by Liz Isaacson
Gray made a noise halfway between a laugh and a scoff. “Yeah, wow. All of us worked, Hunt. All the time. We worked the farm before and after school. We did all of our schoolwork. We had chores around the house. When we turned sixteen, we got jobs.” Gray had worked and worked and worked in his lifetime. It actually felt amazing to be in Coral Canyon, floating on a lake he could see clear to the bottom of, and relaxing.
“We were expected to take our money and do something good with it.”
“What did you do?”
“I went to law school,” Gray said. “At HMC, we hire for those big positions from the family first, if possible.” The lawyer who’d replaced him wasn’t a Hammond, but all the other senior-level positions were. “I invested my money in stocks and real estate. Uncle Wes went to business school after he finished his chemistry degree, and he founded a pharmaceutical company.”
Hunter just looked at him, and Gray knew the boy didn’t understand how much money there was in drug development. Wes did, though, and he’d doubled his money in only four years.
Gray’s increase had been a much slower burn, but with plenty of big paydays too. “You know how I check my stuff every morning on the computer?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s my investment. Over the past twenty-three years, I’ve made my two billion into seven and a half.”
Hunter didn’t say anything, and Gray struggled to put into words what that much money meant. It was impossible. No one knew what that much money meant. It wasn’t something they could conceptualize.
“Bottom line,” Gray said. “We’re really rich. Beyond rich. Like, we can’t even spend that much money even if we tried.”
“Is it bad to be rich?” Hunter asked.
Gray smiled at his innocence. “Depends, son,” he said. “On what you do with the money. That’s what Grandpa would always say. Do something good, boys. Make sure you’re always giving glory to God. Be thankful.” He spoke in a deeper voice for his father, and Hunter chuckled.
“That sounds like Grandpa.”
Gray grinned too. “Yeah.” He watched Hunter for a minute. “I’ve thought about giving you two billion when you turn twenty-one.”
“You have?”
“What would you do with it?” Gray asked. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I like computers.”
“It’s a good field,” Gray said, nodding. “Are you upset we bought the farm?”
“No.”
“Last year, you didn’t want to buy it.”
“I like the farm, Dad,” Hunter said. “I love animals. Maybe I’ll be a vet.”
“A tech vet,” Gray said, smiling at his son.
Hunter just shook his head. “I’ll tell them it’s not bad to be rich.”
“You don’t owe any of them any explanation,” Gray said.
“Molly was in the group,” Hunter said, ducking his head now. “She didn’t say anything, but I don’t want her to think I’m some spoiled rich kid.”
“Hunt, you’re as far from that as a person can be.” He reached out and tapped on the brim of his son’s cowboy hat. “Okay?”
“Yeah.” Hunter looked up. “Okay.”
Gray felt like he was in a boat without a rudder, on stormy seas. He had no idea how to navigate this unknown terrain of girls and group texts and their personal finances. He hadn’t been planning to have the same talk with his son that his father had given to him.
“Oh, I’ve got a bite,” Hunter said, and Gray turned his attention to the fish and watching Hunter carefully reel him in.
“That’s a good one,” Gray said when his son had landed the fish. “Probably eight pounds.”
Hunter beamed at him, and said, “Let’s get home so I can find a recipe for it.”
“Deal,” Gray said, reaching for the oars to row them to shore.
A few days later, Gray reached the two-week mark since he’d been in Coral Canyon. He really liked this town, and he could easily see himself living here. He and Hunter had rented a house, and he could buy one here. He and Elise could split their time between Coral Canyon and Colorado….
Winters in Ivory Peaks were milder than here, and summer in the Tetons was shaping up to be the most amazing thing Gray had experienced.
He’d just finished emptying the dishwasher when his phone rang. Someone knocked on the front door too, and he nodded to it. “Get that, bud. It’ll be Elise.” He picked up his phone and saw Cy’s name on the screen. “Hey,” he said, keeping an eye on his son as he answered the door.
