She gave me a look that said, Say thank you, but manners were the last thing I was worried about.
“Let me have them, sugar,” she said to Will. “I’ll put them in water.”
“Can I come in?” he asked when she’d left.
“You have to leave before Daddy sees you.”
“Too late. He saw me on the way in.”
If I were ever going to hyperventilate again, this would have been the moment.
Will came in without an invitation, snagged my desk chair, pulled it close, and sat down. “He was down by the barn. I waved. He waved back.” He put my lit and history books and notebooks on the bed, withdrew a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of his blazer, and handed it to me.
In Will’s round, fat handwriting were my assignments for the rest of the week.
“I called the hospital,” he said, “but they told me you weren’t there.”
“I haven’t had a chance to text you.” That wasn’t true. Why hadn’t I texted him?
It didn’t matter right now.
“You need to leave.”
He smiled, which irritated me. “Nice to see you, too.”
“I mean it. You shouldn’t have come.”
“Somebody had to bring your books. Why not me?”
“You’re not just somebody.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“That’s not what I meant. He’ll know something’s up.”
“You could be wrong about him.”
“I’m not,” I snapped.
The brightness in his eyes dimmed. Gertrude returned bearing a vase, the daffodils erupting like sunshine over the top. She set it on the nightstand.
“I took some brownies out of the oven a while ago. They’re almost cool enough to cut.”
Will didn’t take his eyes from mine. “I won’t be staying that long. But thanks.”
She looked at me. “Sugar?”
“No, thanks.”
When we were alone again, Will said, “I thought you’d be happy I figured out a way to see you.”
“I didn’t want you to come to the hospital. What made you think I’d want you to come here?”
He flushed.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not happy. Neither is he. I’m missing a bunch of shows and weeks of training.”
“You had an accident.” He looked at me closely. “He’s blaming you for it, isn’t he?”
“He’s right. I wasn’t paying attention. I was thinking about—”
There it was. Right before I’d come off my horse, the only thing I’d wanted was to be finished with the day’s lessons so I could meet Will. Meeting him had been more important than riding.
Exactly as Daddy had predicted, a boy had been a distraction.
I remembered how he’d looked on Jasper. I’d never be the rider he was if I didn’t make another choice, here and now.
Shocks shot out from my spine, stinging me like wasps from within. “We talked about this. Remember? Nothing can interfere with my training. Sunday… I was thinking about getting through the lesson so I could be with you.”
“And that’s my fault?”
“No, but I don’t have room to fuck up.”
His face took on that stony expression I’d seen whenever he stopped himself from crying about Steve. “Are you breaking up with me?”
My pulse beat in my temples, my ribs. “Yes.”
He stared. “What the hell, Roan? After everything we’ve done, I can’t… I know I shouldn’t have come here, but… no, fuck that.” He stood up. “I’m not the problem. I can’t figure out this thing with your dad. There’s something wrong with him, or with you, or fuck, I don’t know, both of you.”
This was for the best, I thought, before he got any closer, before he figured it out, before I gave in to the urge to blurt out the truth to him, like I wanted to do right now.
I remembered the elasticity of Jasper’s back, how engaged and balanced he’d been, the calm connection he’d had with Daddy.
Did I really want a boyfriend who knew the truth about me, in which case he wouldn’t be my boyfriend for long, because what boy would want a girl who was fucking her father? Or did I want to be the rider Daddy was?
My throat tightened. “This isn’t about him. It’s about riding and training and—”
“Keep telling yourself that.” Will turned to leave and nearly smacked straight into Daddy.
The room vibrated as if they’d hit head-on. Suspicion flooded Daddy’s face. Will’s muscles tensed as if he were about to take a swing at a man who had two inches and thirty pounds on him.
“Will,” I said sharply.
Both of them looked at me.
“Will,” I repeated, “you remember my father. Daddy, Will brought my homework assignments.”
Daddy obviously didn’t believe me, but the ordinary words, spoken in an ordinary tone, diffused the tension. His expression smoothed into blandness. He put out his hand. “Of course. Will Howard from lit class. Good of you to come all the way out here.”
Will waited a beat too long before briefly shaking Daddy’s hand.
“No trouble. I was just leaving.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“No problem.” He shot me a dark look.
It was an awkward parting, no “see you at school,” no goodbye. Will simply left. He was through playing along. I should feel nothing but relief. He was unpredictable and careless. He’d known better than to come here. Yes, this was for the best.
Keep telling yourself that.
“What was he doing here?” Daddy said.
I held out the sheet of notebook paper with my assignments on it.
He scanned it. “I could’ve emailed your teachers for this.”
I patted the books beside me. “I needed these, too.” I tucked the paper inside my lit book.
“Did you ask him to do this?”
“No, sir.”
“So why him? Why not another one of your classmates?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Daddy touched the edge of a daffodil. “And these?”
Will could opt out, but I was committed to playing along. “They’re from the class.” Any girl could get flowers from a boy. I had other flowers in my future—namely, those bouquets riders received when medals were hung around their necks.
