by Snow, Nicole
“Your mother says...that you were married over a month ago,” Dad begins, folding his hands neatly in his lap.
Uh-oh. I just nod, flinching inwardly at how I don’t like deceiving him. “It’s true,” I whisper.
“Why?”
I don’t respond. What can I say?
Drake returns, the perfect interruption, handing an open beer to Dad and a water bottle to me.
“Where’s yours?” Dad asks him, looking him up and down.
Drake glances at him, his brows lifting, and then at me. “Do you want me to stay?”
“Please,” both Dad and I say at the same time.
He nods, and then shrugs. “Got it. I’ll be right back.”
Skirting around my dad’s earlier question, I ask, “So, uh, where is Mom?”
“Asleep. She went to bed early with a migraine. Something about how she’s having withdrawals because we can’t get a decent meal in this town. I tried to take her a couple towns over to a steakhouse last night, but...you know.”
Yeah.
Unfortunately, I do.
There’s no pleasing her when the whole world doesn’t shift on its axis to her whim. And right now, she’s living upside down every day I don’t just give in and let her plunder Gramps’ legacy.
“That’s too bad,” I say softly. I think I mean it more for Dad than her.
“I didn’t tell her where I was going. She was sleeping.” He takes a long swig of beer and then looks at the bottle like it tastes better than it should. Or maybe better than he remembers.
He takes another good drink as Drake returns and sits down next to me, a matching bottle in his hand.
Dad holds his beer bottle gingerly and leans in. “Look, you may not believe it, Mr. Larkin, but I knew my father. I knew him well.” He waves a finger at Drake and I. “And this, this marriage between you two, is right up his alley. Something he’d orchestrate. It’s not exactly hard to figure out what happened here.”
Drake is dead silent, and so am I.
Neither of us wants to flat-out lie about it, though, so silence is our best option.
“Frankly, I wasn’t surprised when Dad left you everything, Annabelle.” Dad smiles softly, his eyes far off, shaking his head. “I don’t care about the fortune, honestly, not like your mother does...but it scares me. Worries me for you to be in that position at North Earhart. And it scares me to think of the lengths Dad would go to make sure he gets what he wanted, for you to inherit everything and carry out his wishes.”
“He just wanted North Earhart to continue as is. For Dallas to thrive after he was gone,” I say. “It won’t go down that way if...” I stop, not wanting to point out the obvious if Mom gets her way.
He nods. “I know. And I know what he always thought of Molly, too. It was never a big secret.” He takes a slow pull off his beer and sets the bottle down. “When I first told him we were getting married, he told me to think long and hard about it because he didn’t believe in divorce. Did he tell you that when he arranged the marriage between the two of you?”
Nope. Gramps hadn’t said anything to me. I didn’t even know about it.
I just slowly shake my head, taking a drink of water so I don’t have to elaborate.
Dad looks at Drake next. “What about you? I know he had to say something to set this up?”
Drake’s expression doesn’t reveal anything. Neither does the way he shakes his head.
“Well, maybe he changed his mind over the years,” Dad says. “But I doubt it. He wasn’t really the sort of man who changed with the winds or the times.”
My heart starts pounding. I don’t know why, but this eerie calm, this strange, revealing conversation isn’t Dad at all. But it’s not fake.
This is him, coming out, looking for answers. Part of me wants to shrivel up in fear. The rest wants to just walk over and wrap my arms around him.
Drake’s bright-blue eyes meet mine for the briefest second. I give him a look that says, it’s okay. Let him go on.
Dad leans back in the chair and crosses his legs. “I know you loved him, Annabelle, loved him more than anyone. I did too, once, before your mother came along. I still love him. He was a good father. I never wanted for anything, and I know, deep down, he just wanted the best for me...even if he went about it in a damn ridiculous way.”
Wow.
I’ve never heard him say anything like this. Not even close.
