King's Country (Oil Kings Book 4)

by Marie Johnston

  “She brought on a lot herself,” Beck said, then sighed. “But I can see why. The town turned against Danny after the funeral. And against her.”

  “We didn’t give them any other lead to follow,” Dad agreed.

  I shoved my hand through my hair. It was long dried after my shower and probably sticking up in a million directions, but Bristol seemed to like me rumpled as much as clean. “Can you see why this trust is fucking things up? What the hell do I do?”

  Aiden’s brows pulled together like we were in a boardroom and he was mentally running the numbers. “You’re going to have to prove that your feelings for her are real enough so that when you tell her, she’ll understand the dilemma you’re in, even if she’s hurt.” He looked me in the eye, his gaze the most serious I’d seen since the night Mama died. “But whatever you do, don’t marry her without telling her about the trust.”

  Aiden might not have told Kate, but she was so head over heels with him, she wouldn’t leave him. Not in a million years. They were married. I wasn’t my brother, and Bristol wasn’t some smitten librarian. If I told her about the trust, she’d see right through all the excuses we’d used over the last few years to justify our actions, and I’d be back to being just another guy who’d treated her like crap.

  Chapter 9

  Bristol

  I was used to feeling like a rusted nail in a jewelry display, but being around the King women was next level.

  Kate was dressed similar to the night we’d met up at the pub. Kendall wore a gauzy burgundy top and cute jean shorts that probably had a brand name I’d never heard of. Her hair was gathered in a top bun that must really be a thing since that was how Savvy wore hers too. Savvy’s impossibly long legs were in leggings, or tight jeans, I couldn’t tell without staring. Then there was Eva with her pixie cut and pink-tipped hair. She might be wearing leggings and a baggy T-shirt full of gamer controls tied at her waist, but she and the others exuded a polished air that I would never attain.

  My drying hair was pulled back into a ponytail. I pulled at my plain red Hanes T-shirt. It was clean with no frays. It didn’t seem like enough.

  Kendall must’ve sensed my nerves. As soon as I’d walked in, she’d pulled me to the counter and given me strawberries to cut for a fruit salad. We were getting the side dishes ready since Kendall claimed the guys had flocked to the grill like flies to a yard light.

  “You’re coming tomorrow, right?” Savvy asked. She’d been tasked with mixing the chopped vegetables into the cooled pasta and dousing the mixture with Italian dressing. My stomach growled. This wasn’t typical Dawson fare, but I was surrounded by good food and I wasn’t going to ignore it.

  “Yes.” I owed Dawson. He had plenty of bodies, but I couldn’t stay home when he was working cattle all weekend. I had plenty to do, but so had he when my leg had been in a cast.

  Eva took a drink of her beer. “You’re coming back to hang out tomorrow night too, right?”

  All the women looked at me, waiting for my answer.

  Anxiety tightened my body. The tip of my knife hadn’t moved from where it had sliced through a strawberry. “Sure?”

  Eva grinned. “Good. It’ll be fun to actually talk to you instead of running into you here and there.”

  I readjusted the paring knife and cut another hunk. My mouth was watering. Fresh strawberries. As fresh as Montana could get, and they were the best in the spring. I could eat a bushel. I loved a good grilled steak—I was a rancher—but all the fruit littering the counter was a luxury. By the time they were marked for sale at the store, mold had usually started to grow.

  “Yeah. Same.” I couldn’t claim my conversational skills didn’t need sharpening. I had no skills. I wasn’t invited to birthday parties, or sleepovers, or girls’ nights out.

  Savvy swooped in for the save. “Hey, wanna see pictures from our trip?” She poked at her phone. A picture of a couple flashed across the screen. The guy had a lazy grin that reminded me of Dawson and the woman had dark hair and mischievous eyes. “These two are my best friends. I think the next time we go back will be for their wedding.”

  She thumbed through several more, rattling off details. A small cabin tucked in the woods that Xander had helped build after she had cleared the area of fallen trees. A tall mountain with a snowy peak. The hiking and camping business her friends ran and lived in was situated at the base of that mountain, a great place to gather selfies of her and Xander to post on any and all platforms.

