Abiquiú, New Mexico
Peyton gazed at the raw beauty of Abiquiú through the wide windows of her studio. The early hour of crushed peaches and raspberries had passed, leaving behind an aqua desert sky. Eagles swooping over herds of oryx and ibex mirrored her life, and she considered what hunted her and what she chased. The people of Pioneer Ranch—those who had consecrated its grounds, and those who had sprung from it—were her solace. Her father’s words resonated, reminding her that life tried her, and she wondered why she still deserved to be tested. He’d say, “Hardship foils or is foiled, prevails or is prevailed on.” Her memory banks flooded with the booms and busts of her life until an incoming video call whirled her from her trance.
Her oldest son’s face appeared on the screen. “Honovi? Dearheart, you almost never call.”
“I had to, Mom.” He stood barefoot outside a sweat lodge in the red dirt of Monument Valley, wearing only a breechclout, an ancestral loincloth.
Peyton’s heart palpitated. Honovi had been embedded in her fiber since she adopted him. When she met him at the age of nine, he’d told her what would forever alter the course of her life. “I know this face and voice.
Just dish it as is, honey.”
“Death is not far, Mom.”
She respected his visions, which had proved accurate. “For me?” At thirty years old, Honovi was a successful artist and spiritual leader. He focused his eagle eyes on his mother and spoke in a baritone voice. “No, but you’ll be pained to the degree of a serious life pivot.” His lower lip quivered and his nostrils flared. “When Death comes for you, he’ll come riding. Death is near, but this time, he walks.”
She knew he could feel the questions skipping in her mind. Honovi was selective in what he shared, and she never probed.
“Mom, my vision was compelling and for you alone. I had to tell you right away.”
“Thank you, honey.” Peyton bent her head, a sense of foreboding rushing through her veins. “Those who fear death, fear life. I’ll prepare, but
I know I won’t be ready.”
“Those who face their truths are already prepared.”
She brimmed with love for this man, who had brewed in her psyche. “The day you came to live with us was our luckiest. Our lives would’ve been poorer without you.”
“You took my brother and me not just into your home, but into your very soul. You didn’t just show us, you involved us. Because of you, we understand this world better.”
“You and Ricky expand my spirit. See you soon, dearheart.”
“I’ll see you at Bryce’s celebration dinner. And I’m sending her blessings for her upcoming showjumping competitions.”
Layli barged into the studio. “Mikey is coming also?” She drummed her feet on the floor, and twirled her hips, hooking her hands over a substantial leather belt, studded silver and turquoise. “We haven’t had all the children together since Mikey opened his gallery in Sedona.” Layli had been the household manager of Pioneer Ranch since she was in her early twenties. She’d been living in a log cabin on the ranch, becoming Peyton’s surrogate sister and dear friend.
Peyton turned back to her easel and dipped her brushes in solvent, quitting for the day. “Honovi, you mean. He doesn’t go by Mikey anymore, but you know that.”
“I don’t care what he uses. Who does he think he is, Cher? He only goes by one name now. And I blame you for this Honovi stuff.”
When their grandmother’s passing orphaned them, Mikey and his younger brother, Ricky, came to Pioneer Ranch. Thanks to Layli Hoarnhorse’s Puebloan heritage, the state allowed the brothers to remain until Peyton and her husband, Blake Adler, could adopt them. Under their care, Honovi and Ricky earned their advanced degrees and launched substantial careers.
Peyton aimed a fan at her latest painting to speed up the drying process. “He’s Honovi to the marrow, and don’t forget, his grandmother gave him that name.” She snickered, remembering little Mikey before he’d become a muscular man with hair that reached past his shoulder blades. “He was all skin and bones, with the energy of coffee, in love with his blue mohawk. I’m sure he’ll remind us why he’s Honovi when we see him. He always does.”
Layli chuckled, her cacao eyes as spry as ever. She was past her prime, but a retired racehorse can still outrun a colt. “He’ll always be Mikey to me.”
“And yet thousands follow him for spiritual and artistic inspiration. It works for him. You’re just mad you can’t boss him around anymore.”
Layli played with the belt she always wore. “It works for his ego, more like it, but I’m proud of him. Few Puebloans are respected by the White world, even when they’re this successful.”
Peyton went to the sink and lathered her hands with lavender soap. “I can’t wait to have all the kids at the same table.”
“Gideon too?”
She tucked her chin down and bit her cheek, resisting tears. “The shortest distance between two points is always a squiggle for that stupid boy.” “Only he’s wicked smart,” Layli said.