“When my mother died, Dad was devastated. She went to bed that night just like every other night and was dead the next morning. A brain aneurysm. Our lives changed in a split second. He was still ranching then and pulling eighty-hour weeks sometimes at Earhart, and I—” He shrugs. “I was expected to take over where she left off. The household and farm chores. I was seventeen, a senior in high school, played every sport, was on the student council...all the things kids that age do. The last thing I wanted was to come home to cook and clean and run after the chickens. We argued about it a lot. I thought he should hire someone to do it, and he thought I should because I was his son. He always had a weird hangup about our home life, insisted it ought to be family only...but I guess that’s another thing he changed over the years. Hiring help.”
Dad nods at Drake.
I can believe what he’s saying because whenever I’d suggest Grandpa should hire someone to help him around the house, he’d tell me I sounded like my dad. Until Drake.
“I knew your mom from school, but we ran in different circles. I’d never even talked to her, until one night. After a basketball game, I was at the gas station, and saw her running down the alley with no coat on. I caught up with her, asked if she needed a ride. She jumped in and told me to drive. Drive fast.”
“What do you mean?” My heart crawls up my throat, and I reach over, wrapping my fingers around Drake’s hand.
“Her clothes were torn, her hair a mess, and she was sobbing. Turns out, her aunt’s boyfriend just tried to rape her.”
There are plenty of times in this conversation where my heart almost rips in two, but I think it’s right there where I lose it.
Drake squeezes my hand, tight and comforting, as my other hand presses against the pain in my chest. Tries to hold it in. But there’s no stopping the tears that roll down my cheeks.
“Before I say anything else, let me make this clear – your mother doesn’t ever need to know what I’m telling you. She doesn’t want to relive the past,” Dad says firmly. “The girl I married came from a different world. Never knew who her father was. Her mother abandoned her when she was five. She was tossed from relative to relative and wound up living with her aunt most of the time because the state paid her aunt to let her live there. I brought Molly home with me that night, here to the ranch, and...as generous and understanding as my father was to those in need, he refused to let her stay.”
“What? He did?” I ask before I even realize the words came out. “Why?”
“He had a list of reasons, from not trusting her to steal us blind, to saying she was none of our business. He did call the sheriff, had the boyfriend arrested and then run out of town. Said he’d fixed the problem and that would be the end of it. I knew it wouldn’t be. Her aunt would just get another boyfriend, another abuser. Molly had no place to go unless I did something.”
Holy hell.
My heart aches for my mother, probably for the first time in my life, for all she’d been through. I’m starting to see what made her such a human cactus.
And I can’t get over how much Gramps disappoints me. Really, even if it was a long time ago, there’s no excuse.
“I knew Molly wasn’t pregnant when I told my father she was. Her aunt had put her on the pill long before then, but I knew I was her only hope of escaping this town. Dallas isn’t bad, but it’s like any place, it’s got a seedy underbelly. Bad people. I also realized she was my only hope of escaping my father. He was already saying I didn’t need to go to college, between the ranch and the oil company, I didn’t need an education. Didn�
�t need to leave him alone.”
He takes another big drink of beer. “So we got married and moved away, went to college. Dad finally relented. Maybe part of him felt guilty for how he treated her when he saw I was serious. He paid for everything, which I’m very grateful for...”
I need a minute. Slowly, I release the pent up breath in my lungs and try to inhale again.
Drake doesn’t just hold my hand. He leaps from his chair and drops to my side, wrapping his arms around me tight, holding me up while my entire world falls to pieces.
It’s a harsh minute before I’m ready to hear more. Dad waits patiently, and then starts again when I nod, and so does Drake.
“We moved back here after college, but it didn’t work out. Molly and Dad were like oil and water. There wasn’t a single thing they could agree on. My father never lived a day without working long hours, and your mother never knew anyone who had worked a stable job. Her entire life, when she’d needed something, clothes, food, shelter, she got it by luck or someone begging. Or sometimes she just went without. That’s all she’d ever known. She’d never known love, either. Not the normal kind.”
