Montana Cherries (The Wildes of Birch Bay Book 1)

by Kim Law

  “We’re all so screwed up,” she said.

  “There is no doubt about that.”

  “And I’m still mad at you,” she pointed out. “Don’t think you’re off the hook.”

  He patted her back. “I’ve also no doubt about that.”

  “Shut up, you idiot.” She pushed out of his arms. “Do you think any of us will ever be okay? We all have issues.”

  “Tell me about it.” He glanced at the ceiling, his mouth a hard line. “I married our mother.”

  They laughed together at his words, though it was a woefully sad sound.

  “She’s not as bad as Mom,” Dani pointed out, attempting to force levity into her voice. The attempt didn’t work. “But if she leaves you, you can’t let her take Jenna.”

  “I can promise you that. I’ll live in LA forever if I have to, but Jenna won’t be raised in a house alone with Michelle.”

  Dani simply stared at him then, thinking about their childhoods. So much hurt. So much lasting pain. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “What can any of us do? Take it one day at a time. Maybe getting Michelle to a place where she enjoys living will change things. Possibly she’s just spoiled rotten and not completely devoid of emotion.”

  “Well, that’s looking on the bright side,” Dani remarked. Her words were loaded with sarcasm. “But I hope it’s true. Will you let me know if you need help?”

  “No, because you’ll be in New York. Have you signed that lease yet?”

  She hadn’t realized he’d keyed in on her stalling on the lease. And she wasn’t exactly sure why she was stalling. “I’m just not sure she’s the one.”

  He gave her a pointed stare and opened her bedroom door. “She’s the one. Sign the papers.”

  Dani stuck her tongue out at her brother, and the two of them shared a real smile.

  “Talk to Dad, too, will you?” he said. “He wants to make things right.”

  “We talked at dinner tonight.” And she didn’t know if he could make things right.

  Gabe peered at her, letting her know that he was well aware there had been no real talking at dinner. “I know he made mistakes. He was far from perfect. But he loves you, he’s worried about you. Talk to him, sis. Maybe together you two can begin to head down a different path.”

  The reality was that she did want to talk to her dad. Even while sitting at the table with him tonight, she’d wanted to talk to him. But she wanted the dad she remembered as a young child back. Not someone who simply wanted her to forgive him for his actions.

  After learning about their mother, though, after letting the past replay in her mind, she’d wondered if it was even possible to have that dad again.

  Dani paced the length of her bedroom, stopped, reversed, and retraced her steps. Then she did it again. Each time she made the same track across her floor, her gaze sought out the desk sitting in the corner all by itself.

  Everything else in her room was packed up, and over the past couple of days she’d even moved quite a few things from the rest of the house into the attic. Items like family pictures that had their mom front and center. Her mother’s favored chair, favorite knickknacks. All pieces that, once Dani had started paying attention, she realized her brothers had avoided for years.

  She’d avoided them too. She just hadn’t noticed it.

  But they were put away now. The house had less of a shrine feel, and she’d even spoken to all of her brothers. The six of them were working to move beyond this giant bomb that had been hanging over their heads for years, and they would eventually be fine. She hoped. They still had a long way to go.

  She’d apologized to Jaden for giving him a hard time about continuing school, and each brother had taken the time to tell her not to clean something, or not to cook something. They’d come to the realization that she’d done all the work around here for years.

  The only problem they hadn’t quite figured out was that if she didn’t do it, it didn’t get done.

  Dinner the past two nights had been takeout, and the sink was loaded with dirty dishes.

  It killed her not to go in there and clean it up, but she also recognized that she had her own issues to deal with. And that meant she needed to put down the scouring pad and let the house get dirty. It also meant ignoring the voice in her head telling her that her brothers wouldn’t love her anymore if she didn’t take care of them.

  That was her mother talking. Her brothers weren’t her mother.

  She stared at the desk again. Yet another of her issues. She had to see what awaited her.

  “Dani.”

  She looked toward her now open door to find her father, arms stiff, back straight, wearing an expression as though he were heading for the guillotine.

  “Hello, Dad.” The two words came out carefully modulated and precise.

  She might have warmed to her brothers, but she had not let herself be in the same room with her father again. He’d been easier to avoid since he’d either been in the barn or at his and Gloria’s place in town. But tonight, apparently, he’d decided to stick around here.

  “Can we talk?” he asked. He didn’t budge from the spot where he stood.

  She nodded. She was ready for this talk. It had to be done.

  “Come in.” She waved him into the room and scanned the area for a place for him to sit. “Take the chair at the desk,” she told him. She perched on the corner of her bed.

  He entered, but took no more than a couple of steps inside before he held up a handful of papers. “When are you going to sign this?”

  It was the lease.

  Irritation bloomed in her chest. “Soon,” she bit out. As far as she was concerned, it was none of his business what she did with it.

  “You leave next week.”

  “I know when my flight is.”

  He thrust the papers at her. “Please, Dani. Sign them. You need to go to New York.”