“You still want me to believe he isn’t the one calling the house all the time?”
I tried to make a dismissive face. “I asked him. He said no.”
“You expected him to tell the truth?”
I’d played Daddy’s game all my life. The playbook was proven and effective.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about him. Change the number. I don’t care. Everybody who needs to call you has your cell. Why do we even need a landline? I don’t ever use it. Get rid of it.”
“Maybe I will.”
I fake-yawned and scooched down in the bed. “Will you wake me for supper? I want to eat with you at the table.”
I closed my eyes. He left, but I knew he wasn’t satisfied with my answers. Neither was I. Through my relief, I was starting to hurt—but one day, I’d look back and believe sacrificing Will and even parts of myself had been worth it. Will wasn’t the love of my life. The love of my life was in the training barn. That’s what I had to focus on. Jasper, and riding, and my future.
Not some boy who didn’t understand the rules.
- sixteen -
SHORTLY BEFORE SIX, I started getting ready for supper. I couldn’t be inert and dull-witted at the table. Daddy wouldn’t be. He’d had time to think about walking in on Will and me. He’d be on the hunt.
I dressed in clean jeans and a fresh polo shirt and went to my closet for my sneakers. My phone was still plugged in. I’d come to think of it as a lifeline, but my life didn’t depend on Will, and my future damned sure didn’t.
The person it did depend on was coming up the stairs.
I sat on the edge of my bed to put on my sneakers.
“You’re awake already,” he said.
“I had a good nap.” I hadn’t slept, but I didn’t want him to think I’d been lying awake feeling… what? Sad. Heavy. Alone. “How’d the afternoon go?”
“Everyone got a good workout, including me. I’m feeling it.”
“Good. I mean, I’m glad everyone had a good workout.”
“All that riding is a lot on top of everything else,” he said. “Rosemont doesn’t run itself.”
“How can I help?”
He blinked. Score one for me. I’d prove my devotion to him and my career.
“You could show me how to use the bookkeeping program. I can write the checks and print them for you to sign.”
His eyes narrowed as he parsed my suggestion. I knew what he was thinking. How much of my offer stemmed from the desire to help, and how much stemmed from the desire to draw attention away from Will’s visit?
I laced my sneakers as if I weren’t keyed in to every fucking nuance of his thought process. “I need to learn it sooner or later. Or maybe I can do something for Eddie that would free him up to help you.”
“I’ll see.” He meant it literally, that he could see, with his still-narrowed eyes, what I was up to. “I’m hitting the shower.”
In the kitchen, Gertrude hummed along with the zydeco streaming from her phone. She took a casserole dish from the oven. Molten cheese bubbled up through cracks in a breadcrumb crust. On the range, something sizzled at high heat in a cast-iron skillet.
“Supper smells awesome.”
“Catfish.” She closed the oven door with her hip. “And mac and cheese. You look like you feel better.”
I opened the silverware drawer. “I do.”
She smiled. “Nothing like flowers to brighten someone’s day.”
I paused in gathering forks and knives. “They were from the class.”
“Never said they weren’t.” She bumped open the swinging door and disappeared into the dining room with the macaroni and cheese.
The bourbon was on the table and supper was on the sideboard when Daddy came downstairs, his hair damp.
He sat down and started making his drink. “I was thinking about your offer. What if you start writing your own blog posts?”
I hated to write, but I couldn’t argue with him. I’d offered to help.
“Okay.”
His eyebrows went up. I added being too agreeable to the list of things I couldn’t be if I didn’t want to tip him off.
“We’ll draw up a schedule for the posts. I’m thinking twice a week. I’ll help you with content.”
“Twice a week?” My dismay was real.
“You can’t pick and choose the jobs you want to do. It all has to be done.”
Score two for me, sort of. I’d have to come up with two posts a week, but I’d steered him back into thinking I wasn’t trying to ingratiate myself with him. I almost asked if I would be allowed to post on Facebook and Instagram, too, but I knew the answer. No way was he letting me loose on social media.
Gertrude set his plate in front of him.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Blackened catfish, but I went light on the cayenne.”
He gave her a dubious look. She wasn’t the best judge of heat. I’d seen her eat raw jalapeños straight from the garden.
“Try it.” She took my plate and turned back to the sideboard.
Daddy sampled the fish, and his face relaxed. “Excellent. Thank you.”
Steam rose from the food on my plate as she put it back on the table. “That was a nice boy who came to see you this afternoon.”
My face went so hot it had to be glowing red. Unfortunately, as I’d learned in biology, flushing was an involuntary response.
“He didn’t come to see me. He brought my books.”
Daddy’s eyes were on me, but he directed his words at Gertrude. “Nice? He struck me as rude.”
“Maybe you made him nervous,” she said. “Meeting the father?”
The heat flooded down my neck. “He’s met Daddy before. He wasn’t nervous. He’s a jerk. May I have the pepper, please?”
Daddy set the salt cellar and pepper grinder by my plate. “It was nice of him to bring her books.”
