Breaking Brent Part 23

"Tell me something, Pa. How is it that you can't hear yourself fart, but you can see headlights from yards away? How is that possible?" Peyton watched his belly move as he laughed at her. He was evil, that was all there was to it. Evil.

"Well, it's like this, your driveway sits perpendicular to my living room. So the other night while I was watching the news-"

"Cops, is not the news," she interjected. He didn't care.

"Like I said, I was watching the news and I saw headlights. So naturally I got up to see who it was.

Couldn't see the vehicle. Just the headlights." Lifting his eyebrows, he threw the challenge at Peyton's feet.

She knew his game. He was giving her just enough rope to hang herself with, but she wasn't into suicide.

"What was Cops about?" The statement brought a full laugh from his body.

"It was good. It was good." He kept laughing at her and whittling away. "Funny thing though about those headlights. They got there around ten and they didn't leave until around five that morning. Of course, by then the sun was starting to come up and I could see a little better.

"Did you stay up all night just to see who was at my house?" she regretted the words the minute they were out of her mouth. She'd hung herself.

"You messin' around with him?"

"No." She told the truth. She wasn't messin' around with him-anymore.

"Thinking about messin' around with him?" A few heavier pieces of wood fell to the porch. Peyton kicked them away, waiting for the scolding that was coming.

"No, I'm not thinking about doing anything." That was the truth. Anything to do with Brent was out of the question-he had walked away, again. She wasn't about to have her heart trampled on a third time.

No, thank you.

"You want to date him?"

"Up until an hour ago I was still wearing my engagement ring. I haven't had much time to think about dating or who I may date when I do plan on dating."

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"Never did much care for that Nash fellow if the truth be told."

"Grandpa!" The truth was news to her. To the best of her knowledge her grandfather and Carter had always gotten along.

"I don't mean he's not a good fellow. He's just not good enough for you is all."

"He was good enough for me, just not right for me. The two are different."

"I never really cared for the fact that he left you alone like he did. He didn't know how to take care of you."

"I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself."

"Every once and awhile it's nice to have someone to lean on, someone to take the weight off, someone to care-to take care. Back to those headlights."

Peyton rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. His mind was like a three-year-old with the remote control-it flipped at will and with ease, always looking for what was most colorful.

"You say one word about the headlights or the vehicle that was at my house and I will tell Mama and Macy about that little squirrel cemetery you've got going on in the back yard." The whittling stopped.

"You wouldn't."

"I would."

"They're eating my pecans," he countered, pouting while pushing his argument out.

"You hate those pecans. You b.i.t.c.h about those pecans and you b.i.t.c.h about the squirrels eating your pecans."

"They sit in the attic all night eating them. I can hear them chewing. Drives me crazy."

Peyton c.o.c.ked her head and gave him a look saying she didn't believe him. He couldn't hear those squirrels even if they plopped right in his lap and munched away.

"Well, whether you love them or hate them, you're not supposed to be shooting them. I would hate to have to tattle about that shotgun you keep loaded just for your little furry friends."

"You'd tattle on me?"

"d.a.m.ned right I would."

He huffed and puffed for a second but never said anything. "I'll make you a deal." Catching his attention with the deal part, Peyton continued. "You keep my visitor a secret from my mama and I won't tell about your aversion to the squirrels you seem to have."

"Deal."

He spit in his palm and then offered the spitty hand to Peyton. She shook his suggestion off. She didn't want any part of that. She lifted her form from the railing, bent down and kissed his smooth cheek before taking the steps quickly into the yard.

"Peyton." His voice caught her before she got too far away. "Just do me a favor, all right?"

"What's that, Grandpa?" She couldn't refuse the ornery old man anything and he knew it.

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"Just protect yourself."

Rolling her eyes and shaking her head, she kept walking.

"I wasn't talking about anything nasty." His tone stopped her. "I was talking about your heart."

Expelling a breath, she stepped between the shrubs in the flowerbed and laid her chin on the rail.

"Grandpa, my heart is under lock and key. Nothing can get to it. I won't get hurt."

"I hope you're right." He spoke to his hands and then to her.

"Grandpa, don't worry. Because one thing you taught me was how to throw a right hook. I still remember." Winking at him, she stepped lightly through the mulch and made her way back to her own home-her empty home. Evidently her explanation helped ease his mind. When she turned she saw him pick up his stick and begin whittling away. Laughing at his choice of hobbies made her feel better. She did whatever she could to keep his words from filling her head- protect your heart. That wouldn't be a problem. Her heart was not the part Brent had wanted. She wondered now if he ever had in the first place.

142.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Brent couldn't help but watch the little dance taking place on top of the main bar at Big Jack's. Five woman he knew, ranging in ages from about twenty-one to thirty-five, were standing on top of the thick, dark wooden surface and were all doing their best to shimmy and shake whoops and hollers from the crowd at their feet.

It was hard not to watch as they dipped and swayed and showed a flash of skin here or there, but it was even harder not to watch the figure behind the bar slinging beer bottles and filtering shots.

Even though the ladies on the bar were dressed to impress, showing a little leg and a lot of breast, she was fully clothed in tight, hip-hugging jeans and a white T-shirt that hugged her form and made his mouth water-his mouth that hurt like h.e.l.l. d.a.m.n Carter and that forgotten left hook he had.

He watched her work, laugh and cut up with Wade and a few of the waitresses. Her thick hair was styled in two long braids tonight that alternated from falling down her back to hanging over her shoulders.

She always wore her hair like that-tied back one way or another. With her hair pulled away from her face, like it was now, she looked younger, made her look like she did that summer everything went to h.e.l.l in a hand basket, made her look like the girl he'd fallen in love with and the girl who fell in love with him.

Her lips were one of her best features as far as he was concerned. They were pouty and pink, soft and plaint and always ready to receive his own-at least they used to be. Tonight would tell.

