Chapter Five
Sheena had a video call scheduled with all of her sisters that night. Whitney and Sarah were in their dorms at their respective
colleges, and Abby was in the little house she was renting in a neighborhood in Fresno. It was cute. She had pictures on the
wall, and vases with flowers in them on every available surface.
It was fun, seeing the way that her sister had made that new house into a home for herself.
Someday, she would do the same thing. Someday, she wouldn’t be in this place anymore.
“I heard you’re working with Denver King,” Whitney said without preamble.
“I am.” She might as well tell them. “I’m opening up an axe throwing bar.”
“No way,” said Sarah. “That’s what you’re doing with Denver King?”
She thought of the way his strong hand had enveloped hers earlier.
It wasn’t the only thing she wanted to do with Denver King. But that was dumb. That was really dumb. Because sex was a momentary, fleeting pleasure, and this was a whole-ass entanglement.
There was no amount of attraction that would be worth pursuing. She had thought if she said something that it would dispel
the tension. That he would suddenly turn into the kind of man that she could mold. Because she had seen that he wasn’t immune
to her. She had noticed it last night, and she had seen it during the axe throwing. So she had mistakenly assumed that if
she went bold, he would shrink. That’s what men often did. But no. He had just looked her dead in the eye and met her boldness.
He had said that he wasn’t offering to sleep with her. And it was so apparent that he wanted to. She felt a restless ache
between her legs. The problem was she wasn’t unaffected by him. That was actually the biggest problem, because it was preventing
her from escalating things with him so that she could figure out how to get the upper hand. Because it felt like a risky game.
A deadly little competition to see which one of them had to swerve first. And for the first time, she was afraid that she
might be the one that had to swerve.
It was ridiculous. He wasn’t . . . He was gorgeous. Acknowledged. Long acknowledged. But he was not the kind of man she ever
chose for her nights of fun. If she needed to blow off steam, it was always with a guy who let her take control. Because that
was what she liked. And even more, it was what she needed. Denver King was not what she needed.
“Well, he owes me a favor. So, I went to cash it in.”
“But why an axe throwing bar?” Abby asked. “And why didn’t you tell me that when we talked yesterday?”
“I just had a few things to iron out. It felt tentative. And now it doesn’t. So, I felt more comfortable sharing.”
“But Four Corners . . . They’re just such a weird whole thing. Isn’t being there . . . ? Does that make you feel kind of like
an outsider?”
Outsider was kind of her whole thing. “Why would that bother me? I’m not looking to make besties, I want to run a business. It’s a good location, because they’re adding so many features to the place. It’s changed a lot, even just in the last couple of years.”
“I mean it sounds fun. It actually makes me want to come back home and visit. And bring friends. There are things to do.”
“And even places to stay,” Sheena added. “Because Denver has been adding to the ranch already.”
“It’s just weird to hear you talk about him like that. Like you know him,” said Sarah.
She knew that Sarah, as the youngest sibling, didn’t fully understand what they had been spared when their dad had died. She
knew that Sarah actually missed their dad. She tried not to disrupt that. Tried not to take it from her. But it was hard.
Because she actually knew how little their dad had loved them, and that frankly, having a man around who didn’t care enough
to fight for you, but brought the wrong kind of people around, was worse than having no man around at all. Still, she wanted
to respect that her sister was . . . grieving. In her own way. Though, she didn’t want to take on board any judgment about
it.
“It’s just convenient. Finding another place would’ve been impossible right now. It isn’t like I have any capital to invest.”
She decided not to tell her sisters that she wanted to pay him back. Because she had never told them . . . She had never told
them the extent of what she’d taken from Denver in the first place.
It was a point of pride.
She didn’t want them to know that she hadn’t been doing it all on her own.
And maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe it was giving them unrealistic expectations about life.
But . . . she just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
They knew about the college money. But not about the monthly funds.
There was no way that her waitressing salary, and then her bartending salary, would have paid for the mortgage, paid for her car, paid for gas, clothes, all the things.