“It was only school stuff,” I said.
“And flowers,” Daddy reminded me. “Don’t forget about those.”
He wouldn’t.
“They were from the class,” Gertrude said.
“So I’ve been told. Still, he went out of his way. We should thank him.”
I ground pepper on my macaroni. “I did thank him.”
“What if we invite him over for supper?” Daddy said.
The flush spread to my entire body. “He’ll think we’re freaks.”
“Friday, Gertrude?”
“That’ll be fine.” She pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen.
“He doesn’t want to have supper with us,” I said to Daddy.
“Then he can say no. We’ll call him this evening and find out.”
“I’ll ask him at school tomorrow.”
“You’re staying home the rest of the week. Sitting in the bleachers was too much for you this morning. You’re not ready to sit three times that long at a desk. And thanks to Will, you can keep up with your schoolwork.”
He only wanted to keep me away from Will until he had a chance to assess the relationship firsthand, but there was no relationship to assess. We’d broken up. Anyway, Will would say no.
After we ate, we went into the study. Daddy sat behind his desk, picked up the handset, and held it out to me. I caught myself before I started to dial.
“I need the phone book.”
He put it on the desk between us and leaned back in his chair while I looked up the Howards’ number as if I didn’t know it by heart. I punched it in.
Mrs. Howard answered. “Hello.”
“Hi, Mrs. Howard? This is Roan Montgomery.” Saying my last name seemed stilted. I’d talked to her a couple of times. She knew who I was. “May I speak to Will, please?”
“Of course. How do you feel? He said you were hurt.”
“I’m fine. I’ll be back at school next week.” Like a lone rider venturing into the wilderness, if I told someone when to expect me back, I’d have to turn up then. Daddy couldn’t hold me captive indefinitely.
“I’ll get Will. Glad you’re feeling better.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Howard.” I looked down at the rosewood desk, warm with the patina of age and use.
“Put it on speaker,” Daddy said.
I couldn’t not do it. I pressed the button. People could usually tell when they were on speaker because the sound was tinny, but I’d have to let Will know right away so I could head off any romantic pleas to get me back.
Daddy and I waited in silence.
“What?” Will’s voice was clipped.
Scratch the romantic pleas—but his anger could be telling in its own way.
“Can you hear me okay? You’re on speaker.”
“Yeah.” Still clipped. “Why am I on speaker?”
“My father’s here with me. We thought you might like to come to supper Friday.” I had no problem sounding cool myself, but my face was approximately the temperature of a geyser.
“Okay,” Will said. “What time?”
Okay? He was supposed to say no. I’d make him change his mind before Friday. I’d tell him I didn’t want him here. That had been pretty effective this afternoon.
Daddy was expressionless, but his brain was like a computer. Software was always running in the background.
“Five.” He spoke loudly enough for Will to hear him.
Supper was always at seven. What were we going to do for two hours?
“I’ll be there,” Will said.
Like hell.
“See you then.” I clicked off the phone an
d gave the handset back to Daddy. He replaced it in the base.
“I’m tired and my side hurts,” I said. “May I go to my room now?”
“Go ahead. I’ll be up later to check on you.”
Upstairs, I swallowed some aspirin and changed into my nightgown. Then I paced and kept watch from my window, waiting for Daddy to leave the house. An hour passed before he went down to the barn.
I took my cell from the closet.
Will answered after the second ring. “Hello.”
He never answered that way.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Just you?”
“Yes. You can’t come to supper.”
“How’d I get invited in the first place?” He’d dropped his shortness of tone.
I was too annoyed to modulate mine. “How do you think? You showed up here, and he’s all over it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The dinner invitation wasn’t my idea. He wants to see how we are when we’re together.”
“So what’s he going to see?”
“Nothing, because you’re not going to be here.”
“You don’t think I can pull it off.”
“I don’t care whether you can pull it off. I don’t want you here.”
“Since your father invited me, I don’t think you can disinvite me.”
Anger made my voice unsteady. “Don’t do this. I’m telling you I don’t want you here. If you show up, anyway… I guess that tells me who you really are.”
“I guess it does,” he said.
The call dropped. Depending on weather and where I was—reception was good by the closet, better near the bed, and nonexistent in the bathroom—service could be sketchy. When I called him back, I went straight to voicemail. He could have been trying to call me at the same time, but there was no beep telling me I had an incoming call, only the beep that came after “It’s Will. Leave a message.”
The call hadn’t dropped. He’d hung up on me and turned off his phone.
“Don’t come,” I said. “Call the house Friday morning and say you’re sick. Unless you want to make my life a whole lot harder, stay away.”
I turned off my phone, put it back in the boot, and got in bed, where my heart beat so hard it hurt. Will’s visit reflected badly on me, but it had caused me to regain my senses. All he’d done was make my life harder. I’d never needed a boyfriend. I hadn’t wanted one. I hadn’t known how to hold hands, much less date. I’d known how to fuck him, and I’d done it because like every other rebellious teenager in the world, I’d wanted to defy a parent.
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