Chapter 1
Brody
“Well, as I live and breathe. Is that you, Brody Tannen? I haven’t seen you in ages, boy!”
Mrs. Perkinson squints her rheumy eyes at me and I do my best not to cringe. It’s not that she’s unkind, but she’s at least the fifth person to tell me the same thing this afternoon alone. You’d think I hide out on the ranch and never see the light of day in town. There might be some truth to it, but I don’t need people pointing it out left and right all damn day.
“Good afternoon, ma’am.” It’s the bare minimum of words to not be accused of rudeness. I’d know because I’ve tested it over the years. My preference was a simple ‘hello’, one word and done, but apparently, that made me sound like a grunting ass and didn’t meet the requirements of respecting my elders. So the needlessly complicated ‘good fill-in-the-blank’ and ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir’ is what I’ve gone with.
So far, so good. And I’m almost done with deliveries of my sister’s homemade, high-demand seasonal treats, not only for the day, but for the entire week. No more pies, no more jellies and jams, no more soaps, and best of all, no more people. I can’t wait to not have to people. Yes, that’s a verb, because again, it’s simpler to say ‘people’ than ‘I don’t prefer to socialize, thank you very much’ because who needs all those useless words when one will get the same message across just fine?
“Get your hiney on into my kitchen and let me feed you. Skin and bones, you are!” Mrs. Perkinson’s bony finger juts out, poking at the thick slab of muscle on my chest.
Great. She’s obviously gone blind as a bat if she thinks I’m skinny. Most people cross the street when they see me coming—too tall, too broad, too brooding, too asshole, with a reputation of kicking ass first and asking questions never. I’m too busy being busy to give a shit with consequences unless they affect my family.
“As much as I’d like that, ma’am, Shayanne would have my hide,” I say with as much ‘aw shucks’ as I can muster, not a single fuck given that I’m throwing my sister under the bus, but I can’t help scratching at my lip with my thumb as the lie passes between them. “I’m on her schedule, you see.”
She takes the jar of lemon curd from my hand, signaling the end of this conversation. Or at least I hope it does, but I’ve still got to say polite goodbyes and whatnot or she’ll be tattling on me to Shay for sure.
“Well, that girl works her tailfeathers off, so I won’t begrudge her requiring the same of you lot. Only way to keep you hellions in check is a firm hand. Glad to hear she’s got one.” Sweet Mrs. Perkinson becomes a bitchy old biddy right before my eyes, and I’m no longer willing to uphold niceties when she’s insulting me and my brothers, even if she is one of Shay’s customers.
Without so much as a goodbye, because I ain’t wasting words when I don’t have to, I turn and shuffle down the two steps of her porch. I climb into our old farm truck and peel out of her driveway. She probably thinks I just proved her point, that I’m a rude motherfucker with no proper manners despite my poor sister’s attempts to housebreak me, but I don’t care.
If anything, I raised Shayanne, not the other way around. Little thing was just thirteen when Mom passed. She took over that role without a fuss, but she needed some guidance growing up, and that responsibility fell to me as the man of the house, because Dad sure as hell wasn’t.
Not that I’m thinking of him.
May the Devil himself be pissing on his soul down in hell.
I hear Mom scolding me in my head and sigh heavily as the speedometer creeps up to sixty on the old country road. “Fine, Mom. I hope Dad’s resting comfortably in hell, does that work for you? Because we both know he ain’t up there with you. When you were here, maybe it could’ve gone that way. But you know how it was later, so don’t be rewriting history now because it’s rude to speak ill of the dead.”
I turn the radio up to drown out the voices in my head. I don’t hear them very often anymore, not Mom’s sweet assurances that I’m doing okay and definitely not Dad’s harsh bites that I’m fucking everything up. Truth be told, they’re both right in some ways.
But the growl of the old diesel engine drowns them both out easily, and they float away on the wind blowing through the open window. Along with any preconceived notions Mrs. Perkinson has.
For a moment, I’m free.
Wind in my hair, Johnny Cash on the radio, a thermos of diesel-strong black coffee in the seat beside me, and the blessedly open road before me. The speedometer cranks higher, and there are no responsibilities weighing on my shoulders like stones, no expectations gripping with tight fingers to hold me in place.
I’m Brody Tannen. I’m myself, but also not.
I’m nothing and no one. I’m free. And it’s bliss.
Right up until the old truck jerks, slowing down even though I never let up on the pedal.
“Shit, Bessie! What the fuck are you doing? At least hold it together until we get to town.” Okay, so I’m sweet-talking the truck like the girl I took to the senior homecoming game, and perhaps more relevant, the afterparty where she got drunk as a skunk and nearly puked in my truck.
Bessie—the truck, not the girl—sputters but rallies and keeps chugging along, down to twenty-five now. The ride is rough and jerky, but we’re so close to town, I can see signs rising high in the sky. I rub at the dash encouragingly instead of pulling over. “See . . . just up ahead, girl.”
I scan, looking for a parking lot I can pull over into, not as familiar with the main drag on this side of the mountain. When Shayanne expanded the delivery radius of her homemade treat business to this side of the mountain, I’d told her to go for it, thinking it’d be our brothers, Brutal and Bobby, doing the deliveries, or hell, even Shayanne herself when she could. I didn’t give a shit. I didn’t plan on coming to the far side myself, and I definitely didn’t plan on getting stuck over here. But that was then, and here I am now.
Like a beacon rising in the sky, I see a white sign ahead. Cole Automotive.
Son of a bitch, must be my lucky day in some twisted sort of way. It’d be damn better if Bessie were running smooth as butter, but I’ll take a mechanic shop over parking in some pot-hole-riddled, abandoned lot of a closed dollar store. Anywhere better than that would probably call the police on me for abandoning a piece of shit like this.
Sorry, Bessie, but you know it’s true.
I jerk my way into the lot, cranking the engine off as soon as possible. “Fuck!” The bark of frustration is timed perfectly with the bang of my fist on the steering wheel. The sentiment is repeated as I slam the door.
I turn toward the bay doors of the garage, thankful that they’re still open at least. The sun’s starting to move down in the sky, foretelling a hell of a sunset, but that’ll be a few hours away with the long spring days. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the dimmer light inside and my ears to adjust to the absolutely blaring heavy metal music.
“Motherfucker.” The murmur isn’t silent, but no one would know that because of the music’s volume.