Besides, this was what he’d wanted. Since the day Mama died he’d had one foot in the grave. He hadn’t lived these past twenty years. Hell, he’d barely survived.
Damn. If I didn’t stop thinking about this shit, I was going to start acting like Hank, and he was one melancholy bastard. I needed to snap the fuck out of it and get out of the truck.
Nodding my head decisively, I took my own advice and opened the door, planting my feet firmly in the dirt, then marching up to the porch.
The old homestead was a nice place. I’d give my father that much. He’d bought it when my mother was still alive and somehow managed to hang onto it through all these years. It was secluded, surrounded by expanses of tree-heavy land on three sides, with the fourth backing up to a small cove.
It wasn’t “oceanfront” by any stretch. The cove was pretty far inland on the delta system that stretched from the coastline, about a half a mile east. But, still. It gave a real pretty view, and it had been a fun place to splash around when I was a kid.
Without any warning, I saw a scene, clear as day, of me showing Reagan the cove. I’m holding her hand as she steps up and over the rocks. She giggles as she almost slips, I catch her but then end up falling down myself.
I pictured holding her in my arms as we watched the fireflies light up the night sky. I saw myself brushing a strand of hair off her face, illuminated by moonlight, and softly pressing my lips to hers before whispering how beautiful she was.
Shit.
There really was something wrong with me. I’d had plenty of fantasies about women I’d just met, but they were all firmly in the porno category, this was a fucking rom-com.
Stumbling over rocks. Kissing under moonlight. I needed to get my head checked out.
I stepped up onto the porch, ready to put the lady lawyer out of my mind, and automatically turned the knob. It didn’t budge. I tried my key and found that it no longer worked. I sighed and lifted my hand to knock. Hank had maintained for years that when the house was his, the open door policy was getting revoked. Apparently, he hadn’t been bluffing.
A few seconds later the door flew open and Hank appeared, gesturing me inside with a small inclination of his head.
“Thanks for the invite, Hank. I thought you were kidding when you said you were changing the locks.”
“I wasn’t.”
I dropped onto the couch in the front room and positioned myself directly in front of the fan, enjoying the breeze caused by its rusty steel blades. Nowadays, it would be considered dangerous, but we’d had it since I was rollin’ around in Pampers.
“Where’s Jimmy?” Hank grunted.
I shrugged.
His eyes narrowed in question, indicating I needed to provide him with more information. Hank was a man of few words, but his expressions were chatty.
“Probably out hooking again, can’t keep that kid off the corner,” I answered, living up to my smart-ass reputation.
Hank gave a small shake of his head. He obviously wasn’t amused by my antics but that was no surprise. He rarely was.
Just then, the front door opened and Jimmy sauntered in. “Hey, y’all.”
Hank scowled. “You should knock.”
Jimmy waved that away. “I’m family. Family doesn’t knock.”
“It does now. And just a heads up, Hank changed the locks.” I motioned to our beast of a big brother.
“The hell he did.” Jimmy’s face scrunched.
“Took you long enough to get here,” Hank grumbled.
“I told Billy I was stopping to get a bite.”
“Did you bring enough for the class?” I stuck out my hand.
Jimmy grinned. “Nah, Hank called the meeting. So he has to provide the food.”
It was a Comfort brother rule: He who calls the meeting must provide the sustenance.
“You already ate.”
“That was first lunch. You know, like Taco Bell has fourth meal.” He grinned.
I had to laugh. Jimmy was predictable, that was for damn sure. He’d say it was part of his charm. I wasn’t quite sold on that being the case.
Hank silently headed toward the kitchen and Jimmy and I followed along behind him. We sat down at the table and Hank walked to the refrigerator. He took out a plastic container with cold cuts inside, popped the top, and sniffed it before setting it on the counter.
Next came cheese, condiments, lettuce, and a loaf of bread. All of them except the bread got the sniff test, just like the deli meat had.
“Damn, Hank. I don’t know whether to feel good about the fact that you just smelled that food, or shitty about the fact that you had to,” I winced.
Hank ignored me as he dropped the sandwich fixings down in the middle of the table, along with a paper plate and plastic utensils for each of us.
“See? This is why I ate before I came over here. I never know what state your fridge is going to be in.” Jimmy said, not letting that stop him from spreading mayonnaise enthusiastically on a slice of bread.
Hank narrowed his eyes. “I notice that’s not keeping you from stuffing your face.”
Jimmy shrugged, the carefree grin that was his default spread across his face.
Hank slathered mustard on his slice of bread, at a much slower and more measured pace than Jimmy. When he spoke, the cadence of his voice matched the rhythm of his knife. “Did Pop ever say anything to you all about a trust fund?”
Jimmy and I both stared at one another blankly. Once upon a time, our father was a hard-working man. He owned the bar and bought the house we were all seated in, after all. But the past twenty years, since losing our mom, he’d barely been able to make ends meet. Or at least for the first ten that had been the case. Once I took over managing the bar and Hank moved back here, we’d handled all the finances.
“Pop left a trust fund?” Jimmy asked, sounding just as confused as I felt.
“No. He said Mama did.”
“Oh.” We both nodded.
That made sense. Our mother came from money. Old money. Still, I hadn’t ever heard of this before. “What did he say?” Hank tended to communicate the abbreviated versions of things, so I repeated the question and clarified my meaning. “What did he say exactly?”
“It was at the end, he wasn’t making a lot of sense. But he kept talkin’ bout the trust. That the trust was ours. That she would want us to have it. And then he’d get real mad and say it was an accident. It was an accident, over and over.”
“What was an accident?” Jimmy asked, his mouth full of food.
“Hell if I know.” Hank said in a monotone. “But it has somethin’ to do with the trust.”
None of this made any sense. I set my knife down. “How much are we talkin’ about?”
Hank just shrugged.
Jimmy stopped chewing and—miracle of miracles—put his sandwich back on the plate. “Wait. Do you think that’s why Cheyenne showed up? Because of the trust?”
My eyes widened. Damn. That wasn’t like Jimmy at all. Normally, he gave people the benefit of the doubt, and whether he remembered her or not, Cheyenne was family.
Hank looked down at his plate for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Thought crossed my mind.”
Protective anger burned in my belly and I felt like telling them both they needed to get their heads out of their ass, but I held myself back. Even though Hank was older than I was and technically should’ve remembered Cheyenne as a kid better than I did, it was also true that he hadn’t been as close with her as I had. She and I had been a matched set. She was my shadow, not his.