Gone Country: Rough Riders, Book 14

by Lorelei James

  At first her stubborn mother stayed true to her decision to exclude Rory from issues in her relationship with Gavin. But she wasn’t deterred. She adopted her mother’s soothing style of extracting information and her mom finally broke down.

  And Rory had broken down too, silently, on the other end of the phone because she grasped her mom’s dilemma. If the situations had been reversed and Rory had made those demands? Her mom would’ve sided with her—seen to her child’s needs above her own without question. Even right now when her mom was miserable, she wouldn’t fault Gavin if he chose his daughter over her. But hearing her mother cry…Rory wanted to hop in her truck and kick some serious McKay ass—starting with Sierra’s.

  But she’d promised to cover her co-worker’s bar shift last night and she hadn’t left for Sundance until early this morning.

  Upon arriving home, Rory parked her truck at her cabin and skulked through the trees, avoiding her mom as she made a beeline for the house.

  Gavin wasn’t around. Good. That might’ve been awkward, him asking what she was doing there and her answering…I’m here to bust Sierra’s balls.

  Rory knocked on Sierra’s door, but didn’t allow the girl a chance to deny her entrance so she barged right in.

  Sierra sat on her bed, earbuds jammed in her ears and the music cranked so loud Rory heard it by the door. Sierra’s head was back, her eyes closed. A notebook sat on her lap with words scrawled across the page.

  Rory recognized heartbreak when she saw it. Grabbing the footboard, she jostled the bed.

  Sierra’s eyes flew open. She scrambled out of her slouch, wiped her eyes and pulled out her earbuds. “Rory? What are you doing here?”

  “Came to see my mom. She’s busy making hay while the sun shines, so I thought I’d grab you and we’d go get ice cream or French fries or something equally junky.”

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  “I am. Let’s go. You can keep me company while I eat.”

  “Rory. I’m not dressed, I’m in a shitty mood and I just wanna be left alone.”

  “Tough shit and toughen up, little sister.” She jostled the bed frame again. “Move it.”

  Sierra tossed her iPod aside. “What is your problem?”

  “You are, Little Miss Mopey Face. You’re hunched up in your bed, acting like your pet hamster died and I’m PMS-ing for chocolate and grease. I’ve never ridden in your fancy-ass new ride, and since I know how much you love to drive, I’m telling you to get up and chauffer me around, be-yotch.”

  “You are such a pain in the ass.”

  “Yeah? What’s your point?”

  “Fine. Give me a fucking minute.”

  Rory chattered about bullshit on the way to town. College and bartending and guys that’d been sniffing around. Sierra was occupied with driving so she was only half-listening anyway and didn’t suspect a thing.

  At Dairy Queen, Rory went inside to order since Sierra refused to go through the drive-thru. An extra-large fry and two gigantic mocha Moo-lattes later, Rory directed Sierra to drive to Flat Top. If she thought it weird two girls were headed to the local make-out spot, she didn’t mention it.

  They sat on the bench overlooking the deep, red-rock rimmed canyon, with prairie on one side and Devil’s Tower on the other. Once they demolished the order of fries—so much for Sierra not being hungry—Rory broached the subject.

  “So. I guess you won’t be round much longer, huh?”

  Sierra glanced at her sharply and then suspiciously. “Did your mom put you up to this?”

  “Put me up to what? Gorging ourselves on junk food? My mom is the prophet of healthy eating, remember?”

  “No, did she ask you to take me aside and talk me out of it?”

  “Talk you out of what? Holding a knife to your dad’s throat and insisting he do what you want?”

  “My dad said something to you,” Sierra accused.

  “I’ll admit to shock when I called my mom yesterday and she was sobbing so hard I couldn’t understand her.”

  All the blood drained from Sierra’s face. “What? Rielle was crying?”

  “No, sobbing. Like her heart was breaking and she couldn’t get enough air. There’s a difference between sobbing and merely crying. I’m sure you know that.”

  Sierra squirmed. “Did she tell you why?”

  “Some. That your dad was probably leaving her and here for good.”

  “He doesn’t have to,” Sierra protested. “He can stay here with Rielle if he wants.”

  “But if he does, you’ll punish him by moving to France with your mother,” Rory pointed out.

  “He promised me if I didn’t like it here we could go home.”

  What a little shit. So self-righteous and involved in her stupid teenage dramas that she couldn’t see the aftershocks of stamping her foot and demanding her way. Rory had been that girl too. But she’d be damned if she’d stand by and watch it happen. Her mother had put aside her own life for years to make sure Rory’s life was happy. It was time to pay it back.

  Rory got right in her face. “You are such a fucking brat, Sierra, I can’t even believe it.”

  Sierra reared back, completely floored.

  “Your dad has done everything for you, sacrificed any kind of personal life, selflessly put up with his ex-wife because he wouldn’t deny you a relationship with your mother. And now, when he’s finally found happiness, when he’s found a woman he loves and who loves him back, when he’s building relationships with the family he didn’t know he had…you’re gonna pull the fucking rug out from under him? You’re essentially saying, Daddy, your life is solely devoted to seeing that my needs are being fully met, one hundred percent of the time and I don’t give a shit about anything else but getting my own way.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “That is so fucking true it makes me sick. You wouldn’t think twice about ruining his relationship with my mom. You’d do it, devastating two people, and then it’d be out of sight, out of mind as you flit off and get your damn nails done.”