And even though they had lived modestly, it had been much more comfortable than it would’ve been without Denver.
She had worked. She was proud of that. She was proud of what she had done to take care of them. But she couldn’t have done
it alone.
“New businesses often don’t turn a profit for five years,” Whitney said.
Little Miss Getting Her Business Degree.
Sheena had to fight not to roll her eyes.
“Sure. But I’m not actually paying for the property. That’s the main thing. So my start-up is incredibly low overhead.”
“I mean, good for you, I guess,” said Whitney. “It’s just weird.”
“Well, may I remain a weird enigma to you.”
They talked about Boston, where Whitney was, and Ohio, where Sarah was. They teased Abby about Fresno and her boyfriend, who
was taking her out to a fancy dinner over the weekend.
“He sounds nice,” said Whitney.
“He does,” said Sarah, looking like she had hearts for eyes.
Sheena had never had hearts for eyes in her life. She had daggers for eyes, if anything.
“Yeah, well. Just remember that even serial killers sound nice until you go looking in their basements.”
“You’re so grim, Sheena,” said Sarah.
“I don’t have a lot of reasons not to be.”
“You are the person that’s trusting a King,” said Whitney. “So it seems a little bit rich for you to try to warn Abby off
a guy.”
“I am not sleeping with Denver.” She said that mostly for her own benefit. Mostly as a reminder. “Also, I have a weapon on my person at all times. Also, I don’t trust him. I’m just using him.”
“You’re kind of scary,” said Whitney.
“Scary is how you get through life sometimes.”
Not for the first time recently, she wondered slightly if she had done them a disservice by hiding some of the truths about
their upbringing. Except then what would be the point of protecting them? They were so much softer than she would ever have
the chance to be. And that was a good thing.
The girls hadn’t seen their dad’s body. They hadn’t experienced the conflicting feelings of loss and relief. Followed by a
pull toward a man she had no business feeling a pull toward. That day. Everything had gone all to hell at the Potter ranch,
and she had been called out by her dad . . . But then he was gone.
By the time she got there he was gone.
His eyes were vacant and hollow, and he had a hole in his shoulder. She had looked away after that. Because there was nothing
she could do, so why keep staring at it? It was ghoulish.
They had covered him with a blanket before zipping him up into a bag. That was after they had put flags everywhere and made
it a whole crime scene.
She had never been able to watch crime shows after that. Because she felt like she knew a little too much about how the real
thing looked.
How a dead body looked, when there was no person left inside it. Just the organs and bones, not the soul. Yeah. She knew how
bodies looked too. Denver had been there, younger than he was now, but no less serious, his pallor green. He was being questioned
by police. But he wasn’t in handcuffs. His dad was.
She remembered Daughtry being there too, but he didn’t stand out to her in quite the same way that Denver did.
His dad was in cuffs, hers was on a slab.
And they were both the oldest. Right in that moment, she had more in common with him than she did just about anybody in the world.
She wanted to go to him, even though he was a stranger. A man she knew only vaguely by name.
But she didn’t. Still, they had looked at each other for a long time.
Like they were both sitting in their new reality.
She had gone home and tucked the girls in. She hadn’t told them that Dad was dead yet. She waited until after school the next
day, because it was a Friday, so at least they would have the weekend to try and get over it.
She didn’t cry. It wasn’t sad enough. He didn’t deserve her tears.
“Whatever. I’m suspicious so you all don’t have to be. And paranoid. But hey, no, you don’t have to worry about me because
I will no longer be working in a seedy bar where I have to break up fights.”
Her sisters did let out a cheer over that. They cared about her. They worried about her. And sometimes their worry took the
form of being concerned that she was a little bit too . . . hard. But they didn’t realize how much she’d had to be. It made
their concern grate a little bit.
That wasn’t fair at all, of course. She knew that. But whatever, the shift of it all, the changing tide, it had her feeling
a little bit out of sorts. She would get over it. She always did.
“Are you all coming back for Christmas?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sarah and Whitney said.
