“What’s the alternative? Marry you and never be able to love you? I won’t do it. That’s not right.” As much as I loved Sam as a person, I couldn’t make a romance happen out of thin air. He was attractive and intelligent and wealthy, but there was some core ingredient that was missing.
Sam wiped his mouth with his napkin and threw it onto his still-full plate. “Fine. You don’t want me around? I’ll go. I don’t know why I even wasted my time in the first place.” He dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table and left.
I wanted to run after him and keep talking but I couldn’t. I was doing Sam a favor by rejecting him. I didn’t want to lock him in a loveless marriage where we’d just resent each other. I just had to pray that he would come around and not be the latest casualty in the Wentworth civil war.
Chapter 18
I left the diner, unsure where to go. Sam and I had carpooled together, but he had Eli’s number to call for a car. I drove for hours, wandering along dirt roads and getting lost on purpose. I let the radio play in the background, though I wasn’t listening to it.
If my belongings weren’t still at the house, I’d have considered driving to New York and letting Gus puzzle out why the stupid tracker was showing me halfway through Arkansas. But running away was only a temporary solution. I couldn’t change my family or my circumstances, but I could refuse to be bullied.
Judging by the disastrous breakfast with Sam, that wasn’t working out so well. I didn’t see a viable alternative when there was so little within my realm of control. In a moment of weakness, I almost called Hailey to ask her to fly out. She’d do it in a heartbeat, but then I’d just be inviting her into the cage match.
When I finally got home, I went straight to my room and locked the door. A light tapping sounded a few minutes later. “Go away.”
A timid voice called out, “Miss Wentworth? It’s Leah.”
I flew across the room and ripped the door open, thinking that something might have happened to Dad again. “Is everything alright?”
“Yes, it’s nothing serious.” She blushed. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I just thought you might want to know that Mr. Davis is no longer staying in the house.”
This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have in the hallway. I ushered her inside. “What did he say? Is he going home to California?”
“He checked into one of the hotels. I don’t know for how long.”
“He didn’t say why?”
“No, ma’am. He just told us that he’d be leaving and that we could turn over his room when we had a chance.” Leah gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry. I wish I knew more.”
I opened the door and held it for her. “Thank you for telling me.” It spoke volumes that Sam hadn’t just told me himself. Was that deliberate punishment, or was he just too hurt to face me? I didn’t know, and I hated Dad for putting us in this position.
My shoulders suddenly felt too heavy to stand tall anymore. I went to my closet where I’d shoved most of my bags and incidentals. It took some digging, but eventually my hand closed around the cool neck of the bourbon I’d stashed there. I held the bottle up to the light, watching the caramel liquid slosh hypnotically.
I couldn’t seem to cry. Perhaps feeling nothing was the better option. I twisted open the bourbon and drank, not caring that it was too much or too fast. When I grew dizzy, I fell onto the bed and shoved my head into my pillow, screaming.
Nothing was ever, ever going to change.
I wished again that Sam had been honest with me from the beginning about his intentions and why he’d come to Black Gold Creek. It hadn’t purely been an act of friendship. And by not being aware of his feelings for me, I’d unintentionally hurt him. I would never have dragged him so far into my problems with Will and Dad if I’d known the truth.
It was too early in the day to sleep without arousing suspicion, so I retreated to the library until Dad and Beth inevitably found out about Sam’s departure. There was no way he’d told them yet or they would already be here demanding more information.
I sat at the far table again and pretended to be invested in the paperwork covering its surface. Instead, I stared at nothing while my head spun.
Thinking that a frank talk might soothe my rattled nerves, I scrolled my phone for Stan’s number before realizing I must have lost it over the years. That alone made me sad. In New York, I’d thought of my friends in Bellfield often. Why hadn’t I called? I hadn’t even been able to work up the courage to call Will when his mother died. I just made Crystal add my name to the bottom of her card.
I spotted the contact labeled Maggie Franklin and dialed before I even knew what I was doing. She answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Maggie? It’s Sky.”
I could picture her in that goofy spaceship chair she insisted upon when the rest of us chose classic black leather and cherry furniture during the remodel of the executive suites in New York. She’d been my office neighbor, the person who would sit on the floor with me and drink at 8 o’clock in the morning in bare feet while we lamented some acquisition that had gone south.
“Hey.” Her voice trailed off. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah.” I felt stupid, my face hot with shame. “I’m sorry. I was just… I shouldn’t have called. I didn’t mean to bother you.”
Some papers rustled on the other end of the line followed by the sound of rapid typing. “No, it’s okay. I’ve got a minute. What’s up?”
Maybe it was because Maggie didn’t know anyone else in Bellfield or maybe it was because I knew she didn’t pull punches, but I felt free to talk about my situation for the first time in so long. I gave her the short version of my history with Will, my dilemma with Sam, Crystal’s disappearance, and Bella’s suicide attempt. “I swear that I’m not embellishing in the slightest.” If anything, I was downplaying the extent of the chaos to make my family sound at least a little bit normal. “And now Dad’s home from the hospital. Sam is upset. I don’t know what to do.”
