Page 4 of Baker (Bastian Brothers #1)

Bella spoke right up as she looked around at me.

“No, it’s fine. Honestly, I would rather someone who doesn’t know me ask.

” She turned her attention back to my grandmother.

“Thank you for asking. I am not a drag queen. I’m just a gay man who loves pretty things on his body.

If someone requires terminology, I always liked the South Korean aesthetic of a flower man, although not all flower men are gay.

I am also happy with transfemme.” She gave a tiny shrug.

“As long as people are respectful, I don’t get too flustered.

As for my work, I’m looking to diversify from my previous employment and open up a small boutique for women with refined tastes but who live within moderate means. ”

“Oh so you’re a fashion consultant?” Granny asked as we jounced merrily—or not so merrily for those in the back—along.

“Yes, a fashion consultant,” Bella quickly agreed.

“I could use some consulting on my fashion. Baker, imagine me showing up to Sunday services looking as elite as Miss Bella here!”

“You’d cause quite a stir,” I replied, keeping my eyes on the so-called road.

“When you open your shop, let us know. Baker is good at the computer and can order me a fancy New York City dress from my dear friend Miss Bella Buttercup, the transfemme flower man.”

“I will make sure you are my first customer. I’m not sure I’ll do much western wear, though. I doubt I could make a Stetson look as good as he does.”

I blushed to the tips of my ears. Stetson was a little out of my price range. I got my hats online or at the local feed store.

Bella flashed me a brilliant smile.

“Miss Bella Buttercup. Your smile is as bright as a wildflower. What a pity your last name is so opposite of your personality. I see nothing bitter about you.”

Bella blushed. Granny was right. She was as bright as a buttercup.

“That’s delightful. Thank you. I do try to leave the bitter behind.

” Bella gave Granny a tender hug and then grabbed the dash when we rolled over an old woodchuck mound.

Granny sat buckled in, chattering away, as Bella and the guys in the back yelped in fear.

Cash didn’t bounce out, so that was good.

Or not. Personally, I would have been happy to leave him out here for the coyotes to dispense of, but the law frowned upon such things.

We’d had to do a fancy dance to allow Cash to be buried in the old cemetery.

Fencing had to be redone and a ton of papers filled out, but his final wish had been granted.

Why I had gone to so much trouble was beyond me.

If not for Granny…well, we knew what I would have done with the bastard.

We rolled over acres and acres of land, most still showing signs of winter but with a few bursts of spring here and there.

Granny served as tour guide for Bella, pointing out the old line cabins spread out over the land.

There were several, all looking dingy. Since we didn’t have big cattle drives anymore, those one-room camps along our grazing lands had turned into homes for raccoons and rodents.

Just another sign of the hard times that had befallen not just Bastian Acres but the whole farming industry.

Bella gasped at the landscape, waving a small hand at a flock of wild turkeys.

The Arbuckle Mountains stood in the distance, coated with what remained of the last snowfall.

“…after General Mathew Arbuckle, who was a commander at Fort Gibson,” Granny was saying when we made a sharp left at a wooden post with a splash of yellow paint that marked the end of the Bastian land.

To our right, I saw my tractor parked inside the old cemetery, the bright green paint standing out against the snow, the backhoe bucket resting on the muddy dirt beside a freshly dug hole.

Unsurprisingly, I saw the lone official police vehicle, a well-loved Jeep with a star on the doors, parked on the other side of my tractor.

Ollie had shown up to pay respects to a man he had never met.

Ollie knew my father’s not-so-illustrious past. I’d shared that with him over beers more than once, yet he had shown up to offer his condolences.

He was a good friend. “Oh, and this is the family graveyard. Over fifty of our ancestors have been laid to rest here.”

“This is quite the spot to spend eternity,” Bella whispered, her gaze moving to the snowy mountains in the distance. “It is so beautiful out here. I never imagined I’d see anything like this!”

“We like it here,” Granny softly replied. “Never lived anywhere else. Never wanted to. My father used to say that if it’s outside Oklahoma, then it ain’t worth seeing.”

Bella nodded politely. I myself didn’t hold to that philosophy too strongly. I knew there was a wide world out there that should be visited. Seeing other cultures expanded the mind and the heart, but until I stumbled into a few million I’d be here, trying to save my family legacy.

The truck slowed, and I cranked her hard to get her in position near the hole in the frosty soil.

The men in the back piled out, each sporting runny noses and red cheeks, as Bella and I assisted Granny down from the cab.

Ollie appeared, brown cap in hand, with a stranger at his side while I was leading Granny to the lone seat by the grave.

A folding chair that I had nabbed from a hunting blind a few hundred feet south.

Good hunting here when a man could find time to spare to sit with his rifle.

That man wasn’t me. I wasn’t much into killing something just to kill it and hang its head on the wall.

“Mrs. B,” Ollie said, nodding his dark head to Granny. Ollie wore his Cherokee heritage incredibly well. Everyone called her that, or Granny B, as she was the matriarch of this assorted can of nuts that was our family. “Sorry to hear about the loss.”

