Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 77936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Chapter 30
Maverick
Faith barely made it as far as the old barn before whirling on me again. She was in a state. I’d seen the way Colt looked at her too. She was likely on something other than simply high on the news that there might be a way out of the will.
“I see you and Colt are all sorts of friendly again.” Her eyes flashed.
“Do you have a problem with that?” I met her angry stare for angry stare. She’d been supportive since I’d first come out. And for all our father was a bastard, if he’d had a problem with my sexuality, I never caught wind of it.
“Your love life is your business except when it’s clearly clouding your judgment.” She let out a loud huff. “You seriously don’t want to fight the will?”
“No.” My voice became firmer every time I said the words. “I want Hannah to do the school year here with Willow. They’re best friends now. Hannah needs the stability of staying.”
“Are you saying I can’t give her stability in Houston?” Faith’s highlighted hair gleamed in the August sun, a battle helmet.
“If you continue to drink and be absent like you have all summer, then, no, you can’t give her stability.” Admitting that made my throat raw and my chest ache. But dancing around the issues with her behavior wasn’t doing us any favors.
“My drinking isn’t a problem.” She gave me a steely-eyed glare. “I know when to stop.”
“Do you?” I kept my voice pointed. My focus was squarely on Faith. I’d prefer not to have this conversation out in the open, where any nearby ranch hands could hear, but some things needed saying regardless.
“I drink here for the same reasons as you keep slopping white paint everywhere.” Her voice was a scalpel, precise and deadly. “We can’t outrun the past, Maverick.”
The sun bore down on us and sweat gathered in the small of my back. I still wore one of Colt’s shirts. Last night seemed far away, but I was no less resolved.
“We can’t change it, but we can move on. Heal. Find a way toward peace. Something.”
“Put it on a T-shirt.” Faith rolled her eyes at me. For a second, she was eighteen again, beautiful and sarcastic. But then her face tightened back into its usual aloof mask. “You taking up ranching isn’t you healing. You’re still the scared, angry kid desperate for Dad’s approval.”
She wanted to wound me in an effort to make me back down. Knowing that didn’t make her claim hurt any less though. Like that glimpse of younger Faith, my teen self was never that far from the surface. Doubts bubbled inside me. Was that what this was? A bid for what I’d never had? What if I was staying for all the wrong reasons?
Unprovoked, my brain provided an image of Colt smiling the night we’d had our private drive-in. I had him. I had us. That was real and true and worth fighting for, no matter what Faith said.
“Me taking up ranching is me centering others for once in my life. Hannah. Colt. Willow. You.”
“Me?” Faith scoffed. “How in the hell does not selling help me?”
“Give us the rest of the year to try to make a go of it. Raise the value of the ranch. Let me show you that keeping it makes the most sense. Make your kid happy. Take time to decide what’s next for you while I watch Hannah. You can take a break, maybe go somewhere, get a new perspective on life. Wellness retreat?”
“I don’t need rehab.” She stomped off in the direction of the house, leaving me to follow. Predictably, she’d seen right through my euphemisms, but I had to try. She waited until we were near the back porch to continue her attack. “You don’t trust me with the money. Is that it?”
“You’re not in a good place right now, Faith.” Why I continued to use logic, I had no clue, but the alternative was to throw up my hands and rage at her stubbornness.
“I know. I’m here. On this blasted ranch, surrounded by ghosts.” Her voice wavered, a crack in her polished armor.
“I miss Mom and Mel too.” We didn’t say their names nearly often enough. I’d spent twenty-five years now missing my mom and my big brother and stamping that pain down, trying not to think about the loss. I’d felt them, though, in every room I’d tackled at the ranch house. Making peace with the past had also meant a bittersweet letting go. “And I’d give anything to make the past better for both of us. We deserved more from our childhoods. But that’s why we need to give Hannah better right now. We can break the cycle.”
“Another great T-shirt or bumper sticker.” She gestured wildly at the ranch surrounding us. “We’re more doomed to repeat history if we stay, and you should know that.”