“Ain’t Beau a little young to be doin’ anything by himself?”
AJ worked her way down his spine. “Yes. Which Foster knows, but Beau just wants Foster to pay attention to him, so he’ll do anything he says. Luckily I caught wind of it before Beau took off with the BB gun to kill snakes out in the bull’s pasture. I tracked Cord down and told him to deal with Foster. He turned pissy and asked why disciplining our sons always fell on his shoulders.”
She’d become aggressive with her massaging. “Uh, AJ, darlin’, you’re getting a mite rough with my saggy old man skin.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Then she whapped him on the arm. “Saggy old man skin, my behind. I hope Cord’s in as good shape as you are when he’s your age—if I don’t skin him alive first.” She sighed heavily. “Anyway, where was I? Right. Cord passing the buck. I was like…what? You think you handle all the discipline? Bullshit. Who had to deal with Vaughn biting other kids at daycare? Who had to go to the school when Beau stapled Julia Ragland’s dress to the bulletin board while she was still in it? Who had to attend a parent-teacher conference about why Foster’s grades have slipped since he got that damn guitar? Me! All in the last two months of school when my husband was busy doin’ ranch stuff.”
Carson wondered if he was supposed to offer advice or if this was one of those listen with your mouth shut conversations.
AJ’s hands stilled. “I just dumped my problems on you without even thinking.”
“Which is fine, because other people’s worries allow me to forget my own for a little while.”
“Did you and Carolyn have this problem? Where one person has a different vision of what’s goin’ on than the other?”
“It was better and worse at different times as the kids were growin’ up. Sounds like Cord is hardest on Ky, whereas I came down hardest on Colt. And look how that ended up. Colt hated me for a while and I didn’t even know it. He was drinkin’ and partyin’ and sleepin’ around to the point he wound up in rehab. I won’t say the similarities are there between Cord and Ky, but I ain’t gonna say it’s not a possibility given the stubborn streak Cord has. I will say that even if Carolyn and I disagreed in private about discipline, we never let it affect our united front.”
“So far we’ve been able to manage that.”
“Then you’re already ahead of the curve. What worked best for us was takin’ the discussion outta the house. We went out to dinner where we knew we couldn’t yell at each other.”
She laughed. “I’ll try that.” She dropped her arms around his neck and squeezed. “Thanks for listening to me blather.”
“Thank you for the massage.”
“We all hate this.”
“I know.”
“Since no one is home at your place, I’ve been fielding phone calls from your friends. I guess as your oldest son’s wife I’m supposed to be in the know. Got people who want to bring over casseroles and such.”
“Tell them that their offers of food will come in handy when Carolyn is home recovering.”
“I will.” AJ moved to stand in front of him. “Carson, is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Yeah, there is. I watered the garden and the flowers on the porch when I went home…yesterday? Time is a blur in here. So if you have a spare moment or even if Ky’s got time to do it I’d appreciate it. Carolyn wouldn’t be happy if everything turned dead and brown on my watch.”
“Since you’ve been right here by her side I think she’d probably cut you some slack. But I’ll send Ky over to check.”
“Thanks.”
“Take care. I could say this a hundred times and ninety-nine times you wouldn’t take me up on it, but if you need anything, call.”
As soon as she disappeared around the corner, he wandered to the window, his hands in his pockets.
It’d be another fifteen minutes before he could pay Carolyn his hourly visit. He watched the comings and goings of the vehicles in the parking lot below. A fixer upper old Ford truck screeched into the lot. A teenaged boy hopped out of the driver’s side and held the door as a blonde girl slid out, her high heels connecting with concrete. They indulged in a passionate kiss and a quick round of grab ass. Then after the couple cleared the tailgate, another boy exited the passenger side and joined them. The guys looked enough alike that they had to be brothers. The girl turned and laid a sloppy wet kiss on the second boy, keeping the first boy’s arm looped around her waist and the other boy’s arm draped over her shoulder.
Even in his wild youth he’d never shared a girl with Cal—it seemed creepy, in his opinion—but it wasn’t for lack of offers. And if the rumors were true, his sons and his nephews had no such dilemma about sharing a woman or two. Or three.
Thank heaven those days worrying what his boys were up to were long behind him, because his sons were too damn young when they’d started sweet talking girls out of their clothing.
Carson still remembered how the first phone call about those wild McKay boys had turned Carolyn’s world upside down. Like Cord and AJ, they’d been in a similar disagreement about which of their boys many sins were his responsibility to deal with…
The door to the machine shed slammed.
“Carson.”
Not the hey let’s go upstairs and roll around between the sheets tone he was hoping for from his wife whenever she sought him out. “Yeah?”
“Do you have any idea what your sons did?”
He hated conversations that started like this. “What?”
“Colby and Colt lied to us last night. They weren’t at youth bingo night at the church.”
“Where’d they go?”
“They picked up Karen Ayers and went to the lake. Get this; they convinced her since we’re born naked that God prefers everyone swim naked as a way to honor him.”
“And the girl fell for that cheesy line?”
“Yes! So both of our sons spent the evening frolicking naked, at a public lake, with a sixteen-year-old girl!”
Oh hell. He tried not to laugh and focused on fixing the lawn mower engine that’d crapped out again.
“Carson McKay. This is not funny. I received a very angry phone call from Karen’s mother, demanding an apology from us, for letting our sons run wild. And an apology from our sons, to her and her daughter, for taking advantage of Karen.”