Boots Up (Port Ranch Book #1)

Chapter 38

MITCH

I grab the bottle of Jim Beam from my passenger seat and make my way through the slushie snow until I get to the plot all the way in the back of the lot. Standing here is kind of crazy. I’m not sure what I expected when I was here the first time, but the fact that Brian and Tracy were willing to bury Max on their family plot is something that just warms me.

Max and I didn’t have a family. Both our parents were addicts, guess where I got that tendency from? They didn’t abuse us in the traditional way, it was that emotional trauma. We were both angry children. I found football, Max wasn’t as lucky as I was.

He got lucky though. Getting in trouble and being sent to the ranch to work as part of his probation was the best thing that could have ever happened to him. Well, the second-best thing. Falling in love with Britt Port was the number one best thing that would ever happen to him. 

For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why he wanted to work at the ranch and why he wanted to build his life there. I thought he was crazy to live above a fucking barn. I was living a pretty posh pro footballer lifestyle. I had the women, I had a good size house in a gated community, and rubbed elbows with a bunch of famous people. I thought I was lucky. I thought I had escaped Mom and Dad.

I was wrong. I was so fucking wrong. Max was living the life all along and I see that now. What started as a way to get my ass into gear turned into the path that gave me a life...a real life. Now I’m dedicating myself to one woman, planning a wedding, building a home on the ranch that I’m working my ass on a ranch that feels like home because it IS home. 

I open the bottle of Jim Beam and pour a small amount in front of the headstone. I cap the bottle again and let it drop into the snow. “Hey Max, it’s me. I know you’re probably laughing at me right now because I’m out here talking to myself, but I’m talking to you so don’t be an asshole. I know I haven’t been here to visit in a while. Shit’s been really busy.”

“I finally asked Brie to marry me. She said yes. Can you believe that two Port sisters are going to be Alexander sisters now? If you were here I bet we’d get a huge laugh out of that. Of course, if you were here I’m not sure I’d be here. Some days it feels like you planned this all. Like you knew that I needed the ranch and you knew that they needed me.”

“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I’m probably talking crazy. Anyway, want to hear something really funny? I asked Granger last week to be my best man and the asshole actually said yes. Maybe you were right about him all these years. I won’t tell him he’s going soft though, don’t worry.”

I hear a giggle behind me and I’m kind of startled. When I turn around I see Britt with a six-pack of beer and an arm full of blankets. “Looks like great minds think alike.”

“Hey, Britt. Join me, the more the merrier.” I relieve her of the blankets and make a nice padded seat on the ground. It’s not perfect, but enough to keep our butts from getting wet and cold.

Britt cracks open a beer and then offers me one, “Or would you prefer your Jim Beam?”

“I just brought out friend Jimmy out to celebrate, usually I bring beer too.”

“I know,” she snorts, “I’m always picking up the bans you left so they don’t end up in the wrong hands.”

“Oops,” I grin at her. “So…Do you come here often?”

“Mitch Alexander,” she shoves my shoulder, “are you hitting on me while we’re sitting on my husband’s grave and you’re marrying my sister?”