He paused for a long moment, and his eyes rested on Emma.“The thing is, life has been pretty brutal to all of us. Carson and I experienced one kind of parental abandonment. You … Your mom left, but she was still here. I don’t know how you dealt with that. I got to pretend that my mother never existed. Hell, I guess even Cassidy got to do that. She moved in with us, not knowing us, which was its own whole drama, but her mom wasn’t around anymore. Yours is. Along with Danielle and Michael. Children that she did raise.”
“I get that,” Flynn said, ignoring some of the tightness in his chest. “But time has definitely revealed to me that I was better off. I don’t respect the people that Michael and Danielle turned into. I’m glad I wasn’t raised in that house. With those people. I would rather be on this side of town. I guess it’s the same side that Jessie is on. I know we have a tendency to make it the Wilders versus the Hancocks, and who can blame us? But the truth of the situation is that we are the outsiders. Why? Because the insiders insist on making us that. Jessie wants to change it.”
“I guess.”
He looked at his older brother, at the lines that bracketed his mouth. The lines around his eyes. He wondered if he was the reason for some of those lines. Austin had had a bigger part in raising the younger siblings then he should’ve had to. “I know that you’re the reason I turned out as well as I did.”
“There’s a weird compliment,” Austin said.
“Come on. We’re all good people. Learn how to accept praise. You’re the father figure. That’s why it’s so easy for you to be a good dad to Emma. You were already that guy.”
Austin shrugged his shoulders up, and Flynn slapped his older brother in the center of his back. “You’re ridiculous, dude. You’re a good guy. But you don’t need to worry about me. I’m going to do what I feel like I need to do.”
“Revenge is what you feel like you need?”
“Yep. I don’t know if it’s even really revenge. I just want to see the score settled a little bit. Like you said, it’s strange to have to sit back and watch your other family be a whole thing without you. Idon’t want in. I never really did. But that doesn’t mean I feel neutral about them either.”
“Fair enough. So what are we supposed to do when people ask about you and Jessie Jane?”
That did worry him a little bit, especially considering the two people most likely to be asked were his sisters-in-law since they worked in town. Perry would smile vaguely and say something benign and dreamy. But Millie was not a liar. Not even when it came down to telling little white lies, and he also knew that Austin wouldn’t lie to his wife about what was happening between him and Jessie.
“If Millie could just play coy about it, that would be great. Just say that I don’t kiss and tell,” he said.
“I mean, I suppose that is true. Primarily because you don’t actually have relationships.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“You know this is going to create a lot of buzz. Neither of you is really the relationship type.”
“Indeed.” He shook his head. “And she’s not the run-for-mayor type. This whole thing is going to be a spectacle. Maybe a shit show, but a show nonetheless.”
Austin laughed. “I mean, whether you win or lose, it’s going to give Danielle hell.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
It was. For once, everybody in his mother’s family was going to have to pay attention to him.
He really liked to think that he didn’t much care about the way he had been excluded from his family. But the truth was a little bit more complicated, he reckoned. Because these weren’t the actions of a man who didn’t care. No, he wouldn’t want to be part of that family as they were. But if they’d been different …
Well, they weren’t. That was all that mattered.
“You can talk to everybody else, but they’re going to have to be circumspect.”
“I can’t control your sister.”
“No. I guess not. But I really need her to get on board.”
“We’ll see, I guess.”
“That we will. That we will.”
By the time Jessie finished filing her paperwork at the courthouse and placed an order for campaign signs and flyers at one of the local print shops, she was late for rehearsal.
She drove straight from town to the family homestead, which was a few miles east of the Wild West Show venue. Their living quarters were comprised of a circle of trailers with a gazebo and firepit in the center. Jessie’s trailer was pink, with string lights that extended out along the walkway to the front door—which had a wreath of fake sunflowers on it. She had a little white bistro table and chairs positioned out front, and a porch goose who had seasonal costumes, along with a bright green alligator who was holding a fishing pole and wearing waders.
It was whimsical, and she liked it.
She changed into her rehearsal clothes at record speed and hopped back into her truck, driving back toward the show venue.
