53. Zee
God Only Knows - The Beach Boys
“Grand-mère?”
The distressed cry has her papery eyelids drifting open. When she sees me, though, a soft smile curves her lips. It’s a smile I saw, more often than not, around Walker. Not me.
The notion has my throat bobbing.
“You came.” Her fingers seek mine. The bones are more fragile than ever. The skin just as papery, revealing bluer than blue veins and bruises too from the IV the nurses put on the back of her hand.
“Of course I did. The boys are on their way. You need to hold on,” I encourage.
Colt’s hand settles on my shoulder, big and warm and just everything. He’s safety and security and home. “How are you feeling, Juliette?”
“Like today’s my last day on this miserable planet,” she grumbles, scowling at him. “Don’t be soft around me, boy. I’m dying, not having a personality transplant.”
“Grand-mère!”
“Mamie,” she corrects.
Fear floods me. “They’re going to fix you, Mamie. You’re not dying. Remember? You said you’d die when you were good and ready.”
“I think I’m good and ready now, child.”
Colt’s grip on my shoulder tightens. I know, in the months that we’ve been together, he’s grown closer to my family. A strange form of respect has bridged the two.
I’ve been jittery since I got the call. Had to eat when that was the last thing I wanted after my blood sugar dropped, but I don’t want to focus on that. Mamie needs me.
Mamie.
I never thought I’d see the day she’d let me call her that.
A sob catches in my throat.
“I need to tell you something, Susanne.” Her nose crinkles as she corrects, “Zee.”
God, she is dying.
My mouth trembles. “What, Mamie?”
“I have to share this with someone, but I need you to promise me that you won’t tell a soul.” Her eyes lock Colton in place. “You neither, boy.”
“Your secret’s our secret,” Colton vows.
“I always liked you.” She nods at his assurance. “Knew how that bastard treated you and that mother of yours. We all knew. None of us did anything though. Cowards. I tried to run him over once but it didn’t work?—”
“Mamie!” I chide, shocked by her admission.
“Child, I’m not a good person.” She lets go of my hand to pat it. “I’m fine with that, but I need you to know this because I need him to suffer.”
“Who, Juliette?”
“Your father, of course.” Her sniff is 100% disdain and sounds so normal that it’s hard to believe we’re in the hospital. Surrounded by machines. That her lips are turning blue. That her breathing is raspy. That her words are slightly slurred. “I always hated him. Clayton was a good boy. Just like you. Never did trust Clyde. Thought he did Clay in but no one would listen to a McAllister. Never did. Never will. Until now.
“God, that day he came to the Bar 9 to see me, I was sure I was dying because happiness was that old bastard coming to me for my water. And I knew exactly what to do. The whole town’ll listen to a McAllister now. You’ll see to that, won’t you, Colton?”
“You know I will.”
“And you’ll protect my grandchildren?”
“Damn straight,” he rumbles. “And your great-grandchildren.”
“Knew it. I called it from the start when I saw you and her cozying up in the stables.” She harrumphs. “As if I’d be too scared to enter Korhonen land. You little shits always trespassed on our lakes so I did the same when Susanne, I mean Zee, went missing one too many times. Thought about blowing your head off with a shotgun. But then I saw you care for her. Help her after that useless father of hers died?—”
“Mamie!”
She huffs. “Oh, child, he was. I know you love him but his head was in the clouds. No good for a ranch. None at all. But Colton is. He’ll bring the Bar 9 back to how it should be. Biggest in the whole of Canada. Put us in the record books again.” A satisfied expression settles on her weary features. “And no Clyde around to muck it up. I want him to rot in prison, child, do you understand?”
I blink at her. “I-I understand, Mamie.”
“When I tell you that I’m not a good person, child, I say it only so you’ll brace yourself.” I protest but she shakes her head. “I’m not. I always knew I’d do anything for the Bar 9, but I didn’t realize until I was older what I’d do for my daughter and her children.
“Lydia Armstrong, she?—”
When she starts coughing and doesn’t stop, a cacophony of alarms sets off. Nurses rush in and push us out but Grand-mère growls, “I’m dying, you fools. I need to speak with my?—”
Colton drags me outside until they get her settled. He holds me against him, his hand cupping my head while Mamie barks cusswords at the nursing staff as they make her comfortable, but she doesn’t stop grumbling until I’m back with her.
This time, when her hand grabs mine, it’s fierce. She’s clinging on. I can feel it. Whatever she has to share with me, she needs to impart before she dies.
