CHAPTER SEVEN
Katarina
“Do you think she’s alive?”
“I dunno, she doesn’t smell like it…”
Their conversation filtered in through my ringing ears. My head pounded and my mouth was so dry I could hear the rasp of my tongue as it peeled itself from the roof of my mouth. Ugh, what’s that smell? What’s that taste?
A cold finger prodded my eye.
“Ow!” I shouted, batting at it wildly and the sudden action caused my stomach to lurch dramatically. “Oh no,” I moaned and a moment later I was handed the small trash can from my room.
I retched for a few minutes before I managed to pull myself together. I looked up through the dank strands of my hair to see Tilly and August watching me with interest.
“Why are you looking at me like I’m the newest zoo exhibit?” I grumbled, clutching my pounding head.
“Because you are?” Tilly shoved two aspirin at me and August held out a glass of water. I took them and swallowed the pills with only a small sip of water because my stomach was already gearing up for round two.
“You never get wasted. It was super funny,” August giggled, and I shot her a withering look.
“You sang…it was not good,” Tilly snorted.
I pressed a hand to my forehead. “Okay, thank you very much Nurse Tilly and Nurse August but I can look after myself now.”
Tilly shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“Might I suggest a shower?” August piped up, expression innocent.
“You might,” I grumbled and reluctantly heaved myself out of bed. I wobbled to the adjoining bathroom, wondering what the hell had happened last night. Thankfully the steaming hot shower soon had me feeling like myself again.
I dressed in my raggedy overalls and The Lonely Bison tee and pulled my wet hair back into a high ponytail. I ventured downstairs to find a blissfully quiet house, poured myself a cup of coffee and took it out onto the porch. Resting the steaming mug on the porch railing, I looked out over the land.
Gorgeous green pastures with grazing cattle, the hazy sun rising in the blue sky. The lodgepole pines and bur oak trees swaying in the breeze as they guarded the land from the road. I picked up my mug and strolled down the steps and around the back of the property where I was greeted with a view of the Teton mountains off in the distance. This place was so damn picturesque and I couldn’t imagine not being here.
I’d moved back from Christchurch College when it became clear that Daddy was struggling in his grief to look after the ranch and raise four young girls. My classes hadn’t been going great. I was behind, and it took me longer to wrap my head around everything the way other students did so easily. I’d felt like a total failure trying to keep up with everyone else, but I was determined to push through.
However when I knew Daddy needed help, I dropped everything: my life, my dreams, gave them all up in a heartbeat to help my family. And I would again. Being at the ranch, looking at this view and knowing there was nothing else out in the world that could ever beat it, gave me the boost I needed to do something I’d been dreading.
I started to head back inside to make a call but stopped when the cabin caught my eye. It was an old log cabin that was meant to be a little getaway. One bed, one bath and a whole lot rundown. The windows needed replacing; the miniature porch had two broken steps and the gutter was hanging off. I didn’t know what the inside looked like, as I had never really been in it. It was Daddy’s domain.
“Oh, shit,” I gasped when a flicker of memory from last night came back to me. Jack, the bench, the vomit, the deed !
“Shit, shit, fuck, shitting, fuck, fucker!” I chanted as I ran back towards the house, sloshing coffee everywhere. I set the mug down inside the doorway and pounded up the stairs to my bedroom. I found my discarded clothes on the floor and rummaged in the pockets of the shorts.
“No, no, noooo!” I wailed, coming up empty.
Jack had the deed.
I’d waved it in his face, a red flag to a bull and now I didn’t have it. He could sign it and take what was, rightfully, his. I slumped onto the floor and buried my head in my hands. How was I going to tell the girls what happened? When he turned up and started living there and they had to face him every day? A reminder of what he’d taken from us.
My bedroom door swung open. “Hey Carrie Underwood, when’s your next concert?” Maddy chuckled to herself as she came in. When she saw me, the smile slid from her face.
“What’s wrong?”
I sighed, sinking into the loveseat by the window. “I guess I’d better tell you before he turns up. So you know how Daddy had been visiting Jack in prison?”
“Yes, now I do, apparently some people felt that wasn’t something important that should be shared with me, their best friend,” Maddy spoke through gritted teeth.
“So the part you’re most angry about is that Heartthrob Leo kept it from you, rather than Dad visiting Jack?” Maddy’s cheeks flushed when I used her teenage nickname for Leo.
“Don’t call him that!” She shrugged. “I mean I guess it bothers me but, I also get why Daddy was seeing him. Holding onto grief and anger takes so much out of a person. He needed to move on and forgive.” She paused. “Like we all do.”
I reeled. “You understand why?”
“Yeah, don’t you?”
No. “Well, you might not be so for it when you hear this. Daddy had a deed written up to gift the cabin to Jack when he came out of prison.” I sat back, waiting for Maddy’s outrage to kick in, but it never did.
“I guess that makes sense. He’s not going to have anywhere to go. You remember his family from the sentencing hearing, right? They abandoned him. He has no one.”