According to Carter, she still loved him.

According to Carter, she always had.

According to Carter, he was the biggest, d.a.m.nedest fool to ever walk the face of the earth. Carter was a pain in the a.s.s.

With a groan of defeat, Brent centered his thoughts where they needed to be. On his next move. He had been waiting on her for hours. Her shift usually started at eight on Sat.u.r.days, but she had been late this evening. He had thought for a second she wasn't coming into work at all and that his trip into town-to see her-had been in vain. She had shown up behind the bar a little over an hour ago and since then had been bombarded by visitors.

Her brother Murphy had come by but he had only stayed a few minutes. Reed had come by. He and Peyton had talked for a minute. Peyton had slugged him a good one in the arm and he'd left. Her cousins Masa and Cada McCready had dropped in and they still held her attention and stopped him from getting close.

So here Brent was on a Sat.u.r.day night, watching her like a hawk would watch its prey. It would have been a lot easier if she hadn't been behind the bar, twenty feet from him. Maybe another beer would ease the night along and get him closer to where he needed to be-next to her.

"You gonna sit here all night and stare at her or are you gonna talk to her? Lay everything out on the table." Jason had accompanied him to the bar. Nick and Hayden had also followed in line, but they at least had the good sense to stay out of his way and not keep asking him question after question and expecting answer after answer that he didn't have.

"Time's a wastin'."

"I wish you'd shut the h.e.l.l up and let me think."

"You've had years and then some to think. If you had thought years ago before going off half-c.o.c.ked she would have been yours already and you wouldn't be sittin' here working up the nerve. It's your own fault."

Brent watched as Jason downed the last of his beer from the bottle and then signaled for one of the waitresses to bring him another.

"I know it's my fault. I've know it for a long time." Brent cast his eyes once again in Peyton's direction, but Jason's look of disbelief over his words was not lost. He was speechless-like he needed to be.

"What's keeping you from gettin' the show on the road?" Brent heard Hayden's voice a split second before he and Nick joined him at the table.

"Is that the reason the three of you tagged along this evening? You thought you were going to see some kind of show?" Brent watched Hayden shrug and saw Nick smile before taking a sip from his beer.

"Nothin' better to do," Hayden grumbled. "Besides, I figure tagging along was better than staying at home."

"Didn't you have a date or somethin'?" Brent asked. It was rare for the boys not to have a date or at least one in the works.

"Or something," Brent heard Hayden say under his breath and then noticed his attention was on the bar just as Brent's was.

"You have some sorta plan or you just gonna play it by ear?" Jason's question was a logical one, and Brent wished like h.e.l.l he had some sort of plan. He wished the answer to all of his questions would just fall from the skies right into his hands, but he knew that was a long shot. The first thing he needed to do was get close enough to talk to her. Close enough so that he could tell her he wanted to talk to her. Close enough to smell her, to touch her-just close enough.

He didn't feel like the best plan of action was to approach her while she was surrounded by her cousins. He figured she'd be more likely to listen to him, to respond to what he had to say, if the McCreadys were occupied elsewhere. A plan started to form in his head.

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"I need your help," he told his brothers before downing the last bit of liquid courage he had.

"How'd you mean?" Jason asked.

"You feel like dancing tonight?" Brent watched his brothers look from one to the other.

"I'm game." It was Hayden who spoke up first.

Brent smiled and motioned the three closer so they could hear what he had in mind. Step one in his efforts of getting closer to Peyton was getting Peyton away from her cousins-that's what his brothers were for. What was the sense in having three younger brothers if they didn't do your bidding from time to time?

"You know you could have told us. You didn't have to go through this by yourself." Peyton felt her inside contract as her cousin Masa took her hand and squeezed it.

"I know that. I just didn't know how to tell anyone." That was the truth. Telling everyone she was no longer engaged was hard enough. Telling them that she hadn't been engaged for a number of months was harder than anything.

"What did your mama say?" Cada, another one of her McCready cousins, asked and then made a face that made Peyton snort and smile.

"I haven't gotten around to that yet so if you two can keep it under your hats for a while I would appreciate it."

"I thought you said you told Grandpa?" Cada asked.

"I did, or rather he already knew. It's all very confusing and a little blurred at this point." And it was.

Everything was a blur and it had been that way since she and Carter had last spoken. Things were so blurry that she had been late for work-which she never was.

"Well, if he knows, you can pretty much bet that your mama and daddy know as well. I swear he's like an old woman sometimes-he's worse than one every now and again." Peyton knew what Cada was talking about. Grandpa kept a secret if you told him to, if you didn't all bets were off.

"I'm not gonna worry too much about it. By the way, thanks for coming by tonight. I really appreciate it." And she did. As soon as she'd walked into the bar and seen the crowd she'd felt like she needed a few friends in her corner.

"Anytime, love. Anytime." Masa smiled at her and squeezed her hand once more. She was always doing that even though they were only a year apart in age, Peyton being the oldest. Masa's motherly side tended to come out when she knew they needed it.

"Evenin', ladies." The voice stopped Peyton's heart and her actions. When she looked up to see the owner of the voice, she was both relieved and not in the same breath. Hayden stood behind Masa with Jason to his side behind Cada. She watched as Cada turned and graced the two with one of her famous full-faced smiles and at the same time saw Masa tense in her seat.

145.

"Well, if it isn't a couple of the Kiel boys. What can we do for you?" Cada asked, her perfect smile set in place.

"Just wonderin' if you ladies would do us the honor of dancin' with us."

Peyton narrowed her eyes at Jason as he spoke, but it did little to stop his actions. She looked from Hayden to Jason and watched the younger of the two shift on his heels a couple of times and saw the nervous energy teaming inside of him. What were they up too?