Sweet and Wild - Carmen Jenner Page 0,4
and I head inside as the boys carry on about carrying in my things. This old farmhouse looks exactly the same as it did when I left. It hasn’t changed one bit in thirty years. Well … there is one noticeable difference. Daddy’s armchair sits in the living room … empty. I stare at that faded tan leather which has seen a lifetime of dust, sweat, and love. I burst into tears all over again. I feel like I haven’t stopped crying since I got the call.
I hadn’t shed a single tear over Brook and Stavros, not one, but I fell apart completely when Wyatt called me from the hospital with horror and devastation in his voice. I had to come home. I needed to be here for my family. Part of me wishes I’d never stayed away so long. I might’ve been able to say goodbye. I might’ve seen my daddy and told him I love him one last time. Although, after my encounter with Colt and enduring the frosty reception from my two older brothers, I’m starting to wish I hadn’t come home at all.
CHAPTER THREE
Lemon
Sunlight streams through the lace curtains of my childhood bedroom and I squint and roll over. What kind of sick torture is this? People in the south need to invest in black-out blinds. I stretch and wince at the ache in my bones and muscles after several days in my tiny car. Stumbling into the bathroom, I brush my teeth, and then I throw on a light sweater before heading downstairs. The grandfather clock says midday, and I rub my eyes and stare at Mama plating up lunch.
“Mornin’, sleepyhead.”
“Mornin’. Why did you let me sleep so long?”
“Well, you had a long drive.”
From the back door, the boys all push and jostle to get into the house and be the first to the dinner table. It’s like feeding time at the zoo around here.
“Mornin’, sis,” Wyatt says.
“Hi.”
“Howdy, Lemon.” A man embraces me. I’m taken aback because he clearly knows me, and I’ve never met this guy in my whole life.
“Hi?”
My brothers chuckle and Wade says, “You have no idea who he is, do you?”
I pull away from the man and take in his square jaw and bright green eyes. His blond beard is rugged with hair to match, but the way his lips quirk into a cocky grin and the dimple in his chin give him away. “Oh my God. Cash Williams, is that you? Last time I laid eyes on you, you couldn’t have weighed more than one hundred pounds, soaking wet.”
“It’s all Mama’s good cookin’.” He winks, and pecks Mama on the cheek. Then his eyes roll over me from head to toe. “It’s mighty nice to see you again, Lemonade.”
“Still our sister, and you’re still never hittin’ that,” Wyatt warns, glancing at Cash.
“Wyatt Winchester, you bite your tongue at my table,” Mama admonishes.
My little brother hangs his head, thoroughly scolded. “Sorry, Mama.”
“It’s just Lemon now.” I sit in the seat I’ve always occupied at this table, my eyes darting to the empty head of the table where my father sat.
“Since when?” Mama asks.
“Since I was eighteen.” I glance at her as she sets a plate in front of me. It’s piled high with roast-beef sandwich and potato chips. I wouldn’t eat this much food in two meals back home in New York, but I know better than to tell her that.
“Since you moved to New York,” West corrects as he finishes washing up in the mud room and enters the kitchen.
“Oh my God, it’s alive.” Wade, the perpetual joker, grabs my bird’s nest of hair and makes it stand on its end. I elbow him in the ribs, and he moans. “Damn, woman. You’re so skinny, you practically speared me through with your bony elbow. We gotta put some Texas meat on them bones.”
“My bones are just fine the way they are, thank you.”
I glance around the kitchen, praying for coffee but knowing I won’t find any now. The pitcher of sweet tea on the table confirms my suspicions. Mama slips a plate in front of each of the boys and they all stare like dogs salivating over a bone. I pick up a potato chip from my plate but before I can draw it closer, Mama gives me a pointed glance and I drop it just as fast. You do not mess with Lucille Winchester at mealtime.
“We haven’t said grace, Lemonade. And you know we don’t do grace unless everyone’s