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Which may explain why he was so reluctant to take any time off, even when the doctor basically begged him to.
“Come on, Gramps,” I said, reaching for his arm as he struggled off the old barrel. “I bet supper’s ready. What do you think Bretton has for us tonight?”
“If your sister knows what’s good for her, she’ll have made a real meal,” he grumbled sullenly, his shuffling steps slow but steady as we made our way across the wide yard and toward the house. “A man can’t live on green things alone.”
“A man will live on green things if he wants tolive. That’s kind of the point,” I threw back, smiling when we entered the foyer of the house and the smell told me that Bretton had made stew. Gramps would be pleased with her tonight, that was for sure.
“It’s about time.” My brother Thane’s booming voice filled the room. “Brett wouldn’t let me eat until you’d finished in the malting house, but it took youforever.” He still whined like he had when we were kids, and I rolled my eyes at him while I helped Gramps out of his coat and boots. “I’m about to waste away waiting on you, Asher.”
That was a lie if I’d ever heard one. My brother was built like a brick shithouse, tall and broad like me, but muscled in a way I had never bothered with. What had started as a necessity for high school football had grown into a full-blown lifting obsession, with my brother heading into town to work out at the YMCA every morning and night. It got so bad that Gramps had eventually built him a gym in one of the outbuildings on the property just to keep him home once in a while. Now the guy was a fully fledged gym rat, but at least he was a gym rat who could be found when you needed him.
“I’m sure you’ll live, bro.” I slugged him in the bicep on my way by, which I instantly regretted, because the stupid fucker slugged me back, and twice as hard. “Shit!” I winced, rubbing my arm and turning to Gramps in protest. “Did you see what he did?”
“I didn’t see a thing,” he said breezily, and I gaped at him as he headed to the table, his eyes on the massive stew pot in the center.
“Come on, Ash,” Brett called, turning from the oven with a basket full of fresh biscuits and a smile on her freckled face. “Get it while it’s hot.”
Taking the seat that had been mine since I was five years old, I filled my plate and dug in, relishing every bite of my sister’s cooking after a long day of manual labor and a stressful two weeks in general.
When I’d gotten the call from my sister that Gramps was in the hospital, I’d dropped everything and headed back to Allentown as fast as my truck could take me. My part in the construction process of our burgeoning business was nearly done, and it was time to bring in some professionals. I’d never intended to be in New York during that phase of the build, but I couldn’t help but regret that now.
Not that I would be anywhere else but with my family at the moment, but there was a part of my mind that was always on a certain surly, tattooed goddess with a mouth like a sailor and a taste for good whiskey.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Ricki, her feisty nature, and the way she melted when I’d kissed her. The woman was a firecracker, no doubt, but I found myself desperate for another taste of her.
Unfortunately, with all the drama of the day we met, then the midnight call about my grandfather, I’d never gotten a chance to get her number. I knew her address—she lived in the same building I leased in, for fuck’s sake—but I couldn’t really do much about that. Not if I didn’t want to come across like some crazed stalker, especially since she may already have one of those.
The thought had me clenching my fist around my fork, hating even more that I wasn’t nearby. What if that shit stain came back again? Not that she hadn’t been capable of dealing with him the first time, but men like him didn’t take losing well.
With that in mind, I had to do something to get in touch with her, especially if I was going to be staying on the farm for the foreseeable future.
“So...” Bretton’s cheery voice cut into my musing, and I raised my head to see her smiling at me mischievously. “What’s got you looking like someone kicked your dog?”
“What?” I hedged, dragging a piece of biscuit across my plate in an attempt to soak up as much gravy as possible. “That’s... I’m not.”
“You are,” Gramps cut in, not even raising his face from his bowl.
“You are,” Bretton agreed, and I frowned at them both.
“You know,” Thane said, talking with his mouth full of potatoes. “If you’re going to be slacking when it comes to your chores, I’m going to have to dock your pay.”
“I’m not getting paid!” I shouted, scowling at Thane. “And if you don’t like the way I do shit, feel free to do it yourself.” Thane had taken over running the place a few years back, when it started looking like Gramps wouldn’t be able to do it all alone anymore, and his ego hadn’t ever let any of us forget it.
“He’s not sticking around,” Gramps said, causing us all to stop and stare.
“Yes, I am.” I looked at my siblings, both of whom still lived here full time; Thane because he was in charge, and Bretton because, well... she’d had nowhere else to go.
“You got a life of your own, Asher,” Gramps said, setting his spoon down and looking right at me. “You and the Rivers boy are making something of yourselves, both of you away from your family name and on your own. I ain’t gonna stand in the way of that.”
“Gramps,” I breathed, frowning. “You’re not in the way. You’re sick.” He scowled at me, but I kept going. “Youare, so I am here to help. And I am not trying to get away from the family name. Dunn Creek is part of me. It’s who I am, and I’ll be proud of that forever.”
“And you’ll make me proud wherever you go, Asher. Me and your parents.” Looking around the table, he leveled each of us with a watery stare. “You’ve all grown up to be the kind of people they’d be crowing over every chance they got, and you know it.” Turning back to me, he pointed a gnarled, work-worn finger in my direction. “But if you don’t get your mopey, slow-shoveling behind off this farm and back to whatever woman has you dragging your behind around here like a moon-eyed schoolboy, I’ll kick your ass myself.
“Now, pass the biscuits.”
Chapter fourteen
Ricki
