He looked out the front window and saw Ally walking briskly up the driveway. The high school got out twenty minutes before the elementary, giving her time to pick up Austin and either drop him off at day care or take him on the bus with her. On this day, he was at day care, but his afterschool schedule for the fall was just one of the things that needed to be discussed at this meeting. One more reason Nick needed to be there. Joe looked impatiently at his watch. He had hay cut and cured, sitting in the field waiting for him to bale it, and every second it was out there after it was dry seemed like he was daring Mother Nature to ruin his plans. He was always a bit antsy at this time of year. Nick was just exacerbating the situation. Nick and other issues. But Joe was trying not to think about any of that.
“Where the hell is he? He knew we were doing this at four.”
“Easy, tiger,” Will said. “It’s two minutes past, and Ally’s going to want to tell us about her day anyway.”
But it turned out she didn’t. She came into the living room after dropping her knapsack in the mudroom and looked around impatiently. “We’re waiting for Nick? Seriously? Because he had so much else on his schedule today?”
Joe grinned at her. Yeah, it was nice to have an ally.
“How was your day? Do you like your teachers?” Sarah smiled calmly.
“I’ve had them all before. It’s a small school. No surprises. And no surprise that Nick is late, either. He needs to be taken down a peg.”
“Your schedule’s good?” Will tried.
“I picked up my schedule last week. It’s fine.” She dropped a bit of the attitude when she turned to Joe and quietly said, “It was weird being there without Lacey. When the bus went by their driveway, I expected it to stop and for all three of them to get on.”
“She’s still down with the aunt? Is that working out?”
“She’s not crazy about it. I guess the aunt… she’s Mr. Walton’s sister… I guess drinking is kind of a family problem. And Lacey says there’s room while it’s only her, but she’s not sure how they’re going to fit the others in once they’re out of the hospital.”
“That’s still the plan, though?” Joe wasn’t sure why he kept picking at this scab. “Both of them getting out and moving down there?”
“Savannah for sure, probably next week. Kami… they’re saying maybe a special school for her? One where she’d live all the time.”
The laughing little girl who’d loved to swim and climb needed full-time care. Because Joe hadn’t been quick enough. His nod might have been a little jerkier than it should have been, but he was pretty sure he kept his expression neutral.
And Ally was compassionate enough to help him find a distraction. “Is the hay in?”
He shook his head. “The baler lost tension again. Spent three hours figuring out how to jerry-rig it into working, but it needs a more long-term solution. Either a permanent fix, or it’s time for the equipment shed in the sky.”
“Dad used to bitch about the exact same thing with the exact same baler,” Will said with a grin. “It’s nice to see traditions carrying on.”
“Get it through this season and work on it over the winter,” Ally advised.
This time it was Sarah who grinned. “And that’s the exact same thing Mom used to always say.”
“She was obviously a very intelligent woman,” Ally said archly. Then to Joe she said, “I don’t have any homework tonight. If you run the baler with the old tractor, I can take the bales to the barn with the John Deere.”
“Thanks, that’d be great.” And then, because there was nothing else to talk about, he said, “You sure you want to be a vet? I could really use a fully trained, minimum-wage-earning farmhand around here.”
“Tempting. But the animals are calling to me.”
They sat quietly for another few minutes, then Joe looked at his watch again. It wasn’t that he was that impatient, it was just that he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts anymore. Thinking about Kami made him want comfort, made him want to be wrapped in Mackenzie’s strong arms. And that just left him with two things he wanted but couldn’t have, and it wasn’t doing him any good to sit there thinking about either one.
“Here we go,” Will said from his spot at the window. Joe looked out to see Nick’s blue Honda speeding up the driveway. It would have been nice to believe he was hurrying, but the kid drove like a maniac every day; he was just coming at his normal speed.
“It’s about time,” Ally groused. Then she said, “What the hell? He’s got somebody with him.”
Joe turned back to the window and squinted, then let his eyes relax as the car raced past the house to park in the back. There had definitely been someone in the passenger seat, but Joe hadn’t been able to discern any more than that. Nick was up to something. As usual.
Will had a better view as the car approached, and he turned to Joe and said, “You hear anything about this?”
“About him bringing someone? No.”
“Did you see who it was?”
“What? No. Did you?”
Will shot a look in Sarah’s direction, then started for the kitchen. “I’m just going to—”
But he was too late. The door crashed open with Nick’s usual exuberance, and it was only seconds before he was in the room. “Sorry I’m late,” he said breezily. “I was working on a business plan. With….” He looked behind him as if only then realizing that his companion was hanging back. He waved the man forward. “With Mackenzie. You guys know him, right?”
“Yeah, hi, Mackenzie,” Will said, stepping forward to shake his hand. Then he turned to Nick. “This is a family meeting, Nick. I’m not really sure—”
“I wanted Mackenzie to be here because we’re still just bouncing ideas around. I only met him yesterday; Dale Aithers introduced us. I’d like him to be here to contribute to the ideas I want to present to you guys, in case he has insight that I don’t.” He looked around the room, but his gaze settled on Joe as he asked, “Is that a problem?”
