I laughed, but truth be told, her threat did scare me a little. “Oh, okay, thanks, buddy. You’resogood to me.”
“I know. I’m amazing. Hey, what’s going on here?” She pointed out the window to the fairgrounds.
“They’re putting up the carnival. It’s our big-ticket event this time of year.”
“But it’s so small. There’s only a handful of rides.”
I nodded. “It seemed a lot bigger last time I washere for it. I remember going on the Zipper so many times it felt like I was still flipping when I went home.” I pointed at the partially put together ride. “You and me, kid. I’m gonna make you flip like you’ve never flipped before.”
“That doesn’t look so safe.”
“It’s okay. Between the ’80s rock music, the contact high from the carnies, and the chemicals in the cotton candy, you fry enoughbrain cells you don’t even worry about little things like falling to your death while trapped in a metal car.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Hey, I do what I can.”
Lakeview had one radio station and it played country—which I loathed and Addison liked, ironically enough. There were a handful of rock artists we agreed on and, knowing we’d be somewhere without access to decent tunes, we’d compiled aplaylist. As we motored out of town, Pink’s song, “Just Give Me a Reason” came on, so we turned it up and sang along, trying not to laugh too hard when I went totally off-key during Nate’s part.
“You missed your calling,” Addison said.
“Oh, don’t I know it. I could totally be the next Taylor Swift.”
“With autotune, honey, anything is possible.”
I nodded and turned off the main road.
“Whoa,”Addison mused. “The houses out here are really spread out. Like one every mile or so.”
“Yep. Lots of acreage. Wyatt’s family hays. Their house is sitting on eighty acres of alfalfa. Last time I was here they had about twenty head of cattle and one mean-ass Brahma bull. A dozen or so horses, chickens, a couple dogs.”
“Wait, he still lives with his parents?”
I laughed. “Yes. I’m sure he makesgood money repairing heaters and air conditioners, but the amount of work a farm like this takes, is insane. He couldn’t possibly do it all by himself. Most of these places have families working them.”
“Why don’t they just hire seasonal workers or something?” she asked.
I shook my head, still laughing.
“What? It’s a reasonable question.”
“Because most of these farms are one bad season awayfrom bankruptcy. They don’t have the kind of money to hire workers.”
She seemed to chew on that as I turned off the main road and onto the long gravel driveway that led to Wyatt’s house. Wyatt was leaning against the pump house. His blue heeler, Boots, barked and turned toward us, but Wyatt silenced him with a command. He wore his Wranglers low on his hips, with his signature wife-beater, apair of worn cowboy boots, and a cowboy hat that could only be described as swoon-worthy. I say that only because Addison made a quiet little whimper, then whispered, “Wow.”
“Yeah, it’s a nice ranch, huh?”
“He sure is.”
I laughed. “Are you going to be able to keep your hands off him long enough for us to get in a ride?”
“No guarantees,” she retorted.
I pulled up in front of Wyatt and he openedAddison’s door, holding his hand out. Addison took it and let him pull her from the car. “Welcome,” he said.
“Thank you. I love the special treatment. I feel like you should be doing that for Dylan since you two go way back,” Addison said with a smile.
“She’d kick my ass if I tried,” he said.