“Because he’s only nineteen and almost done with his nuclear engineering degree? He’s lacking in so many other areas.”
Layli placed a hand on Peyton’s back. “Gideon is nothing like you or Adler, but he has tremendous potential.”
“It’s a horrible thing to say, but I wish he wasn’t coming. Gideon only deducts.” Sadness caked her voice, then she chuckled. “I wish Adler had given him the wrong date.”
“I’m sorry. I hate that I made you cry.”
“Gideon makes me cry, not you. He’s coming between Adler and me more and more. It gnaws at me.”
Layli craned her neck to force Peyton to look up. “Maybe he’ll change in time.”
“Change? He’s been a pain since he took his first steps.” For years, she’d longed to become a mother. Part of what had drawn her to Adler was that he wanted children as well. Never did she think their firstborn would grow up to be Loki. Peyton realized she was spitting every syllable and changed her tone. “Poor Father Gabriel almost wrote to the Vatican to ask for an exorcist.”
“We all think Gideon might be possessed.” Layli giggled. “How’s your latest painting coming along?”
“Not at all. It’s just not clicking. I’ve been stifled lately… don’t know…” Peyton opened the fridge she kept in her studio and fished out two bottles of sparkling water. Like her mother before her, she’d become a successful, well-known painter, but she continued to explore and push her medium. “I’m looking forward to everyone coming. I miss William so much, and so does Kelcy, of course.” For twenty years, Kelcy had spent half the year in the adobe casita on the ranch, built before the Declaration of Independence was signed.
Layli was on the cusp of her winter years. A streak of white framed her face, yet the rest of her hair remained as raven as ever. “You’d think William
was Kelcy’s only grandchild. How he adores that boy.”
“Kelcy really raised him, took him everywhere he went.” Peyton led the way out of the studio into the fresh air. In May, the perfume of jasmine and hummingbird mint mingled with the smells of horses, dogs, and burning wood fires. “William is twenty-five years old, hardly a boy, and we all love him.”
“Especially Bryce—even more so this past year.”
Peyton stopped in her tracks. “You know?”
“What am I, hard of seeing?”
Peyton’s daughter had had a crush on William for as long as she’d had breasts. “Let’s watch Bryce practice. This new trainer rubs me the wrong way. I’ve disliked him since I heard his prickly voice on the phone.” She ran her hand through her long, wavy chestnut hair. “Do you think anyone else knows how Bryce feels about William?”
“I hope not. She tries hard to hide it.” Layli sighed. “I don’t blame her. William has Kelcy’s brain and integrity, and his mother’s looks to boot. Ooh la la! That boy is on fire.”
“I wonder if Ricky would’ve blossomed the way he has if William had never entered his life.”
“William has the heart of a lion. Ricky was never fierce like his forefathers or like Mikey.”
“Honovi!”
“Fine.” Layli stuck out her tongue and snickered. “I’ll take the ATV and get us some coffee. Meet you at the arena.”
Peyton’s eyes strayed to the aqua sky and the mounds of clouds with glossy, stiff peaks found only in the desert. Finn, her American Foxhound, attempted to rub against her. “A bath, first. Which swamp did you fall into, anyway?” His fur was encrusted with mud and slime. She pointed to the stables. “Go to John for a bath.”
Finn panted a smile and arrowed to the stables.
The Chase family had been rooted on Pioneer Ranch since the conquistadors introduced horses to New Mexico. Timber and stones alone had not built Pioneer Ranch. History made up its skeletal structure, hard work its musculature, and ritual its skin. The potion the Chases had brewed continued to age into the magic of modern-day Pioneer Ranch.
After her father’s death, twenty years earlier, Peyton Chase had inherited the massive estate, and pulled it out of debt. She’d added a lap pool, a manège for her daughter’s showjumping ambitions, indigenous gardens, and a studio. She’d become known for her Southwestern and Coastal paintings, depicting active and expressive figures, and she’d grown her talent. But her greatest investment had been in her family and friends, loved ones like Kelcy Loving, better known as loving Kelcy, who was waiting outside the equestrian arena with her godmother, Royce Kent.
Royce never left her house without a wig and a scarf. Today she’d coordinated her emerald-green dress with a red wig and a Chanel scarf that spilled over one shoulder. “Glad you’re here,” she said. “Kelcy is driving me crazy again.”
“She started it,” Kelcy said, combing his white chevron mustache.