Elise stepped inside, her face lighting up when she saw Hunter. She hugged him, and she was shorter than Hunter by a few inches. Gray’s heart expanded every time he saw the two of them getting along, and he had to turn away from the front door to focus on his brother’s voice.
“…so can I stay at the farm?”
“Wait, what?” Gray asked. “Sorry, I was distracted.”
“I closed my shop,” Cy said. “I’m back in Ivory Peaks, and Mom said you’re in Coral Canyon for a couple of months. Can I stay at the farm?”
“Sure, of course,” Gray said. “How long will you be there?”
“Just until I can find a new place for the shop.”
“Why’d you leave Solana Beach?”
“The building I was renting got sold, and I had to be out by September first. We finished all our active projects, and I closed it up for now.”
“I’m sorry, Cy.”
“Thanks.” He sighed, the sound so full of longing.
Gray could sense his brother’s stress. “You don’t want to stay in California?”
“Nothing in Solana Beach that fits my needs,” he said. “Dad suggested building something, but that takes time.”
“You have time, right?”
“I suppose I do.”
“Where are you thinking?”
“I have no idea.” A pause came through the line, and Cy added, “No, Grams. Let me get that.”
“Oh, you’re already at the farm.”
“Yes,” Cy said. “I didn’t know you weren’t. Mom had to tell me.”
“I didn’t know I needed your permission to leave town,” Gray said dryly.
“She said you’re staying in Coral Canyon so you can ask Elise to marry you.”
“What?” Gray spun around, hoping neither his son nor Elise had heard that. Cy had a loud voice, and he’d practically yelled that sentence. “That’s not true.”
“That’s what she said. What did you tell her?”
Elise met his eye, and she was clearly asking if they were going to lunch.
“Give me a second, Cy.” He covered the phone. “It’s Cy, and I have to talk to him. Why don’t you to go ahead, and I’ll catch up?”
“Okay, we’re going to Sluggers,” she said, approaching him. “You can find it?”
“I’ll be fifteen minutes behind you,” he said. “No soda for me.”
“Of course.” She tipped up on her toes, and Gray kissed her quickly.
He put the phone back to his ear as she left with Hunter, and he waited until the front door clicked closed before he said, “I told Mom the long distance dating was hard on us,” he said. “And I wanted to come up here to have more time with Elise. That’s it.”
“Well, she’s positive you’re going to come home with a fiancée,” Cy said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Gray said.
“Is it?” Cy asked. “I don’t know, Gray. You—where are you living up there?”
“We rented a house for a couple of months.”
“Do you see her every day?”
“Yes.”
“You just sent your son to lunch with her, alone.”
Gray didn’t confirm, because Cy had obviously heard him despite Gray trying to cover the receiver.
“Outsider perspective: you’re in deep with this woman,” Cy said.
Gray could see him shrugging like what he’d just said was no big deal. “Okay,” Gray said. “May
be I am.”
“So Mom’s statement might not be as ridiculous as you just said it was.”
“I can’t confirm or deny that,” Gray said. “But you know what, Cy? You should come up here and look for a building. There’s a ton of growth and construction here, and I know I saw some huge plots of land for sale.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Coral Canyon.”
“Wes and Colton live here,” Gray said. “I can drive here in my sleep now, and honestly, I’m thinking about maintaining two residences.”
“You already have two residences,” Cy said.
“So maybe three,” Gray said, lifting his chin though Cy wasn’t in the same room with him. “I’ll sell the house on the cul-de-sac eventually.”
“Why haven’t you yet?”
“Honestly?”
“If you can’t be honest with me, who can you be honest with?”
“I haven’t told anyone this,” Gray said.
“Lay it on me, Beans.”
Gray chuckled and shook his head. Cy hadn’t used that childhood nickname for years. “Elise is going to live in that house.”
