“He’s nodding off now,” Bryce said, gesturing to Henry.
Bryce sat back down in the rocking chair, and I looked at the sleeping baby for a few moments, his blond peach fuzz hair plastered to his head with sweat from his fever. Thank God he was okay. Then I sat down in another chair. I took a sip of my coffee.
“So what’s going on with you?” Bryce asked. “I need to get my mind off this crap.”
“Not much, really.” I thought about telling him about Melanie, but I wasn’t sure I could do that without telling him I was in therapy—or rather, no longer in therapy—with Talon’s therapist. I wasn’t sure Talon wanted anyone to know he was in therapy, and I was damned sure I didn’t want anyone to know I was.
“Well, something’s going on. You must be doing some research into the situation with Talon, since you were pounding on my door at midnight last night.”
He had me there. “Talon and I are working on it, but we haven’t found much.”
“What about Ryan? I haven’t seen him around town in a while.”
I swallowed the sip of coffee I had just taken. “This is Ryan’s busy time of the year. He’s harvesting the grapes and having a great time making new batches of wine. Pretty soon it’ll be bottling time for the wines that are ready.” I shook my head. “Don’t ask me to explain it to you. I have no idea what he does. Ryan’s freaking brilliant.”
“He does make a good wine,” Bryce agreed.
“Yeah, neither Tal nor I know where he got that artistic streak. We sure didn’t get any of it.”
“Maybe from your mother?”
“Maybe.”
Sadness hit me. I had been around fifteen years old when my mother committed suicide, and even though I had lots of memories of her, I still didn’t know much about her. Talon, Ryan, and I had spent most of our time with our father on the ranch when we weren’t at school. My father was a man’s man and would have been considered a sexist by today’s standards. He felt that outdoor work was men’s work, and my mom seemed fine with that. I smiled. Once Marj hit eight or nine years old, she would have none of that. She helped with the “men’s work.” Of course, Mom was gone by then.
“And speaking of moms,” Bryce said, giving me a shit-eating grin. “How’s Brooke Bailey?”
I chuckled. Sometimes I still couldn’t believe Brooke Bailey was living at the main ranch house.
Bryce continued, “Do you still have that poster? You know, the one in the blue spandex one-piece?” He grinned again. “I believe you built an altar around it.”
While I was happy Bryce was in a better mood after Henry and the virus, I didn’t really want to talk about Jade’s mother. Yeah, I had nursed a massive crush on her when I was a horny teen, but I was hardly the only one. That had been decades ago.
“You know, she’s not that much older than you, Joe.”
Okay, this had to stop. “Bryce, shut the fuck up, will you?”
He laughed. “Did you ever in your life think, while you were jacking off to that poster, that she’d be living in your house someday?”
I hadn’t given Brooke Bailey a thought in twenty years. This conversation had to end. “Bryce, that was years ago. I have no interest in Brooke Bailey.”
“Well, a forty-three-year-old supermodel probably doesn’t look the way you remember her.”
Actually, she still looked great. “The long blond hair is now cut in a pixie, and one of her eyes is a little misshapen from the accident. She has a few scars on her face, but she’s still a great-looking woman.”
“And the body?” Bryce said.
“Yeah, she still has the body. She’s not quite as tall as I expected. I thought she would be taller.”
“Well, you know, people shrink with age.”
“Not everything shrinks.”
Bryce let out another guffaw of laughter.
“Well, where do you think Jade got them from? Certainly not her dad.”
“So what’s stopping you? She’s living in one of your houses, and her boyfriend has flown the coop. Why not give it a shot?”
Because she wasn’t Melanie. But of course I couldn’t say that. Melanie Carmichael had me twisted up in so many knots, I wasn’t sure where anything began.
“Because she’s Jade’s mom, for God’s sake. And also, she’s five years older than I am, and I’m not interested.”
“Then maybe I’ll have to come by and say hi.”
“You’re welcome to come by anytime, but I wouldn’t get involved with Brooke Bailey.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because something isn’t right there. To hear Jade talk, she was a terrible mother. Basically abandoned her kid. And I would think you wouldn’t want to get involved with another woman who abandons her kid.” I glanced at Henry, now sleeping soundly in his crib.
“Oh, hitting below the belt.” Bryce held up his hand in mock surrender. “I’m not looking for a relationship, man. But I wouldn’t mind a roll in the hay with Brooke Bailey.”
“Why?”