Page 2 of Brett and Rowdy (Gomillion High Reunion #5)

Chapter Two

“ D addy! Daddy! Daddy! Hey.” Oh, Rowdy did love that voice.

“Come on, Barney, let’s go. I hear my girl.”

Madison tackled him as soon as he got out of the secure part of the airport, her solid body like being hit by a linebacker.

“Hey, baby girl! I’ve missed your face.”

“Oh, Daddy, I’ve missed you. It’s been wild. I got my last grade in, and everything’s good. I graduated with a four point oh. Can you believe it?”

“I never had any doubt.” And he hadn’t. He knew his baby girl. She was focused, she was smart, she was sure, and she loved what she was going to do for a living.

“No, you didn’t. I know you didn’t. Daddy, it’s so good to see you. You look great.”

“Do I? Thank you, ma’am.” He held her hand as they walked through the airport; it was so loud that it liked to make him crazy with the noise. “I checked two bags because I knew that I was gonna stay awhile with your momma, and then, you know, we got a drive to make.”

“OMG, Daddy Dan got me a brand-new truck and trailer. Can you believe it? It’s my graduation present.”

Rowdy nodded. “Yeah, we chatted on it. I helped him with the details. We thought it was a good idea, and I was tickled. I think that’s real smart.”

“I’m so glad you’re here. I can’t wait to go back to the ranch and see Pappy and get settled in and start working. We’re gonna have the best time. I’ve got all sorts of ideas. I’ve been making plans and?—”

Lord have mercy. “Breathe, baby girl. We got tons of time. I’m going to be here with your momma at least a couple weeks, and then we’ve got two or three days to drive and to get all of us back to the ranch.”

“Yeah, I’m so tickled that you’re letting me bring Sunshine and Miss Daisy. Miss Daisy and Barney get along like a house afire, and they’ll just sit in the back of the truck and be happy.”

Like he’d ever ask her to leave that blue roan or the border collie behind. “Did Dan get you a cover for the back of your pickup so you could put all your things in?”

“Yes, sir. And there’s a part in the trailer too, so that I can lock things up. I’ll be able to put my bigger furniture and my tack and stuff in there and lock it up real good. And then Sunshine’ll just travel in the back. It’s a nice setup.”

“Perfect. That’s what I want to hear.”

“You’ve got the suitcases with the?—”

He smiled. “They’ve got wide fuzzy ribbons on them. Should be able to see them right off. They’re good-sized, and anything else I need, I’ll buy it here. That way, we’d be good to go on the way home. Did your momma let you drive all the way out here by yourself?”

“Daddy, I am twenty-one years old. I’m an adult.

I can drink—which I have not because I’m driving you home.

But no, I drove out here by myself. I told Momma I could handle it.

She had some deal at the real estate office.

And besides that, I thought we could have fun driving back, maybe stop and get some onion rings, some fried pickles. ”

It never ceased to amaze him how she could sound so grown up and still, somehow, sound just like she did when she was a kid.

He could imagine her at five years old, all pigtails and great big eyes, and then at ten, where everything was gangly and weird, and she couldn’t quite decide if she was a tween or a little girl.

Then there was thirteen, when she started her period and her everything started to change, and it was summer time, and she was at his ranch, and he didn’t know what to do any more than she did.

Thank goodness his daddy was there because Pappy was the man with the plan.

It had been an hour ago when she’d graduated from high school.

Just yesterday, when she was his little cowgirl doing mutton bustin’ and winning her first trophy.

Possibly a week ago when she’d been born, and he’d held her for the first time, staring down at her and thinking “this is the smartest thing I’ve ever done in my entire short life.” Because she was.

She was the best thing he’d ever helped grow to maturity.

And he’d grown a lot of things to maturity.

“You in there, Daddy? Where’d you go?”

“I was thinking about how much I love you, girl.”

“I love you too, Daddy. Let me get your bags.”

“Thanks, kiddo. I appreciate it.” It was always easier to not have to navigate that shit himself even with the tactile luggage bands. A lot of times he just waited for them to pull his luggage off the carousel themselves and then went and got it.

