Page 123 of Smooth Sailing

“Oh my God, I love almond,” I told Emmylou.

“I aim to please,” Emmylou murmured as she carted two plates weighed down by massive sandwiches and such big piles of chips they covered the sandwiches, which I suspected would “tide over” Hugger and Big Petey quite nicely.

Hugger sat with Pete and Elias in the living room to eat his sandwich.

I went to the kitchen to help with cookies.

“What’s a yurt?” Emmylou asked Jagger.

Bit of news: Jagger was, indeed, as handsome as his older brother. A little less intense, but no less good-looking.

Roscoe was also cute, if bikers could be overtly cute, though Roscoe proved they could, and he wore big, black-framed Buddy Holly glasses, which made him cuter.

We were all sitting around the dinner table, munching on cookies after scarfing down Emmylou’s insanely good beef and noodles.

I needed to get her recipes before she left.

“It’s a round tent that doesn’t have a center support,” Jagger told Emmylou. “And I only know that because my wife has an adventurous spirit. She had a hankering to stay in a yurt. I got her to one and I can’t say it sucked.”

“Where all have you been?” Elias asked.

“Better to ask where they haven’t,” Big Petey butted in. “The weather’s good, they’re off somewhere all the time.”

“Only young once,” Emmylou stated. “Get the wanderlust out of you, hunker down and create your family.”

“Think when we have ’em, Arch is gonna strap our kids to her and me and get us on the road anyway, Miss Emmylou,” Jagger replied.

“To each their own,” Emmylou stated. “Children need stability, but that comes in the form of their parents, and the rest doesn’t matter.”

I looked to Maddy to see how she was dealing with all of this.

She was biting into a cookie with a little smile on her face aimed at her mother.

There it was, more healing.

She had a long row to hoe, but at least now she had the people she needed around her to do it.

Eight pushed his chair back.

“Best get goin’,” he declared.

The rest of the boys followed suit, so we all got up.

There were handshakes, claps on the back, murmurs of farewell, lower murmurs of gratitude from the two older O’Keefes, and I got hugs too, particularly long ones from Eight and Muzzle.

But like they’d been doing since they showed days ago, they kept their distance from Maddy.

Until they were at the door and Eight had it open, ready to walk out.

That was when Maddy cried, “Wait! That’s it?”

All the men stopped and looked back at her.

No one said anything.

Then Maddy burst forth, hit Eight on the run and wrapped her arms around him.

I knew, by the look on his face as he curved his tall body over hers and returned her hug, that whatever he was going to get up to, if you agreed with it or not, it was his calling.

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