Chapter One #2
“I’m not driving it to Abilene, though,” Nix said, remembering why he might need a car. No way was he doing his ex-wife any favors. Those days were done.
“Sure, you’re not,” Ryan said. “Let me know when you want the keys.”
*
Shauna
“Are you serious? She was kicked out of another school already ? This was her first week!”
It had to be some sort of record.
Heads turned in the reception area outside of Shauna Walsh’s open office door. She was a real estate lawyer, and new to the Grand Cooper and Nash law firm, so her office, reserved for interns, wasn’t private. She took her mother off her cell’s speakerphone while skirting her desk to close the door.
“I didn’t send either of you to the best private schools for them to crush your spirits,” Natalie McKillop Morris replied, her words gently defensive. “Remember when you set the chemistry lab on fire?”
“That was an accident. Someone mislabeled the chemicals we used.”
Whether the mislabeling was accidental or deliberate remained up for debate. Either way, Shauna and her lab partner had been innocent. They’d never even been considered suspects. To this day, she was secretly insulted by that.
Her seventeen-year-old sister, on the other hand, wasn’t known as Taryn the Terror for nothing. She sported rebellion like a neon tattoo. This was the third private school to expel her. When was their mother going to admit that the problem was Taryn?
Right now, as it turned out.
“Private school’s not right for her,” Natalie said. She sounded tired. Taryn had that effect on most people. She tired Shauna out, too. “I’m sending her to Grand to stay with you. Let’s see what a year in a rural public school does for her. Besides, she listens to you way better than she does me.”
Wait. What? Blood pulsed in Shauna’s ears, applying an alarming amount of pressure to the top of her head, because Taryn didn’t listen to her. She listened to no one. “You can’t send her here.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Taryn was their mother’s daughter, too, after all. Through and through.
“I can and I will. If you won’t take her in, then I’ll speak to your grandfather. He has plenty of room. Taryn would be good company for him,” Natalie said.
Shauna pressed a palm to her forehead. The spoiled youngest child of late-in-life parents, Natalie had gotten pregnant with her eldest at seventeen.
Shauna’s father, a year younger than Natalie, had been working on one of the local ranches that summer, and he’d been in no position to take on a baby.
He’d high-tailed it for home as soon as he’d been given the news.
His parents had paid child support on his behalf, asking only for visitation rights in return, and as a result, Shauna was much closer to them.
They lived in Oklahoma. Her father and his young family lived somewhere in New Mexico.
From what Shauna understood, his wife and sons knew nothing about her. The spineless coward.
Exactly the type of man Natalie enjoyed. Taryn’s father was ten years her junior, and between the two of them, they had enough trust fund money to do nothing but play. Meaning Shauna had grown up with children.
And she was so tired of them all.
“We can try it until Christmas,” Shauna said, knowing she had no other choice, because while she might not want to live with Taryn, at the end of the day, she had to live with herself.
She’d come to Grand, Montana, to get to know her mother’s family better.
Her grandfather, Angus McKillop, was in his early nineties and showing signs of dementia.
Saddling him with a rebellious teenaged granddaughter would never work out.
Well. It might work well for Taryn, who had zero interest in supervision—either giving or receiving. Plants withered and died when she walked past.
Satisfaction strode through the phone signal along with her mother’s next words. “Excellent. If Taryn leaves here on Saturday, she should be in Grand by next Tuesday.”
“How is she traveling—by Pony Express?”
Natalie laughed, happy again now that she’d got what she wanted. “She’s driving. We bought her a car.”
“She got expelled from school and you bought her a car ?” I can’t even.
“She’ll need one to survive in rural Montana.”
The better question might be, what would rural Montana need to survive Taryn?
“This is wonderful,” her mother prattled on, ignoring Shauna’s silence. “Gunther and I can come to Grand for Thanksgiving. You and Taryn can visit LA for Christmas. It will be fun to catch up with family. Have you visited the Endeavour Ranch yet? I’m dying to see it.”
