Mine to Take (Southern Weddings #5)(32)

I don’t even have it in park before my father comes out of the house. I can’t help but smile as he stands there in jeans and a flannel button-down shirt, and his dirty-ass cowboy boots that I think he’s had since I was five on his feet. Our eyes meet, and he smiles so big his eyes light up. “My baby girl is home!” he shouts, coming down the five steps toward me. I have enough time to turn off the car before he opens the driver’s door.

“Hi, Dad.” I smile at him as I unbuckle my seat belt. He doesn’t even give me a chance to get my bearings before he literally pulls me out of the car and gives me the biggest hug I’ve gotten. Well, since the last time, when he said he hadn’t seen me in a year but was actually only a month.

“She’s home.” He lifts me off my feet, his arms still wrapped around my waist. “Hazel,” he yells for my mother, “she’s home!”

“Dad, you are acting like I’m returning from war,” I tell him as he puts me down and holds my face in his hands.

“You look tired,” he says, and I sigh at the same time that my mother opens the door and slams it shut.

“You did not just tell her that,” my mother scolds, putting her hands on her hips. She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Her T-shirt looks like she has jam on it, and I can only imagine that she’s been baking since this morning when I called and let them know I was on my way. I knew two days ago I was coming, but I didn’t want to let them know because I knew they would make a big deal out of it. Hence, my mother baking. When we moved back to town when I was five, my aunt Savannah offered my mother half of her coffee shop if she would do the baking. Needless to say, it worked out so well that my mother now has an industrial kitchen and has all her baked goodies shipped out around the United States, Hazel’s Sweets.

“What? She looks tired,” my father states again, dropping my face. “They are working her too hard.”

“Oh, would you hush?” my mother says, pushing him aside. “No one likes to be told they look tired. Why don’t you just tell her she looks like shit.”

My father gasps. “How can she ever look like shit? She looks exactly like you.” He smiles at her, thinking he’s complimenting her but missing the mark.

“Reed,” my mother warns, “I would stop talking if I were you.” She takes me in her arms and kisses my cheek. “You feel skinny,” my mother says, and I close my eyes.

“That’s what I thought also. I’m going to call Grandma Charlotte and tell her.” He takes his phone out of his pocket and walks away from us.

“See, now he forgot about how tired you are,” my mother says, and I laugh at her. “This is a nice surprise,” she says. I just smile because I’m afraid if I say something, anything, I’ll burst out in tears.

She looks into my eyes, and I know she can tell I’m not okay. But the sound of a truck approaching makes me look down and get myself under control. I blink away the tears that have threatened to come out being in my mother’s arms. “Well, well, well,” I hear my grandfather Casey say as he steps out of his truck. “My first grandchild has returned.”

“I’ve got to say.” I put my hands on my hips as I watch him walk over to us. He is wearing blue jeans that look like he rolled around in the dirt with and an even dirtier shirt. His boots look like the soles are falling off them. “I’m surprised I didn’t get stopped at the city limits.” I shake my head. “You must be slipping in your old age.”

He claps his hands together and howls out laughing. “I got you pegged as soon as you rode into town. I just thought I would give your dad a couple of minutes with you before I whisk you away,” he says, wrapping me in his arms. I smell him, and he smells like home. The smell of when I was five and he found out I was his granddaughter, he would hug me tight and pretend he wasn’t crying, but I would feel wetness on my shirt.

“Are you crying?” I would ask.

“Nah, it’s the sky sprinkling you with happiness,” he would say, and I believed every single word he said.

“Are you ready?” he asks, and my father gasps.

“She literally just got home,” he hisses at his father, “it’s been five minutes.”

“Four minutes and some change,” my grandfather says, “but Grandpa Billy is saddling up her horse as we speak.”

My father throws his head back. “You can’t entice her away with her horse,” he says, and he knows that he totally can.

“Remember when he bought her a pink tractor because she asked him to and then her lower lip quivered when she said it’s okay that he has no money,” my mother says to my father as I laugh.

“That tractor is still in the barn, by the way,” my grandfather tells her. “It was an investment.”

“She rode it five times.” My father laughs. “Okay, let’s go riding,” he says, clapping his hands.

“No way.” My grandfather holds up his hand to stop him. “This is our thing.”

“How is it your thing?” my father asks him. “I was the one who taught her how to ride.”

“Not well,” my grandfather retorts before looking at me. “You even came dressed to ride.” I look down at my white riding pants I put on this morning, knowing that I would be riding, and a button-down, long-sleeve jean shirt that is tucked in the front. The shirt rolled up to the elbows shows off the watch he bought me for graduation and the love bracelet my parents bought me when I turned eighteen. “You have your boots at the barn.”