  Sierra leapt to her feet. “Where the fuck do you get off saying that shit to me? You were a total brat to your mom when you found out about her and my dad. You threw a little baby tantrum and stormed off, remember?”

  “Yes, I was upset, but not because our parents were together. It was something entirely personal on my part and I had to do a shit ton of soul searching to figure out why I felt that way. And I did. Then I mended the rift in my relationship with my mom. I apologized to her. I asked for her forgiveness. I told her I wanted her to be happy because she deserved it. And I meant it. Oh, and I also apologized to your dad.”

  “So I’m just supposed to suck it up and be miserable for the next two fucking years until I can escape this godforsaken place and go to college?”

  “Stop blaming the way you feel because you’re hating on Wyoming. I know you were just as miserable in Arizona, no matter how you try to paint the desert with rainbows and butterflies.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Sierra. You told me.”

  “When?”

  “You called me late one night in January. Crying about not fitting in anywhere. You said it didn’t matter where you lived, it was always the same.”

  Sierra looked away. “I’d been drinking.”

  “Probably. But it doesn’t make the things you told me any less true,” she said gently. “And I don’t think moving to France will change anything. Except you’ll be stuck in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, with no escape. You will have to live with your impulsive, spiteful decision. And I ain’t gonna lie. Part of me hopes you make that choice. A dose of reality would do you good because you don’t understand how good you have it right now.”

  Sierra paced, acting as if she was contemplating Rory’s words. “You really think my dad will decide to stay here?”

  “I hope so. For my mom’s sake and for his.” Rory watched Sierra, so torn; she knew something else was at pl
ay. “What happened in the last couple of days that made you so eager to leave Sundance immediately?”

  She bit her lip and studied the ground.

  “Were you bullied by girls at school? Verbally harassed or physically assaulted or threatened?”

  She shook her head.

  An awful thought occurred to her and it wouldn’t go away. “Did a guy touch you in a way you didn’t want to be touched? Or force you? Because if that happened, we can get you help—”

  “I wasn’t raped or anything like that.”

  “Thank God.” Rory exhaled. “I didn’t want to push you, but I know you’re holding something back and I was really scared that’s what it was.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, like you reminded me a few months back, there is some stuff we can’t talk about with our parents, no matter how much we should. I suspect you don’t have many people you can talk to if you’re calling me.”

  Rory waited for Sierra to speak. When several minutes passed and she stayed mum, she pushed her. “Sierra. What’s really going on? What couldn’t you tell your dad?”

  Sierra had closed herself off, wrapping her arms around her upper body. “I have—had—two people I can talk to. Marin. But she’s staying at her grandma’s. The other person I could talk to? He left yesterday morning.”

  Sierra had only ever mentioned one guy. “Boone?”

  She nodded.

  Well that explained a lot. “What happened?”

  “He joined the army. We’ve hung out so many times and he never…” She cleared her throat. “Then after he told me he was leaving, he said all these things to me…how he felt about me—which I didn’t know—and he kissed me.”

  “And?”

  “And he left and it hurts! It pisses me off and I can’t stop crying. I want to leave. I want to put him behind me, put this whole year behind me and start over.”

  “But you wouldn’t be starting over if you went back to Arizona,” Rory pointed out. “Do you think you could start over in France?”

  She sniffled. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I’m so confused.”

  Rory let her settle before she spoke. “Can I give you some advice, little sister?”

  “I guess.”

  “Change yourself, not your location.”

  Sierra looked up. “What?”

  “You let things happen to you instead of making them happen for you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m the same way. Or I was. You didn’t confront your dad about the stuff that was bugging you last fall. You made me do it. I went through this too, learning to be assertive without changing who you are inside, so listen to me.” Rory tucked a strand of hair behind Sierra’s ear. “You’re a fun, smart, funny and sweet girl—when you’re not being a total brat.”

  Sierra gave her a watery smile.

  “For some reason, you hide that. Don’t. Be proud of who you are.” Then Rory laughed.

  “What?”

  “I just realized I’m telling you to act like a McKay.”

  Tears shimmered in Sierra’s eyes again.

  What was up with that?

  “You don’t need a pack of friends, okay? If you have one good friend, one you can talk to, one who can talk to you, one you have fun with…then count yourself blessed. There are a lot of lonely people in the world who don’t even have that, to say nothing of all the people you have in your life who love you. The McKays may annoy me to no freakin’ end, but if you called any of them and told them you were having troubles, they’d all be there for you in a heartbeat. I think you know that.”

  A full minute passed before Sierra spoke. “So if you were me, Rory, what would you do?”

  “I know what I wouldn’t do.”

  “What?”

  “Let Boone West or the memory of Boone West fuck up my life any more than he already has. Move on. Use his leaving as a chance to make yourself stronger, not let it weaken you further.”

  “You sound just like your mom.”

