Clint released her, giving his brother a scowl. “How much planning did you do for yours, huh?”
“Come here, kiddo,” Grizz grunted with outstretched arms, addressing Talia only and completely ignoring his little brother.
Talia moved into his arms easily, touched by how gently yet securely he held her. He was a decently big guy, for a baseball player, and one of the most bear-like men on the planet, hence his nickname, but he had also been one of the tenderest of her cousins.
A rare thing in a McCarthy man.
“You okay?” he murmured, his hands running up and down her back. “You look exhausted.”
She nodded against him, but her momentary hesitation beforehand would not go unnoticed. “Rough day,” she evaded, stepping away and trying for a smile. “And I’m starving.”
Her cousin’s serious expression told her he didn’t buy a word, but he gestured for her to join them, and she slid over to a chair beside his, dropping his bag to the floor. She sat and smiled at Clint. “So how are the plans? Still set on September?”
He nodded, exhaling slowly. “Yep, with our fingers crossed. Both Bree and I are hoping there will be a gap between my hockey season and the baseball season. We’ve got two baseball players with prime invitations, right? And four more, if we’re lucky.”
Talia nodded, recalling Grizz’s involvement with a group called the Belltown Six Pack, his best friends from college and arguably some of the most famous baseball players around. Clint’s fiancée, Bree Stone, was the sister of one, so the pair of them would have a special understanding of the situation.
“I keep telling them,” Grizz broke in, “that it doesn’t matter, Ryker and I will make it as long as they don’t put the wedding on a game night, the others if they can, but they really want to make it complicated for themselves by thinking of us.”
“We’re nice like that,” Clint shot back with the perfect little brother comeback. He shifted his eyes to Talia, and the light in them told her the direction his thoughts had gone. “Do you really want to talk about my wedding, cuz? Or are you just talking to talk?”
She hated when he did that, but it did negate the need for small talk, which she appreciated.
She shrugged, her eyes moving to the glass of water in front of her. “I’m stuck,” she admitted, the words scraping against her throat.
Grizz immediately put a hand to her back and rubbed gently. “Anybody would be, sweetheart. It’s only been five months.”
“Then why does everyone expect life to be normal? Or me to be normal?” Her voice broke on the question, and she shook her head, looking away and putting her elbow on the table, a palm going to her head. “I still can’t breathe in my house.”
Grizz’s hand moved to the base of her neck, and he squeezed gently. “Oh, Talia …”
Clint’s hand shot across the table, taking her free one. “Austin was everything to you, and he was a great kid. That’s going to be impossible to get over for anyone. It’s okay.”
Talia shook her head, swallowing a sob. “I feel nothing. I’m just going through life like a robot because I have nothing else to do.” She sniffed and turned her watery eyes to her cousins, relieved now to not be fine. “Do you know what Aunt Tami told Mom? She said it was a perfect time for me to think about my own life in a new way. That I have plenty of time now and nothing tying me down or holding me back, like I had before. That I was free.”
Grizz hissed, his pressure on her neck tightening a little. “She’s never had tact. But she also had a lot to say when you got pregnant, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” Talia nodded firmly, bitterness rising. “She couldn’t look at me the whole first trimester. We all know I was a stupid seventeen-year-old, but I stepped up, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Clint agreed. He smiled and rubbed his thumb over her hand. “You were an amazing mom to Austin, and you know that. You did everything right.”
“And in one way,” Grizz said slowly, “Tami has a point.”
Talia jerked away from his touch, glaring at him in betrayal. “What?”
He held up his hands in surrender, eyeing her the way one might a wild animal. “Hear me out, okay?”
Given Grizz’s track record with being on the money where she was concerned, Talia nodded, willing to listen, but also ready to bolt if he was wrong now.
He lowered his hands and gave her a searching look. “You ought to think about yourself now. Do something for yourself. Make adjustments to your life.”
Talia stared at him, letting that sink in, and hating that it was sinking in. “Moving on,” she murmured. “I should move on.”
“Yes and no,” Clint answered quickly. “More like … More like move forward. You’re stuck, right?”
She nodded. “Yeah. In time, in life … I have nothing.”
Grizz dropped an arm around her shoulder and tugged her against him. “We need to figure out how to get you unstuck, and get you moving forward. Austin never let you sit still when he was here, and I highly doubt he’d want you stuck now.”
Her thoughts flashed to her boy, her funny, energetic, smiling with missing teeth boy, complete with a cowlick at the back of his sandy brown hair. She could see his toothy grin, hear his infectious laugh, remember the exact location of the last scratch he’d shown her, envision their last outing to the park before the snow would come.
“Come on, Mom! Don’t be a slowpoke!”
And her heart seemed to crush like an empty soda can within her.
“He would hate it,” she admitted as tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked up at Grizz again, her jaw quivering. “I miss my baby, Grizz.”
He enveloped her in a tight hug, and she could feel him swallow hard. “I know you do, sweetheart. I know. We miss him, too. You go on and miss him. That’s what a good mom would do. We’ll find a way to help you out, I promise.”
For the first time in weeks, Talia let herself fully cry, burying her face into her cousin and ignoring how her tears flowed.
“Watch it, watch it … There we go, nicely done. Close it off, Caleb.”
Caleb shut the gate quickly, then turned to grin up at Ryan. “Not bad, boss. Not bad at all.”
Ryan nodded at the ranch’s longest-standing employee, then smiled at the woman on horseback riding up to him. “You hear that, Amy? Caleb here says you’re not bad. We’re gonna miss you around here, make no mistake.”
She laughed, her copper braid slung over one shoulder. “I had some good teachers. Can’t believe you let me do this, honestly, but it is so much better than picking up rocks.”
“Anything is better than picking up rocks,” Caleb agreed, thumbing his hat back a little. “My kid loves it, though, so whatever the ladies don’t get when they sign up for it, he’s more than happy to.”
“It’s important,” Ryan pointed out, leaning on the horn of his saddle a little. “Though I swear, rocks actually grow on our land. We clear them every year, and every year there are more.”
Amy didn’t seem to be listening anymore, looking out over the land. “I’m going to miss it here, you know? Going back to Ohio will be strange.”