by Gemma Weir
The road curves round to the right and I pass the entrance to my home, slowing down as I follow Bonnie’s clunker of a car winding around the bend and then accelerating onwards towards her family’s property. After another few hundred yards, I watch as her blinker turns on and she slows, driving onto the lane that leads up to the main house. Just like I do every other night, I drive straight past the turning to her drive and then make a U turn a little further along the road before making my way back to the turning that’ll take me to my house.
Our squat, wooden ranch style home, is wide and sits in the middle of the huge plot my parents bought when they first got married. My daddy built this house himself after my mama told him about the house she’d seen in her dreams, filled with boys who looked just like him. She loved this place, and they filled every wall and window and door with the love they had for each other and for us boys.
My parents were perfect for each other in every way, I’ve never known two people be so in love. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why me and my brothers haven’t ever found women and settled down, because if we can’t have a love like our parents shared, why bother settling for less.
Parking my truck behind Bay’s mustang, I kill the engine, leaving the key in the ignition, and climb out, heading toward the brightly lit up house. It’s nearly nine o clock, so all of my brothers are probably home, and as I push through the door the noise assaults me.
Bay and Teddy are sprawled on the couch, Xbox controllers in their hands as they duke it out playing Call of Duty, or whatever popular game they’re playing at the moment.
Cody is sat at the big dining table, blueprints spread out in front of him as he makes notes in a notepad. Granger waves a greeting at me from where he’s stood in the kitchen, a knife in his hands as he chops something for whatever he’s cooking tonight, while Huck sits on the counter stealing bits of food and eating them.
“Hey,” I call to them all, as I untie my boots and place them in their spot by the door, shucking out of my jacket and hanging it above my boots.
A chorus of hellos call back to me and I make my way through the room to the kitchen, looking down into the pan Granger’s dropping onions into. “Where’s Penn?” I ask.
“Gone out to get laid, he’s been complaining that his balls were full all fucking day,” Bay calls from behind me.
“Please tell me he’s not fucking crazy Roxanne again?” I ask.
“Yep, that girl is a fucking nightmare, you know he found her stabbing holes in a condom the other month,” Huck says with a grimace.
Pulling my cell from my pocket I shoot him a quick text.
Me – That girl is crazy! If you can’t keep it in your pants at least make sure you double bag it, I don’t want my first niece or nephew’s mama to be her.
He replies a moment later with a ‘no glove no love’ gif, and I roll my eyes and shove my cell back into my pocket. I’m the oldest at forty-three, Bay’s next at thirty-nine, Cody’s thirty-seven, Granger two years younger than him, Huck at thirty-four, Penn thirty-two, and Teddy the baby at thirty. But no matter how old we all are, we’re all still stupid fucks, and a text to remind him not to do anything idiotic with a girl we all hate isn’t over stepping.
“Did little Bonnie Williams get home okay?” Granger asks with a knowing smirk.
“Yeah,” I say gruffly.
“What’s up? She figure out you’re stalking her?” he laughs.
“Keeping an eye on her when she’s all alone in that store at the ass crack of dawn and at night isn’t stalking her,” I growl. “Would you just drive past and leave her all alone in that place? Anyone could walk right in off the street and attack her.”
“Why don’t you just have a word with Phil?” Teddy says. “This is Rockhead Point, but I suppose she is pretty vulnerable there. If he won’t do anything, then let Caleb know, it’s his sister, not yours.”
“I’m not trying to be her fucking brother,” I hiss angrily.
“What the hell’s gotten under your skin?” Granger asks, turning his attention away from whatever he’s cooking and toward me.
“Nothing,” I say, my teeth clenching as I think about the way she was flirting with that fucking guy.
“Bro, you look like you’re ready to murder someone, what the fuck’s going on?” Huck asks, jumping down from the kitchen counter and turning to face me.
“Nothing,” I growl.