Shauna’s cousin, Dan McKillop, was one of the Endeavour’s three owners. He was also the county sheriff. Having Taryn in town was about to do wonders for his career. Shauna’s, too. God, give me strength.
When her mother finally stopped talking, and Shauna had disconnected the call, she folded her arms on her desk and rested her head on them. She couldn’t decide what would be the best cure for her headache, although she leaned toward day drinking. Lou’s Pub was close by, and it opened at noon.
A light, one-knuckled knock bounced against her closed office door.
“Come in,” she said, without looking up.
A man cleared his throat, which got her out of her chair in a hurry. She’d expected Lillit, the motherly front desk receptionist, not Lillit’s husband George, the Cooper in Grand Cooper and Nash. He carried a stack of file folders.
“Lillit asked me to give these to you. She needs your signature on them. Is this a bad time?”
“Sorry.” She smoothed her linen skirt, trying to get her head back on track. George Cooper was a nice man, but he was also her boss. “Unexpected phone call from my mother.”
“I see,” George said kindly, sounding as if she’d just explained everything, which she probably had, because of course he’d know Natalie McKillop—or know of her, at least. Grand was a small place.
He sounded so kind and understanding, in fact, that she found herself oversharing. “She’s asked if my younger sister can live with me for the school year.”
He laid the folders on her desk and tidied the small pile so that it lined up with the edge.
“I assume your younger sister will be living with you and going to school here because she’s unwanted everywhere else.
” His mild gaze met hers. “Being unwanted… That’s a hard thing for a child, even one who’s a teenager. ”
George specialized in family law. When it came to reading people and situations, he was astute.
“I wasn’t thinking of it that way,” Shauna admitted, and now, she felt guilty. “It’s not that nobody wants her. We love her. It’s just that she’s…a whole lot of work.”
“I wonder why that might be.”
Point taken. Nannies, daycares, and an age difference of thirteen years with an older sister who lived in a boarding school throughout the year and spent most of her summers with grandparents in Oklahoma.
A few weeks at Christmas, and the occasional Easter and Thanksgiving, didn’t offer much opportunity for sibling bonding.
This was still a mistake. A bad one. Her gut instincts said so. “I don’t know anything about raising teenagers.”
George tapped the folders. “You aren’t raising a teenager. That obligation belongs to her parents.”
Since they were the same parents who’d raised Shauna, she already knew they were useless.
They’d bought Taryn a car . “They’re reneging and passing her over to me.
She’s a juvenile delinquent, George, and they don’t want to see it.
She’s not going to listen to me any better than she listens to them. ”
“How old is she? How many times has she been arrested?”
“She’s seventeen. And three,” Shauna said. “Two for shoplifting, one underage drinking. Oh, yes. And resisting arrest. She flirted with the female officer who patted her down.”
He chuckled. “Female officers have no sense of humor.” His laughter died off and the lawyer emerged. “Would you like my professional advice?”
“Please.”
“The underage drinking is normal teenager behavior. Forget it unless it’s a habit—that’s a whole different problem.
The shoplifting shouldn’t be overlooked.
In Montana, at eighteen she can be charged as an adult and that milestone’s hurtling toward her.
Don’t give her a reason to think she can use you to her advantage just because you’re a lawyer.
Let her know that if she breaks the law here, she’s on her own.
You aren’t going to risk your career for her.
” His gaze touched hers before settling back on the folders.
“Just…pay attention to her. Focus on her, and what she needs from her big sister. Try positive reinforcement rather than dictate rules to her that she’ll only break.
You aren’t her mother—and trust me, she’ll remind you of that.
But if you approach this situation as a chore that you’re only undertaking because you have no other choice, then you’re setting the both of you up for failure from the start. ”
He was right.
And now Shauna felt bad for not embracing this as the opportunity it was—a chance to get to know her sister better.
At seventeen, Taryn was approaching adulthood, and when she went out on her own in the world, they might drift even further apart.
They might never get another chance like this to connect.
She could do this.
“Thanks, George,” she said. “I should probably talk to the school and get her enrolled.”