“She can watch over you,” I said, putting an arm around Sydney. “But I will be your coach, and I’ll likely be harder on you than on any of the other players.”
“I can handle it,” she said, chin high.
“Oh, I don’t doubt that for a minute.” I held up my hand, and we did our secret handshake that lasted a full sixty seconds and ended with me throwing an imaginary ball to her and her throwing it down to the ground in a victorious touchdown dance.
Sydney rolled her eyes, ruffling her daughter’s wild curls once she was upright again. “We’re about ready to eat,” she said to all of us, then she turned back to her daughter. “Go wash your hands and help me bring the food out of the kitchen.”
Paige saluted, giving me a knowing smirk before she ran off toward the house.
My nerves came back at once.
It was a beautiful day for November — the sun high and warm, a few clouds floating by to give us brief moments of shade, and a cool breeze sweeping over the yard. It wasn’t too cold to be outside, though — which was a blessing, considering we had grown so much that we wouldn’t fit inside anymore.
I took a seat at one of the folding tables, pulling out the chair next to Eli. He was in the middle of a riveting story that had Noah and Ruby Grace wide-eyed and leaning over the table toward him, anxious to know more.
I’d learned over the last few years that all his stories felt like that.
It had been easy, getting to know Eli and falling into a relationship with him. We spent a lot of time together, eating dinner or hanging out at football practice or me spending days on the job with him. He was getting older and needed the help, and I loved to see him in his element, helping people no matter their circumstances.
We’d been building our relationship for three years, and though I felt closer to him than I ever imagined I could be, I also learned something new every day.
What I loved learning most was about his family, my family, our ancestors and more. Because in addition to discovering him, I’d found that I had two aunts and five cousins who lived in Virginia, ones who I’d met last Thanksgiving when we joined them. I was finally able to explore all the pieces of what and who made me the man I was today.
At the table behind us, chatting with Mom, was Mary Scooter — my other mom.
Our relationship was a little more rocky.
We were trying, though it was stickier with us. She struggled with how she had left me with my adopted parents, though I’d assured her time and time again that it was the best thing she ever did for me. I loved my family, and I was blessed to have them — no matter the circumstances that landed me in their arms.
Still, Mary was in a dark place for a long time after Patrick was arrested. Everything fell into her lap then — the distillery, the Will, the flurry of court dates that had her testifying against the man she had loved and had children with. She was torn, there was no doubt about it, and we’d had little time to talk about us when so much of our focus had been on Patrick and Randy and everyone else involved in my father’s murder.
Slowly, things were getting better — especially since the case had finally been closed. Patrick, Randy, three firefighters, and four members of the distillery board were all serving prison sentences of varying lengths — Patrick for life, Randy for forty years which might as well have been life. And as much as it broke Mary’s heart that Patrick had been put away, I knew it brought her peace, too.
Mallory and Logan having little Tamara had sewed Mary even tighter into our family, and she and Mom worked well together as grandmothers. There was no way to say that little girl was anything less than spoiled by those two women. And the more time they spent together, the more we all saw their old friendship blooming again — one that had been tainted by a man no longer in our lives.
As for the distillery, Mary had been given charge of it, and after the history she’d had with the place, she wanted little to do with it in the end. She kept ten percent of the shares to live on and to remain on the board, but she signed the other ninety percent of the shares over to my family.
It’s what Robert would have wanted, she’d said.
Now, Mom sat on the board, too — along with Noah and Logan. Noah served as President, with Logan as Vice, Mom as Secretary, and Mary as Treasurer. Together, they named the other members of the board — those they could trust — and were steering Scooter Whiskey into a new direction, a new era, born of the Beckers.