I heard the clink of the decanter she kept on the glass-and-steel bar cart by her desk. “I need a drink just listening to that.”
“Sorry. I don’t mean to use you as my therapist.”
Maggie scoffed. “Please. I owe you after how many times you kept me from flinging Jacobsen out of a fourteenth-story window. Chauvinist pig. Sounds like he’d get along with your dad.”
“I just don’t know when it’s time to call it hopeless and go. I keep thinking I can turn it around somehow.”
“You always were a dog with a bone,” Maggie said. “But there’s a fine line between being determined and beating your head against the wall. I know you’ve got a good gut instinct. What’s your knee-jerk response? Don’t think about all the details. Just answer. Do you think your father will ever give you the ranch?”
“No.”
“Then why are you still there?”
“Because I keep thinking that I can change the odds.”
“How’s that working out for you?” she drawled. “You didn’t get to the top floor by being naïve, Wentworth. Pull it together. That’s my advice, okay? The tough love.”
I nodded, knowing that she was right. “I appreciate it.”
“Plus,” she added, “I shamelessly want you to get your butt back to New York, so I’ll basically say whatever it takes to make that happen.”
I laughed. It was comforting to know that she’d missed me, too. After Bellfield, where there was always a hidden meaning or underlying message in any conversation, Maggie was a breath of fresh air. “Points for honesty.”
“Speaking of honesty, you’re eating up the last few minutes before my next meeting, so I’m hanging up on you now.”
“No problem. Good luck.” I hung up feeling—booze aside—more grounded and clear headed than I had in days. While some of my peers had bemoaned the fast-paced work environment and demanding schedule of a major New York firm, I’d thrived there. I’d also been able to forge my own path without having
to worry that every promotion or opportunity was really an attempt to reach my father. No one on Wall Street cared that I was third in line to inherit a ranch in Texas, no matter how large it was.
I stood and perused the shelves, noting that many of the books closest to me were in an uncharacteristically disorganized jumble. As I neared, I realized that they were Mom’s books from the old house. They didn’t fit in with Dad’s rigid organization system of nonfiction guides, reference manuals, and encyclopedias. I picked up the weathered paperback on top and pictured her reading it, her feet kicked up on the tan ottoman that matched her favorite armchair.
I picked through the stack, setting aside a novel or two that I thought I might want to read later. I gasped as I uncovered a set of yearbooks. Zane had bought them all four years of high school, but Daniel and I had only wanted ones as seniors. I shimmied mine free and rubbed my palm across the smooth white cover. Bellfield High School.
I flipped through the pages, scanning through the club photos and class portraits. I found Will in the beginning, his hair so unruly that I was surprised they didn’t make him comb it. Sam was next, his picture far more traditional and serious. No, no cowboy hat and bolo tie for him. And then there was me.
I studied my younger self, trying to pinpoint a single time in my life when I’d been truly happy. There always seemed to be something holding me back from true joy, whether it was Mom’s diagnosis or the constant slights from my father. Even with Will, there was always the looming threat of our fathers and the fact that it would be impossible for us to marry without risking everything else.
I turned to Sam’s picture again, my thumb tracing the border of his portrait. I missed that Sam, the boy who always landed on his feet and had sixteen schemes for how to reach his next goal. After everything he’d survived and accomplished, I was the one to run him out of his second home.
I was alone in all the ways that mattered to me. I had no great love, only the weak echo of it. I wanted my mother to be alive again. It seemed that all I could do was pine for different versions of the people closest to me. Zane as a teenager before he’d been so bent to Dad’s will. Hailey, when she was just my friend and not my sister-in-law.
I took a hard look at my decisions and questioned whether I’d come home chasing memories instead of reality. Maggie was right; vying for control of Black Gold Creek was just too difficult. If Sam could run away, then so could I.
I turned east, imagining how the conversation would go if I called my old bosses. It’s Wentworth. I screwed up. Can I come back?
I knew exactly what the CEO would say. Donuts are on you. See you Monday.
Even though I hadn’t been happy in New York, it was better than this particular brand of misery. It wasn’t any random person causing me pain. This was my own father, the man who’d raised me, purposefully torturing me with his disapproval.
Crawling back to New York would further crush my ego, but at least I’d have a reputation to stand on. There were people at my firm who respected me and believed in my abilities without feeling the need to take jabs at my gender every three seconds. It was better than nothing, and I was increasingly convinced that was all that awaited me here.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered as I closed my yearbook and replaced it on the shelf. “I tried. I really did.”
I left the novels behind and brought the yearbook with me to my bedroom. Heart pounding, I excavated my suitcases from the mess in my closet and placed them on the bed. I unzipped each slowly, recalling the exact way I’d packed to fit in all of my belongings.
I spent the next hour folding my clothes and collecting my various toiletries. I was too busy to think, too busy to feel. I was on auto-pilot, a seasoned traveler only capable of focusing on one object at a time. Left shoe. Right shoe. Toothbrush. Charger.
I didn’t zone in again until it was all finished and the room had been transformed into an empty guest room once more. My hands shook as I fumbled with the buckles and straps to secure my clothes inside each case. “Am I really doing this?” I asked myself, bending low to press my forehead to the biggest roller bag. “What is wrong with me?”