“Undecided,” Abby replied.
“Abigail,” Sarah said, sounding scandalized. “You can’t miss Christmas.”
“Well, I might have to. I don’t know that I get enough days off from my job. Plus . . . I dunno. I was talking to Alejandro about the possibility of meeting his parents.”
A hush fell over the call.
“For Christmas.”
“Yes,” she said. “For Christmas.”
Everything inside Sheena went tight. This was it. The real start of change. Where they wouldn’t see each other again at the
holidays. It just . . . It sucked. She didn’t like it.
But also, it was good. Good for Abby, anyway. That she had found somebody that she really cared about. That she was happy
enough in her life that she wasn’t necessarily going to run back home all the time. It was good. It was what was supposed
to happen.
It was just . . .
Are you jealous?
That question was so weird, so out of left field, and she felt absolutely got punched by it. She wasn’t really jealous. She
wasn’t. But she couldn’t show it. She just needed to look happy. Thrilled.
“Well, there’s going to be a big Christmas party right before Christmas, at Four Corners. It’ll be kind of the inaugural thing
for the axe throwing. If you can bring Alejandro with you, maybe you guys can come up before Christmas. I can . . . I can
get you a couple of plane tickets and you can fly into Medford.”
“Oh. Well . . . You’re not going to buy us tickets. We can buy our own. But maybe we will.”
Right. Her sister could buy her own plane tickets because she was an adult. Because she was out there working a real job.
An office job. Because she had a boyfriend who also had a real job, and could help pay for things.
A real grown-up.
In a way that Sheena maybe wasn’t.
It was so odd. She’d had to grow up so fast. Be an adult in a lot of real ways. Worry about bills. Worry about holding down a job. About getting her sisters to school every day, having their hair brushed and their clothes clean. Helping them do homework.
Her own life looked exactly the same now as it had been, except she didn’t have the responsibilities. So it was almost like
reverting.
You’re starting your own business. You are changing things.
She just felt so emotionally . . . stunted.
“Well, if you can make it, that would be great. I would love to have you all there. To see that . . . To see my new thing.”
That got her a round of excited giggling and babbling.
And that, she supposed, was something a little bit like asking people to be there for you. What she wasn’t great at. But she
was glad that she had. Because the idea of not seeing Abigail made her feel stabbed, and she didn’t like it. She thought about
Denver. She wondered if he ever felt the same.
It was funny: All of his siblings were paired off now, and he wasn’t. He had made it really clear that wasn’t something he
was interested in. She felt the same. The idea of depending on another person just seemed foreign. Weird and disorienting.
She had to wonder if it was the same for him. Were they just that basic? Were they a predictable thing that happened when
you had to be the parent at way too young of an age?
Were they the fallout of fathers who didn’t care about their children as much as they cared about themselves?
Because Sheena had learned one thing from her dad. Not only did she have to take care of everyone else, but she would always
have to take care of herself. She thought of how she and Denver had clashed earlier.
Yeah. They were . . . they really were the same.
She found it both comforting and jarring.
She could ask him.
But that felt dangerously close to getting to know him. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that either.
Getting to know a deadly, handsome man? Maybe not the best move.
“I have to go,” said Sarah. “I have studying to do.”
“Me too,” said Whitney, waving.
She and Abby said goodbye.
And the other two vanished.
“Are you okay?” Abby asked.
“I’m great.”
“You didn’t even ask me if I was at all worried if Alejandro’s parents were cult leaders looking to initiate me and make me
a sacrifice.”
“Well, we both know you would be a pretty bad virgin sacrifice.”
“Indeed. Failed at one of the basic bits of that.”
Sheena scrunched her face up. It was the closest thing to conciliatory she could manage. “I’m happy for you. I don’t actually
want you to be as paranoid as I am.”
“I’d kind of like it if you were less paranoid too, Sheena. I feel like maybe you’d be happier.”
“I am happy.”
But when she got off the phone with her sister, she sat with that statement for a long time.
She realized she wasn’t entirely sure what happy was.