“I’m just trying to get my hat to work. It’s too stiff.”
“You do realize if it was any other Wilder next to you, there would’ve been a joke with that,” East drawled.
I snorted at the other man as I noticed we had pretty much the same attire. Worn jeans, work boots that yielded more towards cowboy boots than anything, and, of course, a ball cap. East had the Air Force logo on his, while I was apparently ready to hook on horns.
“When are you heading back to Austin?” East asked after a moment as we walked towards our project site next to the spa on our property.
“In a couple of weeks.” I ran my hand along the back of my neck.
“My team has it all handled, and although Eli is working hard on all the permits for everything, paperwork takes time. We have what we need to get this far, and now we’re just in the next set of zones that take more inspections and everything. I’ll head out tomorrow to check it out, but I won’t be working on it for a few weeks. So you got me here for a while.”
“Well, considering we’re working on an expansion out here, and I know you have a few homes that you want to build, you’ve been a little busy.”
There was something in his tone that sounded a bit off, and I frowned.
“Is there something you want to say?”
East let out a breath. “Lark wanted me to quiz you to see how you’re doing and what’s going on with you and Rory.”
I paused, looking at the man before throwing my head back and laughing. Others on my team and a few passers-by who had to be guests looked over at us but continued on with what they were doing.
“I don’t know why you find that funny,” East said as my laughter finally died down.
“Every other person in our family would have tried to wheedle their way down that subject a little bit easier. They would have pretended that they weren’t trying to care about my well-being or whatever the hell you think it is. You just came right out and said it.”
“I’ll have you know I was trying to be circumspect while asking about work things before. I’m just not good at this shit.”
“No, you’re not. Although, I’m not very good at it either.”
“I don’t know… you wheedled information out of Gabriel more than the rest of us.”
We each picked up our tools and got to work, the feeling of doing something with my hands that could produce anything settling me down.
“Gabriel’s always been easy to talk to for me. Ridge was the one who kept things quieter than the rest of them. Wyatt acts as if he is boisterous and doesn’t have any secrets, and you have to dig deep beneath the humor to find them. Ridge closes up and acts as if the world can’t hurt him even though he’s dying inside. Or at least he was. Gabriel? You just need to sit next to him for a little bit longer, and he will finally break because he puts it in his songs more often than not.”
East studied my face before nodding slowly. “It’s funny how the four of you are so different, and you guys have spent more time together as adults than we have.”
That much was true. Although my brothers and I hadn’t lived near each other for a few years, we were able to spend more time together as a group because there were fewer of us.
The seven other Wilders, though, had a harder time because there were so many.
When my aunt and uncle had died, things had become even harder for them as a group. Eliza had moved up to Colorado with her first husband, and now was happily married and raising two kids with her second husband. With that one treating her the way she should have been treated all along. The other cousins had each joined the military, and finding time and leave in order to make a family reunion happen just didn’t happen. But now since we all lived nearby, something that still surprised me, we could have a family reunion minus our parents anytime. And I knew my parents were going to visit soon. They wanted to see their grandbabies, especially since Gabriel and Briar were back in town for a few weeks.
Of course my hand fisted at that thought because that meant although Callum had gone home to check on his brewery and the other siblings, he was back in town to visit his sister.
I knew there was something rumbling under the surface with that man, not with Rory, though. At least, I didn’t think so. He was just egging me on, not that I should be able to allow that to happen. Because nothing was going to happen with Rory.
But Callum was visiting Briar more often than not because of something with that family, but it wasn’t any of my business. And, like I had just been saying to East, if something was wrong with Gabriel, he’d let us know in his own time, and I wouldn’t have to wedge it out.
“Now that we’ve discussed the rest of your siblings, would you like to just answer the question so I can let the others know? Because I’m pretty sure the women are going to corner Rory soon.”
I froze in the act of bending over to lift a box, before I straightened and frowned. “What do you mean corner Rory?” I asked, the protectiveness in my tone surprising me.
“We all saw you walk her home, at least to the cabin, and not leave until morning. We might not be a small town, but the Wilder property acts like it. You know that.”
I cursed under my breath. “And you guys didn’t think to talk about it with me in the past two weeks? You think we’re sneaking around or something?”
We were, or at least we had been. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t sneaking; it just wasn’t happening.
