4. Kaitlyn
FOUR
Kaitlyn
BARR TT RANCH, BARRETT VALLEY MONTANA
Go after him.
My eyes pop open, heart thundering in my chest, words echoing in my ears like someone said them out loud. I lay here, staring at the ceiling above me and wait for the screaming to start but it never does.
The screaming died out a long time ago.
All that’s left are the echoes.
Rolling over, I find Abbey in the dark. The shape of her under her covers, back already turned to me in preparation for the bedside lamp I always turn on.
Taking pity on her, I dress in the dark, pulling on my jeans while leaving on the T-shirt I went to bed in because Two-tone doesn’t give a shit what I look like as long as I show up to feed him.
Grabbing a pair of clean socks from my top dresser drawer, I stuff them into the pocket of my jeans before heading downstairs as quietly as I can. At the bottom of the stairs, I retrieve my boots from under the bench by the front door before moving toward the kitchen.
Nearing the open doorway, I smell bacon and sigh because that means Mom couldn’t sleep again. Mouth open on an apology she’ll just wave off with a flick of her spatula, I step through the doorway to find Luke standing at the kitchen sink, cup of coffee in his hand while he stares out the kitchen window and I stop, heart trying to squeeze itself into the space between my lungs because for just a moment, I think it’s all been a nightmare.
That everything is okay.
But then Luke turns away from the window to look at me and it’s not Luke.
It’s my father and nothing is okay.
Nothing’s been okay for a very long time.
For a moment, we stand here and stare at each other—my father at the kitchen window. Me in the doorway with a heart that’s stopped trying to push itself between my lungs because it’s suddenly dropped into my stomach.
“Sit down,” he says, his tone gruff and unfamiliar. I can count the number of times my father has spoken to me in the past three years on one hand.
Because he blames me.
That’s okay. He should.
I blame me too.
Still stalled in the doorway, I look at my mom, back turned toward me while she transfers bacon from the frying pan on the stove to a plate already filled with eggs and biscuits with gravy.
She isn’t up because she couldn’t sleep. She’s up because my father is up and he wanted breakfast. God forbid the man fries his own eggs or butters his own toast.
Because she doesn’t hear the scrape of chair legs across the floor that says I’m doing as I’m told, she turns away from the stove to look at me. “It’s okay, Kaity,” she tells me with a nervous smile. “Go ahead and sit—your father and I have a few things we’d like to talk to you about.”
Fumbling my boots, I let them drop onto the floor with a loud thud while I slide my backpack off my shoulder, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. If my father notices it and asks me what’s inside it, I’m screwed. Setting it behind my boots I move to do what I’m told.
Pulling the chair away from the table, I let myself sink into it while my mom gives me another smile, this one just as nervous as the first. “Go on now, Tom—you sit too.” She waves her spatula at my father. “I didn’t get up before the sun to make breakfast so you could just stand there and glower.”
There’s no mistaking the hard set of my father’s jaw while he pushes himself away from the counter. Pulling out his own chair at the head of the table, he sits a moment before my mother sets the plate in her hand in front of him. “What would you like, Kaity?” She looks at me, brushing all that nervous energy in her hands off on the front of her apron. “I can make you—”
“Nothing.” Still watching my father, I shake my head. “I don’t usually eat breakfast—thank you, though.”
My father’s jaw flexes. “Make her a plate, Hilly,” my dad says in that same gruff, unfamiliar voice, his expression daring me to contradict him. When I don’t, the corner of his mouth twitches with something too angry to be considered a smile before he picks up his fork. “Need you to do more than the usual up at Northpoint this morning. Check the inverters for the solar. Get up on the roof and wash the panels. Make sure the batteries are holding their charge and clean the house, top to bottom,” he tells me, gaze lowered to his plate while he cuts into his gravy covered biscuit with the side of his fork. “Got someone staying there for the month—maybe more. Place needs to be squared away before he gets here." His mouth twitches again before he puts food into it.
“Someone is staying at Northpoint?” When all he does is chew at me, I look at my mom for confirmation, the first fluttering of panic stirring in my belly. When our eyes meet, my mom’s mouth turns down at its corners just a bit in sympathy. I’m sorry —she mouths the words over the top of my father’s head before she goes back to building my unwanted breakfast plate. Looking away from her, I focus on my father because he seems to have all the answers, even if he’s unwilling to share them. “Who?"