In the rush of packing, my conviction had somewhat waned. This was the easy part. What came next? The thought of saying goodbye to Dad, maybe forever, was enough to roil my stomach. And what about Will? I couldn’t just leave without telling him why.
I pushed my bags towards the ends of the bed and sprawled between them, my face buried in the coverlet. Every time I thought I had it figured out, it just became more and more apparent that I had no idea what I was doing.
Suddenly, I thought of the perfect escape. I shoved my luggage under the bed in case anyone came snooping, then walked out to the foyer. I heard Beth’s voice saying, “I think I just heard her.”
“Sky?” Dad called from the sitting room. “We need to talk. What’s this business with Sam going to a hotel?”
I ignored him, my steps quickening as I shut the front door and rushed down the steps to the stone path out front. I cut a sharp left around a bush and jogged across the grass to my childhood home. It looked forlorn without any lights on, as though it personally resented being replaced. I patted the front column affectionately. “It’s okay. No one in the family likes me either, apparently.”
It took me a few moments to find the spare key hidden in the flowerbed, but I was inside before anyone else had spotted me. There were cameras on the porch that fed into the ranch-wide security system, but I doubted Dad would pursue me. That would require caring.
I took off my shoes and meandered through the house. There were spots on the floor where furniture had been removed and some things escaped my memory. I stared at the formal parlor, attempting to reconcile the layout in front of me with the one I recalled from my childhood. I couldn’t decide if it had always looked like that. Mom hadn’t let us in there, insisting that she needed one child-free room for hosting guests. It bothered me that I couldn’t remember.
The library shelves were nearly bare, only a few mass-produced items left behind for whoever might stay here in the future. I went in and out of the various bedrooms, remembering Zane’s posters and Daniel’s messiness. A few times, I swore that I smelled Mom’s perfume or the lavender laundry detergent she loved and I despised.
When I surveyed my own room, it didn’t conjure up feelings of nostalgia as much as regret. If I traveled back in time, I still wouldn’t know what to do to prevent the same battles I was fighting in the present. Still, it was somewhat encouraging to recognize that I’d changed from the idealistic teenager who’d once lived here.
I nodded to myself. Finally, I knew what I needed to do. Last time, Will and I had broken it off with hardly a word spoken between us. We’d made choices without understanding each other. If I wanted to be positive that going back to New York was the right decision, I needed to settle the question mark of Will Blythe once and for all. “Tomorrow,” I muttered, already too defeated by today to face him. “I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Chapter 19
Thinking of what I would say to Will the next day felt like an anchor as I returned to the main house to be interrogated by Dad.
“Why do you have to make everything difficult?” he snapped as his unrelenting barrage of questions halted. “This is my fault. I should’ve been firmer with you before you got it in your head that you can do whatever you want.”
I tried a new tact where I simply agreed with everything he said. I was too worn down to argue in circles. “Okay.”
“That’s what’s wrong with this country these days. Men just can’t be men without people acting like there isn’t a natural order to things.”
“Okay.”
The side benefit of my flippant attitude was that it incensed my father enough for Beth to intervene. I didn’t want to risk his health by causing him stress, but there wasn’t an easy way to placate him short of marrying Sam. “That’s enough of that,” Beth chastised as she pushed his wheelchair towards their room. “Yo
u should just get some rest and talk about it later.”
While she was preoccupied, I grabbed a bottle of scotch from the bar and retreated to my room to drink my dinner. As much as I loathed the pretentiousness of the intercom, it did come in handy to ask Brian to send up something light for my stomach without having to leave the sanctuary of my bedroom.
My phone rang just as I was finishing off a cup of homemade chicken noodle soup and a chunk of freshly made bread. I groaned at the sight of the contact name and poured myself another drink in preparation. “Hi, Daniel.”
“Sky.” He sighed. “Three guesses why I’m calling.”
“Beth won’t let Dad yell at me, so he asked you to do it instead?”
Daniel made a game show dinging noise. “And she gets it on the first try! Can you believe that, America?”
“Let’s just get it over with.”
He cleared his throat as though preparing for a rehearsed speech. “Bear with me here. I’m a little rusty on the Dad-using-me-as-a-mouthpiece thing.”
“Take all the time you need.”
“Sky, you’re so irresponsible to this family,” Daniel said in a flawless impression of our father. “Your brothers already have businesses of their own. You’re the last Wentworth! Just do what I say. I’m your father!” When he spoke again, it was in his own voice. “How’d I do?”
I shrugged, though he couldn’t see it. “Not your best performance. Is there anything else? I’ll tell Dad you really gave me an earful.” It was an old tradition between us. This way, Daniel could truthfully tell Dad that he’d done as commanded without actually embodying the spirit of the task. It was rare that my brothers completely sided with me, so I still had to be careful, but this was a good sign that I wasn’t entirely on my own.
“Should I be worried?” Daniel asked. “I’m only getting bits and pieces of what’s going on out there. Should I just take a couple of days and come to Texas?”
The Cowboy's Promise: Love Triangle Billionaire Romance (The Wentworth Cowboy Billionaire Series) Page 16