Royce’s nails were as shiny as ever, and her lipstick was just as bright. She’d become a fragment of her stout younger self but was still towering. “Did you bring me a drink?” she asked, flitting her false eyelashes.
Peyton raised her hand, chuckling. “I thought you already had your breakfast.”
Kelcy was the image of Teddy Roosevelt: portly with blue eyes behind round spectacles, his remaining hair a single tuft of white on top of his head. “Will you need my cane, Royce?”
“Only if I can trip you with it,” she replied, cutting her pruned eyes at him.
Peyton heard the trainer’s sharp voice and rushed into the ring.
The man was pointing a long stick in Bryce’s direction, shouting instructions. “What part of yank his head higher, don’t you understand?”
Bryce was riding Big Red, a pure-bred Hanoverian the color of rust. She lifted high over her saddle, bracing and balancing, a thick braid bobbing on her back. She’d become successful at showjumping by carrying her horse as much as he carried her.
Royce caught up and leaned on the pony wall. “Is that a man or a banshee?”
The trainer had a wild look: orange hair, a wide nose, pencil arms and legs, and a bulbous gut.
Bryce’s golden eyes widened into coins. “It’s cruel. I can’t.” She was a striking portrait with upturned eyes, high cheekbones, full lips, and hair the color of raisins.
“You’ll have to noose him if you want him to obey!” the trainer yelled. “Why am I here if you know better?”
Kelcy raised his voice enough for the trainer to hear him. “Yeah, why is he here?”
“That troll better tone it down,” Royce said, “or I’ll hang him on my rearview mirror.”
Kelcy chuckled. “Subtle, as always, Royce.”
“I shouldn’t say such things, but I really mean them!”
Peyton laughed, but another shriek from the trainer made her steam with anger.
Bryce said, “I won’t abuse Big Red.”
The trainer waved his stick at her as if etching the mark of Zorro. “You wouldn’t have to if you’d keep your head down and your fat ass in the air.”
Kelcy growled. “Did he just tell that hummingbird she has a fat ass? Her waist is smaller than my wrist.”
Peyton bulleted to the center of the arena, gesturing for the trainer to cede. “Don’t you dare speak to my child that way, you tedious little man!”
“This is not kindergarten,” he said. “This is a serious competition.
And she’s not good enough.”
“You’re not good enough!” Peyton shouted. “Get your stuff and get out!” “Mom, no!”
Peyton lanced her with livid eyes. “Don’t you ever let anyone speak to you in that manner ever again. Do you understand me?” She threw a straight arm at the trainer. “You trample him before you allow him to denigrate you.”
He spread his short, spindly legs. “I’m Vegas Rose! How dare you?”
Kelcy gave a belly laugh. “Vegas Rose? Does he work at the Love Ranch in Nevada?”
“And I am Peyton Chase. Now get the hell off my property, you sorry buffoon. You’re fired!”
Bryce thudded to the ground with tears in her eyes. “Mom, but—”
“—but nothing. No win is ever worth someone demeaning you,
Bryce!”
“You’re so mad.”
“As you should be, allowing this arrogant lowlife to talk down to you.” Her daughter’s anguish calmed her down, and she splayed her arms. “Come here. You deserve much better.”
Bryce came into her mother’s embrace, apologizing.
“Be strong and always advocate for yourself.”
“The next two competitions are the hardest,” Bryce said.
Peyton took her daughter by the shoulders. “You know all there is to know about jumping, and I know all about horses. The next two races are about Big Red, not you. You got him this far. Let him take you the rest of the way.”
Vegas Rose gawked at them. “I won’t leave without cash or a transfer.” “Scram, dufus!” Royce said.
“Or what, you’ll kick my ass, you hag?” He crossed his arms over his spilling belly. “I’ll stay right here till you give me my money.”
Before Peyton could reach for her phone, Kelcy held up his. “No matter. I already sent for the cavalry.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” The trainer roamed his enlarged eyes on them as they exchanged knowing looks. “I’m warning you. If you set dogs on me, I’ll sue.”
“We’d never dream of setting dogs on you,” Kelcy said. “But don’t leave. Stay where you are.”
He shifted from leg to leg and pulled his shirt over his shorts. “What’re you up to?”
Layli came in hot, driving the ATV. She didn’t cut the engine before dashing with her bow and arrow aimed at the trainer. “You’re a very wide target. If I were you, I’d bolt to my car on the double.”
He danced in his spot and tried to bully her with his scowl and threats of a lawsuit.