Lord, he hated this airport. He’d tried to get a flight into Greenville-Spartanburg, but he hadn’t been able to, so he’d been stuck going into Atlanta, and it was crazy busy and kinda stinky, and a lot wild with sound.

But he had his girl. She was going to get food with him, and he was gonna get to see the rest of the family by tonight, and that was pretty exceptional.

“There you go, Daddy. I got your suitcases and your hat carrier.”

“Thanks, baby. Last time I tried to wear my hat through security, they damn near mangled it.”

“Yeah, airport TSA guys don’t really understand how much a cowboy hat costs.”

“No, ma’am, they do not.” At three fifty, that hat was his good one, and he would be grumpy if he had to replace it. He heard her getting a cart for the luggage, metal groaning. “You got that okay, baby girl?”

“Daddy, I am a stud,” she called. “I got this. It’s okay.”

“All right, if you say so.” He wasn’t gonna argue with her. This way, he could just hang on to the cart rail and let Barney lead him. Rowdy worked pretty damn well with a seeing eye dog. By now, he was on his third one. Barney was well-trained.

“So, where are you gonna take me for lunch?” he asked.

“That depends on how far down the road we got before you get hungry.” She chuckled. “There’s a bunch of neat places in Clemson now. A lot more than when you were last there, I bet.”

He shook his head. “Oh, I reckon so. Last time I lived here, the best place to eat was still the ice cream thing on campus. We went with everybody your freshman year, and Wilma stole my ice cream. Remember that?”

“I do. That dog was the feistiest girl. I miss her face.” She reached out and touched his shoulder, just making a connection. “Obviously, I go to ag sales center a lot myself. They have the best ice cream.”

“Right.” He was so proud of her. He’d secretly hoped she’d come to UNM or NMSU, for that matter, but her Daddy Dan had gone to Clemson, and she’d had her heart set.

“What are you looking forward to most, Daddy?” She pushed that cart like a champ; he could hear one squeaky wheel just going to town, and he followed her at a pretty good clip, so she had to be really motivating.

“You mean aside from the fried pickles?” When she giggled, he laughed too.

“Well, obviously the most important thing is to be there when you walk at graduation and get your degree. That’s really why I’m here, but I’m looking forward to hanging out with your mom and your stepdad and just doing all the things. ”

“Momma says you’re gonna go to the reunion with her.” He would bet Madison was looking at him, trying to gauge his reaction to that. She liked to do that drop-a-little-bomb thing, and then see what he thought about it.

“You know how I feel about that, baby girl. I went to school with those people for what? A year? I don’t know anybody there, but your momma does, and it’s important to her because she still lives in the area. So I’ll show up.”

“Yeah.” Her voice took on a sly little note. “She likes the idea of shocking everybody with you on her arm instead of Daddy Dan.”

“I guess so. It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m gonna see anybody’s expression when they look at me.”

“Daddy!” She had to laugh again. “You’re so bad.”

“Hey, I can’t help it.” Truth was, he just didn’t care, but if it made Ashley happy, he would do it.

“Momma is all sorts of excited. I told her it didn’t matter what those people thought about her, and she said I was right, but that, every so often, it was good to be pretty and put together. She’s so successful, but I guess everybody thought she wouldn’t be?”

“There was never any doubt that your momma was going to be successful.” He shook his head. That woman had been created by the good Lord to be a winner.

“And so were you, right?”

He chuckled. “Well, I’ve been a lot of things. Some of them have been really cool, and some of them sucked. So I guess that just depends on who you ask.”

He’d done everything from selling ice cream cones to riding the rodeo. Some of them had been all right. Some of them had left him not as well off as he started.

But he was happy. He had his land. He had his critters. He had his little girl. He was in a good space.

“Okay, here we are. I brought Momma’s spare Caddy, because, you know, she’s a cushy real estate woman.”

They got the suitcases all locked up in the trunk, Barney settled in the back, and then there he was, snuggled back into leather seats. The car had the faintest smell of honeysuckle, which always would make him smile. Ashley loved honeysuckle, and everything that she had smelled like it somehow.