“Yeah, sure looks like nothing. What’s happened?” Huck asks.
“Nothing, there was just this guy—” I start.
A chorus of jeers and yells burst from my brothers as Teddy jumps up from the couch and points at me. “Yes,” he shouts triumphantly. “I had September,” he cries.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“We’ve had this pool running for nine months now and I called it, I said it’d be September when it happened,” he declares jubilantly, a wide smile on his face.
“When what happens?” I ask, annoyed with whatever the fuck is going on.
“When you realized you were in to little Bonnie Williams,” Granger says in a sing-song voice.
“Shut the fuck up all of you. I’m not into her, she’s barely twenty-one,” I argue.
“Sure, right,” Bay laughs. “So why don’t you tell us what happened to get you all growly?” he taunts.
“I’m not growly,” I growl.
They all laugh and I sigh, rolling my eyes at them.
“What happened?” Huck asks.
“Nothing. I went into the shop tonight, just like I do when she’s closing up on her own, and she was talking to this guy. Big city type, expensive suit, you know the kind,” I tell them.
“She making out with him? Is he her boyfriend?” Bay questions.
“No,” I spit, as anger bursts to life inside of me.
Bay laughs giving me a knowing look. “That bother you, bro, that she might be getting it on with the city slicker?”
“She wasn’t making out with him. They were just flirting,” I say through clenched teeth, my hands forming tight fists at my sides.
“So she was flirting a little, if you’re not into her, what do you care? She can do what she wants, fuck who she wants, she’s all grown up now,” Cody taunts, from his seat at the table.
“She’s not fucking him,” I growl.
“She could be. She could be on her way back down the mountain to meet him in his hotel room,” Teddy suggests, his tone light.
“No, she couldn’t,” I say angrily.
“She can do whatever the fuck she wants, she can kiss, fuck, suck whoever she wants. She’s legal, single, and beautiful, what’s to stop her?” Bay says.
“No, she fucking can’t because she’s mine,” I roar.
“Pay up mother fuckers,” Teddy yells. “Hundred bucks from you,” he points at Bay. “Hundred bucks from you,” he points at Cody “And you and you,” he says pointing to Granger and Huck.
With my eyes wide I just stare at my brothers, startled by my own revelation that doesn’t seem to be as shocking to them as it is to me. As they continue to chatter around me, passing around money for a bet I was apparently oblivious to, I start to freak the fuck out.
Turning, I head for my bedroom, ignoring their calls as I leave. The moment I’m inside my room, I close the door behind me and slump down onto my bed. What the fuck is happening? I’m a forty-three-year-old man having a fucking crisis because apparently, I’m into little Bonnie Williams. Fuck, I need to stop referring to her as little. It’s bad enough that I’m twice her age, I can’t keep thinking of her as little Bonnie Williams when my dick is twitching at the thought of her being mine.
Mine.
Bonnie is mine.
How the fuck did I not know I felt this way? The others all knew it, so how have I been so blind? Allowing myself to think about her, a surge of want crashes into me, so fucking strong and primeval, I’ve never experienced anything like it before.
I want Bonnie. No, I more than want her. Seeing her
today flirting with that guy flipped a switch in my head and unleashed all of the feelings towards her that I must have been ignoring for the last year. Taking a moment, I examine my actions toward her and finally consider them. Since the very first time I saw her alone in the dark, outside that shop, I’ve had an almost irrational need to protect her. I thought I was just being a good citizen, that I’d do the same for any woman who was in a vulnerable position. But now I realize that I wanted to protect her, I wanted to make sure she was safe and taken care of.
For a year I’ve stalked her every morning, I’ve sat in that fucking coffee shop while she quietly worked, then gone back again to check if she was there every night, just to protect the woman that apparently I’ve decided is my property.
Bonnie is mine.
A sense of overwhelming rightness settles inside my chest, that’s immediately followed by a growing sense of anger. Today, my woman was flirting with another guy. He touched her and asked her for her number, he asked her out.