“Dude, you should just ask her to marry you. Don’t have a long engagement. Ask her today. Get married by September. Sell the house.”
Gray burst out laughing. “I am not doing that,” he said. “It sounds so ludicrous. Do you even hear yourself?”
“What are you waiting for?”
“I’m waiting to be sure,” Gray said.
“Sure of what?”
“Just…sure.” Gray didn’t have to explain anything to Cy. They’d had a special bond since they were the only two brothers who’d been married, at least before Colton had come to Coral Canyon.
“Do you love her?”
“I’m late for lunch,” Gray said, suddenly in a foul mood. “Have fun at the farm.”
Cy managed to say, “Good-bye,” before Gray hung up. He let out a frustrated sigh, his mind now whirring in a thousand different directions.
“Don’t change the plan,” he muttered to himself. “You’re here until the end of August. She’s moving to Colorado in September. You don’t need to ask her to marry you today.” He shook his head as he grabbed his keys from the drawer next to the fridge and headed into the garage.
What a ridiculous idea.
But is it?
The thought nagged at him, and he finally asked out loud, “Lord, what do You want me to do? Is this another one of those leap of faith things?” He didn’t even have a ring, and as he drove toward Sluggers, he thought maybe he should get one.
Or maybe he should just make sure Elise was the right woman to be his wife and Hunter’s mother before he did anything else.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“I’m not going to be able to hit it,” Elise said, adjusting the batting helmet. She glanced at Hunter, who was testing the weight of the bats in his hand.
“You want a wooden bat,” he said, putting the metal one back. He handed it to her. “You’ll be able to hit it, Elise. Put your hands together like this.” He showed her how to put her hands on the bat. “And you turn sideways, and just look down there. He put it on the slow setting.”
“Yeah, and that doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“Why not?” Hunter asked, looking at her. He was such a sober child, though he had a great laugh too. She saw him every day too, as Gray brought him to help Elise with her yards, and they spent the afternoons in parks, at the lake, or in an air-conditioned house or movie theater.
“If that’s your level, that’s your level,” he said. “Everyone starts at the beginning.” He turned sideways, the bat in his hands completely natural. “And you just watch. Don’t look away from the ball. Don’t look at the bat. Just look at the ball and swing the bat. You’ll hit it.”
He handed her the bat and stepped out of the cage. He’d already taken his turn, and he’d been brilliant. She’d taken a video to show Gray, and several pictures where she’d captured Hunter’s perfect form.
The machine down at the end of the cage made a thwacking noise, and Elise found the ball easily. She kept her eyes on it, just like Hunter had said. She had no idea how to time the swing, because she wasn’t particularly athletic. She’d learned to sew and garden growing up.
She swung, and she connected the bat to the ball. “Oh!” she said, the vibration from the contact moving into her hands and causing her to drop the bat.
“Nice job, Elise,” Hunter said, clapping. “But get the bat. There’s another ball coming.”
“Oh, dear,” she said, shaking her hands though they didn’t really hurt. She scrambled after the bat, the machine making that noise again. She didn’t have time to set up, but she managed to stay out of the way so the ball didn’t hit her.
“Hold onto it this time,” Hunter said, his fingers curling through the chain link fence. “Just watch the ball. You hit it great last time.”
Another ball came, and Elise hit it. She looked at Hunter, who applauded her again, a wide smile on his face. Out of the ten balls, she hit six of them, and she didn’t drop the bat again. Her adrenaline streamed through her as she left the cage.
“That was awesome, Elise.” Hunter took the bat from her and hung it back on the rack. “You did great.”
“Thanks for showing me.” She stepped toward him smoothly and drew him into a hug. He was a bit stiff at first, but he quickly relaxed in her arms. Her heart had a spot just for Hunter Hammond in it, and she hadn’t known it until then.
She stepped back and nodded to the skeeball. “That next? I’m actually good at that.”
“Sure,” he said. They started walking toward the arcade games.
