Page 63 of Bailey

He grinned at the young man as he settled next to Graham. “Can I have a hamburger and a hot dog?” OJ asked.

“Of course you can,” Graham said. “You can have whatever you want.”

OJ grinned at him, and Graham slung an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “You never told us where you’re working this summer.”

“Momma says I have to work at the bookstore at least twice a week.” OJ frowned, but it didn’t stay on his face for long. He definitely possessed Bryce’s sunny nature, but Graham could see Bailey’s lighter genes in OJ’s eyes, hair, and skin tone.

“So I’m going to do that on Fridays and Saturdays,” he said. “Momma said that’s when she has a lot of her big book shipments come in, and she needs my muscles.”

Graham grinned at him. “I bet she does.”

“I’m still volunteering at Bailey’s clinic whenever she’ll let me,” OJ said. “But my real job is at K9 Country.”

“Is that right?” Laney asked. She started to move toward the line that had queued up, and Graham and OJ went with her. “What are you doing out there for Ames?”

“Well, his daughter, June, hired me,” OJ said. “She runs a lot of the logistical stuff on the administration side. Chris and Lars still have their lawn mowing and landscaping company, but their daddy has started teaching them how to train the dogs.”

OJ came alive when talking about animals, and he loved being outside rather than in. Both traits he could have gotten from Bryce or Bailey, since he had both of their DNA. Graham figured he’d been hit on both sides with his animal-loving, cowboy ways.

“I’m going to be doing a lot of just basic chores around the K9 Academy,” he said. “Feeding dogs, moving them from one place to another, cleaning their pens, and since Chris and Lars are going to be doing more training with the dogs, they said I could help with the lawn mowing and stuff too.” He grinned, like pushing a mower around someone else’s lawn was a great thing. “Daddy said it’ll keep me busy.”

“Are you still doing guitar lessons?” Bailey asked from behind him.

Graham turned his attention toward her. She held Reeves’s hand firmly in hers, or he supposed Reeves could be gripping Bailey’s hand as well. They looked good standing side-by-side, with Reeves about six inches taller than Bailey. That put him a couple of inches above six feet, and he wore a dark cowboy hat and a dark gray T-shirt with the outline of mountains across the front.

He’d paired it with jeans and cowboy boots, and though Graham studied his face and found dark eyes and a long straight nose, he didn’t recognize the man at all. Bailey had acted like he might, and OJ had introduced him as “a big online celebrity,” and he wondered what exactly Reeves did for a living.

“Yeah, I do lessons a couple of times a week,” OJ said. “Daddy’s going to be in the studio a lot this summer, and he can pick me up from the K9 Academy on the way to Uncle Tex’s.”

“Are you going to be on the new Christmas album for Country Quad?” Laney asked.

“I don’t know,” OJ said. “They’re hoping to get that done this summer, but there is so—much—go-ing—on. Uncle Luke goes camping all the time, and Uncle Trace and Aunt Ev are going to Hawaii for a whole month.”

“A whole month?” Graham asked with a chuckle, because everything OJ said got enunciated like it was a great big deal. “When are they doing that?”

“I don’t know, sometime after the Fourth,” OJ said. He picked up a plate and then looked at Beau. “I’d like one of each, please.”

“You got it, bud,” Beau said, and he turned back to the grill to get a hamburger and then a hot dog.

“You didn’t get any buns.” Laney lifted the package and grinned at OJ.

“Oh my heck, I didn’t even see them.”

Graham loved the boy with his whole heart and soul, as OJ brought a vibrancy to his life that no one else could. Bailey laughed as OJ fixed up his buns and then put his protein on them.

“I’ll take a hamburger, Uncle Beau,” she said.

“Me too,” Graham said.

“Me three,” Laney added, and they had their buns ready to go for when Beau turned around with the burger on his spatula.

Reeves also asked for a hamburger and a hot dog as OJ continued to detail what his uncles were doing that summer. “And Uncle Jem is going to be gone almost all the time,” he said. “Because Rosie is going to be riding in the amateur circuit this summer.”

“Wow,” Laney said. “What about Cole?”

“Oh, Cole just got married,” OJ said. “He’s living up at Whispering Pines now, and it’s a lot less confusing now that the other Cole is also out on the circuit.”

Graham smiled to himself and moved down the table, where a bowl of taco pasta salad waited, and then a vat of baked beans. He loved Laney’s grandmother’s recipe with the bacon, the ground beef, and the pimento, and he spooned a healthy portion of those alongside his hamburger.