Page 115 of Boston
“Is everything okay?” Cash asked.
“No,” Boston barked. “Cora just broke up with me, or I broke up with her. I don’t know.”
“No,” Cash said. “I’m sorry, Boston.”
“Don’t be. It’s just some stupid thing that’s a few weeks old is all.”
“Hey, that’s not true,” Cash said. Boston had often pushed him on things, forced him to talk about something, and offered advice whether Cash wanted it or not. The truth was he did want it, and he wanted to be the good friend to Boston that Boston had been to him.
“You really liked her,” he said. “What happened?”
“It’s just not a good time,” Boston said. “She’s taking over the whole operation at Silver Sage. I’ve known that, and yet I kind of hoped that I would be interesting enough and worth it for her. That maybe when she needed an escape, it would be with me.”
Cash nodded, but his words stayed stuck down in his throat. He didn’t quite know what to say anyway.
“But she didn’t want to,” Boston said. “Do you know where she is tonight?” He looked at Cash, his eyes squinted and disgust pouring off of him in waves. Cash did not have an opportunity to even guess—not that he would know—before Boston said, “She went to Little Brown Bear Stream. Can you believe that?”
Cash felt the hurt and anger in his cousin’s voice as it whipped across his face. “I’m sorry, brother.”
“Andthen, she had the gall to tell me thatIshould have told her that she could’ve come to cousin night. I guess she saw some photo that someone posted, and she saw that Cole and Rachel were here.”
Cash’s heartbeat pounded against his ribs. “Yeah, I posted that.”
“It’s fine. It’s not your fault.” Boston waved one hand and let his arm fall angrily into his lap. “What does she want me to do? Read her mind? I didn’t know she’d cleared her schedule this afternoon. She never told me that.”
“You can’t read minds,” Cash said.
A loud cheer lifted up from the backyard, and Cash wondered what had caused it. Boston got to his feet and said, “Come on, let’s go back.”
Cash scrambled to follow him. “You really don’t have to.”
“If she’s going to accuse me of choosing cousin night over her, then I’m going to choose cousin night over her.” He rounded the garage and stomped along the sidewalk that led into the backyard.
“Oh, boy,” Cash said from the front corner of the house. He looked up into the darkening sky and found the North Star twinkling brightly as usual. “Lord, why can’t life be easy?”
It was a question Cash had been asking a lot lately, and he still didn’t have an answer for it. But he knew one thing—Boston had been there for him for months. Sometimes the only person, and Cash wanted to repay that favor if at all possible, so he jogged into the backyard to be at Boston’s side and shield him from any questions or curious looks that came his way.
He found Harry galloping around with a croquet mallet between his legs, as if it were a wooden stick horse. Everyone laughed, and Cash stepped next to Bryce and asked, “What in the world is going on?”
Bryce finished chuckling. “Harry just made it through gate seven with one tap.”
Cash grinned because he’d thought croquet would fall flat at tonight’s party. Bryce was the oldest at thirty-three after all, and Cash couldn’t remember the last time he’d hammered a hoop into the ground and held a croquet mallet in his hand. But everyone had dove in.
Harry approached and extended the mallet toward Bryce, his eyebrows raised. “Your turn, buddy,” he said. “I’d like to see you beat that.”
Cash laughed then, because the gauntlet had just beenthrown down. All the cousins got along really great, but theYoung DNA carried a competitive gene in it, and Bryce took the croquet mallet and said, “I see your one stroke win, and I’m going to match it.”
Cash wokethe next morning to the sound of his phone ringing. He’d been up way too late last night cleaning up after the party and making sure Boston was okay. Bryce had not made it through gate seven with one stroke, but three, and Cash was quite sure that Harry would remind him about it for the rest of his life.
Right now, Cash fumbled for his phone, having to stretch further than he thought possible, until his hand finally hit the nightstand and then the device. He didn’t even check the screen before he swiped it on. He tapped the speaker button and then fell back against his pillow with his eyes closed.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Oh, I forgot you weren’t an early riser.” A southern, Texas drawl came through the line.
Cash smiled. “Jet McClellan, what are you doing callin’ me so early?”
“I’m an hour ahead of you too, man. I should be taken out back and shot.”