“You’re late,” Joe said. He knew his voice was tight and aggressive, but he wasn’t inclined to do anything about it. “And it sounds like you’ve got more in mind for this meeting than figuring out who does what chores around here. You should get to it.”
“Okay,” Nick said, unruffled. “Great.” He looked at Will and Sarah. “Do you two want to sit down?” Apparently he wanted center stage.
But Joe wasn’t interested in Nick’s game. “If they want to sit down, I’m pretty sure they can handle it on their own. What ideas are you talking about?”
Nick took a deep breath, making a show of being patient with his surly relative. “Well, essentially, I think there’s an opportunity for this property to expand its business operations. It’s already home to the contracting business and the cattle business, and each of those has a family member at its head. I’d like to use my interest in the property to expand into a guest ranch operation. There’s a lot behind the idea: our proximity to the city; the natural beauty of the property; the unused buildings currently on site; and, of course, the presence of another tourist operation in the area. If people are coming up here for the church, they can stay at the ranch; if they’re coming to the ranch, we can show them the church. It’d be symbiotic, like a good partnership should be.”
Joe let his mind run over the ideas, and apparently the rest of the room was doing the same, because nobody spoke for quite a while. He was the first one to ask a question, and once he got started he had quite a few. “Where are you planning to get the capital for this? You’re… you’re planning on using this house as the main guest house? I mean, apart from the fact that there’s a family currently living in this house, it’s not set up to be a public space. You’d need so many renovations you’d probably be better off building a whole new place. And the outbuildings? Have you been in any of those lately? They’re falling apart—I was planning to start breaking them down when I got the time. Again, you’d be better off starting from scratch.”
“And where’s the family supposed to live when this all happens?” Joe tried to make it sound like he was asking questions, not raising objections, but he probably wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
Nick certainly sounded defensive when he said, “Sarah’s already moved out, Will’s probably going soon. Ally’s off in the spring. But whoever wants to live here could still live here.”
Joe snorted as he thought about the party-goers he’d seen at the church. “You want Austin raised in a house filled with drunks? You want him woken up at night by people staggering home from a reception and hooking up with random people?”
“We’d have to screen the guests,” Nick said with a tight, almost patronizing smile. “And we could keep an eye on the reception, monitor behavior, if we held it in the hayloft of the barn. Lots of rustic charm, right? We’ve had some great parties up there. It’s a waste to only use it a couple times a year.”
“Are you joking?” Joe knew Nick didn’t care about the farming operations, but surely he’d had some awareness of what had been going on around him his whole childhood. “We have parties in the barn once a year, in the early summer… when the hay’s been eaten and the loft is empty. The rest of the time it’s not wasted space, it’s storing hay. That’s why it’s called a hayloft.”
“People store hay outside,” Nick protested.
“Top-quality hay needs to be kept dry. If you’re just feeding cattle, it doesn’t matter, but if you’re planning to run a fucking dude ranch you need good horses, and horses need good hay. Some people store horse hay outside, but we don’t and we shouldn’t start.” Joe shook his head. “And a guest ranch? Do you know anything about the guest side of that? You obviously don’t know a damn thing about the ranching. Inexperience aside, you’d need capital for horses, tack, safety equipment.”
“We have horses,” Nick said with a snort of laughter. “They’re the ones eating all the precious hay in your loft.”
“We have two horses that are safe for beginners to ride. Two. Not enough for something like you’re planning. And if you’re going to keep more horses, you’d need more pens and run-in sheds. You’ll have to feed them through the winter whether you’ve got guests or not.” Joe shook his head. There were lots of details, but it all boiled down to one thing. “Where’s the capital going to come from?”
“There’s the life-insurance policy—” Nick started, but Joe cut him off.
“After funeral costs, there was about five-fifty left. Your share was one-ten, but you’ve spent almost fifty of that. Sixty grand is not going to get you far.”
“Well, I’d still like to do my own math on that, but you’re right. Just my share isn’t going to get us far. That’s why I’m presenting this at a family meeting instead of just doing it on my own.”
“You start doing anything having to do with this property on your own, and you and me are going to have a serious problem.” Joe knew he was doing this wrong; he knew he should be reasoning with Nick instead of challenging him, but it felt good to just let himself go and follow his instincts instead of his brain.
Nick, of course, was ready to go head-to-head. “What about those outbuildings you were going to tear down?” He jutted his jaw out. “I can’t do anything, but you can decide to demolish a bunch of perfectly good buildings without consulting anyone?”
“They’re not perfectly good, and he mentioned it to both Sarah and me,” Will said quietly. “I think Ally might have been there too.”
“I was,” she said firmly. “There’s general maintenance stuff that has to happen. It would be stupid for Joe to consult someone who doesn’t even live here every time he cuts down a tree or fixes a fence.”
“I live here now,” Nick said firmly. “And things need to change.”
