by Cora Seton
“Listen to the reverend, Turner,” Virginia hissed across the aisle at Jed.
“Mind your own business, you old bat,” Jed shot back.
“Jed.” Noah reached out a restraining arm, but Jed brushed him off.
“Mind my business?” Virginia stood up. “I am minding my business. And my thoughts. And my thoughts tell me you’re a thief and a scoundrel, and you owe me a clock!”
Jed surged to his feet, too. Halpern gripped the edges of his lectern and glared at them. “Jed, Virginia, pipe down!”
Maya covered her face with her hands. Stella had slid down in her seat, as if that could hide her. Noah had had enough. If Jed wanted to make an ass out of himself, that was his business. “I’m leaving,” he told his sisters.
“Me, too,” Maya said.
Stella followed them quickly out of the pew.
“Get back here. Cowards,” Jed yelled after them.
“Everyone settle down,” Halpern said. “Let’s all try to—”
Noah didn’t hear the rest. He was already halfway out the front door.
“Aren’t we waiting for Jed?” Stella called after him as she and Maya struggled to keep up in their high heels.
“Hell, no. He can get himself home. I’m sick of all of this.” Noah kept going down the steps and across the parking lot. “Halpern’s right; we’ve got to stop holding a grudge. Why can’t we forgive the Coopers for what they’ve done in the past? Start over with them?”
“Because they don’t deserve our forgiveness,” Jed called from the top of the stairs. He hobbled after them, crossed the parking lot as quickly as he could, caught up and yanked the passenger side door open. “Get out of my way,” he told Stella, and she did, coming around to Noah’s side. Noah pulled his door open, too, and both his sisters slid into the rear seat.
“Don’t you walk away from me, Jed,” Virginia hollered from the top of the church steps. “I’m not through with you.”
“Let’s get out of here!” Jed banged on the dashboard.
“Hold on,” Stella said. “I’m not even in.”
“You know what?” Noah rounded on Jed. “You should be back there in church. You need to hear that sermon more than anyone else.”
“I don’t need to do anything. I said, drive!”
“And I said wait,” Stella snapped from the back seat. She was still tucking her dress around her and putting on her seat belt.
“How are we supposed to hold up our heads with you going off half-cocked all the time?” Noah demanded.
“Jed Turner, you get out of that truck and face me like a man!” Virginia smacked her hands on the glass of Jed’s window, making all of them jump.
Jed slapped the window back at her. Virginia swore at him.
“We’re losing influence in this town. Can’t you see that? You made it worse today,” Noah told his uncle.
“Did not.” Jed balled his fist and banged on the window harder, but Virginia kept it up, slapping at the glass with both hands.
“Did, too.”
“Jed Turner, you are a coward and a reprobate. Get out here, so I can give you the beating you deserve,” Virginia yelled.
“None of this would be happening if it weren’t for the Coopers,” Maya said.
Noah half turned in his seat to confront her. “I think it’s pretty lucky that we have the Coopers. Otherwise we wouldn’t always have someone to blame for our own shortcomings.”
Maya reared back. “That’s not fair.”
“Like hell it isn’t. Look in the mirror sometime. You won’t see a paragon of virtue.”
“Noah,” Stella cautioned, but he was on a roll.
“It’s been a long time since this family has done anything to be proud of, and we’re all at fault, every one of us.”
“Goddamn it, Virginia, get out of here,” Jed shouted through the window.
“All right, I’m ready,” Stella announced. “Noah, you’d better get us out of here before Virginia breaks that window and strangles Jed.”
“She’d be doing us a favor,” Noah muttered, but he put the truck in gear and started to drive.
When the phone rang, Olivia thought about ignoring it, but when Marta’s name appeared on the screen she accepted the call.
“Hey, Marta!” She tried for a chipper tone. “How are things? Enjoying your weekend? I was thinking about coming to see you.”
“I think there’s somewhere else you need to be right now,” Marta said tightly. “I’m in the church parking lot. Virginia chased down Jed a few minutes ago, but the Turners took off before she was through with him, and now she’s taking it out on everyone else, hollering at bystanders. You’d better come get her before she has a heart attack.”
“On my way,” Olivia said tiredly. She’d been spending a lot of time cleaning up Virginia’s messes lately. She grabbed her purse and headed outside to her truck. When she reached the parking lot, the Turners were nowhere to be seen, but several members of the congregation huddled on the doorstep, watching Reverend Halpern remonstrate with Virginia. Olivia checked the time, realized the service should only be half-over and was grateful the rest of the congregation had stayed inside.
“I’ll give Virginia a ride home,” she announced when she’d parked and reached her aunt and the reverend.
“I don’t need a ride home,” Virginia snapped.
“Yes, you do.” Olivia took her aunt’s arm.
“You’ve had a lot of excitement,” Reverend Halpern told her. “You’d better go with your niece.”
Virginia humphed, but she allowed Olivia to lead her to her truck. “That man. Preaching all the time,” she fumed as she climbed inside.
“Virginia, he is a minister—”
“That’s no excuse. A man of God should know when to shut his trap.” Virginia waited for Olivia to get in on the other side. “As for you—”
“Here we go.”