“Okay, then.” Layli let fly the first arrow, and it landed between his feet. He jumped as if firecrackers had gone off at his ankles. “The next one will be about three feet higher at what I suspect is a tiny target, but I’m dead accurate.” Layli reached into her quiver for a second arrow and pulled her bow. “One, two…”
He careened to his car, shouting, “Crazy bitch!”
Layli laughed. “Should I put one in his butt, or his tires, at least?” “I’d like to see that,” Kelcy said.
Peyton pointed at the trainer, grinning. “He can use a part in his hair.”
She released her arrow. It grazed the trainer’s bouffant do, snipping a tuft of his hair as he wailed and cursed. She fired off an ululation. “I’m Stands-with-a-Bow for a reason!”
Royce shook her head, watching the shrieking orange-haired man cannonball out. “He’s the offspring of a banshee and a troll.”
“And a donut,” Peyton said. How satisfying it was to expand her wings again. Arguments and setbacks had molted some of her feathers, but she promised herself she’d grow them again. And she knew that without an enormous leap, she wouldn’t.
“Layli, that was sick as hell!” Bryce said.
“Now be like Layli next time you’re confronted by a bully,” her mother told her. “That sure made me happy.”
High on adrenaline, Layli locked her eyes on Bryce. “This is your battle. Do a war cry with me like I taught you.”
They released a primitive, raw ululation, and Peyton joined, her fists in the air. She found more release in a war cry than a prayer. “Man, did that feel good, or what?”
Kelcy’s grin was puckish, his speech a genteel Texan drawl. “Bryce honey, you don’t need that clown. You’re ready.”
She kissed Big Red as she did after every practice, removed her helmet and hugged her horse, who bowed and rested his head on her shoulder, flicking his ears forward, ready for what she always told him. “Hold me up, and I’ll never let you down.” Her dainty features were borrowed from her mother and her coloring from her father.
Kelcy brought his watch close to his eyes, straining to see. “It’s lunchtime. Let’s go eat something, okay, doll?”
Royce said, “You need a full-sized clock on that wrist, you’re so blind.”
“I’m getting you back on that one, but it’s good.”
“I’m not hungry.” Bryce undid her braid, fluffed her waterfall hair, and faced her cheerleaders. “And I have to attend to Big Red first.”
Peyton frowned. “Eat a proper meal for once.”
“I only have to watch it this much for two more weeks, Mom.”
“Are you telling me you’re ready to retire after the next two competitions?”
“I guess, yes.”
“Hallelujah!” Peyton said. “Thank you, Mother of God!”
“You didn’t tell me you wanted me to be done,” Bryce said, stretching her hamstrings.
“I wanted you to make that decision yourself.”
Kelcy elbowed Peyton. “Bryce is like a ballerina. She takes after her mama in grace.”
“Thank you, Kelcy, but she takes after you in spunk. You taught her how to pull herself up by her bootstraps.”
“She fell on her behind enough times. Someone had to tell her she
had legs.” He used his cane to adjust his position. “Where’s your Adler?”
“Still up in the Jemez Mountains. Mr. Hunter can’t stay away from the wilderness for long these days.” She thought of her husband’s strength and intensity, lamenting that he used them to push against her lately.
“Adler lives in the mountains nowadays, seems to me.” Kelcy unholstered a cigar and plunked it between his teeth.
“Don’t you light that cigar, old man,” Layli said. “You’re eighty, not eighteen.”
Through clenched teeth, he replied, “Do I ever listen to you?” He carved a grin worthy of the Cheshire cat. “Doll, what have I always taught you?”
Bryce indulged him. He was the closest she had to a grandfather. “Get up, look up, show up, and never give up.”
“That’s my girl!” He raised an index finger. “Now, promise you’ll remember that when I’m gone.”
Honovi’s warning knelled in Peyton’s chest. Death was a friend in the end—if he didn’t arrive early.
“Don’t say that!” Bryce replied. “I’ll meet up with you at the house.”
Peyton drove them to the Big House and parked the ATV by the kitchen garden.
Kelcy used his cane to step out. “William asked me what to buy Bryce for a present now she’s going to college. I said to get her something shiny and weighty.”
Peyton played with the emerald ring that had been her mother’s.
“Knowing William, he’ll get her something soulful.” “What did you get her?” Layli asked.
“Hell, my presence should be enough for all of you. What’s for lunch? Roast, I hope.”
