I don’t walk—I float inside.
No, obviously, I don’t. I walk. But it feels like I’m floating. I understand now why people talk about glowing. I feel like I could power the town of Rush Creek off the energy flowing through my veins. My body shines, bright and alive.
I’m going to have really good sex!
This is definitely something to be ecstatic about.
I head to my room and try to harness my scattered energy so I can do some online research. Foraging in Central Oregon is my topic—but it’s like trying to educate a classroom full of chipmunks. I fall down a YouTube hole, starting with stinging nettles and non-poisonous mushrooms and seamlessly slipping into using hair to stitch a wound.
Many lost hours and lots of sketchy medical advice later, my granddad comes back from his fishing trip, banging through the front door. A few minutes later, he bellows my name.
I step into the living room and discover him pacing, eyes lit up, throwing off agitated energy. The coffee table is strewn with party invitations—RSVP cards separated from envelopes and tossed everywhere. He’s obviously been double checking to make sure my brothers really didn’t respond.
There’s a look on his face—thoughtful, almost mischievous. He looks like trouble. I saw that look on enough Hott brother faces during my childhood to recognize it.
I’m worried about what’s in store for me, but also relieved, because there’s no way he’ll notice my moony distraction.
“No RSVPs from your brothers,” he says.
“No,” I agree, the single syllable drawn out and wary.
“I have a plan. I need you to email them.”
“You have a… plan?”
He nods. “We’re going to do like the Wilders do.”
My mouth drops open. “What?”
“They aren’t sitting on their asses, twiddling their thumbs, agonizing about how the rodeo days are over and men don’t come here anymore to prove they’re men.”
That’s entirely true, although I wouldn’t have expected my grandfather to see it so clearly.
“They’re changing with the times. They’re recognizing that Rush Creek is about weddings and parties and relaxation, not horses and bulls and testosterone.”
“True enough,” I allow.
If my grandad paces any faster, I’m afraid he’s going to hurt himself—or wear a path in the carpet. “Slow down, Granddad.”
“We’re going to do that, too, just like the Wilders.”
“We—”
“You and me and the boys.”
“The boys—” I know I sound like a fool, but I can’t seem to get my feet fully under me. I’ve never seen my grandfather this riled up.
“Your brothers. We’re going to turn the ranch into a wedding venue and spa.”
I gape at him, half horrified, half awed at the extent of his denial. “That will never happen in a million years,” I tell him. “The Hott brothers couldn’t wait to get out of here. You think they’d come back here to be like the Wilders? To be pinned to this place and a business—”
I stop, mid-sentence, suddenly grasping the full extent of his delusion. “You want me to run a wedding venue?”
“You want to have something of your own,” he says.
I shake my head. “Not that. Frills and lace and veils and flowers and bridezillas and momzillas and ten times more administrivia than adventuring—ugh!”
“If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to do it,” my granddad says, shrugging. “I’ll do it with your brothers.”
“They’re not coming back!”
My voice is bigger and angrier than I mean it to be, but my granddad doesn’t even flinch. “They will if you ask them to. They won’t for me, but they will if you ask. They’ll show up for the party if you ask them to, and when they do, I’ll present my plan, and they’ll see. They’ll see that they owe it to you to take care of you.”
“I don’t need taking care of.” I’ve gotten my voice under control again, and it emerges tight but steady.
“Maybe not, but they owe it to you to make sure you have something of your own, and they owe it to the land to turn it into something useful. And they owe it to me…”
He gets very quiet.
For the first time, I see how tight his mouth is, how one hand clutches the other to still its shaking.
“Granddad,” I say gently.
He looks away. If I didn’t know him better, I’d guess he was trying to hide tears—but that’s impossible.
“I owe it to them to leave them something.”
Oh, this impossible, idiotic, deluded old man, who I can’t help loving, because despite everything, he’s got a soft caramel core.
“Granddad,” I repeat. “If you do it that way, they’re not going to get it. They’re going to see it as an attempt to control them. To get them back to Rush Creek, when all any of them ever wanted was to get out of here and see the big, bad world.”
“Well, they’ve seen it!” he says. “It’s time for them to come back and claim their inheritance. Settle down. Be there for you.”
“I don’t need them to be here for me,” I attempt, but there’s no getting through to him when he’s like this.
“Email them,” he repeats.
“I—”
His shoulders slump slightly, and suddenly he looks his age. And even though he can make me bananas, and his grumpy old man act drove my brothers out of Rush Creek, I want what he wants, and I can’t say no.
I start several emails to my brothers.
Hey, Tuck,
Granddad wanted me to reach out and…
Tucker—
Zero pressure but
Tuck,
Miss you! Hope you’re thinking about heading this way for granddad’s…
Tuck,
You absolute asshole, where have you been?!
I drop the phone on the bed, collapse back on the pillow. Something pokes my spine, and from underneath me I draw Leonard, the pink teddy bear. “What do you think, dude? Is Granddad nuts? They’re not coming, right? No fucking way.”
Leonard stares back at me, black button eyes unwavering.
“You’re not helping, bud,” I tell him.
I pick up my phone again. Drop it. Pick it up.
I text, My granddad wants me to email my brothers and invite them to his eighty-fifth. Before I can think better of it, I hit send.
Easton and I don’t text. But then again, Easton and I don’t kiss. It’s a week for unprecedented experiences, so why not throw one more in there?
Three dots appear, and my heart goes wild. I clutch the phone, waiting for his answer, thinking, Who are you and what have you done with Hanna?
You don’t know how many times I typed and erased ‘new phone, who dis?’ Easton texts back, which makes me laugh, easing the tightness in my chest. Do you *want* to email them?
I don’t know. Sort of? My granddad wants to turn the ranch into a wedding venue and spa.
Three dots appear.
Vanish.
Appear.
Vanish.
“My sentiments exactly,” I tell Leonard and my phone.
Easton’s text pops up: It’s not the worst idea ever.
No. It isn’t. Which I think is part of what’s causing the tightness in my chest and the confusion in my head.
I think it’s a pretty good idea, I text him back. But he wants me to get my brothers here to do it. He wants me to email them and make them come for the party so he can present his idea… and then somehow, they’re supposed to bow to family duty or their love of the land, or something, and give up their big dreams.
They might say no.
But they might say yes.
It’s ambitious, it would be a huge amount of work… and it might just be a success.
I tap out another text. What do you think? Should I do it?