“Fine,” Holden grunted as he set the pot back. “Tired.”
Chance’s mouth tightened. Tired at nine in the morning. At least Holden was awake. Back when he’d been drinking, there would have only been a fifty-fifty chance he’d be up and about in the mornings.
Chance remembered too many days with him and Quint bickering as they raced to get Rye and Lane, their youngest brother, out the door and to the bus stop on time. The oldestKessal brother, Bowie, was in grad school back East, so he couldn’t help. Not that Chance and Quint had admitted to him how bad things were. They were trying to keep the ranch going and their brothers in school so the state wouldn’t take them, all the while barely being adults themselves.
So yeah, Chance liked things easy. Why wouldn’t he, when they’d been hard for so long?
Holden, at least, had stopped drinking. It had only taken Lane moving away at eighteen. The day after Lane took off, Holden tossed out all the liquor and never touched it again.
That hadn’t been enough to bring Lane back—he didn’t trust Holden had changed, and Chance didn’t blame him—but Holden kept to his sobriety.
Still, Chance felt like he was holding his breath around Holden, waiting for the old man to slip up again. Yeah, Holden had been holding steady for four years now, but it only took one drink. Holden wasn’t strong—it was bound to happen.
“Maybe you should lie down,” Rye said.
Quint gave Chance a look Chance recognized all too well. The one that said,Something’s up, and we’ve got to fix it.
Chance glanced at Holden and then back to Quint.It’s about him?
Quint gave a quick nod.
Great. That was just what Chance needed.
“I’ll be all right once I get some coffee in me.” Holden sat down heavily, his legs almost giving out. His color looked even worse under the kitchen lamp.
Chance immediately began estimating how quickly he could get to the ER in Fordsville. Leaving now would be faster than calling an ambulance.
Quint cleared his throat. “You, uh… You’re not having any chest pains or anything? Are you?”
Icy panic slammed into Chance’s chest. Aw fuck. If Dad was having those, they needed to be on the road already.
“No, no.” Holden waved his hand like their concern was such a pain in the ass. “Told you, I’m just tired.”
Just tired? He looked like hell.
Chance’s lip curled as a possibility occurred to him—had the old man finally fallen off the wagon? Was he hung over?
There weren’t the usual signs. The smell was the first one. Holden leaked alcohol out of his pores when he was drunk, so bad you could start a fire off the fumes. But Chance didn’t smell anything.
The slurring was the next. Holden had gotten real good over the years at talking past his drunk tongue, choosing the words easiest to pronounce, saying as little as possible. That wasn’t happening now.
Finally, the bottles and cans were the big tell. Holden was a slob when he drank, leaving the evidence everywhere. The Kessal boys had tons of practice cleaning up after him, not wanting anyone to see.
The place was clean, though. If Holden was drinking again, he’d gotten better at hiding it.
Chance studied his father closely. The man was in his sixties, with a decade of hard, hard living behind him. Old age was catching up to him. Might just be that.
“You should take a break,” Rye said. “Pard looks tuckered out.”
The basset hound perked up and thumped his tail, clearly happy to help.
Dad got Pard when he’d sobered up. Growing up, dogs had never been allowed in the house—houses were for people, Holden had insisted. But when Pard arrived, the dog got to do whatever he wanted. Come inside, sleep on the beds, fart by thefire, you name it. If Chance didn’t like the dog so much, he might have been pissed.
Pard was like Cordy’s noodle dog. Not in looks—they were total opposites there—but because both were lazy goofballs.
That reminded Chance he still hadn’t figured out what to do about Cordy. Yet another problem staring him in the face.
Holden cleared his throat. Chance braced himself for more arguing.
