Chapter 14 #2
“Thank you for trusting me enough to do this favor for you. I know it’s not just about making a judge happy.
I know that you must believe I’m a good person if you let me around Sadie, and that means a lot to me, your trust and…
your belief in me.” Her bottom lip wobbles for a moment, but she smiles, takes her hand back, and adds, “But if this talk isn’t worrying you, which is? ”
My eyes never leave hers. I love the flecks of gold swimming in her emerald irises, it’s unique and gorgeous, and not anything I’ve ever seen before. “The talk we’ll have the day you leave.”
She tips her head back, the ends of her long hair swaying against the back of the old kitchen chair as she shakes her head.
“I don’t want to cry,” she whispers, then tips her head forward again, searching for composure as she blots at the corners of her eyes with the napkin.
“But I’m not looking forward to that day. ”
“No?” This is news to me. I would have thought she’s itchin’ to get back to the city, and to wake up somewhere where a devilish rooster isn’t waiting to take you out at the ankle. Or in a house that has an air conditioner, or, hell, I picture her wanting to be anywhere but here.
Quinn shakes her head as Sadie runs back down the hall toward us. She doesn’t get to put words to that head shake, but I put a pin in it, reminding myself to ask her again later.
“Turns out,” Sadie says, slipping back into her seat, “I had to pee, too!”
“Well, then I’m glad I asked,” I respond, helping Sadie get her napkin on her legs. She outstretches a hand to me, and one to Quinn, then smiles. “I’ll say grace!”
After Sadie says grace, I turn my focus solely on my daughter.
This part is on me, because Sadie is my girl, and it’s important to me no matter who is around now or a few months from now that she knows just what I’m doing and why. I’ve had a broken heart. I don’t want her to go through that, either.
I take her hand and give her all of my attention. “Before we eat, I wanted to talk to you about me and Miss Quinn.”
Sadie’s eyes go wide, and she slaps both of her hands over her mouth, feet kicking like crazy beneath the blue tablecloth. “You’re getting married?!”
“What?” I cut a look at Quinn, who’s wearing more shock on her face than I am. “Who— Why’d you ask that?”
She drags her finger through the mashed potatoes and licks it off, and I don’t reprimand her for that because I’m still processing her guess. Quinn reaches across the table, pulling Sadie’s finger through her napkin, softly saying, “Forks and spoons are better for that, Sadie Ruth.”
“Sadie,” I say, confusion pushing my brows down over my eyes. “What makes you think me and Miss Quinn are getting married?” She’s got no reason to think I’d be marrying Quinn, unless I’ve done a very bad job explaining what a documentary is.
Sadie looks between us, and now she looks puzzled. “She moved in last week.”
“That was because Miss Mabel rented her room to someone else,” I explain, which in this situation is a lie, but not a bad one. I’m asking the universe to work with me under the current circumstances.
She reaches for her fork, her little tongue pinched between her lips as she decides on where she’ll take her first bite. “Well, I prayed that she’d come live with us, and that happened, so I prayed that you’d marry Miss Quinn, too!”
Quinn laughs, and it’s so high-pitched and broken, so completely awkward and uncomfortable, that it makes me laugh, too. Then Sadie laughs, and we all sit there, laughing for a moment until I stop, and say, “Well, you’re right. Miss Quinn and I are getting married.”
Sadie lifts her arms in celebration, the same way Tate and I do when the Cowboys score. Where do you think she learned it from, after all? “Yes!” she celebrates. “Yes, yes, yes! I love you, Miss Quinn, and I can’t wait for you to be my mama!”
Oh fuck.
Silently, Quinn gets to her feet and begins pulling open cabinet doors, looking above the fridge, under the sink, and even in the spice cabinet.
I’m fairly certain she and I are sharing the same, this is gonna hurt like a bitch when it ends wavelength right about now, and so I say, “Top cupboard on the left,” without looking.
A moment later, I hear her drag the whiskey bottle from the shelf.
“Sadie, sweetheart, there’s something we need to talk about. And it’s about Miss Quinn and I getting married.”
Quinn returns to the table and grabs my hand with hers, squeezing it so hard I start to wonder if she isn’t hiding some bareback skills herself.
Rider or not, I’d like that grip on my cock.
I glance up and see genuine fear in her eyes, and my chest burns at that moment, because I know she feels it for Sadie, not for herself.
Fuck. I’m gonna fall in love.
“We’re gonna do it tomorrow, after school, right at the courthouse.” Details are important. You cannot ever lie to children. I believe that. Minus the whole Mabel’s got a new tenant thing. I get a pass on that.
