Page 80 of Cautious Love

“This coming from the man whose mama had to tell him not to be an idiot and let the girl get away,” Cooper chimes in.

“Hey! That’s no fair! At least I didn’t spend hundreds of dollars on flowers just totalkto my woman!” Fletcher snaps back.

“He’s got you there, Coop,” I mumble.

“I’d spend it all again to get you,” Cooper says, pouting his lips at Mae, and she palms his face.

“Ledger, you’ve got a stick so far up your butt I think Mama Dixie is more amazed you even have a woman in your vicinity to tell her about,” Gracie says.

June snorts and shakes her head. “I second that,” June says.

“She has a point,” Sterling says.

I sigh, tilting my head back. I’ve proven my point to myself.

“At least he’stalkingto a woman,” Tatum says quietly.

“I think it’s nice. I hope it all works out, Ledger,” Mae says in her quiet, gentle voice. I don’t know how she survives this family.

“Thanks, I think…” I mumble.

I glance at Mama again.

She’s staring at me. I can see the gears turning, and then she claps her hands. “Alright, stop interrogating your brother. We will trust himfor now. Let’s eat!” she says.

We sit at the table and pass around the platters of food one at a time until everyone has something. Dad says grace, and we dig in. But the whole time I’m eating, I feel my mother’s eyes on me.

It’s not that she doesn’t trust that I’m capable of making my own decisions, but she wants to know about them, especially when it comes to love. She wants to see all her kids happy, and I respect that. And I’ll tell her, I’ll tell all of them when I’m — no, whenwe’reready. My family can butt out for now.

After dinner, we get to work cleaning the kitchen, and the girls put food away while Mama plays with Naomi in the living room.

While I’m wiping a bowl off and putting it away, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I smile to myself expecting Shiloh to have sent me some kind of catty text, but she’s calling me.

“Hey, I’ll be home in a bit. I—”

“You need to come home now, please. I don’t know what to do, Ledger,” she says, and the waver in her voice has me running out of the house and jumping into my truck because I can hear the fear in it. Even when she accidentally shot Grey, her voice didn’t waver like that.

“I’m coming. Are you in the house?” I ask her.

Gravel pops off the metal as I gun it down the driveway and burn rubber turning onto the road.

“Yeah, I am now. I … I came in through the back door and—”

“Lock yourself in my room, grab my shotgun from the underside of the bed, and do not open that door until you hear my voice. Are we clear?”

“Yes,” she whispers.

“Baby, I have to call this in. I have to hang up,” I tell her.

“It’s okay, I’ll be okay,” she says quietly.

“I’ll be there in five.”

“Okay,” she says, and it’s like a stab in the heart, but I hang up and dial Ellen’s direct line. I know she’s at the desk tonight.

She answers, and I cut her off. “Ellen send two cars to my house now. I don’t know what I’m walking into. Tell them to stay outside until I get there, if I don’t beat them there.”

“Got it,” she says and hangs up.