Grabbing whatever’s immediately next to me, I throw it across the room, listening to whatever it was smash against the wall, then fall to the floor. “Fuck,” I yell, lifting my hands to my hair and pulling at the strands.
“You okay, bro?” Teddy asks, pushing through my door and taking a step into my room.
“I fucked up,” I admit.
“What did you do?” he asks, moving to the bed and sitting down next to me. Teddy might be my youngest brother, but the thirteen-year age gap hasn’t made any difference to how close our relationship is.
“She’s barely Twenty-one,” I say, sighing wearily.
“So?”
“So, I’m too fucking old for her. If we had a sister, would we let her date a guy twice her age?”
“Probably not,” he laughs. “But she’d probably do it anyway if she liked the guy.”
“I don’t think I’ve said more than six words to her in the last year,” I confess.
“What?” he barks.
“I follow her down the mountain every day, wait while she opens the shop and sets everything up, I have a cup of coffee, and then I leave once the sun starts to come up. Then I drive past on an evening, and if she’s there I stop, I get a coffee and a bear claw, and I wait till she’s done cleaning up, watch her lock up and get in her car, then I follow her back up the mountain,” I tell him.
“You don’t talk?”
“I ask her for a coffee, I tell her I’ll stay while she locks up, that’s it,” I confess with a groan.
“Dude,” he laughs.
“She’s mine,” I growl, feeling that sense of possession right down to my soul. “I didn’t know it till I saw her with that guy today, but she’s mine. I’ve been unconsciously laying claim for a fucking year and I had no idea.”
“Is she even interested in you?” he asks with a chuckle.
“She stares at me,” I tell him, shrugging.
“Thank fuck no woman can resist a Barnett brother,” he says with a wink.
3
Bonnie
My alarm seems to go off the moment I close my eyes, and I roll out of bed still half asleep. The annoyance I felt after talking with Beau last night followed me into my dreams, and as I blink my eyes open, I’m still irrationally angry with him.
In some hidden vat of hope in my heart, I’d thought that maybe he came to the coffee shop to see me, but his little speech last night officially ruined that ridiculous illusion I’d crafted for myself. The only reason he was there was as a favor to my brother, because even though I’m twenty-one, apparently, I can’t be trusted to look after myself.
Stomping into the bathroom, I wash my face and clean my teeth, pulling my hair up into a messy bun on top of my head. I dress in a soft, black jersey skirt that ends mid-thigh, with black pantyhose covering my legs, and my usual Wake Up and Go Go t-shirt, knotted at the back on my waist to give me at least some semblance of a shape beneath the tent of a shirt.
Padding out to the kitchen, I turn on the oven to preheat and mix a quick batch of scones, putting them in the oven while I throw the ingredients for a rich, cheesy mac and cheese into the crock pot and set the timer to turn on a few hours before dinner. It’s not exactly gourmet, but who doesn’t love mac and cheese. By the time Dad enters the kitchen, I’m pulling the scones from the oven and tipping them onto the cooling rack.
“Coffee, Bonbon?” he asks, pulling down two mugs before I even reply.
“Thanks,” I say, grabbing a hot scone and breaking it in half before taking a big bite. The heat immediately burns my tongue and I fan at my mouth, pushing the cakey dough around my mouth as I chew.
“You never could wait for them to cool,” Dad says with a chuckle, adding creamer to my coffee before placing it down in front of me.
“They taste so good straight out the oven,” I say, taking another bite.
“You feelin’ better this morning?” he asks.
“I’m fine.”
“Want to talk about it?” he asks me casually as he sips his coffee.
Sighing, I shrug. “Not really. I found out Caleb asked one of his buddies to keep an eye on me at work. I don’t know why he can’t just accept that I’m an adult. I know he’ll always see me as his baby sister, but he sent Beau to babysit me and it just sucks,” I tell my dad.