“It smells like your momma.”

Madison snorted, so delicate and ladylike. “Her and her damn honeysuckle. Yes, sir. She’s looking so much forward to seeing you, and I still don’t think I’ll ever understand why you two didn’t just get married and have more babies.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes. “Because, my dear, your momma and I weren’t in love.

Your momma deserves somebody who loves her like your Daddy Dan does.

That man thinks she hung the moon, and he is mad for her.

Besides, I couldn’t have stayed here in South Carolina.

” He’d hated living here with a fiery burning passion.

There had been nothing about it—from the humidity to the fake Southern politeness that always seemed to drip with sarcasm—that he could bear.

“You know, I didn’t even stay for graduation.

I took my last test, and I was on the road by three thirty-five. ”

They started moving out of the airport parking lot, Taylor Swift on the radio—the pop version, not the country.

“I can’t believe you did that. I mean, you were just eighteen, and Momma had to be so scared.” She’d heard this story a thousand times, but he guessed it was time to tell it again.

“Yes, but I didn’t leave your momma hanging. We weren’t together, and I had already made arrangements to fly her and you out during the summer for a couple of weeks. That was your first time on an airplane. There’s not been a summer in your whole life that you didn’t come to the ranch.”

“And so you just drove to see Pappy?”

“I did. I went home. He knew I was coming. I had all my stuff packed up and in my old pickup. I just walked out of school, and I left.” He hadn’t told anybody else that he was gone.

There wasn’t anybody who cared. Him and Brett hadn’t spoken for months at that point.

Him and his mother and the fuckmonkey she’d married had nothing to say to one another.

Hell, nobody at that school was going to say anything to him.

Not after he’d gotten a debutant knocked up…

He chuckled at that. Right. He was sort of a pariah, but it had worked out because he just really didn’t care.

“I can’t believe it’s been twenty-one years and you haven’t talked to your mom.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes you just got nothing nice to say. In this case, I had nothing to say at all. Your pappy wanted me back; you know that.”

“Yeah, I bet he was so happy to have you home.”

“He was, and not only that, he was so happy when we went and picked you up at the airport. Your momma got to come and stay, meet him for the first time. He got to hold you. He was over the moon, madly in love with his nieta .”

“So why didn’t Momma stay?”

“Oh, baby girl, can you see your sweet magnolia of a momma in the harsh lights of a New Mexico sun? We both know that ain’t a thing.

She belongs here. She’s happy. She was going to real estate school, and she was doing everything she was supposed to.

Your mom and I, we were never a love affair.

Not ever. We were good friends, the best of friends.

Still are. I love her to death, but I have never been in love with her, and she has never been in love with me.

That’s not what this is. She and I, we’re family.

And your Daddy Dan. You know, I think that man is a good guy. But a love affair? Nope.”

Rowdy wasn’t gonna lie about that part. He might lie about every other damn thing, but not that. Ashley hadn’t wanted to marry him anymore than she’d wanted to marry the motherfucker who’d actually?—

“Well, I love you both, and I wish you were in the same place, but I’ll come see her a lot, and she can come see us.”

“That’s it.”

They chattered until she pulled off suddenly, and he blinked, trying to look around, which he’d never stopped doing. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Daddy, but your stomach is growling. You’ll never make it to Clemson, and besides, I took the Toccoa highway instead of 85. So we’ll go around to get home.” She slowed, the turn signal clicking.

“So what are we eating?”

“There’s this place in Toccoa that Daddy Dan likes.”

“It’s not Mexican food, right?” That was a travesty waiting to happen. Mexican food in the Georgia and Carolina region…

“No, Daddy. That’s not nice. No, this is called X-Factor. They have fried pickles and that popcorn shrimp you like and stuff.”

“That’ll work.” Dan had pretty good taste in food, and if Madison liked it enough to stop, it would do.

He was ready to get him some fried pickles.

That kind of stuff? Yeah, it was better here.