It was my family that could tank everything.
I squared my shoulders. I was an adult, and I could make my own decisions. “Hello?”
“Oh my god, Autumn,” Scarlett said on a sigh of relief. “Everyone is so worried about you. Are you okay? Where are you?”
I wasn’t ready for any of her questions. I needed more time, but things were moving at lightning speed. “I’m in town, actually.”
Another relieved exhale. “You’re at your house?”
“We stopped in, but then we?—”
“We?”
“Yeah, um . . .”
“Did you come home early for Mark?”
I almost asked her who, but right. Mark. “No, not Mark.”
Gideon’s hands clenched the wheel. He did not like Mark. I couldn’t say I was bothered by his reaction after seeing Taya.
“Did you meet someone on your trip?” Her question was full of interest and concern.
“Yes, but he’s from here actually.”
“Autumn,” Tate broke in.
The acid in my stomach roiled. I wasn’t ready to face my family. “Am I on speaker?”
“You weren’t.” Scarlett’s tone was disgruntled. “My husband seems to have forgotten his manners.”
“Who is it?” Tate demanded.
My heart clawed into my throat. “Tate, listen?—”
“The girls told Scarlett you stayed at Silver. What were you thinking?”
The back of my neck grew hot. My brother was speaking loud enough for Gideon to hear. “That I don’t need your permission.”
“Who is it?”
My brother wasn’t a dumb man. He’d been in charge of Copper Summit until Daddy had gotten cancer and couldn’t run the Bourbon Canyon distillery or keep up with the ranch. Tate had left Copper Summit’s Bozeman distillery and taken over the ranch, but he still thought he was boss of everything, just like he had when my sisters and I had first arrived at the Baileys’.
“Tate—”
“Autumn, you’re stalling. I know I won’t like the answer. Tell me it’s a big damn coincidence, and you reconnected with a guy like Layton Kramer.”
“My senior prom date?” My volume pitched up. Gideon’s head snapped toward me, but he had to focus back on the road. When his gaze was off me, so was his heat, but I was hot enough with Tate’s interference. “He kissed another girl in the janitor’s closet while I was in the bathroom.”
Gideon’s knuckles turned white on the wheel. Was he annoyed with my story, that I was delaying, or was he righteously upset on behalf of an eighteen-year-old Autumn who’d thought Layton could’ve been the one?
“You know what I mean,” Tate said.
I huffed out a breath. I was done with this conversation. “Well, I’m not telling you over the phone. Goodbye, Tate. Sorry, Scarlett.”
I hung up just as Scarlett’s “I’m so sorry” filtered through.
I puffed a hunk of hair out of my face. I stuffed my phone into the glove compartment.
