Chapter 22
Kameron really didn’t want to do this. Going to his father’s house always brought rising anxiety lately.
He just didn’t know how much more he could take this from Jacob.
Jacob had run into Quinn’s twin Kiya in the diner, apparently.
And called her a damned whore. Told her that Quinn was just after Kameron’s money or something. People had heard him, too.
Quinn was beyond upset, and Jacob had been banned from the diner and the inn, by General Talley, who had told Jacob no real man ever spoke to a woman that way.
The Talleys were going to go with another waste removal service—they were one of Jacob’s main customers.
And they had a lot of business contacts in the region.
Jacob had royally screwed up.
His brother was on some sort of self-sabotage mission lately. But Kameron wasn’t going to have him making trouble for Quinn. Or her sisters. He just wasn’t.
If that meant he had to reeducate his brother, then so be it.
Kameron stepped through the melting snow and slush in front of his father’s house and headed up on the porch. The step held beneath his two hundred fifty pounds. This time.
His dad had said he meant to fix it or tell the landlord about it. The landlord was a total asshole. Most of his properties were run-down. Kameron had heard about six lawsuits against the guy, just in the last year, from previous tenants.
He’d spoken to Cal about those lawsuits and all the problems with his dad’s place just a few days ago.
Cal held both a law license and real estate license—Kameron had only had his real estate license for a few years.
He was a financial planner by trade; real estate was just his side hustle that was taking off.
His mom had given him enough money to get him started on his rentals.
She really believed in him. He had paid her back two years ago, with interest. Because he’d finally been able to.
Part of that was because he’d had good friends to help him figure this journey out. Cal and Cadell topped that list.
When he’d been a total newbie, he’d worked for Cal, until he’d fully learned the ropes.
They’d been friends since elementary school, and Cal had helped him figure out what he wanted to do with his life.
Before that, Kameron had just been working on buying a few rentals and fixing them up himself when he’d had time, while working for an investment company.
Now, Kameron worked for himself. He loved the independence of it—but not so much the anxiety that came with it.
What his dad’s landlord Tom Sperniki was doing with properties in Masterson sickened him.
Kameron just didn’t understand what that asshole thought he was getting from all of this.
He was taking advantage of people. And the guy had to know it.
Kameron had offered to let his father and even his brother live in one of his rentals, but his dad had refused.
Said it was a matter of pride or principle or something.
Kameron had just wanted to help. But his dad could be a stubborn old goat when it came to money. Kameron thought it stemmed back to the divorce. His mom had come from money. His dad hadn’t. And his dad had failed to keep the family ranch.
But…a part of him was glad his father had said no. Jacob was such a slob, it was disgusting to see at times. Kameron didn’t want renters like Jacob living in his rentals. He just didn’t. Jacob was beyond gross sometimes.
Kameron was going to talk to Cal and his brother Cadell again.
The Grady brothers were both in real estate and law—and they knew all the players and the market in this entire region.
Cal focused on commercial, Cadell focused on residential development, while Kameron was focusing on the individual residential market—but there was some overlap. Sperniki was a crook. Kameron knew it.
Cal or Cadell might know more of the behind-the-scenes around here now.
He’d considered connecting with Martin Tyler, but the two of them had never really gotten along.
Not since high school. Martin was a few years older, and they’d just rubbed each other the wrong way back then.
But maybe Gil, Martin’s cousin, could convince Martin to meet with him.
Probably wouldn’t hurt.
Martin was buying up a good deal of the suitable rental houses in the county. He was in direct competition with Sperniki.
The pool of renters in Masterson wasn’t that big, after all.
But for now… “Dad! You home?”
His father came out of the kitchen, some sort of engine part in his hands.
Kameron would always remember his father like that more than anything.
His dad made things move with his hands.
He’d worked hard all his life—even with some serious ups and downs in there.
Those downs weighed on his dad sometimes—Kameron had long thought his father suffered from some seasonal depression, too—but his dad had built himself a decent life since he’d lost the old ranch twenty years ago.
Kameron had always wondered if it had been a blessing in disguise, what had happened.
His father hadn’t been good at the ranching part of things.
Never had been. The failure had always kind of knocked his dad down over and over again back then.
And being an hour from town—his father had had to work at a factory during the day, just to make ends meet.
While trying to keep the family ranch going in the evenings. It had been destroying him.
It had destroyed two marriages, too. Kameron’s mom had taken him and moved out when he’d been young, but he’d always had a real relationship with his father. One that had mattered.
Kameron had tried to build one with Jacob—his half-brother had mattered, too. But Jacob was so angry about everything.
Angry, dirty, lazy, resentful. Jacob had somehow stumbled into the trash removal business when the guy he’d worked for had had a stroke.
Jacob had bought him out for less than five thousand.
Money Kameron’s father had taken out a loan to give him.
Money Jacob hadn’t bothered to pay one penny of back.
And his dad wouldn’t push.
Jacob made it work, but he’d never get rich off of it.
He wasn’t like a commercial trash removal company—not in Masterson.
The roads were just too rural for that around here.
But his brother made enough to pay his share of the bills.
And put some back, if he was following the plan Kameron had given him when he’d first bought the disposal trucks.
But that plan included paying his debts. All of them. Including to their father.
But…Jacob didn’t have to live like trash was his chosen habitat, did he?
There were bags of trash out on the front porch.
And they stunk. It had been hard to miss.
His dad insisted the house be kept clean, at least. But there was a smell coming from the rear of the house. Where Jacob had two bedrooms that he’d claimed as his exclusive space.
Kameron wouldn’t look in there. He just wouldn’t. “Dad, he’s still not cleaning up after himself?”
“Your brother is tired when he comes home.” That was all their father ever said. Kameron knew Jacob wasn’t easy to deal with—but he had his suspicions. He did not like the way Jacob treated their father. At all.
But Kameron couldn’t seem to get his father to see what Jacob was doing to him.
Or his father always made excuses for him.
Sometimes…Kameron just wished Jacob would go, leave them all the hell alone. His father would be so much better off that way.
But his father always said it…Jacob was his son. Just like Kameron was.
He would never throw him out. Because at almost twenty-eight years old, Jacob couldn’t make it on his own.
Bullshit.
Kameron had made it just fine at that age. It was time for Jacob to do the same.
But that was the same old script. Kameron just couldn’t do it today. “You know anything about the Kasperski property on old Tyler Road? I heard it’s going for sale soon…”
Time to talk about the things that made his dad happy to hear. His dad was proud of him. And that was what his dad would want to hear about.
Kameron just kept talking.