We’ve never gotten along, but the prospect of being in a world without my strong-willed grandmother has soft sobs wracking my frame.
“Listen to me, child,” she whispers, her tone feverish. “Lydia was blackmailing me. Said she had proof your mother was fooling around with him. Said she’d prove that Clarisse was a whore.” Her eyes narrow. “No one casts aspersions on my family unless it’s me.
“I paid because I couldn’t let anyone tarnish Clarisse’s name, then one day, I went into town and there she was, waiting to be served in that old fool’s bakery. A smug smile on her face. I wanted to smack it off her. In my younger days, I would have. But I didn’t.
“I knew the boys’ truck was at the garage, but it was lunchtime and the damn thing’s key is stuck in the ignition so I knew I could start the engine. And as luck would have it, she was walking down Main Street.
“When no one saw me, I just drove off. I don’t know what I was thinking. Mostly, I wanted that smile to be gone.” Her eyes flare. “One of the happiest moments of my life was when I ran her over.”
I gape at her. “Mamie, you can’t…”
“She was threatening your mother’s reputation. Threatening yours too. Casting aspersions on her name cast aspersions on you all. I fought too long to let that happen. I didn’t sell you to that bastard for your name to be raked through the mud after you were married.
“I’m sorry, Colton. I’ve hated your family for so long and I was acting on instinct when I dumped the boys’ truck on your land. I saw that big stockhorse of yours roaming around. I’ve watched you on him. You let him loose and he always comes back. I stole him and rode off to the Bar 9, knowing he’d wander back.
“When I got home, that’s when I realized how foolish I’d been.” She taps her temple. “I knew this was going, but that was proof of it. The panic set in because I’d used the triplets’ truck. Of course they were going to be blamed. I dumped it on your land! You’d be suspected. It was a nightmare.
“Then, Lydia did me a favor.” She chuckles and it’s cold and mean and cements all her words into reality. “She must have hated Clyde more than she ever hated me.” Her gaze locks on mine. “I looked at her like I’m looking at you, child. She couldn’t mistake me, but the whole town knows she was mumbling about Clyde when she died. That was when I realized everything would be alright.”
Colt clears his throat. “Why are you telling us this?”
“So that you know and if he appeals and worms his way out of the sentence, you’ll fix it so that this dying woman’s wish comes true—I want him to rot. I want that prissy little bastard to suffer. I don’t know what your mother was doing with him, but it can’t have been any good.
“He’s the reason you left, Sus—Zee. The second I heard about the fire, I knew Clyde had something to do with it. Never loved the land. Not like Clayton. Clayton would have died first rather than let his horses perish in a fire.
“When I heard Clyde just stood there, watching, I knew. Bet he killed that Marcy girl too.” Her words slur even more. “Evil man. Evil. I’m no good. But he’s evil. Want him to suffer. Want him to know what it’s like for no one to believe you. To hurt—” She jerks awake and her hand tightens around mine to the point of pain. “Promise me, child. Promise me.”
I think about the years of suffering Colt endured, of what Clyde put Lindsay through, of Callan’s persistent fear. I think about Loki burning to death and Clyde stealing the ranch, of him framing his flesh and blood by dumping another blackmail demand in Colt’s office.
Somehow, it’s the easiest thing in the world to whisper, “I promise.”
“And you, boy?”
Colt doesn’t even have to think. “I want him to rot in a jail cell as much as you do, Juliette.”
Righteously, she nods. “Knew I picked right. Only the best for my Susanne. Always loved her. She looked and acted like me too. Bossy little thing.” Her milky eyes drift. “Do you know my Susanne, dear?”
I rear back at her question, but Colt’s there to prop me up. “Yes, we know your Susanne, Mrs. McAllister.”
“She’s a fancy paralegal down in New York,” she boasts, making my stinging eyes widen at the pride in her voice.
Pride she never once showed me before now.
The thudding of footsteps pounds outside the door and when my brothers come skidding in, somehow, I know it was just in the nick of time.
“Such a good girl. Not like my boys. Always naughty. Up to mischief. Oh, Walker, where are you? Where is he?” she cries, her hand turning into a vise. “My boys. My girl.”
“Mamie!” Calder shouts, his hand gripping hers as Colby jostles the bed as he half-jumps on it in a panic.
Carson stands by the door, his face like ash as he watches on as Juliette McAllister, the old bitch of the Bar 9, drifts out of this world and into the next with her family surrounding her.