“Beau? Beau Barnett?” he asks.
I nod.
“Caleb and Beau aren’t buddies, sweetheart.”
“What?”
“I don’t think your brother and Beau have said more the two words to each other since they left high school. If Beau told you he was keeping an eye on you for your brother, he was lying to you.”
“He didn’t tell me that,” I say confused. “I just assumed it. He comes in every morning in time for me to open the shop, then he stays and waits while I close up on a night time. He said something last night about it not being safe for me to close up on my own. He sounded so much like Caleb that I assumed he’d asked him to watch me,” I say thoughtfully.
“You know what they say about assumptions,” Dad says with a smirk.
“Yeah yeah,” I laugh, rolling my eyes playfully at him. “I gotta get to work, fingers crossed Owen might actually turn up for once today.”
“Fingers crossed,” Dad says warmly.
Kissing him on the cheek, I grab my purse, slide my feet into my favourite pair of cowboy boots, and head out the door, thoroughly confused.
Climbing into my car, I start the engine and turn up the heat, the fall morning’s crisp and cold as I traverse my way down the mountain and into town. Wake Up and Go Go is one of the first stores to open on a morning, with a couple of the local diners starting breakfast at seven for the early morning hikers. I love the way the empty streets seem silent and lifeless at this time of the day. In a couple of hours, they’ll be a hive of activity with people milling in and out of the shops and restaurants.
Inhaling slowly, I try to process what my dad said. Caleb and Beau aren’t friends, and he didn’t ask the delicious, growly mountain man to keep an eye on me. If that’s true, then why did he act like an overprotective sibling yesterday when Dan flirted with me?
Shaking my head, I try to come up with a reason for his behavior, but in the end, nothing makes sense. Beau and I have zero relationship or even acquaintance, our moms were friends, but it’s not like our families are close, despite us being neighbors.
My mind is a confused mess as I pull into my parking spot right outside the store, absentmindedly climbing out of my car and locking it, before making my way to the storefront and searching in my purse for the key.
“Morning,” a gruff, low voice says from behind me, startling me enough to spin around, my hand clutched to my chest.
“Oh my god,” I shriek as I look up, and up some more to finally stare into Beau’s beautiful face, half hidden by the early morning darkness. “What are you doing sneaking up on me like that?” I snap.
“I didn’t sneak, I pulled up right behind you,” he growl
s. “You need to start paying attention to what’s going on around you, I could have been anyone and you didn’t even realize I was here.”
My mouth falls open in shock as I stare dumbfounded at him. “This is Rockhead Point, Beau, the crime rate here is almost zero, it’s one of the safest places I could be,” I cry, unlocking the door and pushing it open.
“It’s only safe until it’s not,” he snarls, lifting his arm above mine and holding the door open.
“What does that even mean?” I ask incredulous.
“You’re a beautiful woman, alone in the dark. None of the other stores are open and you’re not even paying attention to what’s happening around you. Some predator could be watching you, just waiting for a chance to attack you, to hurt you.”
“If someone was watching and waiting for me, they could just as easily attack me in broad daylight,” I cry. “Plus, I’m not some helpless little damsel, I know how to defend myself, I’ve taken self-defense classes and my daddy taught me how to take down a guy the moment I was old enough to need to know. I live on a ranch with thirty ranch workers and I’m the only woman,” I shout.
His lips purse and I can see the visible tick in his jaw where he’s grinding his teeth together. I wait for him to say something, but when he doesn’t, I push past him, turning on the lights and heading for the back, my movement stilted and angry.
Going through the motions, I turn on the coffee machine to heat and start to set up the counter for the breakfast rush that will start in about an hour. I have time to bake something, but cakes only taste good when you cook them with love, angry baking is never as tasty.
Beau glares at me for a moment, stepping just inside the door, pausing as if he plans to say something, but then he drops his eyes and moves to his usual table and sits, angrily brooding.