Page 77 of Small Town Frenzy
“Was that a lesson I’m supposed to learn?”
Chuckling, I shake my head. “Nope. Just sharing a bit of my childhood with you, buddy.”
The relief of “not learning” creates a smile on his face. “Baylor always tries to wrap these big life lessons into his stories.”
“Ah.” I rest my arms on my legs when I lean forward. “Iget it.” I didn’t take my brother as the purveyor of deep truths, but like the rest of us, he’s changed, and good for him for helping our nephew. “Do you like baseball?”
“I’m going back to soccer. Everyone here is too intense about the sports they played. I just want to play for fun.”
I start to chuckle again. “Yeah, we take our sports seriously around here.” I don’t know why I’m about to ask, except that I’ll get an unbiased opinion, because if this kid is one thing, it’s honest to a fault. “Jacob’s a cute kid, huh? I was thinking about asking his mom if we could host his birthday party at the ranch.” His silence draws my attention to him. “What’s up?”
He looks at me, but then his gaze goes to his shoes. “I overheard Grandpa saying that’s a Greene if he ever saw one.” Guess letting it drop did us no favors. It only allowed their imaginations to fill in the blanks. “Is Jacob a Greene?”
Beckett is a Grange after his dad, my sister being his stepmom, but he’s a Greene in the ways that run deeper than blood. Like the rest of them, though, he’s not dumb. How do I answer this without starting a field day of family nonsense I’m not ready to address? “He’s . . .”
“Is he your son?”
“Yes.” My response isn’t rushed, but I don’t want to beat around the bush. “Jacob’s my son.”
“Why doesn’t everyone know? Why didn’t you tell them?”
The details of the story aren’t meant for a kid his age. It’s not something I need to put into his head or have him asking more questions than are necessary. “I need a little time to work through a few things before telling the family. Can you keep this conversation between us?” I hold out my hand for a fist bump.
He bumps right back. “Yep.” After sipping on his water,he says, “It’s Daisy. She was the giveaway. They do look like twins.” He takes another chug and then caps the bottle again. “She’ll like having him around.”
“Instead of following you everywhere?”
“We have fun sometimes, but I want to do dude stuff, too.”
“Dude stuff” makes me want to grin, but I don’t because I want to be a trusted sounding board for him. We all need that, and sometimes he won’t want to talk to his dad. “Is that why you wanted to get dropped off here after school?”
“Yeah.”
I tap the toe of my boots against his sneaker. “You can come over anytime.” Standing, I take another long drink of water. I look at the pile of wood I bought a few days ago, which hasn’t gotten smaller despite my progress. “Want to help me replace a few more boards, or are you ready to go home?”
“Home. It’s too hot out here.”
Yep, honest to a fault. “Wait until summer.” We start down the steps to the truck. “I’ll take you home, kid.”
Trailing me, he says, “You didn’t ask, but I figure I’d tell you since I got a good sense of the situation.”
I lean against the driver’s side of the front of my truck to look back at him. “What situation is that?”
“Christine says I have a knack for seeing situations for what they are instead of the front people put on. I called it with her and my dad before they knew they were meant to be together. Lauralee and Baylor were too easy to predict. They were the worst at hiding their feelings. Basically, they couldn’t.”
My jaw has dropped. “You have a sixth sense for predicting relationships?”
Raising his hands, he says, “I don’t question my gifts. ButI will tell ya . . .” He stops to put his weight against the truck as he looks at me just over the top. It’s a big truck.
I legit have no clue where this is going. “You casting a prediction for me? I’ll take all the help I can get.” I laugh, waiting, the suspense killing me.
“I know why you got upset when I killed that bug.”
I don’t know what his ambitions are in life, but he’s going far in whatever he decides to do, which apparently isn’t sports. Two thumbs down on the no pro ball in his future, though. “Why’d I get upset?”
“Because she’s your secret ingredient.”
“Who is?” I know who, but I still play dumb because it’s weird to have an eleven-year-old calling out your personal life like that.