Layli opened the door at the back of the house and waited for Kelcy and Royce to catch up. “Your doctor said no salt, no sugar, no fat, and no cigars.”
“My doctor prescribed no food and no life. I prescribed myself no doctor.” Kelcy could always make them happy and grateful. Most of all, he motivated them. He stared at the kitchen garden before entering the mudroom. “I remember when this garden was barren. Twenty years later, it feeds all of us. Never seen fatter organic produce or honeysuckle in my life.”
“It’s all that composting from everything green you refuse to eat.” Peyton had resurrected the garden with her own hands. “I wish I could find that same energy now.”
“I wish I can find some lunch,” Kelcy said. “And not salad… again.”
Layli said, “Okay, not salad. Roasted vegetables.”
“Say, what? Why not gruel?”
Layli entered the mudroom, shed her boots, and slipped on her indoor sandals. The heavy door, as old as pieces of eight, swung noiselessly, letting them into the kitchen.
“Ah, the aroma of coffee.” Peyton crossed the lustrous Azul Macaubas quartzite floor. She’d been born at the ranch and had raised her own family on it, but its rare properties still delighted her. “Wait, who made coffee?
Tansy already left for the day.”
“I did,” William said, entering the kitchen.
“Christ, am I happy to see you, Tiger!” Kelcy said. “You’re a day early.”
William walked into his grandfather’s embrace. He was a foot taller than Kelcy, with shoulders sculpted by years of tennis and a smile that melted hearts. He smirked, made his straight eyebrows dance, then hunched over, so his grandfather could hold him in a long hug. “I got you steaks, Grandpa.”
“William Charles Kelcy Loving the Third, I’ve never been happier that you carry my name than I am now.” “Over steak?” Layli asked.
“Over freedom. This boy liberates me from your vegetarian oppression.”
Peyton hugged William. He’d begun visiting the ranch on holidays and summer vacations when he was in kindergarten and slept at her house so often he had his own room. He’d lost his mother when he was four years old and considered Peyton a surrogate.
“How come you’re here early?” Kelcy asked.
William’s chocolate eyes smiled. “I have a special gift for Bryce. It couldn’t wait.”
Peyton examined the aged steaks he’d brought. “Enough for ten people. Thank you, honey. Throw these beauties on the grill while I manage a nice side dish?”
“Not salad!” Kelcy blurted.
Peyton raised her fingers in surrender. “I prepared the most artery- clogging side dish I could think of.”
“Something bacon and cheese topped with more bacon?”
Royce rolled her eyes. “I bet dating apps would match you up with bacon.”
William chuckled. “Where’s Bryce?”
“She’ll come up soon,” Peyton replied. “Just finished her practice.”
William had become all man and was even more handsome when he smiled. Peyton cupped his face and pulled him down to kiss his forehead. “You make me proud.” He reminded her of her husband in a way Gideon never did—a constant bittersweetness in every chamber of her heart.
“Well, I am what all of you helped me become. All those hours you read to me and Ricky and the times you sang me to sleep didn’t go to waste.” He washed his hands at the sink, careful to avoid wetting the platinum and sapphire bracelet Bryce had given him on his twenty-first birthday. She’d bought it with prize money she’d earned with sweat and determination.
“Give me plates and utensils. The steaks are pre-seasoned.” He headed to the gas grill on the patio abutting the vegetable garden.
“I know Bryce isn’t eighteen yet, but that girl is mature and bright,” Kelcy whispered. “I wish William would just ask her out. She’s real sweet on him.”
Layli expanded her eyes. “You know?”
“Last time he was here, I caught her watching him while he napped on the sofa.” He brought a palm to his chest. “She even covered him with a blanket.”
“Kelcy!” Layli shrieked. “You spied on Bryce?”
“Hell, I spy on all of you.”
Peyton said, “One Christmas when Bryce was twelve years old, she had an acute case of the flu but insisted she’d get better because William was coming, and he needed her. She was feverish, so I thought it was delirium. Five years later, she looks for him and to him as intensely as ever.”
“William told me how Bryce is his soothing, peaceful place,” Kelcy said. “And that boy is like me. He does best when a strong, loving woman is in the foreground.”
Peyton pulled a jug of iced tea with floating lemon slices from the fridge. “Bryce is barely a woman. They’re both precocious, focused, and tenacious, but too young still.”
“Now that I have a foot in the grave, I think waiting is stupid. Either
it is or it isn’t.”
Layli gathered the plates. “My Arapaho grandmother used to say waiting is half the gift.”