  Savvy tucked her phone away and went back to stirring the pasta dish. “Since I started doing videos of Xander outside working, we get crazy traffic.”

  Eva nudged her. “Does he have his shirt on or off?” She cleaned up the dishes Savvy and I were done with.

  “Off as often as possible. I’m shameless.” She stopped with her wooden spoon mid stir. “Think they’ll work cattle with their shirts off tomorrow?”

  Everyone giggled and I swore half of them groaned. The guys wouldn’t take their shirts off, which was for the best. I’d have had to waste time starting profiles on all the social media platforms in order to see them. Dawson without his shirt was worth the time suck.

  I cut the last strawberry. Kendall dumped in blackberries and raspberries. I watched each one fall into the bowl and managed not to lick my lips.

  “To be serious for a minute,” Kendall said as she pushed the dish to the side, “I’m sorry about your dad.”

  I blinked against the onslaught of heat behind my eyes. “Th-thanks.”

  Savvy rubbed my back. I would’ve flinched, but I was frozen. There was true sympathy in Kendall’s voice. Actual comfort in Savvy’s touch. Kate crowded close. She wasn’t touching me, but her emotional support was all but tangible.

  “I’m really sorry,” Eva murmured. “I wanted to send a card, but I wasn’t sure what Beckett would say or how you’d feel about it. I should’ve. Fuck it. I should’ve and I’m sorry.”

  I rubbed my hands on my pants. Do. Not. Cry. “No. It’s all right.”

  “I’m really sorry too.” Kendall rounded the counter to stand on the other side of me. “I guess I left it up to Gentry, but Dawson told him about running into you at the funeral home.”

  I winced. It hadn’t been one of my better days. Same for Dawson. We’d been as toxic to each other as we’d always been. “Yeah. I just wanted it over with.”

  Kind of like now. If this was what a funeral for a well-liked person would be like, I’d happily pass. The idea of grieving publicly sounded as pleasant as getting my skin ripped off in inch-long chunks.

  The guys wandered in, murmuring about plans for tomorrow. We stared at them from our huddle around the island. Our silence made Gentry and the brothers stop before they entered the kitchen.

  “Steaks are done,” Gentry announced, breaking the awkwardness.

  Kendall sauntered to her husband. “Oh, baby. You know how to sweet-talk me.”

  “Yuck,” Beck said and bypassed his dad to set his tray of meat on the table.

  “It’s not right,” Xander muttered. “I don’t care how old we are.”

  The easy atmosphere between them should’ve made me feel more like an outsider. But as each of the women broke off to walk to the table with their spouse, Dawson appeared at my side. “Did you find the lemonade?”

  “I forgot to get it out!” Eva veered into the kitchen. “Good thing or it would’ve been gone by now.”

  I arched a brow at Dawson. “That good?”

  “I don’t want to brag . . . but I sweet-talk the lemons when I juice them. Then after the sugar, I add strawberries and a splash of cherry juice. There’s lime garnishes too.”

  He wanted me to be impressed. I was. “Did you talk dirty to the cherries when you juiced them?”

  Kate sputtered first and the rest of the girls dissolved into laughter. My cheeks bloomed. The first thing they’d heard me say that wasn’t defensive or about cattle and it was lewd.

  “It’s not right,” Gentry grumbled. Humor g
leamed in his eyes as he nudged Kendall. “I don’t care how old they are.”

  We all settled into our chairs. Gentry was at one end and Dawson on the other. I sat next to Dawson and to my right was Savvy. I didn’t see who passed the food, but someone started a dish and then it was like dealing cards. The dish was handed to the person on our left.

  Ten people surrounded the table. I’d been in restaurants with a bigger crowd. But I’d been on the fringes. These people surrounded me. I was eating the same food they were. The room was closing in on me.

  A glass of red-tinged lemonade appeared in front of me. I took a big gulp. When the sweet flavor hit my tongue, I kept drinking.

  Damn.

  When I looked up, Dawson was grinning at me. “Good, right?”

  I scowled, but a smile played along my lips. The anxiety that had been building drained under the sugar rush. “You know it is. Everything you make is excellent.”

