. Being home is messing with my head. So is planning my dad’s funeral alone, along with ending last night being reprimanded by Meredith. Now I’m looking forward to a drink with a woman whose wildest night is winning bingo at the bar downtown.
I could be wrong. Bea could out-party me.
Is Meredith working all night again?
Why do I care?
So I can avoid the dining table when she returns to the house? Or to make sure I’m planted there at 2 a.m.?