“Your grandmother must have gotten only half gifts then,” said Royce.
“And where’s my whiskey?”
Kelcy rose and said, “I got you covered.”
About to defend her grandmother, Layli raised a finger, but Bryce’s jubilant shout interrupted her.
“What was that thing you said about Bryce hiding it well, Layli?” Peyton asked. “Everyone in New Mexico knows.” She retrieved two dishes she’d prepared earlier. “Look, Kelcy, a Hawaiian salad, which is really a dessert, and spicy macaroni with bacon. Some vegetarian oppression, huh?”
William and Bryce returned to the kitchen with the steaks. “Still talking tough, Grandpa?”
“Put the platter on the terrace, honey,” Peyton said. “We’ll eat gazing over Cerro Pedernal, where my husband is prowling. William, message Ricky. We’re about to eat, and he should’ve been here already. He’s driving from Boulder, not Helena.”
As if magically summoned, Ricky entered the kitchen, his dark hair spiked and stylized, still wearing the same polymer turtle necklace Peyton bought for him when he was seven years old. He hugged William first, who had been his shadow for as long as he’d worn the polymer turtle. He was sweet then, sweeter now. At twenty-seven, he was as plump as he’d been as a boy, with glistening short hair and a unfailing, tender smile. “I didn’t know you were already here, buddy.”
“It’s a surprise,” William replied.
Peyton cuddled her son, cupped his cheeks, and pecked kisses on his face. “You brighten up every space you enter, honey.”
One-by-one, Ricky hugged the others, leaving Bryce for last. “You look amazing, little sis, like you’ve exploded this past year.” He adjusted his silver belt buckle and straightened his collar. Precise with his appearance, as if he aimed for the best sequence of musical notes, Ricky’s clothes were ironed and perfumed, and his smile, like his heart, was genuine and generous.
“Everyone, grab something and let’s go set up and eat,” Layli said. “Still enjoying teaching music?”
“Not as much as I like performing it,” Ricky replied. “Thank God for Boulder’s lively music scene… Mom, got any chocolate chip cookies?”
Peyton snickered at his sweet tooth. “Do I ever? It’s not like I prepare a batch to bake fresh every time you come home or anything.”
He grabbed his mother from behind and squeezed. “You’re the best ever!”
On the terrace, sphinx moths with fast beating wings, mimicking hummingbirds, hovered over red petunias, blue thistles, and lush honeysuckle. The breeze was delicate, and the fog had cleared, leaving shafts of light over mesas and saddlebacks.
William pulled out a chair and sat Bryce at the table, then ran his fingers over the side of her neck. She held her breath and colored.
Peyton’s memories whirled back to Adler of long ago. At his merest touch, she’d dissolve yet feel bigger and sturdier. He’d made her feel the way William made their daughter feel. Only one other man had fanned her fires that way—Ashton Grant—whom she’d once not only loved, but lived. She brought herself back to the present, put a cut of meat on her daughter’s plate and gave her insisting eyes. “Eat it.”
William shifted his chair to within inches of Bryce’s. “I won’t make your next competition, but I’ll be there for your last.”
Peyton realized that he already knew Bryce had decided to retire from showjumping. Their intimacy must be deeper than she understood.
Bryce cut her steak in half, split it between William and Ricky, and played with the platinum and sapphire bracelet she wore, which matched the one she’d given William. “Thank you, Mom. I love it when it’s just us.
And thank you for the lunch you’re giving me tomorrow.”
“I wish you’d wanted a big graduation party like your brother had.”
“Why, so he could embarrass me in front of my friends again?”
Peyton steeled her nerves. “Honey, Gideon is arriving today.”
“Why so early?” Bryce struck a fist on her thigh. “It’s bad enough I have to see Damien all next month!”
She used her firm mama voice. “Don’t call him that!”
“I don’t want Gideon here before my big competition. He’ll ruin it like he ruins everything.” Bryce had every right to dread her brother. “Dad invited him, didn’t he? It’s so unfair!” She tore into the house, her hair spraying behind her.
“I’ll talk to her, Mom,” Ricky said. “Don’t worry.” “Sorry,” William said, then he and Ricky went after her.
Peyton was still bouncing a knee when she heard skidding wheels, crunching metal, and shattering porcelain.
The dreaded Gideon had arrived.
She ran to the loggia and stared down at her youngest son, who sat in his car, blaring rap music, distracted on his phone, unfazed, though he’d crashed into his mother’s large ceramic flowerpot.