  She didn’t understand why everyone seemed so focused on her life all of a sudden. She would go to New York. Of course she’d go to New York.

  She took the papers, tossed them on the bed behind her, and mulishly scowled at her father. Maybe she wasn’t ready for this conversation after all, because she suddenly felt very unfriendly toward the man. “That all you wanted?” she asked.

  His shoulders sagged then, and his hands shook as he clasped them in front of him. “No, that’s not all I wanted.” He crossed the room to stand in front of her. “I’ve talked to the boys several times this week, and I need to talk to you, too.”

  “Yeah?” She didn’t give an inch. Seemed the more she’d forgiven her brothers, the angrier she’d become with her dad.

  “I’m sorry,” he started. “I know we let you believe things that weren’t true, but we didn’t intend any harm. It was . . .” He paused and coughed into his hand. “Well, it was just—”

  “Easier to go along,” she stated bluntly.

  He looked surprised at her outburst, but the surprise was followed by guilt. The skin of his cheeks drooped along with the corners of his mouth. “Yes,” he said clearly. “That’s part of it. It’s a shameful thing to admit, but yes. It was easier to go along.”

  “I probably needed therapy or something,” she pointed out harshly, thinking of Ben’s suggestion that she go see her psychologist friend. “You ever think of that? And I probably needed it long before Mom died. But instead, I’ve lived in a cloud of make-believe. Had just one of you set me straight, I might have learned to face life over the past decade. I might not be such a freaking mess right now.”

  He nodded. “Therapy probably wouldn’t have hurt.”

  She laughed drily. “Dad, really, what are you doing in here? You aren’t saying anything that I haven’t already heard from five other people this week. You all screwed up. You kept me in the dark. Yes. But you know what? I don�
��t need your apology for that. I get that. No one meant any harm. Fine. Move on. But there are things I feel you owe me an apology for.”

  “For not having your back as a teen,” he said solemnly.

  “Never.” She stressed the word, coming to her feet at the same time. “You never had my back during those years. But you used to. I remember that. As a kid, I’d go out into the fields with you, or I’d ride up front in your truck as you ran your errands. I felt your love then, Dad. I think that even though I was confused and hurting, and didn’t understand why my own mother didn’t like me, I had you. And that was enough. But that changed. And that’s what I don’t get. You left me alone. With her.”

  Tears had come into his eyes during her speech, and he reached for her hands, holding both in his. She didn’t return his grip.

  “I had her in my ear twenty-four/seven,” Dani continued. “Did you realize that? Did you know what she was doing to me? She told me things. Things a teenage daughter shouldn’t know about her parents’ marriage.”

  He blanched. “What do you mean?”

  She let out another dry chuckle. Nothing about this was funny, yet she found herself wanting desperately to laugh. “Had you not been hiding from her around the clock, you might have seen what was going on,” she said. “She treated me like I was one of her girlfriends.” She squeezed her shoulders up as if to say it had been oh-so-fun. “She gossiped about her friends’ lives, and we laughed and made fun of them behind their backs. She offered to buy me a boob job because I didn’t quite measure up.”

  At his shocked expression, she nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “For graduation. My very own size D. I had to fake a sickness to get out of that appointment. But worse than all that, she talked nonstop about you and her.”

  He gulped.

  “I knew every argument you had, every time you disappointed her in some unfixable way. I knew you were sleeping down here, Dad. You’d sneak back upstairs before daylight, but I knew you were here. And I knew she slipped into the room many nights trying to get you to sleep with her. She desperately wanted another baby, only you wouldn’t give it to her.”

  Her mother had told her over and over how she just wanted to give Dani a baby sister to love. Dani had never pointed out that she didn’t want a baby sister to love. She hadn’t wanted someone else she’d have to take care of.

  She finally ran out of steam, and stood staring at her father, her breaths coming in gasping bursts.

  “Not that I want to admit this,” he began, his words slow and steady, his voice hoarse, “but if you want to understand what was really going on, I didn’t want the last four kids that we had either—not that I’d ever change things. I love all my boys.”

  “I know you do.” She thought of what Gabe had said about wanting to have more kids. Had their father been aware of what type of a person their mother was even then? That she would eventually try to turn their children against each other? “What do you mean, though?” she asked. “You knew what was causing the pregnancies.”

  His hands clenched hers tighter, and she maintained her lack of grip. “She didn’t just manipulate you kids,” he told her. And at this point he looked a little ticked himself. “She started with me. When you were toddlers, you adored her. Hung on her every word. She needed that kind of attention, and a new baby was the way to get it. But I refused.”

  “You’re saying unplanned pregnancies?” Dani guessed.

  “Amazing how many times birth control has failed in this house.”

  She couldn’t believe she was talking to her father about his sex life.

