Tex gazed at his brother, feeling his genuine hurt. “I’m sorry, Trace.” He stepped into his brother and wrapped him in a hug while Trace stood there, stiff and unyielding. After a moment, he finally softened, and he sagged into Tex’s chest.
Tex held him until Trace stepped back, and they both settled at the railing again. “You know, for the longest time, I thought I just needed to get Bryce to eighteen.” Tex chuckled softly. “But I think he needs me now more than ever.” He looked over to Trace. “Harry will always need you, in a new and different way.”
“Yep.” Trace nodded. “I just wish…I don’t know what I wish.”
“And wishing doesn’t change anything anyway,” Tex said.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Dad!” Carver’s voice carried across the yard as he ran down the sidewalk and closer to Tex. “Daddy, can I show Adam how to do the new guitar chord you taught me? He’s takin’ lessons, and he said he wants to hear me play.”
His nine-year-old son’s enthusiasm for music warmed his heart. The boy had been practicing religiously since getting his first guitar, and Tex could admit he enjoyed their lessons together.
He glanced over to Adam, who smiled up to Tex. “Sure, bud. Whenever you guys come back in.”
Carver whooped and ran back toward the stable just asCash joined them. Tex nodded down there with the brim of his hat. “What are we thinkin’ about Cash?”
“You’re thinkin’ something about Cash?” Trace asked. “I don’t feel comfortable talking about this without Blaze.” He grinned and shook his head. “For real, though. I think Blaze thinks enough about his own son for all of us.”
“He came home for the holidays,” Tex said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“He comes home all the time,” Trace said dryly. “And it’s Thanksgiving.”
“He didn’t bring anyone with him.”
“Can you imagine?” Trace laughed then. “It’ll take someone as headstrong as Cash to tame his wild heart.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Tex said. “I just think someone like Faith.” He grinned at his brother. “Or Ev—you know, someone who can put up with your black mood.”
“Myblack mood?”
Tex laughed and watched as Adam started to come into the house with Carver, leaving Joey with Blaze and Jem and the other littles. “Besides,” he said. “Cash doesn’t have a black mood. He just lives life at a hundred miles an hour.”
“So maybe he’ll meet a race car driver,” Trace said.
“Yeah, maybe.”
The sliding door opened again, and this time, Carver poked his head out. “Daddy, I’m ready to play, and Momma says you need to get in here and get your chocolate banana cream pie ‘afore it’s all gone.”
Tex immediately pushed away from the railing. “The chocolate banana cream pie is almost gone?” He entered thehouse and drank in the sight of at least a dozen people eating various flavors of pie—and he spied at least three people eating his beloved pie with the inch of chocolate custard on the bottom and then a layer of sliced bananas, all topped by banana pudding and whipped cream.
“I invite you-all to my house, and you eat all my favorite pie?”
“Calm down, Daddy,” Carver said. He giggled and galloped into the kitchen. “Me and Momma saved you a whole half pie.”
Tex grinned at him, and the others he walked by. “A whole-half?”
Carver tipped it up, his eyes wide and innocent. “Yeah, lookit.”
“I see it, bud.” Tex picked up a fork and then the pie tin. He saw no reason to use a plate if he didn’t need to. “Go get your guitar,” he said, shooting a look over to Adam. He’d gotten himself a piece of pecan pie, and he smiled as Carver stopped in front of him and said he’d be right back.
Carver skipped off toward the door that led downstairs, and Adam lifted his eyes to Tex’s. Tex grinned at him, because hey, he wasn’t dating Tex’s daughter, and Tex happened to like Adam a whole heckuva lot.
“You okay over here?” Tex asked, stepping over to him.
“Absolutely.” Adam lifted his pie. “I’m eating your mother’s pie, and I have to admit….” He looked past Tex to the rest of the kitchen, where the crowd spilled into the living room around the corner too.
His eyes came back to Tex’s bright andfilled with earnestness. “It’s been a while since I’ve been part of a family like this.”