  Pride rippled across his expression, but there was a twinkle meant just for me that said, It’s the dirty talk that does it.

  Savvy handed me a basket of rolls that I’d had no idea existed. When had Dawson found the time for all this? “I know you haven’t had much to do with the guys until now, but I’m all ears if you know of any embarrassing stories from when they were younger.”

  The table grew quiet, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. An anticipatory air filled the room as everyone waited on me.

  I wasn’t brave enough to look at Dawson. It was Gentry’s fatherly nod that broke the seal on my tongue.

  “I started running over here when I was too young to be going off alone across the pasture. So Sarah would make Aiden or Beck walk me back. Only they didn’t want to, so they talked Dawson into going with them and then ditched us.”

  Savvy’s scandalized inhale was immediately followed by a laugh. “How chivalrous.”

  “Hey,” Beck said as he was cutting his steak. “I was all of like, ten years old.”

  Which had meant a not-much-older-than-me Dawson running back with me, but always stopping at the fence. It was like we’d both known that Pop would chase him off like a rabid dog.

  Yet Pop had never stopped me from going to the Kings’. Not until the funeral.

  “What about Xander?” Savvy asked.

  A touch of sadness laced Xander’s smile. “I made sure to find somewhere else to be. If Mama was busy with Bristol, that meant she’d put us to work.”

  Aiden set his fork down, a line forming between his brow. “How did I not notice that?”

  “Too busy kissing her ass, golden boy,” Dawson said around a mouthful of food.

  “I did not kiss ass.” Aiden narrowed his eyes and stunned me with an almost smile. “I didn’t have to since I was perfect.”

  “Nah, not you. There was someone else who made sure he was a little better.” Xander directed his gaze at Beck.

  “Don’t,” Beck growled.

  Xander’s grin grew. “What’s wrong, Gooder?”

  Beck rubbed his temple—but with his middle finger.

  “Anyway.” Gentry’s exasperation was apparent, but it didn’t stop his smile. “Any of you coming back for the Fourth? I ran across Nelson Hammond and he said there’s going to be a fair and a concert.”

  Nelson Hammond. The mayor. He was a man I actively avoided. Pop had been to several town hall meetings, raging about some vote or another.

  “Would you be ready to have us back so soon, Dawson?” Kendall asked.

  “Absolutely,” he answered.

  Well, that didn’t take long. I was already looking forward to the Fourth of July when Kendall and Gentry would be back. Would I be invited over for more grilling? More visits?

  Because if this was how well-adjusted families acted, I was glad I hadn’t known what I was missing.

  “Want to go to the fair with me, Bristol?”

  The fair came to town every year. This year was the first it’d be over the holiday weekend. I hadn’t thought anything of it when I’d heard. When I was in seventh grade, Pop had actually let me go. The only stipulation had been that he wouldn’t be able to take me home until he was done at the bar. The fair closed at ten p.m. and the bar closed hours later, but I hadn’t thought of the logistics. He’d even given me twenty dollars.

  A half hour after I’d gotten there, played a few games, and saved enough money for one ride and supper, I’d run across some high school boys. A scrawny Bristol all by herself had made a perfect target.

  They’d followed me, relentlessly teasing me about my tiny tits and a face only a mother would love—Oh wait, is that why she left? Even at that age, I’d been known to throw a punch for a strong enough insult, but I couldn’t take on three fifteen-year-old boys.

  I’d run and waited by Pop’s pickup until he’d closed the bar down and gotten tossed out by the fed-up owner.

  On the way home, we’d almost hit one of our yearlings that had escaped the pastures.

  The remnants of the crappy memory must’ve shown on my face. Dawson squeezed my hand. “We don’t have to go.”

  “No. It’s fine.” I couldn’t sound more wooden if I tried. Damn it. I wasn’t going to let my past with this town haunt my future. These people were more than tolerating me. And by all accounts, they should be the ones to shun me. So, yeah. I was going to that damn fair. “It’ll be fun.”

  “Savvy and I could probably make it,” Xander offered. I blinked at him, but Savvy nodded.

