by L. J. Stock
I downed the last of my beer and slid the glass away from me.
“I didn’t touch the money for years. I waited for her husband to come and demand his money back, but a year became three, and I realized the second will had stayed sealed. They had no idea that Suzanne had given me a large chunk of her money.” I looked up and shook my head. “All the money was hers to begin with according to the paperwork, and she gave me Dustin’s inheritance. Most of it is in an account for Holly, but I borrowed some for the bar and have been paying it back with interest.”
“I had no idea.”
“No one did,” I said gently. “This wasn’t meant to be a secret. It just wasn’t something that ever came up in conversation, and I really didn’t waste much time thinking about. Holly knows that she has her pick of colleges when the time comes, and she knows that’s due, in large part, to her dad’s mother who wanted to make sure she was looked after.”
I’d barely finished talking when another beer was put down in front of me.
“Hey, there. Was wondering if you wanted some company?”
I looked up, and up, and up some more, and met the gaze of a gorgeous man with an award-winning smile. He had a cap on backward and his beard, though neatly trimmed, hung to a point under his chin, the warm brown color peppered with lighter strands, which made his lips look full when he smiled down at me. His eyes were beautifully almond-shaped but a deep brown that reminded me of melted chocolate. He looked like he fit in the bar wearing his boots, tight jeans, and the flannel shirt with a vest that looked warm with the sheepskin lining. He was a bonafide cowboy, and I had no doubt that he probably worked on one of the ranches that were dotted around the town. He carried himself with confidence, his thumbs draped through his belt loops to draw my eye to the buckle, but I cautiously kept my chin raised, my eyes on his.
“I have company, thank you.” My tone was clipped but polite, a hint of flirtation dancing around the edges. Working in a bar had made me very self-aware of how I carried myself. This direct masculine approach wasn’t something new.
“Want some more?”
Hitching my knee onto the booth bench, I turned to face him and smiled brightly. “I’m flattered, I really am, but I haven’t seen my friend since Christmas, and we’re catching up.”
“Well, now, you didn’t leave any lines to read between there,” he said, his smile warming more. There were men that would take offense to my decline, but he turned his cap and tipped the bill to me in respect. “Maybe next time.”
“Maybe,” I offered, rewarding him with my own genuine smile.
Spinning on the heel of his boots, the cowboy strode off to a group of other men. Most of them mirrored his look: long beards, western wear, and the look of a long day’s work being washed away with a couple of beers. A few of them slapped him on the back in commiseration and slid a beer in front of him as he turned and planted himself against the bar on his elbows and grinned over at me. I almost regretted turning him away… almost.
“Damn, I can’t even remember what it’s like to be hit on anymore,” Meg said, pulling my gaze back to her, even though her eyes were on the stranger.
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “I’m new meat is all. Who is that anyway?”
“You know, he looks familiar, but I can’t put a name to him. He’s probably a ranch hand out there at the Vann Ranch, but I don’t know. It’s weird… he’s familiar.”
“It’s probably the beard throwing you off.”
She squinted and tipped her head to the side. “More than likely. Men have it so fucking easy. They piss standing up and grow their own disguises. They even have an easier time getting themselves off.” She wiggled her fingers at me and let off a stream of air.
“Jesus, Meg.” I laughed, picking up the beer and raising the chilled glass to the guy who was still watching us. “You still have a way with words.”
“Give me a few more margaritas, and it’s just gonna get worse.”
“Is that supposed to be appealing or a deterrent?”
“Bit of both.” She stopped and accepted the margarita that came from the rowdy men at the end of the bar. “But before we get to the inappropriate portion of our evening, can I just say I’m glad you came. Even though you hate it here, I’m so glad you came. I’m also really glad that at least one of Dustin’s family recognized how important you were to him.”
“I knew I was important to him. I knew he loved me, and I know in my heart he would have loved Holly in that special unconditional way of his. When it comes down to it, that’s all that really matters. My little girl has a bright future ahead of her. She’s happy and loved, and for the most part, I’m happy, too.”
