Carson turned his head to look at her. "Which of your kids is in need of discipline?"
AJ gently turned his head back where it was. "Will I sound bitter if I say all of them?"
"I don"t know. What"s goin" on?"
"Cord and Ky...I don"t even know where to start with them." She started kneading harder. "Ky is a good kid. Sometimes he misses curfew, but I"m sure Cord did too at that age."
"h.e.l.l, that boy missed his curfew more often than he made it home on time."
"Seems my husband has conveniently forgotten that fact. It drives Cord crazy that Ky is on his phone all the time."
"Afraid I"ve got no experience with that, except the phone calls we got from parents demanding, "Do you know what your sons have been up to?" which wasn"t fun."
"That hasn"t happened to us so far. And I don"t want to interfere because I think Cord and Ky oughta figure it out themselves. If that was all that"s been goin" on, it"d be enough. Except now Foster has decided to be a country singer. Since he got that guitar for Christmas all the kid wants to do is stay in his room and jam. Cord has to get after him to do ch.o.r.es. Then on a day last week when Cord and Ky were especially not fun to be around, Foster convinced Beau to do his ch.o.r.es."
"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 p.i.s.sy and asked why disciplining our sons always fell on his shoulders."
She"d become aggressive with her ma.s.saging. "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 pa.s.sing the buck. I was like...what? You think you handle all the discipline? Bulls.h.i.t. 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 d.a.m.n 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 ma.s.sage."
"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 ca.s.seroles 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 pa.s.sionate kiss and a quick round of grab a.s.s. Then after the couple cleared the tailgate, another boy exited the pa.s.senger 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 d.a.m.n 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 G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l. He tried not to laugh and focused on fixing the lawn mower engine that"d c.r.a.pped 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."
"How"d Karen"s mother find out about Karen sneakin" off and goin" skinny dippin" in the name of G.o.d with Colby and Colt? Because I doubt either of them boys were dumb enough to walk her to the door afterward when they were dripping wet."
"That is not the point! Did you even hear a word I said?"
He looked up at her. Yes, his wife was mad as h.e.l.l, but she"d always been so d.a.m.n cute whenever she got her dander up, so he was having a real hard time not planting a kiss on that pouty mouth. "What is the point?"
"Your sons are running wild."
"Sugar, they"re teenage boys. They"re gonna go a little wild sometimes. See what they can get away with. They"ll do dumb s.h.i.t. Same as we all did."
"You"re excusing their behavior?"
"No." He stood and twisted his neck side to side to alleviate the throbbing in his head. "How did Karen"s mother find out about her daughter"s trip to the lake with the McKay boys? The town gossips?"
"I guess Karen confessed everything to her mother this morning."
"Everything? Was skinny dippin" all those three got up to last night? Or did something else happen?"
Her eyes widened. "You mean, like, did one of the boys have s.e.x with her?"
"Did you ask Colby or Colt if they were messing around with her?" He didn"t add: or if both of them were? At the same time?
"No. I came straight here to talk to you about this situation so you could deal with them."
That"s when Carson lost his sense of humor. He wiped his hands on a greasy rag. "Why does this fall on me? Because I"ve got a d.i.c.k? Or because I almost talked you into skinny dippin" with me when we were young and wild so I oughta know a young man"s mind?"
She threw up her hands. "What has gotten into you?"
"Caro, I"m serious. I wanna know why when the boys do something wrong, that doesn"t have to do with the ranch, I have to be the harda.s.s about it and you get to swoop in and bake them G.o.dd.a.m.ned cookies."
"If you ever stepped foot in the kitchen to actually cook something for your children, I might be able to laugh at that comment."
"See? You even turned the cookie-baking comment into another thing I"m doin" wrong."
"Being a little defensive, aren"t you?"
"Do you blame me? Whenever one of the boys does something that requires discipline, it falls on me. That ain"t fair. As I see it, you took the phone call from Karen"s mother, so you oughta talk to Colby and Colt about what happened."
The confusion in her eyes made things clearer for him. She hated that her boys were growing up and keeping secrets from her, and she wanted to believe they"d done nothing wrong, but she was afraid to ask.
