Page 14 of Baker (Bastian Brothers #1)

Chapter Seven

T he next morning, I slept in.

Well, slept in like a baby until Granny had her morning shooting session and the house bolted awake at the sound of gunfire at dawn.

I guess being dicked quite magnificently had made me more tired than usual.

You’d think the city boys would be growing used to the plink-the-can reveille every morning, but so far that would be a nope.

Yawning then smiling at the sounds of three men and Bella dragging themselves out of bed to check, I took stock of myself.

Other than a tender ass, I felt good. Great actually.

As the others muttered and cussed softly while tramping past my bedroom door to line up for the bathrooms, I lay in bed, calm as a cuke, thinking about how nice it was to have a fuck buddy.

He also was nice. I enjoyed talking to him.

Plus, Hanley was great in the sack—or on top of the sleeping bag, I should say—and seemed more than into having sex whenever we could.

I really enjoyed our hookup yesterday. Nothing made me feel more mellow than being pounded thoroughly.

Maybe it was because I could, for a little while, let someone else be in charge.

God knows I’d carried the weight of this ranch since I was old enough to understand what being the man of the house meant.

Today if all went as planned, I hoped to ride out to the redbuds, visit Hanley, get fucked, and fetch my hat.

Then work on fencing. A feeling of contentment washed over me, and I basked in it.

The basking lasted exactly seventeen seconds.

A hearty rap on my bedroom door yanked me from that mellow state like a hammer to the forehead.

“Fucking hell,” I mumbled before shouting at whoever was at the door to come in.

Ford, he of the shaggy gold hair and hound dog eyes, stuck his head in.

I scrubbed at my eyes as he entered a few steps, the floorboards creaking, and glanced his way.

“No, she isn’t going to stop target practice until she hits all the targets.

Seeing as her cataract surgery is scheduled for July, I’m figuring she won’t hit the broad side of a barn until after that. ”

“Oh, uhm, no, I’m not here for that.” He shuffled in a bit more as the dulcet tones of Lincoln singing “Love Train” by the O’Jays at the top of his substantial lungs exploded through the thin walls.

We both winced. The man might be able to carry kegs of beer on his meaty shoulders, but he could not carry a tune to save his life.

“I meant to tell you this last night, but I was working on the boutique’s indoor fountain and lost track of time.

Then when I remembered you were already in your room and Dodge said not to disturb you once you were in your den of solitude.

” Ha. That Dodge was a real riot. I gave him a raised brow to indicate he needed to get to the point.

“The guy who owns the goats says he needs to bring them today instead of later in the month.”

“ Today? ” I sat up straight, the sheet and blanket pooling in my lap. Ford nodded, then bit down on his lower lip. The kid was so nervous all the time. Jumpy as a cat on hot bricks as Granny would say. “Jesus. Are we ready for them to come today?”

“Mostly yeah.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, shoulders slumped, eyes darting around as if he expected Freddy Krueger to leap out of my closet. “Just need the feed.”

“Feed. Right. Okay, I’ll call Paul at the mill when I get around and get them to make the order today. I’ll have to go to town to pick it up.”

“I’ll go with you. I messed up relaying the message, so I can help load and unload.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. Would have been too late last night to do much about it, anyway. Just make sure the barn and fencing around the pen are good and tight. I do not want to spend my days chasing goats.”

“Got it.” He gave me a weak smile that lit up his whole face before he ducked out of the door and disappeared.

Exhaling deeply, I kicked off the covers, padded over to the far wall, and pounded on it until Linc stopped singing.

Once he quieted, I dug around in my clean clothes basket, pulled out jeans, a tee, and a flannel, socks, boxers, and then dressed as the sound of Granny insulting her gun floated up to my bedroom window.

Another day at Bastian Acres begins. Maybe if I hurried, I could get to town, pick up the goat chow, and hurry back so I could ride out to see Hanley again.

With that scenario in mind, I made a mental note to pick up an ice pack, some anal cream, and some juice boxes to stick into my saddlebags.

Hydration after strenuous exercise is important.

I ambled down the hall, slid into the bathroom as Linc was drying off, and nudged him out of the steamy room so I could piss. He seemed a pretty amiable guy for the most part. Guess he was working hard to be chill about life in order to lower stress levels.

