Young Buck: A Slow Burn Small Town Romance (Green Valley Heroes Book 5)

Chapter 35

Along drive after a long shift wasn’t my idea of a good time. But avoiding my father was necessary. For the next eighteen hours, he and Trevor would be gone. They’d be at the family hunting lodge buttering up some campaign donor.

Privacy was just the first reason why I needed him to be nowhere near me when I saw my momma. I was still fuming from my conversation with Tim. So much that I didn’t trust myself.

I wondered how much my father knew and how long he had known. Most of all, I wondered what my momma thought he would do. No one had asked her to elaborate when she’d alluded to it in Adam’s living room. But we’d all heard the fear in her voice.

“I’m here, Momma.”

I didn’t know which of us clung to the other more tightly as we greeted each other. The house was dark and quiet, and she’d given the help the night off. What we had to discuss, nobody else could hear.

I wasn’t surprised when she led us to the kitchen and rifled through the fridge. I would let her feed me if it gave her something to do. After convincing my father she still had the mysterious bug that had caused her to convalesce in Nashville, she’d spent much of the week in bed. Only I knew that the woman who could hide any emotion beneath a lipstick and a smile had barely functioned since her return.

“You look better than you did yesterday,” I commented lightly as she bustled around.

I’d insisted on video calls on each of the two days she’d been home. She was so good at pretending she was okay when she wasn’t that I’d needed to see her with my own eyes.

“That’s not saying much.” She mustered a small smile.

“Does Dad suspect?”

“I’ve hardly seen him this week. He’s too caught up in the campaign.”

Something in me hesitated before I asked the next question.

“How’s Trev?” He was the other brother I’d thought about nonstop. Part of me burned to tell him. Him not knowing now that I knew didn’t sit right. But it wasn’t right to tell him, either, not before we had a plan—not when his loyalties resided with our father.

“The first debate is Tuesday. Daddy had him rehearsing with a coach all week.”

“Seems like a lot for such a straightforward campaign.”

My mother kept moving around the kitchen. “Daddy wants to win.”

I watched her make me a sandwich, like she’d done hundreds of times. Today, her cheeks were sunken and her skin was dull. She looked as troubled as I’d ever seen her—the opposite of how a person should look after a tender reunion with a lost son.

“What do you want, Momma?” Maybe it all came down to that. She was the one in the most complicated situation.“Whatever it is, I know you deserve it.”

Her nod was barely perceptible and she slid her gaze out the window. I wondered whether she was afraid to say.

“I want a relationship with Adam.” Her voice was stronger now. “And I want to play music and sing again—not just for myself, for an audience. And I want to get past all of this with you and Trev.” Then, she told me something that—deep down—I think I’d known for a long time. “And I want to leave your father.”

I nodded in a way that let her know she didn’t need to worry about my reaction. “When are you gonna tell him?”

“Your father’s not the kind of man you ask for a divorce. He’s the kind of man you leave very carefully.”

“How carefully?” My hackles rose, and I thought of my conversation with Tim.

“He’s still your father, Bucky. I’m not here to turn you against him.”

“Any choice I made, I made a long time ago, Momma. Dad made his choices, too.”

I didn’t want to rehash the sorry state of my relationship with my father. More pressing matters were at hand. Like what he would actually do and how we could limit the fallout. My mother leaving him at all would be a huge blow, but Adam and Tim resurfacing would make it a double whammy.

“I tried to leave him. Once before,” she confessed. “He didn’t make it easy. You were ten. Trev was eight. He threatened to fight for sole custody. With all his money and influence, he would have won.”

“We’re not kids anymore,” I pointed out gently.

“No,” she agreed. “And I’m glad I didn’t leave then. Things were better, for a time. It’s hard to walk away from someone you’ve been with for almost thirty years. Some of those years were good.”

“So you were in love with him?”

I remembered my doubts, and Trevor’s insinuation that it had been a loveless marriage all along. I thought of how we’d never had a conversation like this before and might never again.

“He was smart, and funny, and not like anyone I’d ever met. During the loneliest time of my life, he was attentive and kind. He wasn’t the man he is now. He was spontaneous and idealistic. Once upon a time, he was young.”

I thought about this for a minute.

“So, what? He just whisked you away? Won you over with his charm?”

My mother smiled sadly. “You grew up flying in private jets. You met your first president when you were six. You never had to doubt that you were enough for this world. But I didn’t have any of that. At that time in my life, it meant something for a man of his stature to tell me I was worth something.”

I quieted again, letting it all sink in.

“Daddy and I were happy together for years—happier than you remember. Things only got bad when his wanting to win turned into need.”

I snorted derisively. “Dad never needed to win anything. With Grandma’s money, he didn’t need to work a day in his life.”

“He had his calling, just like you. Politics is who he is.”

