Page 66 of Bailey

Graham swallowed and wiped his mouth with a paper towel. He had no idea what to say into the tense silence settling over the table. His brothers and their wives and kids came to join them, but they’d sat down on the end, and their conversations didn’t quite reach this far.

“It sounds like you might be real busy this summer, OJ,” Reeves said, and all eyes moved to him again. He spoke in a slow, cowboy way that also held ultimate power. “But I have to make videos every week, and I could start to teach you how to use the camera, if you’d like.”

Bailey turned toward him, and Reeves met her eye for a moment. Again, they seemed to have a whole conversation, and Reeves swept his lips across her cheek and practically rested his chin on her shoulder as he looked at OJ again. “I’ve asked Bailey, but she doesn’t seem too keen on helping me.”

“You don’t really need a cameraman,” Bailey said dryly.

“No, but if OJ wants to come, he could even be in a video if he wanted.”

“Could I?” OJ asked, his voice now made of magic. “I would love that, Reeves.”

“Have you been camping before?” Reeves asked.

“Oh yeah, loads of times,” OJ said. “My family sometimes goes with Uncle Luke’s, and sometimes I just go with them alone.”

“See?” Bailey asked. “You get to do all kinds of things your cousins don’t.” She sent a sharp look over to OJ. “I mean, none of them are here with us.”

OJ simply watched her, then looked at Reeves with all the hope in the world.

Graham’s heart bled for the boy, and he just wanted him to be happy. “He’s a very outdoorsy person.”

“And very responsible,” Laney said with a grin at their grandson. “You’d have to do every single thing Reeves says, exactly when he says it.”

OJ straightened, his eyes bright and filled with the energy Graham loved. “I can do it, Grandma Laney,” he said. He looked back to Reeves. “I really can.”

“Well, you’ll have to check with all your jobs,” Reeves said. “And not be too upset if it doesn’t work out right away.” He took a bite of his hot dog, chewed, and swallowed it. “Remember, I make a video every week, so if it doesn’t work out the first time, it surely will eventually.”

Bailey smiled at him and sagged into his chest, and she looked over to OJ. “How does that sound, bud?”

“Amazing.” Then he lifted up on one side and pulled his phone out of his back pocket. “I’m totally going to need your number,” he said. “Then I can talk to my momma and daddy, and we can work something out.”

Bailey reached for the phone and handed it to Reeves, and Graham’s gratitude only grew and grew. He still didn’t know very much about Reeves at all, but the way the man had read the table and offered OJ something that would mean a great deal to him spoke volumes about his character.

As he typed his number into OJ’s phone and the conversation moved on to something else, Graham sent a prayer up to God that Bailey would be able to find her ultimate happiness, whether that was with Reeves or not.

Every time Graham looked at them, he got the feeling that God had led Bailey to that house, which stood exactly next door to Reeves, for a reason.

“All right, we’ve got games here,” Andrew said, and Graham stood and picked up the empty paper plates from the people around him. “Lawn darts, cornhole, horseshoes, and nine-square,” his brother called. “Who’s in?”

“I am,” Graham said, because he wanted to have a good time at his family barbecue. He and Laney could talk about Bailey and Reeves once everyone had gone and they were alone again, because he couldn’t wait to get his wife’s opinion on this new relationship.

Oh, and he might want to mention OJ’s feelings about cousin night to Bryce too. Maybe, he told himself, because he didn’t tell the man everything, and he didn’t want to betray OJ’s confidence.

Maybe waiting and watching—for now—would be the best course of action, and as he took the red-striped beanbags for a game of cornhole with Eli, he focused his attention on that instead of trying to micromanage every situation OJ found himself in.

Graham couldn’t do that anyway, no matter how badly he wanted to.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

Harry Young got up from the couch when his phone bleeped out the notification sound that said his garage cameras had sensed motion. “They’re here,” he said, though he didn’t know which of his cousins had arrived.

He and Belle were hosting cousin night at their house this month, because they were finally moved in and settled. That, and she was due with their first baby in less than a week, and Harry didn’t want to be more than five feet from her until their daughter arrived.

“This batch has another few minutes,” Belle said from where she stood at the stove. “I don’t dare leave them. They go from done to burnt in only a few seconds.”

“I got it, babe.” Harry moved into the kitchen first and slid his arm around his wife’s waist. She currently held a wire basket utensil, which she used to move the pronto pups around in the bubbling, hot oil.