“All you need now is to realize you deserve to be loved again.”
“I’m not adverse to it.”
“No, but you’re not willing to commit, either.”
“I’m not going to settle.” I smiled over at her and shrugged.
“You never will while you’re comparing the men you meet to Dustin. He was a one of a kind, Kay, but as much as you don’t want to hear it,” she said, holding her hand up to stop my rebuttal. “He would be okay with you moving on.”
“What about how I feel?” I asked.
“You mean the guilt?” she asked, scooting forward. “Women who have been married for as long as you’ve been alive look less guilty about flirting than you do.”
“Meg. I get it, but why do I have to have someone in my life? I’m happy like this. I’m not going to carve out a spot for someone else if it’s unnecessary. When I know I’m not interested, I know it will end with me hurting them. If it’s going to happen, it’ll happen.”
“So, you’re telling me you’re open to a relationship.”
“Maybe, if it’s right.”
“And right there is where the problem lies. It will never be right when you’re waiting for Dustin.”
“I’m not waiting for him. I can’t. He’s dead. Do I expect to have a relationship that means as much as ours? No, I don’t. I know what he and I had was a once in a lifetime thing.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t have something different that’s just as amazing in its own way.”
“Why is this so important to you? It’s my life,” I said, slapping my hands down on the surface of the table.
“Maybe because I know how amazing you are, and I know you deserve to be loved and looked after, even though you don’t need it.”
I gave her a sobered look before letting go of my frustrations and laughing. “You’re so full of shit.”
“Just don’t lock that door when you still have your whole life ahead of you.”
“It’s not locked.”
“Good.”
“Awesome. Can we get drunk now?” I asked, sticking my tongue out at her.
Megan gave me a winning smile and flagged down our waitress in the growing crowd. This was going to hurt in the morning, but the pain of a hangover would be less agonizing than stirring up the past and dwelling on that agony for another two hours.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Coffee was generously thrust into my hands the moment I entered Megan’s kitchen the next morning. I hadn’t even mustered the ability to look in the cupboards in my small dwelling over the barn. I’d just rolled down the stairs, and tripped over roots of surrounding trees before hopping onto her porch and the magic of grunting the word materialized the mug there.
“Aunt Kay.” The chorus rose from miniature voices the moment the first drop had passed over my lips. Before long, two sets of arms folded around my waist, and I had to hold the coffee high and out of reach to stop any accidents from happening. I had Katie on one side and Emmett on the other, giggling as I groaned as though I was in pain.
“Good morning to you, too,” I sang to them as Holly grabbed my coffee with a grin, allowing me to bend and kiss the two cuties on the top of the head while returning their squeezes of delight. “What’s for breakfast?”
Emmett and Katie released me a
lmost reluctantly and ran back to the big farmhouse table and their abandoned food while I stole my coffee back with a kiss on Holly’s cheek. She’d already drunk a quarter of the cup.
“Pancakes,” Emmett announced, waving his fork around in triumph. “Mommy makes us shapes, and we have to guess them.”
“Really?”
“Yup. This one is a dirt bike.” He held up a misshapen pancake dripping with maple syrup. It looked nothing like a dirt bike, and when I turned my gaze to Megan with a smirk, she shrugged her shoulder with a laugh.
“Well, your mom is amazing. What about yours, Katie?” I asked, sipping my coffee. “What did you get?”
Megan’s daughter was a mirror image of Megan at that age, and she picked up another splat of the doughy mess. Her face was incredulous, not a look you think to see on an eleven-year-old. “A crown.”
I managed to keep my composure and nodded in interest, but Holly couldn’t keep her mirth locked away. She had never been able to. Her laughter, so bright and sunny, only grew when Megan dropped a couple of pancakes on her plate and raised her eyebrows in challenge. The sudden infectiousness of the sound set off the younger kids again until it was impossible not to join in. Folding my arm around Holly’s waist, I rested my chin on her shoulder and looked down at her plate.