There were levels of wrong, but Carson didn"t believe for a second either of his sons would ever disrespect a girl or a woman and force her to do something she didn"t want to.
"Here"s where I"m at. Our boys are good-lookin". You know it. I know it. They know it. h.e.l.l, everyone in town knows it. I"m betting Karen climbed into Colby"s pickup willingly, stripped off her clothes willingly, and had herself a good old time swimming buck-a.s.sed nekkid with our boys. But at some point she started feelin" guilty about it. Or her mother got nosy, demanding to know what Karen had been up to and Karen didn"t want to admit she"d had fun, so she changed her story to one where the wild McKay boys forced her into getting naked and goin" swimming with them."
"I"m just supposed to chalk it up to boys being boys? Excuse my sons" behavior because they"re McKays?"
"No, but it"ll go a long way in tryin" to explain it."
"You are an exasperating man, you know that? This is why you need to deal with this. I have no experience with this wild teenage behavior, Carson. None. And you do. Lots of experience."
"If me"n Cal and Casper and Charlie had done half the c.r.a.p that was blamed on us, we"d be in jail right now. Sundance is a small town, Carolyn. Rumors spread, and change so much that usually what the end person hears ain"t close to the truth of what really happened. This won"t be the only time we"ll hafta deal with it. So we"d better come up with a way that I don"t always end up bein" the bad guy."
"That"s how you see it?"
"Yep."
"Bull."
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. Bull. I"ll agree when it comes to ranch work and ch.o.r.es you crack the whip. But how often do you have to do it? Hardly ever because the boys don"t want to disappoint you, or get extra ch.o.r.es for leaving things undone. Whereas I have to ask five times to get the garbage taken out, and then whichever boy deigns to do it, mutters about me being a nag. Same thing happens when I tell them to put away their clothes. Or to pick up their rooms. Or to help with the dishes. I can"t be the disciplinarian because they don"t listen to me. I"m just the nagging mother."
"Caro, that"s not true."
"It is."
"How long has this been goin" on?"
She rolled her eyes. "Years. So maybe I am using the gender argument when it comes to teenaged boys. But do you really believe they"ll have an open conversation with their mother about s.e.x? Cord wouldn"t look me in the eye for two weeks after I found that Playboy magazine in the bathroom. He reacted the same way after that night at the Rusty Spur and I all but told him that fighting made you h.o.r.n.y and you were about to ball my brains out in your truck."
He sighed. "All right, all right, I get it. I"ll talk to them. But fair warning that if I do this, chances are slim Karen"s mother is getting an apology."
Carolyn kissed his cheek. "Thank you. I"ll tell the skinny dipping twins you want to see them in your office."
So that"s how Carson ended up having the s.e.x talk with his sons. It helped that he"d had three shots of whiskey before the conversation started.
Getting summoned into Dad"s office sent the other kids scurrying upstairs to their rooms, because a trip to the office meant they were in big trouble.
Colby and Colt sat on the padded bench and the two of them nearly took up the entire thing. Carson remembered when he could line up all five boys on the bad bench.
"Have any idea why you"re both in here?"
A moment of silence followed.
Then Colt said, "I know I was drivin" too fast. And I don"t have any excuse except I wanted to see how fast that truck would do a quarter mile. Colby was just along for the ride."
Carson looked at Colby and the boy cracked like mud in the August sun.
"I know you said you didn"t want me on the back of a bull because I"d break my fool neck, but I had to try it one time. And Colt didn"t have nothin" to do with it besides drivin" me there and home."
Jesus. He wondered just how many confessions he"d get out of these two if he kept doing his stone-faced statue imitation.
"That"s not why we"re in here, is it?" Colby asked.
Carson shook his head.
"It"s not?" Colt said, realizing he"d made an unnecessary confession.
"But keep goin". Let"s see what other s.h.i.t you boys" have been pullin"."
"Ah, we didn"t mean to get stuck up at Flat Top after the keg, and we"ll get your tow chain back from Dag...tomorrow?" Colt offered.
"Jesus, Colt, shut your d.a.m.n mouth," Colby snapped.
"Well at least I didn"t tell him about us takin" Tina and Tonya to-"