  “I’ve never been to a fair.” Her blue eyes sparkled, her excitement infectious.

  Wasn’t Savvy’s family loaded? How could she have missed out on something as simple and common as a fair? I’d had an experience someone as sophisticated as Savvy hadn’t. Weird.

  “This is a small-town fair,” Xander said. “Half the thrill is wondering if the Ferris wheel is going to hold together.”

  “Ooh, I can’t wait.” Savvy turned in her seat. “Xander and I are going to check on the progress of our house and then spend most of June camping in Yellowstone and doing some research for my company. We’ll make sure we’re back.”

  “I have an in with the CEO of King Tech.” Eva might be smiling at Beck, but her eyes said they were going whether he wanted to or not. “I’m sure we can get off.”

  Beck wasn’t fazed. “I haven’t been to the fair since I was a senior. Do they still have funnel cakes?”

  “Yes,” Kate answered as she was trimming a hunk of fat off her ribeye. “But eat them fresh. They don’t age well.” She looked up from her plate and blinked at the guys staring at her.

  “You got Aiden to the fair?” Dawson asked, incredulous.

  Her chuckle was nervous. “No. He had to work. I brought my nephews and tried to bring a funnel cake home for him.”

  “Aiden wouldn’t risk getting powdered sugar on his laptop,” Xander joked.

  Kate’s gaze dropped to her plate. Aiden lifted a shoulder. “It had dissolved by the time it got home. But it’s the thought that counts.”

  From the forlorn look on Kate’s face, it was the effort of getting off work that would’ve counted.

  “The Fourth it is,” Dawson said. “Anyone who can make it, come on up.”

  “The Fourth,” Beck agreed. “Right before your birthday. Could be a big weekend.”

  Dawson slanted a glare at Beck and everyone shifted. Once again, I was missing something.

  I could enjoy the atmosphere of this family all I wanted. I could marvel over how different they were than how I’d thought of them growing up. I could be deliriously happy when I was with Dawson.

  But I was the odd one out, and that would never change.

  Dawson

  I leaned against the barn door. Kittens twined around my ankles. Staring at my phone, I gently shook my leg as one ambitious tabby tried to climb up.

  Hey, kiddo. I’ll buy you supper. Meet me at Hogan’s.

  It was the first of June and Grams was in town. Even worse, she was in town to meet with me. The countdown was on. It
was T minus thirty-six days before I turned twenty-nine. I hadn’t decided to do anything about the trust but enjoy my time with Bristol. Build her faith in me.

  Wrong or right, the conclusion I’d come to, thanks to my brothers’ help, was that the best course of action was to build a solid foundation of trust. Then no matter what shit show happened before my birthday, she’d trust me. She’d have faith in us.

  The weekend we’d worked cattle had been a good start. She’d been around my brothers with no arguments. No barbs tossed back and forth. She’d come over both nights they were in town and watched the banter between my brothers and me like we were her personal TV show.

  The last few weeks had been good. I did my job. She did hers. Sometimes we met up for lunch or dinner at my place. Other times we pitched in to help each other. I could spend every night with her, but I held back.

  She hadn’t stayed at my place yet. I had no idea why. Was she still unsure about us?

  The message reminder buzzed on my phone. Damn. I had to let Grams know. If I didn’t meet her, she’d come out here and I didn’t trust her within a mile of Bristol’s place. If anything could scare Bristol off, it’d be Grams.

  There was a new message from Grams. See you at 7.

  I hadn’t answered yet, but to Grams, that didn’t matter. I sent back a K. Grams wouldn’t be deterred and I might as well face-off with her and tell her to butt out. The trust was mine to go for or not as I pleased.

  I worked for a couple more hours. The horse trailer blew a tire. I replaced that, then filled in some large divots in the driveway. Running the big John Deere up and down it since March had taken its toll on the gravel. One good rain, and those holes would make their own mud pit, deep enough to pop a tire and wet enough to splash half the pickup with muck. After I was done, I went to the house and cleaned up. I put on black jeans and a navy blue polo. It wasn’t like it was a date. Besides, I never had to worry about chasing Bristol off because I had a little dirt on my boots.