“And what do you have, my treasure?” I sputtered.
“I wish I knew.” She lowered her voice to a staged whisper. “Do you think it’s edible?”
“Hey!”
“Just kidding, Aunt Meg. My… umm, stars? Look incredible.”
Meg rolled her eyes playfully and pointed at the table, effectively dismissing Holly and her mocked insolence. Leaning against the counter next to my best friend, I cradled the coffee mug and watched as she knocked out another half dozen pancakes without blinking.
“It’s the only way I can get Emmett to eat the fucking things,” she said under her breath. “The child hates geometric shapes.”
“Is that something he got from Rob?”
“I’m saying yes, just because I don’t want to claim that kind of lunacy. How are you feeling this morning?”
“Like a skunk sprayed in my mouth. You?”
“The same. At least Holly let you sleep in. Rob kissed me this morning and said tag. Bastard.”
“The shots were your idea, so I have no sympathy there.”
Megan smirked and lifted one shoulder. “It was so worth the pain. Watching you get up and sing ‘Bad Company’s’ greatest hits was a magical moment for me.”
“I wasn’t that drunk,” I replied, bumping her hip with mine.
“You were drunk enough,” she said with a laugh, handing me my own plate filled with perfect circles. “You may have been singing at the table, but it was loud enough for folk to hear.”
“It was ‘Seagull’.”
I took the plate and headed to the table, only to be stopped by Megan’s hand flinging out, an off-white envelope held between two fingers. We’d talked about what to do about the letter my dad had sent me when we’d caught a ride home in the only Uber in town. I’d taken on a no time like the present attitude, but faced with the damn thing now, I felt sick to my stomach and weak at the knees as I just stared at the tall, slanted handwriting scrawled over the front of the cheap security envelope.
“Shit,” I murmured, tucking the sealed letter into my pocket before heading to the table to eat. I was grateful that Holly hadn’t picked up on the exchange. She was still too invested in Emmett and Katie and their constant chatter about where they were going to take her and what she needed to see while she was here.
By the time Meg had joined us at the table, her two were talking over one another, determined to get Holly’s attention and have her agree to see their favorite spots.
“Y’all need to cool your heels,” Meg barked, sitting with her own plate in front of her and a bowl of coffee cradled between her hands. “Your daddy had to do a few things at work and is coming home to take y’all fishing. He’s bringing you a rod of your own, Holly, so you need to go put something old and warm on.”
Emmett was the first to leap from the table, but Meg caught him by the floppy material of his hood as he streaked past, his giggle coming fast as he leaned away from her and tested the grip she had on him.
“Hand it over, Emmett.”
Glancing at her over his shoulder, Emmett rolled his eyes before stabbing his hands into his pocket and holding out a mushed up pancake. Meg plucked the mess from him with her index finger and thumb, barely blinking when he stumbled as she released her hold on him.
“Cheater.”
“Pumpkin Eater,” he responded and dashed out of the room and toward his room at the back of the house.
“Cheater?” Holly asked, drinking the last of her milk and heading to the sink with her dishes—something she never did at home. Meg looked just as surprised when Katie followed suit and answered for her.
“He drops it in the water to attract more fish. Daddy says it’s unsportsmanlike.”
Throwing an arm around Katie’s shoulder, Holly grinned and led them toward the back of the house, where I was pretty sure they would hatch up some plan to ruin Emmett’s day.
“There goes trouble,” I mused, nibbling on some pancake.
“Good job Emmett gives as good as he gets. Little shit.”
“You wouldn’t change a thing about him.” I grinned at her and took another bite. The pancakes weren’t all that bad considering I was feeling the worse for wear.
