Page 58 of Sundown Somewhere

“Perfectly happy to be your dirty little secret.” He winks again, and fuck, my panties are definitely ruined. I wonder if I can change them before we get in the car. “You know I have no problem not letting Hickory Hills in on anything.”

“The girls will probably figure something is up, and you live with Gus and Jace, so I suppose it won’t be a complete secret but…”

“You know my brothers aren’t going to tell a soul.”

I do. And neither will my girls. We all helped successfully keep Gus and Margeaux a secret from the town. Okay, mostly successfully. Hux and I are different though—no one will think anything about us being seen together.

Smiling, I lean forward, wanting to tell Hux so much. All of the things that are swirling around my head and in my chest. It’s crazy, all of it. I know it is. I also know that I can say all of it to him and that there will be no judgment.

But then his phone rings, the sound piercing through the air. Startling, Hux pulls the device from his pocket, hitting the decline button and grumbling.

“Which one?” I ask, already knowing it’s a brother calling.

“Anton.” He silences his phone and sets it down on the table, turning his attention back to me. “You were saying?”

The buzz of the device against the wood fills the air, cutting me off before I start up again. Rolling his eyes, Hux grabs it, no doubt to silence it, but then his face scrunches as he reads the text.

“What?” I ask, my heart leaping with worry.

“He sent an ARMADILLO text, asking when we’re getting back.”

His fingers move across the screen, typing back. An armadillo? Armadillo is the Hayes sibling distress call, and I can’t remember the last time one of them used it. Of all the brothers to bust that out, Anton would not have been at the top of my list. Feral middle child energy does not often lend itself to panic. Especially about when we’re coming home.

“Oh, shit.”

My heart drops. Something is wrong. Actually wrong.

“What?”

Hux holds out his phone, turning it so I can read it. Five short words fill the little bubble at the bottom of the screen, but they are enough to make my heart skip.

Anton: I’m going to lose trees

16

HUX

“You’re not going to lose trees. Stop being dramatic.”

A cold whip of wind slashes against the bare skin on the back of my neck, as if to bitch-slap me on behalf of my brother. I flinch, grumbling to myself, but I stand by my statement.

“You don’t know that,” Anton snaps back, pushing out of the tree he’s been perched in and landing on the hard, frozen ground. Yeah, frozen. In April. “While you were off playing at the beach, we were getting an unseasonable hard fucking freeze. Killing my blooms! And some of these trees are already old!”

He kicks the ground, the solid earth not giving way despite his effort. In charge of the blessed three Ps—peaches, pecans, and peanuts—Anton takes his crops seriously. Maybe a little too seriously sometimes. Then again, each one of us Hayes has been accused of that a time or two.

In this case, he’s not wrong. Those blooms aren’t looking good. A hard freeze like this, with a little more than a month until picking season starts, he’s going to be lucky to get any fruit at all.

As for the trees…I sigh, doing some math in my head. The average peach tree lasts about fifteen years before it dies. The grove we’re in, some of these trees might be getting close to that. The trees themselves are strong and hardy—when they’re healthy. But once they get up there in age, there is no telling what can make them go.

I look over at Gus and Milo who are standing to my left, as if somehow the oldest two of the clan are going to be able to save this moment. Their expressions tell me they’re waiting on me to do the same. Fuck.

“You have the best damn horticulturist around with Cary,” I say, buying some time.

Anton’s best friend’s head perks up from the bloom he’s inspecting under his eye loop, his serious expression morphing into a smile for a split second. “Thanks, man.”

I nod, having meant every word. No one is better than Cary Adler when it comes to this stuff. If anyone can salvage this crop, it’s him. And I know Anton knows this.

“Cary and I will make sure we get another season out of these trees.”