A bite of green beans on his fork, Gene gave another of those slow nods. “Your cousin is just as hard-headed as you are.”
Colt bit back an instinctive refusal to talk about Lamar. He couldn’t very well leave the old man here — well, hecould, but only a coward would do that. Lord, imagine D if he left Gene at the Hickory House. Colt would never hear the end of it. And he couldn’t hide from what he’d done any longer. No use closing the barn door once the horse was loose.
“Both of you carry a deep hurt around with you.” Gene forked up the mashed potatoes, too salty and made from instantflakes, so Lord knew why the old man ordered them. “You’ve been carrying yours longer, so it seems like it fits better.”
“Longer.” Colt made a noise in his throat. No use engaging in this either, but here they were, with Gene’s math not adding up.
“He feels the loss of Will and his daddy.” Old griefs haunted Gene’s dark eyes. “You’ve been carrying losing part of your mama since you were—”
“Don’t.” Warning vibrated in his voice. Sue had her moments, but she was hismamaand nobody, not even Grandaddy, was going to—
“I am not saying anything against your mama.” Gene shook his head. “But you did not have the same life you would have had if your sister had lived.”
“None of this has anything to do with what I did. Hear me?” He stabbed a hard finger in the center of his chest. “WhatIdid.”
“Will was like my daddy, like a wild horse just turned loose, no direction, only the desire to run.” Affection quirked at the left corner of Grandaddy’s mouth. Colt knew his own half-grin kicked up the same way. “You and Tick? You’re more like a turtle, slow and deliberate with your decisions and prone to pull inside a hard shell when you’ve been hurt bad.”
Mouth pressed tight, Colt merely gazed across the table.
Gene lifted a bite of mashed potatoes in wry punctuation. “Don’t know where you boys got that from.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Colt muttered. His own food sat untouched because if he tried, he’d choke. He was never doing this again.
“Lamar . . .” Gene cut off a piece of brisket. “. . . is learning how it feels to live with the repercussions of taking impulsive action when a man is not at his best.”
“Looks like he’s doing all right.”
“Because he’s in the right place in his life with the right woman, doing the right thing.” Precise movements sectioned off another bite of brisket. “But when he looks in the mirror every morning, he sees a man who made choices that left his little girl without her daddy for a lot of years.”
Yeah, that would eat Lamar alive. Having left his now-wife as a single parent would take a few chunks out of him, too. Obviously they’d worked it out, though. Maybe that helped.
Colt sat back in his chair, hands in a loose clasp atop his thighs. “Why are we doing this?”
“Because after our last conversation, a lot of things make a lot more sense now.” Grandaddy stabbed a few canned green beans onto his fork. How did he eat those? “If I’d known what I now know earlier, I wouldn’t have left you to it as long. And I figure I’ve given you enough time before I stir you up.”
Brows tugging down hard, Colt ran his tongue over his teeth. “What if I don’t want to be stirred up?”
“No man ever does.” Humor and affection lit his grandfather’s eyes. “Never known you not to do what was best for you, though. You’re like your daddy that way.”
Colt’s grunt of dissent coincided with his phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulled it free – they were beyond the point where he needed to follow all the rules, anyway.
Watching Sue and Mona wedding plan is impressive and a bit terrifying. What kind of groom’s cake do you want? Chocolate or red velvet
His left brow quirked. What had she expected? Mona had been dreaming of her wedding since the day she was born. And Sue was . . . well, Sue was a wedding expert.
Just plain chocolate. None of that fancy shapes and weird hard icing decor shit.
A thumbs-up manifested at the corner of his message.
And don’t let them push you into anything you don’t want
No worries. I already shot down live doves.
He frowned, watching bubbles dance at the bottom of his screen.
I didn’t actually shoot any doves but they were legit talking about us having doves. No. One might attack my hair
She was . . . a strangled laugh caught in his throat.