“You’re so kind to come out,” she said and took her seat.

My brothers gathered around her as Mike began to flip through a small black Bible he’d brought along.

I’d asked for the basics, which meant no pastor who required money.

I’d spent enough on Cash. Granny and Reverend Cox had not been pleased, but God could listen to Mike for free as well as he could listen to the good reverend for a hundred bucks.

Maybe that would send me to Hell, which was fine.

Dad would be there so we could talk about his abandonment of his son.

Sons plural, I amended, as he had ditched us all.

I gave Ollie and the stranger a nod, then jogged back to my truck to fetch an old blanket from behind the seat.

After I had Granny wrapped up, I turned to Ollie and the stranger.

Good-looking man, wavy blond-brown hair that needed a trim, pretty green eyes, whiskery, wearing good stout outdoor clothes.

Solid boots. Probably someone wanting hunting rights to our land.

Maybe been scouting things out some before Ollie rolled up. That happened a lot.

“This is Hanley Welsh,” Ollie explained as Milton, looking quite windblown and disgruntled in a stern, lawyerly way, went to stand with Granny while keeping a cautious eye on Bella.

Sexy outdoorsy man nodded. “He’s out here for a photo shoot.

Wildlife. Making a book. Found him walking along the hedgerow between your land and Hillman Banks’ property, so I stopped to ask him what he was doing. ”

“Which was probably the most polite police request I’ve ever gotten,” Hanley replied in a soft New England accent. “Most of the time I get a little rangy when I’m out camping and end up looking like a mountain man. Law tends to get all Sheriff Teasle on me.”

Ollie snorted softly at the mention of the Brian Dennehy character from Rambo and then ran a hand through his short, black hair.

“I try not to view anyone as an unwanted element ,” Ollie said with a wink at me. “Otherwise Baker would have been run out of town years ago.”

“Ha.” I chuffed like an angry bear. “Nice to meet you. I’m kind of in the middle of burying my father, so we can talk later. Come to the house.”

“Sure, yes, I’m sorry to have intruded on this sad moment,” Hanley whispered as the wind twisted and pulled at his overgrown hair. He did look a bit unkempt but in a way that I found kind of appealing. I rarely looked as spiffy as my half-brothers. Jeans and dirty cowboy boots were my wardrobe.

“Nah, it’s not all that sad,” I replied. Ollie flattened his lips. Hanley’s brows shot up, but he recovered quickly.

“I’ll just go meander around while you tend to your father.

Again, my sympathies,” Hanley said, nodding at me and slipping around the back of the tractor, large backpack complete with a tightly bound pop-up tent resting on his strong back.

I watched him break over the knoll and disappear into a gully that took him out of sight.

“He’s what he claims.” Ollie’s deep voice broke into my vapid moment.

I glanced at our lawman. “I ran a background on him when I found him poking around on private land. Seems he worked for some big wildlife organization before being signed by a publishing house in New York to make photo books. He wanted to do this part of the country. No criminal record other than an arrest about three years ago during a protest at a lab in Georgia that tested on animals.”

“Okay, cool, as long as he’s not a drunken fool like me.”

“There’s only one like you, thank the gods.” He clapped my shoulder, then turned deep brown eyes to the other three chumps in suits. “Or used to be only one Bastian boy to keep an eye on. They staying long?”

“I hope not. I plan to offer them some cash to sign off and get them on planes back to whence they came.”

“Whence? Holy shit, two hours with the big city boys and you’re starting to sound like Jane Austen.” He chuckled before ambling over to rest a hand on Granny’s shoulder as Mike shot me a look that said he was beyond ready.

Squaring my shoulders, I took a deep breath and moved to my truck to grab the straps I had tossed in to lift the casket from the bed and place it in the ground.

It took a while to get things rigged up.

The weight of the coffin made the tractor want to tip more than I liked, but with some patience and help from the other men, we lowered Cash into the cold Oklahoma soil.

Mike led some prayers. We all huddled around Granny, who was the only one who felt compelled to pray along with the funeral director.

None of us guys cared one way or the other if God carried Cash onto his bosom.

I secretly—or not so secretly, I guess—hoped Cash went south for an extended stay at Satan’s Resort & Spa.

A man who abandons numerous women and kids shouldn’t receive any kind of blessings.

Call me vindictive if you wish, but I never felt better than when the short prayers were over and I could scoop up big maws of rocky soil and dump it on my father’s coffin.

Not a tear was shed. Not even Granny wept, and she cried at laundry soap commercials.

Guess it says a lot when your own mother doesn’t shed a tear at your funeral.

After we properly covered him, we all gathered up and rode back to the house for some coffee, cookies, and the reading of Cash’s will.

Hopefully by nightfall, all these men would be a few grand richer and jetting back to their lives, and I could start planning how to turn this ranch back into something that my great-grandfather would be proud of.