“I have a sister named Troubadour. She goes by Tru. And a brother named Bard.”
“Wow. You guys never stood a chance, did you?”
I shook my head. “No, definitely not.”
“Older, younger?”
“Both older,” I said. “My sister by ten years, and my brother by twelve.”
“Ah, so you’re theoopsbaby, huh?”
“I’m the ‘I think I’m going through perimenopause—oh wait, I’m actually pregnant’ baby.”
He flashed a grin. “Are you close to your siblings?”
“No,” I said. “They were so much older when I was born,you know? So by the time I was five, my sister was fifteen and my brother was seventeen. They both kind of inherited my parents’ nomadic, adventurous spirit, so I don’t see them a lot, even now that we’re all adults. My brother is currently touring Europe with his band, and last I heard, Tru was in India.”
“What’s she doing in India?”
“I don’t know. Something with yoga.”
“And your parents—where are they?”
I sighed. “England.”
“England, like where your grandfather is?”
I nodded. “Yeah. They’re currently the innkeepers for an old castle that’s been converted into a hotel in the northern part of England, and my grandfather is meeting up with them soon. But they’re already getting the itch to move along, so who knows where they’ll be by Christmas. They don’t stay in one place for too long.”
“So how did you wind up getting raised by your grandparents?”
“When I was about seven, my grandfather and grandmother spoke to my parents and said they’d watched them drag my two siblings across the world—they’d even lived on a sailboat at one point—and while that might have worked for them, I wasn’t getting what I needed. So they offered to take me in, and my parents dumped me on their doorstep. And it’s been a couple of phone calls a year, some postcards from wherever they are, and that’s kind of it.”
Brooks fell silent for a moment as he turned the truck onto a dirt road.
“Huh,” he said finally.
“Huhwhat?” I asked.
“I understand now why you’re so determined to be independent.”
“Oh yeah? Explain it to me—I’d love to know, Dr. Brooks.”
He raised a brow. “You were the forgotten child. The afterthought. So your grandparents probably overcompensated, right? By protecting you, giving you everything you wanted. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just mean that you’re sheltered, you know? And then that probably translated to your adult life and your friend group. I overheard Salem. She’s adamant about taking care of you.”
“Are you sure you’re a cowboy?” I asked. “Or do you have a background in psychology?”
“I read a lot.”
“Makes sense, I guess. You don’t watch TV. You have a lot of free time to read when you don’t watch TV.”
“Poet?”
“Yeah, Brooks?”
“I had a lot of free time to read . . . when I was in prison.”
My breath caught in my throat at his admittance of his past.
