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Nine
Archer
I tracked a hawk soaring overhead—wait. That bird was huge. “Is that a bald eagle?”
Delaney didn’t turn and gawk like I expected her to. “Yeah, they come through once in a while. I was going to get a few more barn kittens, but I’m going to wait. Otherwise I’d just have to name them Snack One and Snack Two.”
I watched the eagle as it flew farther across the pasture. It was the first time I’d seen a bald eagle in the wild, doing its thing. Dang, that was impressive.
It’d been two days since I’d faced off with Cheryl. Delaney hadn’t asked me about it when she met me at the motel so we could go eat at Rattler’s, and I didn’t mention it. She had enough baggage with her mother that already included me, so I wasn’t going to add to it.
I’d be doing enough by going to the Barron family gathering tonight.
Holden had decided to grill and invite me—and everyone else. Only family, he’d said. I wasn’t sure how to interpret that, but from the way he’d initially talked to Delaney, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
Regardless, she was my wife, and I didn’t give a shit who had a problem with that. I’d asked her to attend with me this morning when I showed up to rake the hay I’d cut earlier into windrows to eventually be baled. That job was done, and I’d found her by the white barn, filling up the water truck to take to the tanks in the pasture.
Her gaze swept over my jeans and the gray T-shirt that already had a couple of tears around the hem. “You need to go get ready for tonight.”
“I’d really like you to come.” We’d spent enough nights apart, but knowing she’d be with me would ease the thread of anxiety that’d been nagging me since the invitation.
“Still no.”
“Did you think about it at all?” I understood her apprehension. But I didn’t think avoiding my relatives like my dad had done for decades was the answer either. “I know it’ll be awkward, but I’ll be with you.”
She swung her feet off the end of her perch on the back of the truck. The water truck was nothing more than an old flatbed with a large plastic cylinder of water. Since she didn’t have a more efficient way to fill it, she stuck a hose in the top and turned the water on full force. Took nearly an hour to fill. Her empty lunch bag was next to her. I’d seen Cheryl go inside to soak up the cool air, but not Delaney. She stayed away from the house as much as possible, especially if her mother was there.
Had she gotten the habit from her father? He was gone by the time I arrived and didn’t return until after I went to the motel for the night. It didn’t faze Delaney. It had been a stroke of luck that I had caught him when I arrived.
Delaney packed her garbage into her lunch bag. “You saw how quickly Holden lost his cool with me. He’s the easygoing one of the bunch.”
“He seemed to accept us.”
“Archer, you couldn’t pay me enough to step foot on their property, especially not when your uncles and aunt will be there. All three at once?” She shuddered. “I won’t even ride Target in the ditch by Bruce’s.”
“I don’t want to feel like I’m hiding you.”
“And if you wanted what was best for me, you’d want me to stay far away.”
Dammit. I was thinking of myself. The last time she was at an important gathering with me, I’d destroyed what we had. “I’m sorry. I admit to feelin’ a little anxious myself.”
Her expression softened. “You’ll be fine. You’re one of them.”
I didn’t feel like one of them.
I wasn’t in a hurry to go, but she was right, I had to clean up. The drive would take the longest. Holden lived on his mom’s land. Delaney had described his place as “rustic and shit.”
I wasn’t as curious about the house or all the land they owned as I was about the people. Maybe a little about how they lived—with everything I hadn’t had as a kid.
Yet when Delaney left, all that luxury surrounding me had been empty. Pointless. Having a chef cook for me was no longer about doing it just because I could. It was because I didn’t have time. The housekeeper didn’t need more than an hour a week, and she took her time, trying to earn her hourly rate. I wasn’t home to make a mess, so there wasn’t much to do.
“Have fun.” Delaney hopped down from the flatbed and switched the water off. She wasn’t acting as hostile as when she’d talked about the Truitts, but her shoulders were tense, her mouth set, and her movements curt.
Was this dinner with my family increasing her trepidation about us? That I’d meet them and suddenly think that whatever they said about her meant I should end the marriage and immediately return to Texas?
“If you change your mind…”
The brim of her cap shaded her eyes as she shut the water off. “I’m meeting Liam and Kennedy at Rattler’s.”