Shoveling another bite into his mouth, my father narrows his gaze on my face at my tone while he chews. Mouth clear, he wipes it with a napkin before speaking. “A friend of Damien Bravebird’s,” he tells me, his tone making it clear that his willingness to tell me does not mean the answer is any of my business. “He’s from California.” For once, the distain on his face isn’t aimed at me. “Like I said—he’ll be here for a month. Maybe more. He'll want supplies so when he makes his list, you’re to add it to the weekly shopping.” His mouth flattens for a moment in consideration before he adds. “He’ll probably want someone to clean up after him while he’s here. Better ask him when you get his supply list.”
My father rented out Northpoint to a friend—a Californian , no less—of one of our ranch hands for the month.
Maybe more.
And I’m expected to be his step-and-fetchit for the duration of his stay. But that isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that someone staying at Northpoint means it’s now off-limits. If it’s occupied, that means I can’t use it.
The panic isn’t just swirling now. It’s a churning cyclone, spinning through my belly so fast it feels like my intestines are being tied in knots. When my mother sets the plate of eggs and gravy covered biscuits in front of me, I almost throw up all over it.
“This gentleman has paid a lot of money for his stay so you’re going to have to go on up there and do as your father says.” my mom says, doing her best to prompt me while my father stares at me with growing suspicion.
I force myself to pick up my own fork, giving her a jerky nod while I scoop up some scrambled eggs from the pile on my plate. “Yes, ma’am,” I mumble before stuffing eggs into my mouth. As soon as I say it, my father looks down at his own plate, satisfied. It would never occur to him that one of us would defy him. That we’d move in a direction that he did not designate. That any of us would dare to reach for something he said we couldn’t have.
Swallowing my mouthful of eggs, I watch him through my lashes for a few moments while I wait for him to say something else because there’s no way both he and my mother woke up at three-thirty in the morning so they could tell me to get Northpoint ready for a surprise guest. When he doesn’t say anything else, I look at my mom who’s brought her own plate to the table to sit down across from me.
I watch her for a moment while she butters her own biscuit before sliding her egg on top of it. “You said things ,” I remind her, careful to keep deference in my tone. My father won’t tolerate insolence aimed in his direction, but he’ll sure as hell burn me to the ground if he hears it aimed at his wife. “Is there something else you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Well...” Focused on popping the yolk on her own eggs, she flicks one of those nervous smiles in my father’s direction. “Your father had a meeting with Mr. Morris yesterday afternoon.”
The cyclone in my belly picks up speed, the twisting swirl of it so fast I’m suddenly dizzy enough to see spots. “And?”
“And it seems Brock and his father are ready to agree to your father’s terms.” Seeing the look on my face, her mouth tightens at its corners again. “He’ll be here on Friday to take you to dinner and a movie so the two of you can get reacquainted—” Setting her fork down, she gives me a sympathetic look that my father misses completely. “isn’t that nice?”
Nice?
No, it’s not nice .
It’s so not nice that I feel my hands grip around the edge of the table and my arms tense with the urge to flip it over while I scream it out loud.
“You’re gonna wear a dress,” my father informs me before lifting the last bite of his breakfast to his open mouth. Chewing and swallowing, he drops his gaze to my white-knuckled fingers, still gripped around the table for a moment before he lifts it back up to meet mine. “You’ll let Abbey fix your hair and put on some of that make-up of hers she thinks I don’t know about.” Staring at me with flat blue eyes, he waits for me to do the unthinkable. To tell him no. When I don’t, he gives me a stiff nod. “Your mother and I have some business to attend to in Helena,” he tells me before he stands. “We’ll be home tomorrow evening.” Moving to stand behind my mother’s chair, he pulls it away from the table. When my mother starts to protest that she still has the breakfast dishes to contend with before she can get ready to leave, my father shoots me a look over her head. “It’s okay, Hilly,” he tells her while he gently pulls her from her seat. "Kaitlyn will take care of it before she heads to Northpoint for the day, won’t you?”
Numb from the series of knockout punches I’ve been delivered, all I can do is nod and mumble, “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” A terse word and another one of those angry mouth twitches are all I get before he leads my mother out of the kitchen, leaving me to clean up the mess.