Free A Season in Gemini, Intro by Victoria Danann Page A

heads emerging from the columns, snarling at the viewer. Above the artwork was an arc of text that said Sons of Sanctuary. Below was an inverted arc that said Texas.
     
    The evening was eye-opening for both Brant and Garland. He introduced her with pride, but noticed that some of the guys raised their brows at him as if to say, “What the fuck you doin’ with a woman like that?”
    Brant introduced her to his father, his mother, and his older sister, who was married to somebody named Doobie. As the night became dark and the drink flowed freely, the mood of the party changed from a family picnic vibe to something else altogether. At one point Brant watched Garland taking everything in and tried to imagine his life through her eyes. That’s when he knew she wasn’t going to stay.
    It didn’t stop him from trying.
     
     
    When the calendar ran down to seven days left, he made his play.
    “ I don’t want you to go. Stay here. With me.”
    “ I can’t.”
    “ Why?”
    “ Because this is your life. Not mine.”
    “ But it could be ours.”
    “ No. It couldn’t. It would always be me trying to fit into yours.”
    She cried. She told him she loved him and always would. She cried some more. But in the end she left with her father.
     
     
     

CHAPTER 7
     
    Brant sat on his bike on a patch of grass at the southern end of the airport and watched the Germane jet take off. The sleek plane was beautiful and Arctic white, but looked miniscule sandwiched between a 747 and an Airbus on the runway. He watched it climb until it was out of sight.
    Some guys would have crawled into a hole with a bottle. But Brant rode to Chuy’s, took a seat on the patio, and ordered a frozen Margarita with fish tacos.
    His life would be forever divided into before and after that summer. Before Garland, he’d been a simple man with simple needs. After she left, he was a man on a mission called money.
    When the table server came to check on him, he put cash in her hand and stepped out the patio gate. Fifteen minutes later he was walking past the bar in the Sons of Sanctuary club house.
    “ Where’s the old man?”
    “ Office,” said Digger, looking up from his beer.
    Brant knocked twice. When he heard his father say, “Open,” he stepped in.
    “ Make me a prospect.”
    F.J. Fornight looked his son over. “What brought this on?”
    “ I got my reasons.”
    After staring Brant down for a full minute, he said, “Okay. I’ll sponsor you. You know the rules. No favors.”
    “ Got it.”
    “ Church day after tomorrow. Seven o’clock. I’ll put it to vote, but everybody has to agree.”
    “ I know. I’ll be here.”
    Brant had his hand on the door, when his father said, “This have anything to do with that beauty you brought by?”
    It had always been impossible to get anything past his old man.
    “ Reasons are my own.”
    F.J. nodded and went back to what he was doing.

EPILOGUE
     
    Garland was three weeks into the fall semester at the Wharton School when her pregnancy was confirmed. Her initial panic was assuaged when she reasoned that lots of women go to school while pregnant. She’d have to take off spring semester because of her due date. Her father would have to be told. And Brant. She couldn’t decide which she dreaded most. The single saving grace was that she could do it by phone and wouldn’t have to see either of their faces.
    It took four days to work up her courage. She took a hot tea out onto the balcony of her University City apartment that overlooked the Schuykill River. She pulled the hoodie up on her red, boiled wool jacket because it was chilly out. If there was going to be serious unpleasantness, she wanted to deal with it outside.
    The phone call with her father was every bit as awful as expected, especially the part where he insisted that there was a quick fix that could resolve the problem for everyone. It left her shaken, and thinking it was a mistake to plan to make both calls on the same day.
    The phone