“How’s Cheyenne?” Ethan asked.
Brendon met Ethan’s curious gaze, not sure how to answer that question.
“Heard she had a little too much to drink Saturday night.” Ethan shot a look at Beau.
“Hey, don’t look at me. The little woman thought she could outdrink me. Had to prove her wrong.”
“It wasn’t pretty, but she survived,” Brendon confirmed, looking at Beau.
Brendon still couldn’t believe Cheyenne had thought she could toss back more shots of Cuervo than the big guy. Seriously, Beau was six foot six, something like 240 pounds of solid, rock-hard muscle. He damn sure wasn’t a lightweight.
“Didn’t go over well, huh?” Beau asked, concern replacing his original amused grin.
“She did fine,” Brendon informed them. “She’s a trouper.”
The look that Ethan and Beau gave him was one that said he was a sad excuse for a man, but Brendon didn’t have anything to say to that. He knew how he felt about Cheyenne. And in the same regard, he knew how he’d treated her in the past. The fact that she didn’t want to have anything to do with him was deserved on his part. But that brought to mind something else he needed to figure out.
“Either of you know if Travis is at AI?”
“No idea. Knowing him, yeah,” Ethan replied, an eyebrow cocked in question.
Brendon downed the rest of his coffee and handed the empty mug to Beau when he reached for it, ignoring Ethan’s inquisitive look. Until he talked to Travis, he didn’t want to share Cheyenne’s personal business with anyone else.
“I’ll catch y’all later. I need to talk to him about somethin’,” Brendon told them both, not planning to elaborate. It wasn’t unusual for any of them to need to speak to their oldest brother. It was what they did.
Brendon was almost to his truck when Ethan called after him. Knowing he shouldn’t turn around, Brendon did anyway.
“Hey, do me a favor, would ya?”
“What’s that?”
“Try not to let that damn smile fall off your face this time? You seem to misplace that shit for a long time when that happens.”
Flipping Ethan off and smiling as he did, Brendon turned back to his truck.
As he got in and turned the engine over, he couldn’t help but think that it was good to be back to normal.
Whatever the fuck that meant.
“CHEY! WHERE ARE you?”
Cheyenne walked into the kitchen from the back porch, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm, the screen door slamming behind her. “In the kitchen, Kylie!”
A second later, Kylie joined her. “What’re you doin’?”
“Workin’,” Cheyenne said easily, pulling the work gloves from her hands and setting them on the counter.
“Oh, hell.”
Cheyenne smiled. She’d already told Kylie about her plan to refurbish some of the older pieces of furniture she’d found, and today had seemed like the perfect day to get started. For the first time in a week, it wasn’t raining and the humidity wasn’t thick enough to choke a horse. Perfect day to apply a little stain.
“Come on, I’ll show you.” Cheyenne waved Kylie over as she turned back to the screen door.
The two of them stepped onto the oversized covered back porch that overlooked the four acres of grass that she proudly owned. Two of the three ceiling fans were whirring above them, but even with the warm breeze blowing through, the scent of varnish was potent.
“Wow. They look great. Well, that one does anyway.”
“You think so?” Cheyenne had started sanding the eight mismatched chairs she’d picked up at an antique store, along with a massive solid oak table. Aside from needing a good scraping and a new coat of stain and sealant, they weren’t in bad shape. As soon as she’d had her first cup of coffee that morning, before the sun even came up, Cheyenne had gotten to work. Probably couldn’t tell she’d done all that much, considering she’d only knocked out the first chair.
Only seven more to go.
“Yeah. That was a great idea you had,” Kylie said. “You went with a dark stain. I like it.”
“I think it’ll go good with the colors we’ve picked for the dining room when it’s all done.”
“Be prepared for that and the living room to be done by the end of the week. Then we’ll move upstairs to the master bedroom and bath. You’ll have to relocate to another room once we get that project under way.”
“I figured I’d take the downstairs bedroom. That’s the only bath that’s been updated at this point.”