“Okay, fair enough,” Will said. “And that’s what we all thought this meeting was about. This new business idea, though… Joe’s right: it’s going to take too much capital. Sorry, guys, I don’t think it’ll work.”
Mackenzie nodded and seemed to be headed for the door, but Nick caught his arm. “No, it can work,” he insisted. “If you all put in your life-insurance money… whatever’s left… and if we leverage the equity of the place—”
“Leverage the equity,” Joe repeated. “You mean get a mortgage. You want us to mortgage a farm that’s been in the family for four generations… five, if you count Austin… and risk it all on a harebrained scheme that relies on someone with no hospitality or business experience starting and running a guest ranch that’s supposed to be symbiotic with a wedding chapel that’s also being run by someone with no hospitality or business experience? No fucking way, Nick. No.” Joe was pretty sure he should stop there, but instead he added, “Mackenzie wants to be in the city, and until two weeks ago, that’s what you said you wanted too. There’s no way we can risk our home and our history for two people who are going to walk away from whatever wreckage they leave behind and go off and start something new in the city. No chance.”
Nick frowned at him. “Look, Joe, here’s the thing. I’m going to be starting my own business. That’s the path I’ve chosen for myself. If I can do it here, that works best for everyone. If I can’t, you’re right, I’d be happy to move back down to the city. But you need to understand that if I leave here, I’ll be taking my son with me.”
It was as if Nick had punched Joe in the gut. “No way,” he said as soon as he’d recovered. Every muscle in his body was tense, every instinct screaming at him to attack this intruder who was threatening his family. He needed to remember that Nick was family too, but it wasn’t easy to do.
“It won’t be your call,” Nick said quietly. “I’ve talked to a lawyer. He said I’ve got a good case.”
“And you want to do that?” Sarah was staring at Nick as if he were an alien. “You want to take Austin away from the only home he’s ever known, from a loving family—?”
“No! I don’t want to! But I need to make a living, don’t I? If you won’t let me do it here….”
There was probably more Nick was going to say, but Joe couldn’t make himself listen to any of it. He pushed out of his chair with such force it fell over backward, then brushed by Mackenzie and headed for the back door. He needed to get out of there. If he stayed, he was going to explode.
He wanted to jump in the truck and drive, or at least saddle up Misery and head for the hills, but he did neither. He wasn’t Nick, with no responsibilities and nothing to occupy his time. He wasn’t Mackenzie, with a sugar daddy on call to bail him out when he got in over his head.
He was Joe. And that meant he needed to get the hay baled. So he climbed into the tractor and got to work, and he tried not to think about the mess he’d left behind him in the farmhouse.
Chapter 15
NOBODY SAID anything for quite a while after Joe left the room. Mackenzie wanted to go after him, partly to apologize for his role in the fiasco, partly just to escape the tension left behind, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be welcome wherever Joe was.
“Austin stays here,” Will finally said. His voice was almost as heavy as Joe’s had been. “He’s not a toy for you to pick up and play with when you feel like it, and he’s not a pawn in whatever game you’re trying to play. He stays here, with the people who love him, in the home he knows. You need to take that threat off the table, or you can forget about any cooperation on any of this.”
“It’s not a threat,” Nick said tiredly. “It’s just reality. You all want me to grow up and take responsibility. Well, I’m trying to do that. Austin’s my son, and I should be a part of his life.”
“A part,” Ally said. “Just like we’re all parts. He’s lucky to have this many people taking care of him, and you’d be… if you care about him at
all, you’d be an idiot to take him away from this.”
“Let’s forget about it for now,” Nick said. His calm manner was starting to show some strain, but he still managed a charming smile. “Let’s focus on finding ways to move this business ahead for the whole family. It’s not like I’d be the only one benefitting.”
“If it’s for the whole family, Joe needs to be part of the discussion,” Sarah said. She sounded as if the whole thing was making her sad.
“Joe,” Nick repeated bitterly. “Of course. It always comes back to Saint Joseph.”
“No one’s calling him a saint,” Sarah responded. “But he’s a part of the family, just like you are. Something this big… we all need to be on board.”
“Yeah, right.” Nick’s voice was clipped and controlled, but there was something about his expression that made him seem like he was about to snap. Mackenzie wanted to escape and leave the Suttons to fight in privacy, but it was also strangely compelling seeing this side of Joe’s otherwise idyllic family. And Nick didn’t seem to mind the audience. Indeed, he was clearly talking to Mackenzie when he said, “Everybody loves Joe. He’s like a fucking god in this family, in this town…. Joe can do no wrong.” He shook his head bitterly. “You know why you’re not getting more pushback for wanting to start a gay wedding chapel in a redneck little town? It’s because Saint Joe performed a miracle and cured the locals of their homophobia. I mean, when he came out, they had a choice, right? They could either keep hating fags or they could keep loving Joe. They couldn’t do both, so they chose to love Joe. That’s the kind of power he has in this town. And don’t even get me started on how much the family kisses his ass—”
The Fall Page 19