Dad uncrosses his legs and leans forward, looking at me. “I’m telling you all this, Annabelle, because I’ve been in your shoes. I had to decide if what my father wanted was also what I wanted. Just like you, he held the ranch, the oil company, over my head. He said it was all or nothing. His everything was this. The ranch, the oil company, they were him. And his nothing was Molly.” He sits up. “I chose your mother because she needed me more than your grandfather did.”
I’m shocked by what I’ve just been told. Stunned, amazed, confused.
I shake my head. “But you’ve always worked for North Earhart?” He’s always received a check from them. I know he has.
“No, I haven’t. When we left here, it was with nothing, not even a vehicle because he’d paid for it. Because I’d planned on working for Earhart Oil after college, my degrees were in business and geology, so I got a job with another oil company down south. Jupiter Oil.”
“Holy – no way.” I look at Drake. His expression says he didn’t know either.
“It’s true,” Dad says. “Avery Briar didn’t work there then, but believe me, I know my dad would turn over in his grave if Jupiter ever acquired North Earhart.”
“How long did you work there?” I ask, still processing all I’ve been told.
“A few years. Then Dad and I came to an agreement. It drove him crazy to see his own son working in the industry, but not with him. I told him I wouldn’t work for anybody besides North Earhart, but I wouldn’t work for him, either. Not directly.” He nods, as if thinking something else. “The closest your mother and I ever came to getting a divorce was when you were born.”
I hold my breath again, just looking at him, holding his gaze that’s too soft, too gentle, too real.
“Because no matter what she thought of him, or him of her, I wasn’t going to deny my father the opportunity to know his only granddaughter. The guilt of leaving him alone, all those years ago, still lives inside me. I know how lonely he was. I know how complicated things got. I knew that then, too, and felt damn guilty about it. I hoped you’d help heal the rift.”
He holds up a finger and takes the last swallow of his beer.
Holy hell. I can’t help but glance up at Drake, thinking about him and his father, and the reason he stayed here to help Gramps.
Guilt. That’s the poison threads that bind too many lives.
Drake doesn’t look at me, just takes a thoughtful swallow off his beer.
“But I heard there was a deal? An understanding Gramps made with you so Mom would have to let me see him?”
“Yeah, we’re getting there,” Dad says. “I also knew my father. So I made him agree to a custody agreement, because I knew if I didn’t, he might find a way to take you away. Even though I couldn’t deny him from knowing you, I wasn’t going to let him take you away from me and your mother. Just like I wasn’t going to let her hold you back from knowing your grandfather.”
My eyes burn from the tears forming. “Jesus. Why...why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?”
Dad shakes his head solemnly, sincerity filling his eyes. “Because I’d hoped it wouldn’t matter. Ever. I hoped you’d have your memories, without any need to tarnish them. But when your mother told me you two were married over a month ago, I knew Dad played his trump card. Found a way to take you away from us after all.”
God.
God, this clusterfrick makes my head spin. I don’t know what to think or feel or decide about any of it.
I don’t hate Gramps, I loved him too much for that to ever happen.
I don’t hate my mother, either, not anymore. Even if I won’t give in and she’s made my life a living hell.
I definitely don’t hate my father either. Now, I’m starting to understand why he’s always been so mute, so ground down, so quiet. He’s tried to be the peacemaker in an impossible fight.
I get it, I really do, but have no earthly idea where that leaves me.
Or this madness I’ve gotten myself into.
“I just don’t understand you, Drake,” Dad says, cutting through my thoughts. “What he did to make you go along with all this? Dad was always quite the deal maker, but his deals were always for his benefit. You can’t come out a winner in this; it’s impossible. But I looked the will over, had our own estate lawyer check it, too, and...there’s nothing written in it for you beyond a very normal salary and severance package.”
A chill washes over me as I look at Drake. I wonder, too.