“Sorry to be so long. The beard wash and conditioning takes time.”

I glanced at his facial hair. It was nice, not going to lie, and fit him. I’d never tried a beard. My ex hated them, so I just got into the routine of shaving frequently.

“No problem.” I shook, flushed, and washed my hands as he moved around me to slide out into the hall wearing a towel around his waist. When he exited, Dodge appeared. “All yours.” I dried my hands and stepped around the ginger.

“Thanks. Hey, Ford said you’re going into town. I’d like to ride along. Get to know the feed mill workers and maybe visit the bank?”

“Sure, yeah, okay.” The front seat of my old truck would be full of Bastian backsides.

It all seemed so damn weird yet. All these people in the house, riding along to town, taking up all the air in every room I walked into.

Granny was as happy as a clam about the full house.

She and Bella seemed to enjoy all the extra work involved in feeding four men.

I was still hoping they’d all move to town, but since my grandmother would sooner see Satan sitting at her dinner table than ask her grandsons to vacate, I was stuck passing the potatoes to Beelzebub for the foreseeable future.

***

Bastian Grange was the type of small town you could find in any state in the USA.

Main Street was short, just a couple of blocks, with small businesses all flying the stars and stripes.

We had a bank, a bar, a library, and two eateries.

One at each end of Main Street. Peppered among the shops, you could find a hardware store, a bookshop, a store that sold sewing supplies, and an outdoor store.

Right smack dab in the middle of all that commerce was the Bastian Grange Sheriff’s Office, where Ollie and his deputy sheriff, Easton Reese, could be found.

Unless they were out on a call, then Monica Purcell, who handled the calls coming in as well as other paperwork, would greet you with coffee and gossip.

Ollie liked to joke that he and Easton wore the badges, but Monica was the real law in town.

My brothers— half -brothers—seemed enthralled with the place. They chatted and pointed out the local grange, the volunteer fire hall, and the town green as if they had never seen such things.

Probably they never had. New York and Sacramento were huge cities with tons of people.

Bastian Grange? Not so much. We boasted about two thousand souls.

Could be more by a few now, depending on if Clarence and Holly Bernard had added another kid to their passel of eight.

I’d not heard if they had, but then again, after kid number four, you kind of zoned out on the tittle-tattle of old women.

“Why is the town named after our family?” Dodge asked as we cruised to the only red light on Main Street.

Rumor was the mayor was angling for another one at the other end of town but was running into trouble setting up the traffic study required for the red light.

Maybe if he hired someone other than his second nephew to engineer the study that might speed up things.

Everyone knew Willis Peete was as lazy as a toad at the bottom of a well.

“Our family was the first to settle here after the expansion west back in the early to mid-1800s. Isaiah Bastian and his wife staked out a claim where the house sits now. There was safety in numbers, and they welcomed settlers to come join them. Soon there were little farms all over, ours being the largest, and they all come together to charter a town. Named it after Isaiah since he owned the largest parcel of land,” I said as we crept through the green light and made a left to head to the feed mill.

The tall grain silos used for storing grain for the mill, painted yellow and black like big bumblebees could be seen from Main Street.

I cranked the wheel to park in a wide slot facing the mill itself.

We piled out of the truck to stare at the sky for a moment and work out the kinks.

Ford was impressed with the history lesson. “That’s really cool about our ancestors. And brave! Imagine coming out here with just a wagon filled with kids and women, leaving everything you know behind, and facing down all kinds of wild shit so you could claim a chunk of land for yourself.”

“Yeah, that was so damn cool. Nothing like driving all those wild things off their land,” a voice that I knew well said from behind us.

We all turned to see Ollie Ahoka standing in the parking lot with a fifty-pound bag of chicken feed on his shoulder.

I peeked at my siblings. They both looked like they had plunked their naked asses down on top of a nest of red ants.

“Oh, well, hey no, I didn’t mean…” Ford then fell over himself while Ollie stood there holding his bag of laying mash with a flat expression. Dodge was unable to speak, it seemed, his gaze locked on the tall lawman. “I meant that I think that…shit.”