“Where were you when I needed backup in there? You’re never where you’re supposed to be. Always in the wrong place talking to the wrong people, telling them the wrong things. I guess I should know what to expect by now.” Virginia tsked. “But to date a Turner? That’s low, even for you.”
“Give me a break!”
“Give you a break? What about me? Is it too much to ask for you not to humiliate me? I don’t expect you to pick a winner, just anyone but a Turner. That’s the least you could do after failing to stop Camila from stealing Carl.”
“Excuse me?” Olivia, about to insert the key into the ignition, stared at her aunt. “What does that have to with anything?”
“Carl was our trump card. Camila’s as good as a Turner. I wouldn’t be surprised if she convinces him to shut down the school altogether. If you had half a brain, it would have been you standing up at the altar with him. Would have solved most of our problems right there.”
“You have lost your mind, Virginia.” Olivia had never once felt anything for Carl Whitfield, who was at least fifteen years her senior, and she was pretty sure he’d never given her a second thought, either.
“But it’s like I said, I never expected you to manage to marry Carl. Just keep him from marrying a girl who could ruin us. That’s all. The list goes on. You haven’t given me one update on the gala you were supposed to have put together by now. Weren’t you supposed to be getting a job? And, of course, back when you were a child you ruined things for all of us—”
Olivia turned the engine on and floored the accelerator. Virginia squawked as they lurched forward and clutched the edges of her seat. “What are you doing?”
“You said I ruin everything. Why not ruin our ride home?”
“Slow down!”
Olivia did, but she’d made her point, and Virginia was quiet the rest of the way.
By the time she dropped off Virginia and drove back to town to meet Caroline for lunch, she was more than ready for a break from her family. Caroline was at DelMonaco’s before her, and Olivia gratefully slid into a seat across from her.
<
br /> “You won’t believe what happened. I can’t believe it myself,” Caroline said without preamble. She was beaming, and Olivia leaned closer, pleased to see her friend so happy for once.
“What is it?” She was grateful to forget her own troubles for a while.
“Remember the lottery tickets I bought the other day? I won! Olivia, I won fifty thousand dollars!” She lowered her voice when she named the number. “Fifty thousand! I’m going to put most of it toward my mortgage, but I’m going to splurge just a little bit and use some to fix up my kitchen. You know how bad it is.”
Actually, Olivia didn’t. She’d never been inside Caroline’s house, but she’d driven past the humble older cottage in town. Caroline was so proud she owned it rather than renting. From what Olivia understood, she’d bought it several years after graduating from college, long before Devon came on the scene.
“Fifty thousand dollars!” The number was unimaginable to Olivia. “I’m so happy for you. You deserve something wonderful like that.” If Caroline was careful, she could spiff up her kitchen and still take a bunch off what she owed on her mortgage. Her small house couldn’t have cost too much.
“Thank you. I can’t wait to tell Devon. He’ll be home late tonight.”
“He doesn’t know?” Olivia bit her lip, trying to hold back the words she wanted to say but losing the battle. “Maybe you should keep it a secret for now.”
Caroline’s face fell. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know.” Olivia lost the courage to push the point. Caroline was so touchy where Devon was concerned. “What if he wants something different from what you want?”
“We have to pay off the house, and he knows I want to upgrade my kitchen. After all, I bought the tickets.”
“That’s right.” She hoped Devon saw things the same way.
Chapter Seven
“Noah? It’s Brandon. Man, you’ve got to help me. I can’t get a job anywhere, and I need cash.”
“Slow down.” Noah put down the pitchfork he was using to muck out the stall of his favorite horse, Warning, and switched the phone to his other ear. “What happened?”
“The same thing that’s been happening. I see an ad. I apply. I don’t even hear back for an interview.”
“We talked about showing up in person—”
“When I do that, the person in charge of hiring is mysteriously away. And when I come back, they’re still away—”
Noah heard the desperation in Brandon’s voice, and he knew something had to change, fast. He didn’t have any answers, though. People were too worried about the drought to take a chance on a man who’d been in jail. He wondered if he could hire Brandon himself, but they were already stretched tight at the Flying W. Besides, that wouldn’t give Brandon the experience of solving the problem himself. “Why do you need money so badly?”
“The cost of living—”
Noah listened to his gut. “You live with your parents. So what is this really about?”
“Christie,” Brandon admitted. “She deserves more. I want to take her out to eat. To a movie. Dancing. I want to buy her things.”
“What kind of things?”
“She needs a new stove. Hers is busted—”
“She has a job,” Noah pointed out. “Let her buy her own stove.”
“She said—” Brandon cut off.
Now they were getting to the crux of it, Noah figured. “What did she say?”
“She said she wants to be with a good provider. And before you flip your lid, that’s what I want to be. That’s what a man should be. What’s wrong with that?”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Noah admitted. A woman like Christie had to think about the future. What if she had children? A man without a job wouldn’t be much help. “Look,” Noah went on. “You need to hang in there. I need you to trust me. This is the crucial part of the equation right here. If you slog through this and find a job—any job—you’re going to be okay. If you reoffend, you can kiss Christie and your future goodbye. Got it?” There was no use pulling punches.
