Page 47 of Make Me Whole (Oil Barrons 1)

“Then Kennedy should say something to him.”

She wouldn’t.She had a soft heart, and Bruce was the closest thing to a father she’d ever had.“She tries, but you know how they are.”

Grandma Gin grunted like she didn’t believe Kenny really tried, but also like she could believe Bruce ignored her.She brought her plate to the counter and reached for the faucet.I stopped her.“I’ve got the dishes.Me and the boys wanted to treat you tonight.”

She smirked and glanced outside.This time it was Eli lying in the middle.Owen was drawing an outline around him with the chalk.It would look like a crime scene by the time they were done.

She turned her back to the window as if she didn’t want the kids to hear.She wasn’t afraid of the kids suddenly learning to read lips.She’d put her back to the Barrons’ land.We couldn’t see their house from the window, but all the land in the distance was theirs.

And I was filled with satisfaction that the pastures surrounding our house wouldn’t be.

“Can you meet me at the bank tomorrow?Deano will go over everything with us.”Dean Bateman.Forever Deano to the over-fifty crowd in Coal Haven who remembered him as the pitcher who’d almost made it to the minors.“I told him ten and warned him that kids will be there.”She ran her tongue along her front teeth.“If the bank wants our business, they’d better not say a damn word about it.”

There was no other bank in town.So if we didn’t want to drive, they’d get our business.But Grandpa Bob had always liked Deano, and my father had long outgrown doing his banking in Coal Haven.Grandma Gin and I wouldn’t worry that Cameron had Deano’s ear.

“I’ll meet you there.I’ll treat you to lunch after?”

She patted my shoulder.“You don’t have to spoil me.But one of my friends wants to rearrange her living room, and we’re all trying to talk her out of it.She’s eighty.If we’re not done moving furniture by the time we’re eighty, then I don’t know why we bother getting that old.”

I chuckled.Grandma Gin had likely already volunteered me.She wanted to get in good with her senior living complex.There was nowhere else to go from there.Leaving this house had been hard enough.

“Thanks for the food.”She rubbed my back, and I curled an arm around her for a half hug.I walked her to her car.Watched her give the kids hugs.

I didn’t want to lose this.The talk with the bank had to go well.I had to land a job closer to home.I was prepared for a drop in pay, but I’d been brainstorming ways to make it up.Thanks to Kenny, I had a few ideas.The farmers market wasn’t a bust.It’d shown me that I could sell my wares, and Coal Haven wasn’t the only option.

I just needed everything to fall in place.

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