“Well, I won’t be holding on to firefighting at sixty years old, or forcing my child to be like me. And I sure as hell won’t be trying to stop my wife from leaving using threats and intimidation. Dad needs to quit his obsession with his image, and his pride.”

Her expression became graver. “It’s not just pride, Bucky. Your father’s indebted to some folks. Not financial debts. Political ones.”

“Why would any of that matter? He’s been retired for years.”

“In office? Out of office? It doesn’t make a difference. All he really lost was the right to cut ribbons and sign bills into law. Behind the scenes, he’s still pulling strings.”

“So Dad got on the wrong side of someone. What does that have to do with you?”

“It’s the person he got on the wrong side of. Do you remember Cam Anderson? The one who funded your father’s campaigns for millions over the years? Last year, he ran for the state senate. Daddy said he could deliver the election, but he failed.”

I knew the man, of course. I’d been groomed to know which asses to kiss at parties from a very young age. Cam was a billionaire who had made his fortune as a manufacturing supplier for huge national retailers. He owned the largest illuminated sign outfit in the US.

“Cam needed to win to support his own business interests. In his mind, Daddy not delivering the election cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. He has to deliver on Cam’s new political agenda for them to be square. But Cam wants an insurance policy—proof that Dad still has people on the inside. That’s why Trevor needs to win.”

I almost asked the obvious question—why wouldn’t my father just say no? Rex Rogers wasn’t the kind of man to let himself be pushed around. Only one theory made sense. Cam had something on my father—something he didn’t want to come out.

“Dad’s being blackmailed.” I spoke my thought aloud. It gave me a sick feeling. I didn’t know how many more gut punches I could take. I had a secret brother; Trev was a pawn in a political scheme; my mother wanted to leave my father; and my girlfriend might want to leave me now that I’d vomited my opinions all over her.

“I’ve tried to talk sense into Trevor,” my mother continued with dejection. “But he’s his own man. He’s sticking by your father. I can’t say I understand why. I think part of me was holding out—trying to talk him out of this marriage to Prissy, and maybe this election. Now that I’ve met Adam...I just can’t wait anymore.”

“Let me help you.” I had no idea what I intended to do. I just knew I didn’t want her lying in the bed my father had made. “Tim said the same thing you did, about Dad.”

Her sorrow turned to surprise. “You talked to Tim?”

“Sounds like he’s had his own run-ins with Dad.”

We both fell silent. My mother was next to speak.

“The only way he’ll let me go is if I back him into a corner. To make it in his best interest to agree to a divorce.”

“You must know things.” I stated the obvious.

My mother leaned against the counter. “There are things I’m glad I don’t know. And things I know, but can’t prove. If I want to force his hand, I need to show I’ve got something and I’m ready to use it. And the timing has to be precise. I need to decide exactly when and how I’m gonna do it and be ready to walk out at the drop of a hat.”

Some part of me couldn’t believe I was standing in my mother’s kitchen scheming against my father. Some other part of me knew this is what it would take. I thought of Loretta and the night she stood right up to me about protecting the confidentiality of women married to dangerous men. I’d been too na?ve to see—even with my mother’s money and status, she was still trapped.

“What if I knew someone who might have some ideas?”

My mother gave me a quizzical look.

“The woman I was with Saturday night? She’s how I figured out everything I knew about Hinckley, and you, and Tim.”

“The two of you aren’t dating? She looked like your girlfriend. Absolutely gorgeous. When were you gonna tell me about her?”

Hope lit her eyes, but I wanted to stay on topic.

“We are dating. But she’s also a PI. Look?—”

My mother’s eyes widened in alarm. “Is she already investigating Rex?”

I spoke slowly, frowning. “No.”

“Because this is not the time to have an investigator sniffing around,” my mother went on. “Trevor’s opponent is deep in opposition research. Your father’s been watching who’s been watching. If she’s your girlfriend, you don’t want his folks to know anything about her.”

I frowned, doubly disturbed now that two people were worried about Loretta’s safety. “Tim gave me the same advice.”

“He offered to help, too,” she confessed. “But I’ve got to keep him away from this. If I moved out of here and didn’t tell Dad where I was going, Tim’s the first one he’d shake down. And you’d probably be the second.”

“Let him come for me,” I challenged hotly. “I’d like to see him pick on someone his own size.”

It dawned on me that I’d been waiting for this fight—that I’d wanted to take a shot at my father for years. A dark thought had niggled at my mind since Nashville. Some part of me had been disappointed when I found out Tim wasn’t my father. It eliminated the only good reason I could think of for Rex never loving me as much as Trevor.

“If you help me, you’ll be dead to him,” my mother said quietly. “He won’t pull strings to get you out of trouble. He’ll turn Trevor against you. He’ll cut you out of his will.”

“If I don’t help you, I won’t be able to live with myself,” I told my mother in earnest. “And I’m pretty sure I’m dead to him already.”