Nash Brothers Box Set - Carrie Aarons Page 0,3

contact. “It’s on the house. Just tell Hattie to get him into training.”

3

Keaton

Pull out of my office driveway onto Main Street, take a right on Horsham Road, a left on Woodfield Avenue and continue driving until the pavement becomes gravel.

About half a mile after that, you’ll reach Nash Trail, aptly named by my father when he built the house he would later raise a family in.

The big yellow farmhouse wasn’t actually on a farm although my parents’ acreage was nothing to laugh at. They’d settled in Fawn Hill over thirty years ago, before my brothers and I were even born, and Mom had loved this style of home so much that my dad built her dream for her. Two floors, brick and shiplap exterior, with white columns studding the wraparound porch.

With four boys, they needed the six acres their property sat on. My brothers and I almost burned the house down three times, crashed six cars between us, broke bones left and right, and were regularly menaces.

The word reminds me of Presley McDaniel, and I have to pause as I turn the engine off. Her face, all of that thick, red hair … it had plagued my mind for the rest of the week. On my daily outings for lunch, I’d purposely avoided anything left of my office, knowing I could probably see her through the window of her grandmother’s bookstore that doubled as the town post office.

I shake my head, focusing on walking into my parents’ house, the American flag my father hung years ago waving over the detached garage.

The house I grew up in was picturesque, as was my childhood. And when I was old enough, I took over my father’s veterinary practice. My grandparent’s only had enough money to send Dad for his vet tech certification as a teenager … college just wasn’t a thing they could afford. He helped out in Fawn Hill’s existing practice and put himself through night and weekend veterinary school until I was about eight years old, when he became a full-fledged doctor. I remember his graduation; how proud he looked, how Mom cried, and how cool it was to see my last name plastered on the sign outside the vet’s office.

I inherited his love for animals, and when the time came, my parents helped put me through college. The unspoken agreement, as his oldest son, was that I would follow in his footsteps and take over his practice. Good thing I never wanted to do anything else, although from time to time, I wondered if my life would be completely different if I hadn’t toed the line.

Sighing, I get out of the car, knowing that instead of the quiet beer on my couch I crave, I’ll be walking into noise and nagging.

As soon as I push through the red front door, which only reminds me of a certain stranger’s hair, I’m bombarded.

“Woah, dude, way to be late. At least it’s not me. Hey, Ma, I’m not the last one here!” Fletcher, my youngest brother, calls out as he pops a piece of cheese in his mouth.

He walks away, not even bothering to say hi or ask how my day was. Here we go.

I didn’t mean to be cranky; I loved my brothers, but since my father’s sudden passing two years ago, I felt more like a parent than a peer a lot of the time.

And there it was. The reason why I felt so … off every time I arrived for Friday night dinner. My mother still insisted on the tradition, but I always expected to walk in and hear his booming laugh. Who knew that a healthy, recently retired man could die of a heart attack on a Sunday in July?

Certainly none of us. My family hadn’t been the same since, though we all put on the front that things were all hunky-dory.

The pain, that sharp, poisonous stab of agony, is still fresh in all of my internal organs as I walk through the house. My heart, my gut, my mind and everything in between sours as my shoes tread the same carpet that my father did. He was my hero, my role model, and I don’t say those things lightly. The man had integrity and knowledge; he gave love and affection freely to his boys even if it wasn’t the most manly of things.

Perhaps his passing spurred this need to be alone in me. He’d done everything right, had been the picture of a family man. And the world