Page 66 of Boston
“How do you guys know each other?” he asked.
“We’ve been friends for a little while,” Liesl said, looking over to Hominy. “I think we met at that pony thing for the Fourth of July parade a few years ago.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Hominy said, and she smiled at Liesl. “My bridle had broken, and she had an extra one.”
“Yes, the bridle.” Liesl smiled at her, and Harry nodded toward the corner of the garage.
“Everyone’s in the backyard.”
“Are we the last ones here?” Beth asked.
Harry ran through everyone in his mind quickly: Bryce and Codi, him and Belle, Adam and Joey, Corrine and Wells, Boston and Cora, Kassie and Reggie, Lynnie and Matt, Liesl, Beth, Cash, who wasn’t coming, Cole and Rosie.
“I think we’re just missing Cole,” he said. “I’m gonna wait out here for him.”
Their activity tonight was a bonfire, which meant Adam would have a bunch of chairs in the backyard, and they’d sit around and roast tin foil dinners, eat too much popcorn and sour grapes, and chat. It was exactly the kind of relaxed atmosphere Harry wanted to cultivate with the people in his generation, those who came from their daddies and had new step-mommas and new siblings in their life that they were only half-related to.
He wasn’t sure why this meant so much to him, only that it did. He waited out front for another ten minutes before Cole finally pulled up.
He met the young man on the narrow strip of grass between the curb and the sidewalk and said, “I heard you got a job today.”
Cole’s face burst into a smile. “I sure did.” He stepped up onto the grass with Harry, and said, “Don’t you dare say a word to anyone, but I met the woman I’m going to marry.”
Harry could only blink as his words had abandoned him. Cole was eighteen years old and fresh out of high school. How could that possibly be true?
Cole laughed a robust, joyous sound that Harry had never heard from the boy before. He started toward the house. “I hope my sister brought my dinner, because I amstarving, and I didn’t see it at the house.”
Harry watched him go, and when Cole turned back to him with his eyebrows raised, he scampered to follow him. “The woman you’re gonna marry?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
Cole grinned and grinned. “Yep, she’s my new boss, and she is the prettiest little thing on the planet.”
“Dude, you’re eighteen.”
“Yep,” Cole said. “So don’t be telling my daddy that.” He opened the front door and entered the house. Harry went after him, and as he closed the door behind him and pressed his back into it, he watched Cole walk straight through the house and out the sliding back door into the backyard.
Harry reached up and adjusted his cowboy hat and said, “Hoo-boy. Lord, bless that boy,” before he followed everyone else into the backyard.
He stood on Adam’s deck and watched everyone who had gathered, pure love and appreciation filling him over and over and over at the easy way they could talk to each other. How they grouped up and found belonging and solace in one another.
He took his phone out and snapped a picture, which he quickly sent to Cash with the words,I miss you, brother. I wish you were here.
Cash didn’t come to hardly anything due to his rodeo training. Harry had lived in those boots before, not on the rodeo circuit, but in Nashville as a country musician. He’d yearned to come back to Coral Canyon, to his roots, to find somewhere where he was more than what he could do with his guitar.
He wanted that for Cash too, and he wanted Cash to know that he’d always have a place with them—the first children of their daddies who didn’t belong anywhere else. He wanted them to know they each belonged here with him, and he would expend every ounce of energy and every dime he had to make sure that they knew it.
I’m going to be in Coral Canyon next month,Cash said.In fact, I’ve got a vacation rental, and maybe I could host cousin night.
That sounds great,Harry said.
I don’t know if you always do it or not,Cash said.I don’t want to step on any toes.
Let’s have it at your place in July,Harry said.The trickiest part is finding a date that will work for everyone.
I’ll be there next week,Cash said.And I’ll work on it.
Harry had not heard that Cash was going to be in town for the month of July, and his eyes automatically moved to Boston, noting how close he stood to Cora, his hand protectively on her lower back as they spoke with Joey, Lynnie, and Matt.
The younger girls—Beth, Corrine, Liesl, Rosie, and Hominy—had clustered around an outdoor dining table, with baby Matt sitting in the center of it as they all lavished attention on him.