Brandon heaved a sigh. “Yeah, I got it. But this sucks.”
“Check Silver Falls. Check everywhere you can. Go after every job. Persistence is going to pay off. I swear.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Brandon hung up.
Noah had barely pocketed his phone when Liam rushed into the stable, waving a fistful of papers at him. “Look at all of these letters about how much everyone loves Chance Creek High like it is right now. We’re going to bury those Coopers.”
“Shouldn’t you let people send them in themselves? They’re not going to look good coming from you,” Noah pointed out.
“Way ahead of you,” Liam said. “Everyone is submitting their own letter, a few each day. The paper can ignore some of them, but they can’t ignore all of them. I’m going to post these around town.” He waved the papers again. “I’ll do that tonight, when it’s dark.”
“Don’t get caught,” Noah warned him.
“Stop worrying,” Liam told him and left the stable.
Noah snorted. If anything, he was more worried than ever.
Olivia was curled up on the sofa with an old dog-eared paperback when Lance and Steel trailed through the living room, dressed in black and carrying flashlights.
“I don’t even want to know,” she told them.
“You’re going to know,” Lance said. “You’re coming to help.”
“Oh no, I’m not.”
Steel tossed one of the flashlights at her. Olivia caught it automatically, and he grinned. “Come on. We need you.”
Olivia marked her page and put her book down. “The Turners have the right to irrigate their fields.” Lance cut her off.
“We have the right to water our stock.”
“You’re right, we do. So let’s work on dredging our channel tomorrow when it’s light out.”
“The Turners didn’t wait for light when they made theirs deeper.” Lance was already moving toward the door.
That got her attention. Olivia got up and followed her brothers through the kitchen and out the back door. “You think they diverted water into their irrigation channel?” she asked Steel. She didn’t trust Lance to tell the truth.
“Doesn’t matter if they did or didn’t. Lance says we need more.”
“Then let’s work with the Turners to make sure it’s fair—”
“Coopers don’t work with Turners,” Lance started.
“I’m out of town tomorrow. We’ll take care of it right now,” Steel said. Olivia knew he wouldn’t change his mind, and the two of them outnumbered her. So much for being independent, she thought dispiritedly as they walked. She should go back to the house. Refuse to cooperate. What would they do then?
“What is your beef with Liam Turner?” Olivia demanded of Lance as they headed to the barn.
“My beef is with all the Turners.”
“Baloney. You have it out for Liam. Always have.”
“Not always.”
Lance wouldn’t elaborate no matter how she pestered him as they picked up tools and headed for the creek, and finally Steel shushed her. “We’re getting close.”
“I still don’t want to do this.”
“You’re doing this,” Lance growled at her. “Pipe down.”
Olivia gave up. She’d never crossed her brothers before, and she couldn’t seem to now, not when Steel was on Lance’s side. What if he knew something she didn’t? Furious at herself for failing to stand up to them, her heart in her mouth at the thought of Noah catching them in the act, she held the light for her brothers as they waded into the sluggish water of the creek and altered its flow toward their own side channel.
“Make sure you leave them enough. They’ll be less likely to come after us,” she hissed.
“They don’t deserve—” Lance began.
“Quiet, both of you. We’ll leave them some water.”
“Steel—”
“I said quiet.”
Lance shut up, but the way he hacked at the creek bed with his shovel told Olivia his anger simmered beneath the surface.
Someday that anger was going to blow them all to kingdom come, she thought.
“There. That will do it for now,” Steel said.
“For now,” Lance echoed and splashed toward the shore. He passed Olivia without another word and strode back the way they’d come. Olivia waited for Steel.
“We’ve started something that isn’t going to end well,” she told him when he was out on dry land.
“We don’t have a choice,” Steel said.
“We always have a choice.”
She thought he wouldn’t answer, but Steel stopped and stared into the darkness beyond the reach of her flashlight. “You’re right. We do have a choice. I hope someday you’ll understand mine.” He was gone before she could question him, leaving Olivia to stumble across the fields on her own.
After a few paces she turned off the flashlight, let her eyes adjust and continued by the light of the stars. She’d disagreed with Lance plenty of times in the past, but this was the first time she thought Steel was in the wrong. It left her feeling untethered. She’d counted on her brother, especially after their father landed in jail and their mother left. Now she was on her own.
Which was exactly what she’d said she wanted, Olivia reminded herself. She needed to make her own decisions. Take a stand. This was the last time she’d help sabotage the Turners.
She hoped like hell someday Steel and the rest of the family would understand her choices, too.
Noah knew something was up when Liam and Jed met him on the doorstep of the house the following afternoon. He’d been up well before dawn to drive into Bozeman for an all-day meeting, part of keeping up his credentials for being a parole officer. By the time he got home again, it was nearly dinner. He was hungry and worried because he still hadn’t talked to Olivia. He wished he could meet with her in person, rather than texting or calling, but he couldn’t simply arrive on her doorstep.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Just coming to say hi.” Liam stepped aside so Noah could pass. He and Jed followed him inside.