“Hunter, do you see your mom ever?”
“Yeah,” he said without missing a beat. He took several quarters from her. “Sometimes. I usually go to Florida in the summer, but she didn’t call Dad this year.” He glanced at her and fed the machine three quarters. “And sometimes she has me come for my birthday, but I didn’t go in February either.”
“Do you—I mean, do you want to see her more often?”
The balls came down the machine and Hunter picked one up. He held it in both hands and looked at her. “Not really.”
Elise nodded, her throat narrowing. “But you go if she invites you.”
“Yes,” he said. “Dad and I agreed that if she reaches out, I should go.”
“Even if you don’t like it?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Hunter said. “It’s just…whatever. She buys me a bunch of stuff and lets me eat out all the time and we go to the beach. It’s not terrible. It’s just….” He shrugged and rolled the ball up the ramp to the holes.
“It’s what, Hunter?” Elise asked. “You can tell me. I’m just trying to get an idea of what that relationship is like.”
He picked up another ball and rolled it too, this one going in the very middle hole for the highest points. With another ball in his hands, he looked at her. “It’s just nothing,” he said. “Like, I love my mom, because she’s my mom, but there’s nothing…I don’t know. Dad says it better than me.”
“What does he say?”
“He says it’s okay to go to make her happy, as long as I’m not unhappy. And I’m not, so I go.”
“That makes sense.”
“He says it’s okay to love her because she’s my mom, and I do. But he says it’s okay if we’re not really friends or don’t really have that great of a relationship.”
Elise nodded, wanting more than that with this beautiful, kind boy. She didn’t understand his mother at all. “Do you think we’re friends?”
“Yeah,” he said, not looking at her as he rolled another ball. “I like doing stuff with you, Elise.” He ran out of balls and looked at her. “You’re fun, and you’re nice.”
Fun. Nice. Elise warmed at the adjectives, simple as they were. “Thanks, Hunt. I think you’re fun and nice too.”
He smiled at h
er. “Do you want to play?”
“No,” she said. “You can go again.”
Hunter’s face started to turn red, and he didn’t move to put more quarters in the game.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, turning away.
“You can tell me.”
He shook his head. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Why’s that?”
“Hey,” Gray said, and Elise turned around. “Skeeball. Nice. Hunt is really good at this.”
“Yeah,” Elise said, taking Gray’s hand. “He’s good at everything.”
“Everything? What else have you guys done?”
“The batting cages,” Hunter said, rolling the ball up the ramp. “Elise did great.”
“She did?” Gray looked down at her.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised.” She nudged him with her shoulder, which caused him to chuckle. “I do plenty of physical work, just not with a baseball bat.”
“I wish I could’ve seen that.” He grinned at her.
“I got a video,” Hunter said, turning from the skeeball ramp. He handed Gray his phone and looked at Elise again. She smiled at him and reached to put her arm around him.
He stepped over to her, a smile on his face too.
“You’re a good boy, Hunter,” she said, leaning toward him as she heard the video start on his phone.
“Oh, wow,” Gray said, his face radiating life and happiness. He handed the phone back to Hunter. “You’ve got quite the swing, Elise.”
“Please, I dropped the bat the first time.”
“I mean it,” he said. “It looked good.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go get a table. I’m starving.”
“I’m gonna finish my game,” Hunter said.
“I’ll stay with you,” Gray said.
Elise left the two of them standing there, but she clearly heard Hunter said, “Dad, she hugged me.” Her heart zinged around inside her chest, and she pretended to drop something so she could listen a little longer.
“Oh?”
“She’s—I liked it,” Hunter said.
“I don’t hug you enough,” Gray said.
Elise straightened and turned around to see the man hugging his son. Everything aligned for Elise in that moment, and she was so glad she’d hugged Hunter earlier. Gray met her eyes over the top of Hunter’s head, and he mouthed the words Thank you.
