were in tandem. Probably because they were.
“I can’t believe you guys planned this.” He shook his head. This time, he didn’t resist the urge to pace but walked to the sink, back to the stalls, and back to the sink before finally hooking a hand behind his neck, planting his feet, and facing his boys.
He couldn’t lie to them and say he didn’t want Emerson in Missouri. But he wasn’t going to agree to help them if it was anything that would hurt Emerson or make her even more upset with him. He couldn’t take back the past, but he didn’t need to continue on the same path.
“What are you guys thinking?”
Dallas’s face wreathed into a smile right away, but Houston seemed to recognize it wasn’t complete agreement and elbowed him. Dallas tried to get a hold of himself, and Reid tried to bite back a smile. It could be he and his brother Deacon all over again.
“You don’t have to do anything bad. You just have to send her an email, telling her that Dallas didn’t make the flight and telling her that she needs to come here.”
“She’s not going to do that. She’s going to ask me why. And I can’t say because the boys are making all these plans, and I’m going along with it.”
“Well, we thought that maybe you could tell her that Dallas locked himself in a room at Grandma’s and refuses to come out until she comes. Maybe that would work?” Houston asked, in a scrunched-up kind of voice that said he really didn’t think it would but hadn’t been able to think of anything better.
“Or I could hide at Grandma’s house, and you could tell her you can’t find me and tell her she needs to come so she can look for me. ’Cause Mom always finds stuff better than anybody else,” Dallas said, like that had been his idea all along. But Houston shook his head, already seeing the holes in that idea.
“I couldn’t do that. She’d tell me to call the police.” Reid sighed.
Was he even contemplating doing this? Why wasn’t he giving his son a hard time, telling him he should’ve been on that airplane? He should be on his phone right now, trying to see if there was any possible way that he could get a seat on another flight. He should not be indulging the boys in their trickery and deceit.
He wasn’t going to engage in any deceit. But he was seriously considering joining in the plan, much to his surprise.
The idea of seeing Emerson again was almost too good to be true.
“I shouldn’t even consider this,” he said.
Houston’s eyes lit up right away, but his face still looked tentative, his mouth opened like he was waiting, hoping to hear the words he wanted.
“I’ll call her.” He eyed the boys. “I’m not going to lie to her, and I’m not going to deceive her. I’m just gonna tell her exactly what happened, and I’ll simply suggest that she should come and get you herself.”
He doubted it would work. It sounded stupid and sad when he said it aloud, but he refused to try to trick her.
Probably he should find a flight and book a seat for Dallas and forget this ridiculous idea—the idea that Emerson should come back to Missouri.
“But we want her to stay. We want her to stay for at least...” The boys looked at each other as Houston seemed to be calculating something in his head. He finally spoke again. “At least a month. We need her to stay for a month.”
“Need? Why do you need her to stay for a month?” Reid asked, emphasizing the “need.”
Both heads went down, and both sets of feet shifted on the floor. Houston’s hands went behind his back.
“Boys?” It was the most firm thing he’d said. They’d done something pretty awful, and he had been willing to get to the bottom of it. He understood, truly, they wanted to be together, and he understood even that they wanted their mom in Missouri. But need? He didn’t get that.
“We’re not doing anything bad, Dad. I promise... But we can’t tell you.” Houston scrunched up his face and tilted his head like he wasn’t sure what his dad was going to say.
Maybe if it were Dallas, Reid would have had a different reaction. Not that he favored one of his sons. He just knew one had a propensity toward trouble.
This was Houston. Straitlaced, serious, and never doing anything wrong.
Maybe he