I scratch the back of my head. We’d made those plans, indeed, but we’re veering far from the talk I had planned.
“Do I get to come? Do I? Do I get to wear my favorite dress?” Sadie brings her hands together and twists her face up to make the expression universally acknowledged by parents around the world as the beggin’ face.
“Please, Daddy, let me wear Petunia’s handed-me’d-downed dress.
Please, please, please, I don’t ever get to wear it! ”
Quinn tips her head to the side. “Is it here? Can you run up to your room and get it, bring it down for me to see?”
Sadie looks at me, and I nod, because I’m not sure what the hell is going on.
Sadie pushes away from her untouched meal and bolts upstairs, and from between her legs, Quinn produces the bottle of whiskey.
My cock throbs, and my throat bobs as I try my hardest not to imagine licking whiskey from her inner thighs, bare and soft.
I can almost hear how tenderly she’d moan for me.
How sweet she’d taste. The whiskey would go down so smooth.
“C’mon, tip your head back, I’m serious.” She is. And that little fire in her eyes has me obeying, easily.
Tipping my head back, I open my mouth and enjoy the warm trickle of booze for a minute. She takes one too, sealing her lips around the bottle in a way that has me wanting to bed my fiancée.
“Okay, look. I know you were gonna tell her this is all just on paper, a plan.” She waves her hand. “Whatever it is, I get where you were going but…” Quinn shakes her head, eyes wet with emotion. “I can’t do that to her. I can’t steal her dream away like that.”
I sigh, realizing this is all my fault. “I know. I hate it. But, Quinn, we aren’t really gettin’ married.
We aren’t really a couple. We have to tell her the truth.
” I shake my head, stroking my fingers down the unkempt, unshaved jaw.
My life’s been a mess, in shambles, just like this ranch and this house, for so long now.
I wish this thing with us were real.
It would be nice. But life isn’t dreams and rainbows, it’s long days on a ranch you can’t afford, just to fight the in-laws you always hated in order to keep the kid that’s rightfully yours. “It’s not real, and she has to know that.”
Quinn takes another pull of whiskey. “Hear me out. What if we pretend it’s real, and then a few months after the Montgomerys are off your back, we start explaining to her that we work better as friends, and I’ll promise to come visit—and I will, Landry.
I promise,” she says, clutching her heart, “I will come back and see her as much as I can.”
“You can’t make that promise, Quinn. You can’t tell me that after you go back to Melvin and make up that you’re gonna fly out to Texas and visit a little girl you don’t even know anymore,” I say, reaching for the bottle of whiskey now, too, because I hate this.
I hate this damn situation I’m in, but I cannot for the life of me throw in the towel. Not yet.
I still have to make sure Sadie is mine.
Sadie stomps down the stairs, dragging a white fluffy dress behind her. I don’t know why on God’s green earth Tate and Love bought that thing, but it’s been passed down to us and Sadie’s hell-bent on wearin’ it.
“Taffeta.” Quinn smiles, “and lace. Wow, that’s fancy, Sadie, I love it.” And as much as I know she can’t love that eighties-prom-dress-for-a-child-lookin’ monstrosity, I honestly can’t tell by the way she’s acting. Sweet, polite, and excited for my girl.
An ache runs through me so deep I have to bring my hand to my chest and knead it out. “Sadie, honey, you can wear the dress, but I got to talk to you.” Sadie plunks down, and Quinn starts eating large spoonfuls of potatoes.
“Miss Quinn and I are getting married because she’s helping me. I like Miss Quinn a lot, and she likes me, but we aren’t in love, like a mama and daddy are in love. We’re friends, friends that are getting married,” I repeat, spreading my hand over my chest, “as a favor to me.”
“Why do you need Miss Quinn to marry you as a favor?” she asks, glancing at Quinn who is still emotionally filling herself with buttery potatoes.
I scratch at the back of my head. As tough as this is, this is the only way.
I can’t really lie to her, not about this.
Even if she’s just a child. It’d be wrong.
“Your grandparents,” I start, and Sadie knows exactly who I’m referring to, because the Montgomerys have been sending her cards and letters about the beauty of Dallas and their extravagant travels since she was six months old.
As if I read my widow’s parents’ brag letters to an infant.
“They think you’d be better off livin’ with them because they have money and their house is all fancy. And you’ve probably noticed, I’ve had some trouble around here the last year or so, you know, fixin’ things when they break, stuff like that.” Shame weighs on my shoulders and heats my cheeks.