  “And that is the best compliment you could ever give me.”

  Sierra paced in her room after her conversation with Rory. She hadn’t seen her dad since the blowup yesterday morning and she missed him.

  You’ll miss him a lot more if you move to France.

  As soon as he’d walked out, telling her that he didn’t want to deal with her, Sierra knew she’d screwed up bad. Like usual, she’d said the first shitty thing that popped into her head. Lashing out because she hurt. Knowing exactly to what to say to her dad to make him hurt. Twisting the circumstances—not telling her dad the real reason she wanted to leave because he wouldn’t understand.

  After what’d happened with Boone, she’d spent the whole night cursing him, cursing herself, cursing this stupid town. She’d called her mom and cried for over an hour, telling her about Boone—things she’d never told anyone. And her mom had been so sweet, not offering some snarky advice but really listening to her. Then her mom urged her to visit her in France, not in her usual manipulative way, but because she missed her daughter and then Sierra couldn’t see anything beyond just getting the hell out of Wyoming.

  Her mom had no idea she’d given her dad an ultimatum. Now she’d dug herself into a hole. She couldn’t march into her dad’s office and say, “Just kidding! I don’t want to go back to Arizona… By the way, what’s for supper?”

  This time she’d gone beyond crying to get her way. This time her rash response was having life changing repercussions because hers wasn’t the only life that would be affected.

  She flopped on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  Every sickening thing Rory had thrown at her was true. But Rory was mistaken if she believed Sierra hadn’t already recognized those nasty truths about her childish behavior. But she was stuck. She couldn’t talk to her dad. And she was so embarrassed by what she’d said and done that she just wanted to hide in her room and hope all this shit blew over.

  It’d serve her right if her dad called her bluff and shipped her off to France.

  Her mom would be happy. She’d sent Sierra three emails in the last day, begging her to come and stay in Paris. One thing she hadn’t lied about during the big blow up was that she missed her mom. Yes, sometimes her mom acted ridiculously self-centered—now Sierra understood where that trait came from in her own knee-jerk responses—but other times, her mom was thoughtful, honest and helpful and she understood her in ways that her dad never would.

  Divorce sucked. It’d turned her dad completely against her mom. He always pointed out her mother’s worst qualities and didn’t see her good side. He claimed she didn’t have a good side but it was there. Maybe Sierra wished it were there more often, but it was there.

  Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten anything except French fries and a bag of chips she’d found during her packing frenzy. But she was too much of a chickenshit to go into the kitchen in case she ran into Rielle. What could she possibly say to her after what she’d done? Thinking about it made her sick to her stomach all over again.

  Her cell phone buzzed on her desk and she rolled to her feet. Why was Marin was calling her? “Hello?”

  “What the fuck, Sierra? I get a text from you that says you’re moving? What’s that bullshit about?”

  “What? I didn’t send you a text!”

  “Uh, yeah you did. Two hours ago. It says, and I quote, please try and talk me out of moving away forever.”

  Rory. That sneaky bitch. She’d asked to see Sierra’s iPhone under the pretext of buying one and used it to send Marin a text.

  “So tell me what’s going on.”

  “It’s a big mess, Marin. It’s my fault and I don’t know where to start. I don’t know if I can fix it.” She started to cry again. “I just…”

  “Stop crying. Get in your car and meet me at the football field.”

  Sierra sniffled. “What? I thought you were at your grandma’s?”

  “Do you really think I could sta
y there after my best friend texted me that she’s moving away? I oughta bitch slap you for even thinking I wouldn’t care.”

  That brought tears to her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “I still may bitch slap you. And you cannot move away. We have plans for junior year, remember?”

  “What? Uh. No. I think you made plans.”

  “Which always includes you, duh. Anyway, get to the football field.” The line cut out but Marin’s next words were loud and clear. “Friends help each other out. They listen to each other. They’re there for each other. Whatever happened…we’ll find a way to fix it.”

  Sierra didn’t get her hopes up about that, but she snuck out of the house and drove into town anyway.

  Chapter Forty

  Gavin needed someone to talk to.

  He wasn’t quite sure why Vi was the first person who’d come to mind. Maybe because her kids were grown and she’d lived through the turbulent teen years. Maybe because she’d listen and offer her unvarnished advice.

  Or maybe because she’s your mother.

  She met him on the porch. She wore a straw hat, her World’s Greatest Grandma sweatshirt from Sierra and jeans—which shocked him. He’d never seen Vi in jeans.

  She inspected him head to toe. “At least you’re wearing decent shoes. I thought we could walk a bit.”

  “Where we going?”

  “To my favorite thinking spot.” She laughed when Gavin wrinkled his nose. “Cow shit will wash right off those loafers.”

  “Good to know.”

  She sobered quickly. “Gavin. Sweetheart. You look like hell.”

  “Feel like it too.”

  She handed him a bottle of water. “Follow me.”

  They cut through the first pasture and followed the fence line up a steep incline. Gavin found himself studying the ground, seeing the variances in grass and the occasional wildflower. Gray rocks popped up and sagebrush abounded. But the only scent carried on the wind was manure and a hint of Vi’s perfume.