Page 67 of A Love So Sweet
“I have an idea. He’s Blake’s cousin, so I’ll text Danica. She’ll ask Blake, and he’ll know how to find out where he is.”
“Thank goodness for the sister network,” Max joked.
Kaylie’s phone vibrated, and she checked the message. “She said hold on a sec.”
Max sighed and threw her head back. “How can I be so together at work and so bad at surprises?”
Her phone buzzed again. “It’s part of being a woman. We can’t be perfect all the time.” She read the text and said, “Fate is on your side! He’s at his father’s ranch.”
Max jumped to her feet. “It really is fate.”
“Settle down, doe eyes. Now what?”
Max gathered as many bags as she could carry and started for the exit.
Kaylie scrambled to pick up the remaining bags and hurried after her. “Max!”
Max held up her bags and said, “Home. Shower. Sex it up. Get my man!”
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Chapter Thirty-One
BY DINNERTIME TREAT was exhausted. His father was feeling infinitely better and practically needed to be tied to his chair to follow Ben’s order to rest. Every time Treat and his siblings turned around, their father was trying to get outside to the barn. Josh finally lured him back inside by offering to watch a rodeo with him. Now Treat was relaxing on the front porch as Rex parked the tractor in the barn. They’d worked from sunup to sundown, and they still had evening chores to take care of. He had to give Rex credit. He was still running on full steam while Treat was sucking down coffee just to get a second wind.
The screen door opened behind him. “You still alive out here?” Savannah sat beside him on the top step.
“Barely. I had forgotten how labor intensive it was to run the ranch. I don’t know how Rex does it.”
“He’s pretty tough. So are you, you know. Everyone is tough in their own way.”
“I guess,” Treat said. The spark in his sister’s hazel eyes had dulled. He’d assumed it was from his father’s health issues, but he remembered what his father had barked at him in the hospital. “Everything okay with you? What was Dad saying about Connor? Do I need to take care of him for you? Because I’m wondering if Rex might be a better person for that job.”
She linked her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. “No one is better for that job than you. You’ve always been my protector.”
The weight of her against him made him miss Max even more. “Way to skirt the question, Vanny.”
She sighed. “It’s complicated.”
“Isn’t everything?” he said, thinking of Max.
“Yeah, I guess. Do you remember what Mom and Dad’s relationship was like before Mom got sick? I don’t remember much more than what you’ve told me.”
Treat had always tried to keep their mother’s memory alive for his siblings. “I remember some of it, but as a kid, you don’t focus on your parents’ relationship. You know what I mean? They’re Mom and Dad. That’s it. Mom was beautiful. She had this light about her that’s hard to describe. She was always happy, but I do remember how she used to yell at Dad when he’d try to toughen you up. I can still hear her.” He raised his voice an octave. “Hal, she’s a girl. G-I-R-L. She doesn’t need to know how to bang a nail. That’s what men are for.” He laughed at the memory.
“She did?” Savannah smiled. “I wish I could remember that.”
“She always treated you like you were precious. She’d want to put you in frilly pink dresses with ribbons in your hair, and Dad would say she was raising a sissy.”
Savannah scrunched her nose. “Pinkdresses? I can’t even imagine. I loved growing up as a tomboy. I always thought Dad did such a good job with us.”
“He did. So did she. She loved us so much. Even when we were bad, she would give us heck for a minute or two and her eyes would turn fierce, like yours. And in the next minute she was laughing and joking like we were blessed angels who could do no wrong.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You know it was Mom who started the whole backyard grilling thing, don’t you?” He watched Rex ascend the hill, heading in their direction. His jeans stretched tight across his massive thighs, and his hat was still pulled down low. He looked every bit like the quintessential cowboy he was.
“I never knew why we did it,” Savannah said. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”