Anger flooded me at how easily she saw the reasoning and didn’t find an issue with it. “Because he killed someone, Maddy! There’s a reason why!”
She shook her head at me. “He made a mistake, it was an accident. How many times have you done something stupid that could’ve had disastrous consequences but luckily it didn’t?”
I gaped at her. “It’s not the same, Mads.”
But she was on a roll. “Last night, for instance. You were wasted, what if you’d walked out into the road and a car had swerved to get around you and crashed, and the driver died?”
“I feel like we’re getting off topic.”
“Funny how that happens when someone tells you something you don’t want to hear,” Maddy singsonged.
I glared at her. “Well, luckily for us, I found the deed and it hadn’t been signed by Jack.”
“So, make him sign it?”
I spun away from Maddy, unable to comprehend her nonchalance. “Are you for real? Why should I?”
“Because it’s clearly what Daddy wanted, Kat,” she said softly.
I folded my arms over my chest and sulked like a teenager, like Tilly. “I don’t want him here.”
“I know. But we’re getting into a morally gray area here. And you don’t do morally gray and you know I sure as hell don’t. Morally gray is Daisy’s department,” she joked, weakly.
I snorted. She wasn’t wrong. I knew she was talking sense but I didn’t want to hear it.
“It was awful nice of him to call Leo to make sure you got home safe last night,” Maddy said, examining her cuticles.
My gut clenched as my brain flashed back to the moment I was puking and he held my hair and ran his big palm over my back. I shook my head. “It’s guilt, Mads. He owes us, don’t forget that.”
“Maybe this is a sign from above, for us to live and let live, and move on. We’ve all lost so much. Let’s just put good vibes out in the world.” Maddy squeezed my arm and left the room.
I looked out the window, down at the land. “A sign…” I had asked Daddy for one, and then the next morning Jack had appeared on my front porch. And then I’d found the deed.
I glared up at the sky, a sinking feeling in my belly. “Not funny, Daddy.”
*
That evening, we were all sat around the dinner table again. Tilly was pushing her food around her plate, not really interested in anything. She’d been withdrawn since she got suspended, she was probably missing school and her friends. Maybe she had a boyfriend and she was keeping him secret. That reminded me…
I nudged her. “I was at The Lonely Bison yesterday.”
She gazed up at me, her green eyes brightening.
“I saw Max.”
Twin spots of pink appeared on her cheeks. “Yeah? Did he say anything about me?”
“Yeah, he said you gotta stop hanging out there, you’re gonna get him in trouble if you’re underage.” I tweaked her nose. “Which you are.”
She hung her head and pushed some beans around on her plate, subdued again. “I don’t wanna get him in trouble. But...” she trailed off.
I only had a few moments before I was back to being her annoying big sister so I pushed. “Buuuuut?”
She shrugged. “I dunno, he’s just cool, I guess. He doesn’t treat me like my parents died.”
A lump caught in my throat. I had just finished school when Mama died so I didn’t have to deal with my trauma around other people. I couldn’t imagine how hard that would be and hadn’t considered it, hadn’t taken into account how hard things were for Tilly at the moment. And how absent I had been when I was meant to be her guardian.
I needed to step up, no more drinking, no more fighting. I needed to be present and set a good example.
“Well, maybe in a couple of years, you can start hanging out there again. If Max says it’s okay, of course.”
That seemed to placate her a little. Before she could reply, there was a knock on the front door and my sisters all looked towards it before frowning at me.
I stood, smoothing my hand down my overalls. “I invited someone over and I want you all to be nice. I know he’s not our favorite person but we need his help so keep your sassy comments to yourself.”
I left the girls whispering and went to the front door, stomach sinking at the smug smile I saw staring back at me through the glass.
“Hi, Duke, thanks for coming,” I said, opening the door and pasting a saccharine smile on my face. He came inside, all expensive clothes and fancy shoes, arrogance as intoxicating as his cologne. He ran a hand through his black hair, his gray eyes flitting over the house, taking in all the details with a slight smirk to his lips.
“My curiosity won out, what can I say?” His smooth voice held a layer of self-satisfied condescension that immediately got my back up. I rolled my shoulders, shrugging it off, I needed this man’s help.
I gestured into the kitchen and he entered, smiling wider as he took in all my sisters.
“Girls, you know Duke Raleigh?” I stared at each of them. They nodded, no one saying anything.
“And who have we here, let’s see if I remember. Tilly is the youngest, still in school, right? Well not at the moment, been getting in fights my sources tell me.” He chuckled to himself and I tried not to murder him on the spot. “Maddy the firefighter, that’s hot. August, right, you work at the library now that you can’t be a barrel racer?” he continued before his eyes landed on Daisy who refused to meet his stare. “And then there’s Buttercup, is it?”
“It’s Daisy,” she gritted out. “You ass,” came after it but she mumbled that.
“That’s right, sorry. I was so thrown when you turned up at my ranch, begging for a job the other day that I couldn’t remember your name, my sincerest apologies, Buttercup.”
