“You know I can hear you, right?” his nephew Parrish demanded in the background. “FYI, this rig is a cabernet-red 1987 Ford Mustang GT that I restored myself. It’s a classic.”
“’Course I know! And I’m very proud of you, Parrish!” But in the same totally audible whisper, he added, “I offered to buy the boy a decent car, but he wouldn’t let me. Who doesn’t accept a car, Brooks?”
“I can still hear you,” Parrish called.
“Leave the boy alone, Beau, and state your business. Brooks hasn’t got all day,” a feminine voice commanded, and I grinned because Beau’s wife, Marnie, had him wrapped around her finger as surely as Mal did me… and Beau didn’t mind it any more than I did.
I shoved my wallet in my pocket and assessed myself quickly in the mirror. Hair done, T-shirt on, phone in hand. I needed just one more thing…
“I’m thinking that since your boyfriend kitted out all of my restaurants with those funky tables made out of tractors and the smokers made out of oil barrels, I’m ready to take things to the next level, as the kids say.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“I’m thinkin’ it’s time to make a new location in the Thicket. Kind of a… whajermacallit, Parrish?”
“A flagship location,” he supplied.
“Yep. That. A flagship. Something where Mal can display his pieces all the time, if he wants to. Other local artists too. We can have some bands from the area play and do some of that dancin’ where they all stand in a line. What’s that called?”
“Line dancing,” Parrish said. “But, ah… let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Uncle Beau.”
“Right, right. But I think it might be fun. Like that whippersnapper in New York said, a man’s got to contemplate his own immortality.”
I opened my mouth to remind him that Kale’s speech had mentioned impotence and mortality, then closed it again because I was smarter than that, and I liked the General’s version better anyway. “Absolutely he does,” I agreed. “So true.”
“Gotta change things up. Make the good even better.”
I pulled open my top drawer, dug under the pile of cow-inspired T-shirts I’d somehow acquired, and grabbed the little black box I’d stashed there. Just looking at it made my pulse pound with anticipation. Tonight, I was gonna ask Mal the question that had been on the tip of my tongue since we’d moved in together last September… and “make the good even better,” for reals.
I clenched the box in my fingers. “I like your style, Beau.”
“Knew you’d agree, Brooks,” he said happily. “We’ll see you in a little while, alright? And you remind Mal to bring that teddy bear sculpture he made me so I can give it to my favorite honorary great-grandbaby.”
“Will do,” I promised. “Baby Beau will love it.”
I grinned as I disconnected the call. One of the best things about moving home to the Thicket and starting our business was that Paul and I had gotten to know Beau and Marnie a lot better—so much so that Paul and Ava had named their son after him, and the General was head over heels for the boy.
I slid the black box into my pocket and flew down the oak stairs and out the back door. At the rear of our property, Mal and I had built a triple-wide barn to serve as his workshop. He had the double doors thrown open and the tailgate down on his pickup, but the man himself was nowhere to be found.
I walked into the barn, blinking in the sudden darkness… and found my boyfriend talking to a cow for the second time in our relationship.
“Listen up, missy. I make the rules here, got it?” Mal blew at a strand of hair stuck to his forehead as he held the cow’s udder with both hands. “I am gonna attach this clamp to your teat while I get my iron, and you will stay where I put you, or I’m gonna leave you tied up here until I get back from the fair and I will not let you come.”
I leaned against the barn door watching him, feeling that sweet tightness in my gut and peace in my soul that came over me whenever I looked at the man I loved.
“You are still such a sweet talker, baby,” I said fervently. “I had no idea bovine dominants were a thing, but I’m here for it. Clamp those teats good.”
Mal whirled to face me, and his eyes narrowed. “Do you mind? Ethel and I were having a moment.”
I pushed off the door and looked at the rusted metal cow with its compression-spring eyes and the pitchfork-tine blades of grass sticking out of its mouth. “Ethel, huh?”
“Yup. I finished her up yesterday after we brought all the other larger pieces over to the fairgrounds. I knocked off one of her udders when I was trying to get her in the truck just now.”