“I’ll say it was so to back you up. Let’s drink to it, shall we?”
Parker heard the sound of glasses being clinked, and a few seconds later, a glass being set down. He felt the movement, so he pulled his hand back and stopped recording.
Bare seconds later, Liz Maxwell left, and then, two minutes after that, so did Norah Benedict.
Parker looked at Dale for a long moment. “Holy fuck, man. I thought our family was shit.”
“It’s not their whole family that’s shit. It’s just Norah.”
“Yeah. Let’s give it a few minutes to be sure they’re gone then get our asses home. I want to upload this video and see if it’s as revealing as I think it is.”
“And then what are we going to do?”
“The only thing we can do. We’ll call Cord and Jackson down in Texas and give them a heads-up.”
“Good idea. I’m glad we’ve kept in touch with the two of them over the last couple of years.”
“Me, too, brother. Me, too.”
Chapter One
Jenny Collins’s hips swayed, just slightly, to the beat of Sam Hunt’s “Body Like a Back Road,” streaming from the sound system. She was working the later shift at Angel’s Roadhouse—two in the afternoon until closing, at two a.m.
Angela Monroe Stone, Jenny’s boss, and her new husband, Ricoh, were still on their honeymoon, and although they were staying someplace in the area, so far, they’d only stopped by once—for lunch last Tuesday with Brittany Phillips, Sean and Noah Kendall, and the men’s folks visiting from Wyoming.
Monday at the roadhouse was always busy all day, and that suited Jenny just fine. If it was a slow day, the twelve hours of her shift could drag. But that rarely happened at the beginning of the week. So Jenny was busy, happy to be so, and swaying in time with the music. The supper crowd was beginning to morph into the evening date night/dance crowd. The kitchen was open until midnight, which meant there’d still be food ordered and served. But for the most part, and for the rest of this shift, her tray would carry mainly beer, wine, whiskey, and soda.
Laci finished loading her orders and then set a glass of sweet tea on the tray, too. “That’s for you. You’re past your break time, again.” Her grin took away any sting that might have been hiding in her words.
Jenny shrugged. “Sometimes, I’m having so much fun here I just forget.” That was nothing but the pure truth.
“Well, your bff is in the house, and she could use a friendly face right about now.”
Jenny frowned, her gaze immediately locating Ari Benedict. Laci’s cousin by marriage, Ari had been among the first people to reach out to her when she’d hired on here at Angel’s. Satisfied that there appeared to be no trouble between Ari and her husbands, Cord and Jackson—a situation that was rarer than rare—she turned back to look at Laci.
The expression on her co-worker’s face said it all.
“Montana blues?” Jenny knew that Cord and Jackson’s parents were getting divorced and that their mother had been causing trouble for all of them, starting back when Addison, the guy’s sister first came to Lusty. That was before her own arrival here. Ari, Addison, and Charlotta, Ari’s sister-in-law married to the guy’s brothers, had been open about the family drama that often brought them all down or pissed them all off, depending.
Ari and Addison—and Jenny, too—had all worried about Charlotta last year because she’d been expecting her first baby. Sometimes the Montana drama could be bad. But Patrick Benedict had been born in January with no complications, a healthy baby boy, and they had all relaxed.
Still, what hurt the Benedict women’s husbands, hurt them. And for Jenny, what hurt her friends, hurt her.
“Thanks for the heads-up,” she said to Laci. Hefting her tray, she nodded. “I’ll take my break over there, if I’m not interrupting a family discussion.”
“You won’t be. Want your usual supper delivered?”
“Yes, please.”
Jenny carried her tray to the tables that were hers. She set down the ordered drinks along with smiles and a few friendly words, collected cash, and gave change—all in a ballet that felt natural to her. She liked to think of herself as more than just another blonde delivering drinks in a roadhouse. She listened, truly listened, to her customers. Many were repeat guests, and she knew their names and the names of their spouses and kids.
In the case of the Benedicts and a lot of the other people from the nearby town of Lusty, that was a case of remembering three or four names, as many of the marriages were ménage marriages. One wife with two or sometimes three husbands was a concept she’d thought strange, at first.
It didn’t take her long, however, to see what a sweet deal it was for not just the women, and the children, but for the men, too.
Finally, Jenny set her tray back on the bar, took her sweet tea, and made her way over to the back corner—or Benedict Central, as it was sometimes known.
Ari, who was sitting beside Cord and Jackson, looked up and smiled. She moved a bit closer to Cord, and he and Jackson helped, making room for Jenny. Sitting with Cord, Jackson, and Ari were Laci’s husbands, Trace and Lucas, and their cousins Chase and Brian and their wife, Carrie. Benedicts all, four from Montana and two from Lusty, they were three sets of cousins—the two Montana sets related to each other more directly by the blood.
Jenny wasn’t surprised not to see Jesse, Barry, and Shar. These days, they stayed home more often than not.
“Damn, guys. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say,” Brian Benedict said. He sent a grin to Jenny, and Carrie waved.
“This is so far out of our wheelhouse,” Chase said. He nodded to Jenny