“Don’t be so sure. I’m dreading his teen years. I see plentiful emergency room trips in my future. He’s absolutely fearless. He asked if he could jump from the roof into the pool the other day. He swims like a damn fish, but that’s over a six-foot leap.”
“You know he’s gonna figure out it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission one day.”
“I’ve ordered a straightjacket for the occasion.”
“For you or him?”
“Both,” she quipped, bringing the mug to her lips, a smile lighting her eyes.
The silence that settled between us beyond that conversation was an obvious one. The elephant in the room was currently sitting in my pocket and felt as though it weighed five hundred pounds. My curiosity was eating away at me almost as much as I was sure Megan’s was, but there was the other petulant side of me that didn’t want to hear or read a word my sperm donor had to say.
Even after Jeffrey Quinten’s death, there was nothing more than hesitation when my thoughts came back to him.
I’d spent so many years resenting my father, hating him, blaming him for Dustin’s demise that the thought of vindicating him in his own death terrified me. He would never know how much he’d hurt me. He would never understand how much he’d taken away from me or even what he’d taken from my daughter. Forgiving him, even after cancer had eaten away at him, didn’t feel possible, and if his words changed that, the only person I had left to blame was myself.
“It’s gonna drive you fucking nuts if you don’t open the damn thing,” Meg said, running her thumb along the handle of her mug. She knew the internal debate I had going on, and I would have bet a good chunk of money she could transcribe my thoughts with a precision that would scare most people.
I pulled the envelope from my pocket and set it in front of me. My other hand reluctant to leave my mug as the warmth tingled against the blood that was now chilled inside of me.
“I don’t think I can.”
“You can, honey. You just don’t want to, and I get that. In your position, I think I would be hesitant, too. Just remember that once it’s done, that’s it. You can finally move on and say goodbye for good.”
“I don’t want him getting in my head.”
“Then don’t let him, Kay. Just because he says something in there,” she said nodding at the envelope. “It doesn’t make it real. It doesn’t mean you have to take it to heart. Hell, you can scrunch it up and throw it in the fire.”
“But I would always k
now.” I tapped my fingers on the paper thoughtfully.
“You’ll always know the truth as well. You can’t go to the lawyer and finish all of this until you read it, honey.”
I groaned out loud and flipped the envelope to the back, where a lot of scribbles covered the surface, obviously having gone through the system before it had reached me. Meg was right. It had to be done if I wanted to move past this. My father had made sure I would read this letter, and that just pissed me off.
“I’m going to get the kids ready,” Meg said gently, scooping up the leftover plates as she stood. “You read, and call if you need me. I’ll be right here.”
I nodded, staring at the envelope for a while longer even after she’d left. When the words started to melt together, I picked the damn thing up, slipped my finger under the sealed edge and dragged my finger along, almost expecting a paper cut from the thing as the sides separated and produced a couple of lined sheets of paper with the same slanted writing as the addressed side. I blew all the breath from my lungs, unfolded the sheets, and began to read.
Mikayla,
I’ve written you hundreds of letters over the years. Some I sent, others I kept, but I knew the one thing they all had in common was that you would read none of them. I deserve that. After what I put you through, I deserve all the pain in the world to fall on my shoulders, and maybe you feel that I deserve that, too. Just know that it’s okay that you hate me, kid. When I think back to all those years, I know that I let you down. I also know that I let your mom down, too.
I know Jennifer talked to you about your mom a lot. She was real good about that when I couldn’t bring myself to talk about your mom much, let alone with you. Not when you reminded me so much of her. I think you figured out that you came as a surprise to us, but Jesus, your mom loved you. After you were born, you lit up our world and made everything okay again. Your mom smiled all the time, and I remember I would come home from work and there you would be, grinning up at me like you couldn’t have taken another moment if I didn’t get there right then. You’d sit cross-legged on our bed while I changed in the closet, chattering away about your day and the trouble you’d got yourself into, the music you learned and the stories your mom read to you. I felt like the luckiest son of a bitch in the world.