Page 20 of Just (Fake) Married
Carter laughed and slung his arm over my shoulder. “Come on inside the study and let’s have a drink. Tag and I will catch you up to speed before everyone else gets here.”
The study was filled with my dad’s ghost. It still smelled like his cigars. There was a big mahogany desk and a big leather sofa with smaller chairs across from it. A full bar under the bay window. As kids, we only ever came in here if we were in trouble.The night of that party when Harmony punched me, Dad and I had the first of many fights about my future.
You’re a McGraw and you’ll do as I say.
“Ethan?” Carter asked. “You all right?” He already knew the answer. All of us were somewhere between fine, and nothing will ever be the same.
“I’m good,” I said, and I sat down on the couch. Tag and Carter settled into dark brown leather chairs across from me. “But you didn’t tell me Dad was sick?”
Carter and Tag shared a look.
“Would it have mattered?” Carter asked.
“I would have come home sooner,” I said, feeling defensive. Dad and I had our problems, but I was still his son. And a doctor. If it was cancer, I could have helped.
“And done what? The old man refused to admit there was a problem. Wouldn’t talk about it, wouldn’t see a doctor. He was as stubborn as fuck, right up until the second he died. We had no idea what was going on with him. Only that he was losing weight.”
“Still, I would have...” my voice trailed off. Carter was right. If Dad hadn’t seen a doctor here, it was unlikely he would have listened to anything I had to say.
“Since it’s just the will reading, I told Eli he didn’t have to come home,” Carter added.
Eli, our youngest brother, was in the military, and had been on various assignments throughout the years, none of which he could tell us about.
“What about Seth?” I asked.
Seth, who was only a year younger than me, was a professional rider on the rodeo circuit. He’d been injured recently, which was nothing new for him, but last I heard he was held up in a physical rehab facility in Texas.
Carter shook his head. “I told him the same. He’s trying to heal up his leg, and it’s not worth coming back just for the will reading. You, me, and Mac will scatter Dad’s ashes out in the valley, and that will be that.”
“I think you’re missing something,” Tag said, ominously. He got up and walked over to the fully stocked side bar along the back wall of the office. He poured whiskey into three cut crystal tumblers without asking if I wanted a drink.
“What?” I asked.
“The will reading. It’s tomorrow morning,” Carter said.
He took a glass of whiskey from Tag and Tag held out one for me.
I waved him off, it was early, and I wanted to keep my wits about me.
“You’re going to want that,” Carter said, pointing at the glass.
“Why?” I asked, taking the whiskey.
“Dad might be dead, but apparently, he’s still got a few surprises for us.”
“You want me to guess?”
“You can try.”
“He’s not leaving any of us anything. It all goes to Tag?”
Tag laughed. “About time.”
“I have no idea,” I said to Carter. “Just tell me.”
“The Calloways will be here.”
“For what?”
