Tension crackled through the crew as I wound through them. The other Meyer brothers stood behind Keaton, the four of them like a set of GI Joes, wearing matching expressions of beat-down.
Cole noticed me and shifted to make room.
“How long have they been here?” I asked.
“They just showed up,” Cole said, everything about him grim. “Of course it’s Doug fucking Windbag. Mitchell is behind this, no doubt.”
“You think?”
Carson snorted. “Windbag and Mitchell have been buddies since the second grade. This was sanctioned by Mitchell. Hell, it might have even been his idea.”
I drew a long breath and let it out. “What can we do?”
“Nothing,” Keaton answered without turning. “They’re outside your property line, on county property and thus well within their legal rights to be assholes.”
“Can they stop us?”
“No,” Cade answered. “But I think I’ll take our guys who don’t have rides home out the back, if that’s okay with you, Daisy.”
“Of course. Maybe we can even feed them supper up at the house. Just let me clear it with Mama, see if maybe Bettie can help.”
“That’d be kind,” Cole answered. “Just let us know.”
“All right.”
We fell silent, watching the thirty fearful people on that side and the thirty afraid on this one, none of us knowing what to say or do.
Keaton’s wide shoulders rose and fell with a breath that seemed to steel him. He turned and started walking back to the site.
“Come on, y’all. We’ve got work to do. Cole?”
“Yeah?”
“Round up a couple trucks and get them all tuned to the country oldies station. Bet a little Johnny Cash will drown them out.”
“Good idea,” Cole answered as he fell in step with his brother.
In fact, we all did. As he walked through the crowd, people turned to follow him. It occurred to me that many of them would follow him anywhere, including me.
The feeling rose in me, filling up my ribs like fresh air. Keaton was an anchor to everyone he knew, offering safety and inspiring trust. He’d take care of anyone who needed it.
And I couldn’t help but want to be taken care of too.
11
BETTER OFF
KEATON
I was a prisoner, being dragged into hell by my eight-year-old niece.
Her grip was stronger than any handcuffs, and harder to escape. As wardens went, she was at the top of her game.
Sophie’s face was alight as we walked into the town hall dance nearly a week later, an event I hadn’t attended in many years. Her dark curls bounced and her skirt flounced, her little cowgirl boots clicking on the ancient wood as she marched us toward the dance floor.
I tried not to scowl, I really did. But with every pair of eyes in the building on me, scowling was the Publisher’s Clearing House of rewards. They were lucky I didn’t bark.
How I’d even ended up here, I barely knew. It had happened quickly this afternoon—Sophie diving into my arms in a wash of tears, Cole apologizing behind her that he couldn’t take her to the first town hall dance of the season after all, Sophie looking up at me with those big, shiny eyes and her nose all red, begging, Please, Uncle Keaton?
There was no saying no to her on a regular day, but with tears on her face and her lip stuck out far enough she might have tripped on it, I didn’t even hesitate.
My other brothers were suspiciously absent all day, and as such, I had no one to rope into coming with me. Cole had rolled up Sophie’s hair in my mother’s old hot rollers with impressive skill, and Sophie schooled me in their removal. She’d gotten herself dressed, though I’d had to fix the bow in her hair and approve her fit check as she did a little runway walk through the entry, tugging the bottom of her blue-jean jacket and popping her hip like a girl much older than eight.
She was beautiful just like her mother, and remarkably well-adjusted despite her mother.
Julie had always been one of the wild ones, a lawless rebel and unmitigated charmer, and a damn good time at a party. She was the girl at the party who’d do a keg stand, get into a cat fight, and instigate skinny dipping all within a ten-minute span. And Cole loved her, though I thought it had more to do with him trying to save her than anything else. Drugs didn’t surprise us. But it should have inspired us to watch for more trouble than we did.
We watched her slip away after Sophie was born until she was lost. She didn’t fight the divorce, didn’t fight custody, and like the trusting fool he was, Cole not only started paying her, but allowed her visitation. So when they finally went to court, he had no way out. He’d set a precedent, and the judge ruled to uphold that, so long as she followed the rules and kept herself out of trouble. So she did. Except when she didn’t. And the cycle would begin again, ending with her doing what the court ordered in the way of rehab and drug tests and the like so she could not only keep seeing Sophie unsupervised, but maintain the money Cole sent.
Sweet Sophie was caught in the middle of the mess, a daily source of pain and helplessness for her father and uncles. So if she wanted to dance, I’d see that she would.
Honky-tonk filled the room, and townsfolk moved around the dance floor like a bubbling river, just like they had for a hundred years and more. It was a tradition, these town hall dances, dating back to a time when the hitching posts outside were the only form of parking. And up on the stage were a pack of Blum women, just as they had been since those same times.
Jo stood at the microphone in the center of the stage with an acoustic guitar, with Poppy behind her on the drums and their mother on the stand-up bass. Their cousin Presley played guitar on one side of Jo, and on the other, with a fiddle under her chin, was Daisy.
Her hair was up in a pretty bun on top of her head, her bangs a little long and thick enough that you couldn’t see her forehead, a curtain to hide behind. Those eyes I knew to be the brightest of blues were trained on an unfocused spot on the edge of the stage, her bowed lips forever smiling at the corners. Occasionally, those lips would part, and out would come a velvety harmony made with her family, rich and warm and painfully lovely.
A tug of my hand snapped my attention back to Sophie.
“Come on, Uncle Keaton.”
“Sorry, squirt,” I said, following her to the edge of the dance floor and then into the fray without so much as a pause.
She whipped herself around and took my hand, resting her hand on my waist before taking off, just like we had a thousand times. Because Sophie loved to two-step and forced her uncles to participate regularly. I was the only one lucky enough to have my hair brushed, braided, and bowed, though, thanks to its length. I’d almost cut it, but in the end, I couldn’t bear to. She’d have been devastated.
Off we went around the dance floor, stepping and spinning to the sound of her giggles and Dolly Parton. My hands were low so she could maintain her form, one with her hand in it, the other behind her shoulder, and enough space between us to move freely.
It took a minute to remember that everybody was staring, and not at Sophie. She was a regular fixture at these sorts of things.
I was not.
Sophie noticed too, but where I was annoyed and uncomfortable, she snickered.