The tension between them grew so thick I didn’t think a chainsaw would cut through it. Daisy’s nostrils flared and she still refused to meet his stare. Judging by the smile on his slimy lips as he stared at her, Duke was loving every second of it.
I made a mental note to ask Daisy when she was calmer about the fact that she went to see him. I knew she’d been trying to get a job, and those were few and far between around here.
I turned back to Duke. “You would be lucky to have Daisy come work for you, she’s just graduated with a major in marketing and event management. She knows what she’s doing,” I said, proud to defend Daisy.
“Took her a while to get it though from what I can remember, aren’t you twenty-five?” he said to Daisy who ignored him.
My blood fired at his patronizing manner. “There were times we needed Daisy here. With only one parent who became ill, we needed help. We don’t all have your good fortune of two healthy parents, Duke, I would remind you of that.”
He seemed remorseful, his smug smile slipped and his eyebrows dipped in. “Of course, forgive me. Congratulations Daisy, that is quite an accomplishment.”
Daisy got up from the table and began gathering the dishes, loudly crashing the china together, still refusing to look at Duke. His gaze never strayed from her for a moment.
“Shall we go and talk in my father’s office?” I suggested.
“Sure, after you,” he said, snapping his attention from Daisy. I led him through the house and settled him into my father’s office which I’d tidied for the occasion and even stocked some whiskey in here and two tumblers.
“Whiskey?” I offered.
He nodded, looking around the room. I turned to pour and heard him murmur, “What a cozy little office.” I turned back, ready to remind him of his manners but his expression was clear and he appeared sincere. I handed him his glass and he lifted it to me before taking a sip. I gestured to the other chair I’d brought in.
“I’ll get down to business. I wanted to ask you about the offer you made to my father,” I said when he sat, resting his ankle on the opposite knee. He cocked his head at me in surprise.
“Since he’s passed, the estate has fallen to me, and I found your correspondence.”
“Ah.” He balanced his whiskey on his knee, his eyebrows dipped and a softness appeared that I hadn’t been ready for. “I’m sorry about your father. There aren’t many people in this business who are as…gracious as Charlie Cartwright.”
I inclined my head. “He was a good man.”
He swallowed his whiskey, glancing in the tumbler, his expression still soft and I was taken aback by it. “Yes. He was good to me when I first started out and kind in his rejection of my offer to buy.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “I have to be honest here, I don’t know the first thing about running a ranch and was hoping you could help me? Help us?”
I immediately knew I’d said the wrong thing. His expression hardened again, back to the cold Duke I recognized. “I don’t believe in giving survival tips to my competition, even Ramshackle Ranch.”
I was taken aback by his sudden change, flinching at his rudeness. “But—”
He downed his whiskey and sat forward. “Hear me now, Katarina. I am not going to mentor you through this. We are competition, not friends or partners. I offered to buy the ranch for my own selfish reasons.”
My weakness showed for a moment and I hated it. “But I don’t know how to keep it going, I don’t know how to keep a roof over the girls’ heads.”
There was a hard glint in his eye and he bit the inside of his cheek. “Unless you wish to sell, I can’t, won’t , help you.”
I swallowed, feeling alone in this whole situation once more. “Then I guess we’re done here.”
He stood abruptly, tugging at his cufflinks. “Thanks for the drink, although it tasted like cheap whiskey. ”
I nodded, not knowing what else to do. He peered down at me, then grunted and the clomp of his shoes on the wooden floor echoed around the small office. He tugged open the door, paused before he left, glanced around the room once more with something that looked like yearning before he shook himself.
He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You need to cut costs, Kat. Get rid of some of your cowboys. It’ll be tough for a while. It’s not nice but there’s no room for nice in business. And it’s a lot nicer than putting the girls on the street,” he finished, before spinning on his heel and stalking towards the front door.
“See you again soon, Buttercup,” I heard him purr before the front door banged closed behind him and I heard Daisy cursing. I inhaled deeply, leaning back in my seat, staring up at the ceiling.
“He’s an asshole,” Daisy said from the doorway.
I tilted my head forward and met her shining green eyes. “Why didn’t you say you’d been to see him?”
She shrugged, tugging at the bottom of her shirt. “Because I was embarrassed. He wasn’t exactly nice. His looks are his only redeeming quality,” she grumbled, then clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.
I arched a brow at her. “Daisy, stay away from him. He’s a creep.”
Although there was something about the way he looked around the office and the yearning on his face. His cold, arrogant mask slipped for a moment. Especially with the fact that he gave some parting advice after refusing to help. Maybe he wasn’t as big a douche as he seemed.
Daisy shook her head. “I was just kidding,” she muttered, before leaving the room.
I drank the rest of my whiskey, thinking about Duke’s words. I needed to get rid of a couple of ranch hands, but if I did that who would help out? I needed someone to work for free because I couldn’t do it all on my own. Maddy had a job and helped out when she could, Daisy was trying to work in marketing and events, August already managed the horses and Tilly was too young.
I was shit outta luck.
I needed someone with nothing to do and no other options.