Page 5 of Midnight Surrounds Us

“Yes, antagonize,” Mama said. She sighed and dropped her hands, then lifted one to press a wrinkle out of my shirt. “Oh, honey, you know he’s stuck in his ways. But it might go a long way to gettin’ him to listen to you if you grew up a little.”

“‘Grew up’?”

Her eyes rose to meet mine, and the smile and pity on her face made me want to scream.

“Your daddy wants to know you’re headed in the right direction before he gives you more responsibility. A woman in your life would be a good start.”

Here we go again.

“Mama, we’ve been through this,” I said, barely disguising the frustration in my voice. “How the hell would havin’ a girlfriend make a difference to Dad? Besides, you won’t like any woman I bring home. You never have. The last one was too immature. You didn’t like the clothes she wore or the way she did her hair, and you insinuated she wouldn’t be a good mother to our nonexistent children when she accidentally stepped on the barn cat’s tail.”

Never mind that she wasn’t wrong. And never mind the fact that I’d told my mama over and over I didn’t want kids. Never had. My passion was agriculture, and if I was lucky enough to find the woman to do me in, I wanted to spend the rest of mydays working my land and loving her, making her laugh long into the night.

What was so wrong with that? It sounded like a good life to me.

Mama didn’t respond. She rolled her eyes and bent to grab the stuff she’d just set down.

“Here.” She pressed the Thermos to my chest, and I took it from her hands and took the bag she held out. “I know you’re leavin’ again, so take some sandwiches for the road. It’s beyond me why you like spendin’ time with your uncle Red, but he’s family, so I s’pose it’s fine. Just don’t stay gone too long. You know how mad that’ll make your daddy.”

She wasn’t wrong about that either. Thank the good Lord for Presley. If he hadn’t been here the last twenty years to keep the place running and bear the weight of my dad’s ire when I took one foot off the ranch, I’d be miserable. Somebody would’ve wrapped me in a straitjacket by now. Besides, Presley was a better cowboy than I’d ever be and he loved the overtime.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and I leaned down to kiss her cheek.

She smiled up at me. “Good boy.”

It was habit to hold in the groan threatening to rip from my mouth. Boy?

I’m almost thirty-five fuckin’ years old!

CHAPTER TWO

AUBREY

The mirror hangingon the wall in my storeroom was a lying bitch.

I should’ve taken it down years ago, or covered the damn thing, like people do with furniture when they leave their East Coast mansions after the summer season, but I had this maddening need to check my face every ten minutes.

Was I really that old? Inside, I felt twenty-six. Outside, I felt like Blanche from theGolden Girls, just with longer hair and less sex.

Fuck. Is that a chin hair?

First hot flashes and now whiskers? And why did they have to be so dark! The rest of my hair was graying; why couldn’t my whiskers get lighter too?

Just great. Add onto that a failing business and the fact that I hadn’t had a good orgasm in more years than I dared admit, even to myself—oh, and don’t forget my twenty-three-year-old twins who wouldn’t know the meaning of the word responsibility if it slapped them across their faces—and you could say life wasn’t going exactly as planned.

Since they’d moved out of the house and gone off to school at Montana State in Bozeman, where they subsequently failedand quit, Micah and Benji called or texted for money about once every two weeks. Pizza delivery didn’t afford them much past rent and their phone bill. Benji was usually the sacrificial lamb because Micah was too much of a mama’s boy, but the result was the same. I paid their damn bills, and then I had to live off of generic microwaveable oatmeal for the rest of the month.

The death benefits from Tommy’s service in the military hadn’t gone as far as one might think. At least the boys’ college and the house was paid off. Maybe I should’ve been thinking about selling it. The twins and I could’ve certainly used the money, but I’d been impatiently waiting for them to get their shit in gear. If they ever grew up and took life seriously, maybe I wouldn’t feel utter panic at the thought of handing them a big wad of cash that they’d probably use to invest in beer and video games.

If wishes were fishes.If wishes were fishes, I could eat something other than oatmeal for a change.

My small, woman-owned business was justboomingin little Wisper, Wyoming.

Yeah, right.

Most of the other businesses in town were having way better luck, but in the last week, I’d sold three books. Three! And not even hardbacks. I really needed to dip my toe in that whole foil-embossed/sprayed-edges trend. But jeez. They were so expensive! I’d have to front the cost to order them, but if they didn’t sell, I’d take another loss. Sure, there were some customers I might be able to entice into buying them, but not that many, and probably mostly the ladies from book club at the library. Then what the hell would I do with the rest?

There were a few bookstores in the city. Jackson offered a lot more to draw tourists than Wisper did. I needed to figure out how to get those customers to our little town, but I had no idea how to tie my store or its location to tourism. Why woulda customer drive forty minutes to my store, just to see the same books they could find closer to their hotel?

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