  “She had to be the center of her universe,” he added. “Always. And if she wasn’t, she was mean. Sadie pointed out a lot of things after Cord was born that I hadn’t seen before. She was here helping take care of you, same as she’d done when Gabe came along, and she could see your mom in ways that I couldn’t. Soon after, she made it a point to come around more. Eventually, your mother treated you worse than the boys. Some sort of payback for being female, I think. Anyway, it became clear that Sadie needed to devote her visits to you. Show you that you were loved.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’d be much worse off than I am now if I hadn’t had Aunt Sadie in my life.”

  “I’ve no doubt you would be. I owe my sister the world for that. She made sure to take you under her wing. I couldn’t change things for you, so she took it upon herself to counter as much of it as she could.”

  “But you told her to stop coming,” Dani accused.

  He didn’t immediately respond.

  “You did, didn’t you? After New York. Or maybe Mom told her, but you backed her on it.”

  Guilt washed his features as he nodded, and she remembered thinking just last week that he hadn’t looked this worn out in years. But he did now. He looked like a sad old man.

  “Why?” She demanded an answer. That had been the pivotal point in their relationship. Things had changed afterward. “Why couldn’t you stand up for me, Dad? Why send away the one person I was holding on to for sanity?”

  “Because your mother intentionally sliced a knife across her finger due to your relationship with Sadie,” he barked out. “What else was I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know. Protect me? Make sure I was happy. That I was taken care of. Not let her keep hurting me!” She ended on a shout. Realizing her bedroom door was open, she moved to close it.

  “And what if she’d left me and taken you and the boys with her?” He said the words flatly, but they hit her hard. “She told me she would. She already had a lawyer lined up.” It was the same situation that Gabe was in now. He had to bend over backward to keep his wife happy or she might take Jenna and leave him. Geez, they were a screwed-up bunch. Every last one of them.

  “Okay,” she said more calmly. “I get that. I do. And yes, that would have been worse. But you didn’t just push Aunt Sadie away, Dad. You left me too.”

  “I had to or she made your life even worse. She was jealous of you. By that point, everything you did and said was a challenge to who she was as a woman. You were becoming a real beauty, you were smart, you got to go to New York with someone other than her, and that trip was better than anything you’d ever done with her. And if I spent time with you? When I wouldn’t even spend it with her?” He shook his head. “She turned her anger on you, baby girl. So I had to back off.”

  “You pacified her. Instead of fixing anything, you enabled her. Went along with all of it.”

  “I was weak. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “Hell yes, you were weak. You should be ashamed of those years. The boys disappeared from the house with you on a regular basis. You all got to escape her. I was left here any time I wasn’t in school.”

  And even then, Dani remembered her mother occasionally showing up at the high school.

  “I’ve hated you for a long time,” she continued, her voice dropping to a shameful whisper. “Did you know that? But I didn’t know why. I just knew that something had changed, and that it had hurt me badly.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Of course, I never let my true feelings show. Mom taught me well.”

  “Dani.” He took a step toward her. “I’m so sorry.”

  She took a step back. “You should be. And sorry doesn’t fix it, so keep it. Words are easy.” She found that she couldn’t forgive her dad as easily as she could her brothers. Her brothers had been victims, same as she. Their father should have protected them. All of them.

  And he hadn’t.

  “Thanks for stopping by, Dad.” She reopened her bedroom door. “But I think we’ve said all there is to say.”

  He didn’t immediately go. Instead, he scratched at the back of his neck, and as he stood there she took in his age. He’d held up over the years, but he had aged. He was in his late sixties, and though he still should have plenty of years ahead of him, Dani suddenly envisioned stan
ding at his funeral.

  And she imagined what that would be like if she never forgave him.

  The thought almost took her to her knees, but she fought the pain off. He was her dad, and she loved him. But she was not ready to forgive him yet. The old bastard would just have to hang on until she was. And that might be years from now.

  Finally, he nodded and moved toward the door. When he got directly in front of her, he glanced back at the bed, at the papers she’d tossed in the middle of it.

  “Go to New York,” he said. “Prove to the world that your mother—that I—didn’t keep you from your potential. You’re amazing, Dani. And you have your life spread out before you. I’ll do anything I can to help you have it. You don’t even have to ask. I’ve a lot to make up for and I will. All I ask is that you let me try.”

  She swallowed the tears that clogged her throat and looked away from him. She couldn’t stand seeing him hurting. And she knew that her rejection hurt him.

  And deep down, she was glad for it.

  “Sign the papers,” he said again. “You’re not staying here any longer.”

  “You’re damned right, I’m not,” she snarled. She had a life she deserved, and even if that meant their multigenerational business might fall apart, she was going to have it. She snatched the contract off the bed and signed on the dotted line. “Happy?” She held the signature page up for him to see.

  He nodded, though he didn’t look happy at all, and left her room.

  After he was gone she closed the door, then she stood in the middle of the room, her entire body shaking, and she let her tears fall. Hot streaks tracked over her cheeks and rolled past her chin. She did nothing to stop them. Just let them fall.

  She might have been too hard on her dad, she recognized that. But that’s all she had to give at that moment. She was aware, though, that he was telling the truth about their mom. Dani and her brothers hadn’t been the only ones manipulated in the family.