Guilt or no guilt, does it really explain why he’s sticking through this?
He gives my hand a squeeze before releasing it and leaning forward to set his beer on the coffee table.
“I’m not looking to come out a winner,” Drake says. “When the time comes and I leave here, it’ll be with nothing more than what I owned the day Jonah died.”
“Why then? Why’d you agree to his demands?” It’s the first time in this whole discussion Dad’s voice gets an edge to it.
I sense he doesn’t believe Drake. The desire to lay a hand on his arm is strong, but I ball my hand into a fist to keep it from happening.
Jesus. Have I been too quick to believe all he’s told me? Parts of my father’s story jibes with Drake’s story, but others don’t.
“Like you said,” Drake tells him, “Jonah was lonely when we met. Had been for years. When he pulled me out of my truck in a blizzard, I was lonely, too. My father died shortly before then, and I guess Jonah and I both needed a friend. That’s what we became. When he needed a caretaker as his health slipped, I knew there was no one better who could do the job.” He glances at me. “No one better he wanted to come to take care of him, I mean. Because he didn’t want them to see him breathless and frail. So I stayed. Up till the very end.”
Dad nods, rubbing his chin, something he does a lot. It always reminds me of Gramps.
“And?” He shrugs. “What does that have to do with marrying my daughter?”
Drake’s face is expressionless, which makes my insides jittery.
“Jonah told me his version of what you just shared with us,” Drake says. “There are some differences, but it’s a familiar story. He never mentioned you working for Jupiter, though. It does explain why he hated the company even before Briar took the helm and approached him for a buyout.”
Dad folds his arms. “Please go on. I’m listening.”
“Jonah’s office has a file full of intel on the company. Its employees, its infractions, its prospects. He was convinced that as soon as Bella inherited everything, Jupiter and Avery, specifically, would pressure her into selling out.”
“So you agreed to marry a woman you didn’t know to prevent that? Simply because you were his friend and caretaker?” Dad scratches his head.
Fishy is the word Gramps would use for this scenario. That’s what Dad’s thinking, too, and for a second, part of
me wonders the same, even though I’ve already gone over it a hundred times.
“No,” Drake says. “I did it because I believe in saving lives. Jonah had the right intent, wanting to protect the town.”
My entire being shivers, and I slide my hands under my thighs to hide how they tremble.
Dad’s frown deepens. “What are you saying?”
I bite my bottom lip, wondering how Dad will react when Drake says Gramps was afraid something could happen to me. Something worse than being bullied by Mom, or Avery, or God knows what.
“I agreed to marry Bella because it means anything she owns goes to me, upon her death.”
“Her death!” Dad exclaims, pushing his legs against the floor. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“If I wasn’t married to Drake, it would go to you and Mom,” I say, and then flinch, knowing how awful it sounds.
Dad’s face turns pale. “You thought we’d kill you? Over—”
“No,” I say. “I didn’t. I don’t.”
“Then why’d you agree to marry a total stranger?” Dad asks angrily.
My shoulders slump. I hadn’t agreed. I’d been tricked, but I can’t tell him that part.
“She didn’t know about the will.” Drake stands up and walks toward the fireplace. He leans one hand on the wooden mantle attached to the rock chimney. “She doesn’t know the danger she’s in, either. And neither do you.”
“Danger from what? Who? If there’s something going on, why can’t we just go to the police and –”
“No. Not that easy,” Drake says, his voice a low growl.
“I don’t understand. What are you getting at?” I’m glad Dad asked the question because I can barely swallow.
“Jupiter Oil has drill sites across the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Montana. It’s not the same company it was when you worked there. Not since Avery Briar got his hands on it. Wherever they’ve been over the last ten years, there’s nothing but abuse. Safety issues, brawls, workers stiffed on pay, and...a trail of missing, dead women.” He doesn’t look at me, just my father. “Especially wherever Avery Briar goes with his demon son.”