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I didn’t deserve the misery or mistreatment.
No one did.
I’d already put up with enough, thank you very much.
So, I’d walked, shaking so hard I could barely hold onto the steering wheel when I’d flown from his ranch as fast as I could. No way was I going to let that bastard see me cry.
The second I’d hit the main road? That’s when I’d let it go. I let the pent-up anger and disappointment bleed from my eyes, like I could purge it out and make it not matter.
It’d left me in big wracking sobs.
Maybe I’d felt better when I’d finished, realizing working at Hutchins Ranch wasn’t my only opportunity.
I could still make this work.
Reclaim what I’d lost.
But when the dust had settled around my heart and the resolution had set in, I’d hated what’d remained. The disturbed awareness that I wasn’t the only one who’d been wronged this afternoon.
Evelyn had, too. The one who I’d promised I’d see in just two days. This shy, sweet child who so clearly needed someone to help her spread her wings. To help her see she could believe in herself.
Maybe I was the ridiculous one for getting attached to her so quickly.
I couldn’t help it.
Each time I saw her, every cell in my body went soft, and the more time I’d spent with her, the more I was sure she needed someone. Someone to see her. Someone to spend time with her. Someone to encourage her.
Love her.
She obviously wasn’t getting affection from that piece of garbage Greyson, that was for sure. I wasn’t even sure he was capable of it.
Didn’t he see he had the most incredible child? That he’d been given a gift?
Except I’d seen the way he watched over her, too. So intensely protective, as if he were trying to hang onto something he thought he’d already lost.
But I had no control over any of it, did I?
Gulping down the mess of emotions, I pushed up on my toes and searched through the packed crowd, ready to find my friends so I could dance this bitterness out instead of flying back to that ranch and telling the prick exactly what I thought of him.
Mack’s was one big, rambling room. A thick haze saturated the space, the lights strobing from the soaring, open rafters spraying murky streams through the dingy air.
The entire middle of the room was taken up by a giant dance floor that was already overflowing with couples two-stepping.
There was a bar up front next to me, and another on the right wall. On the left was a row of pool tables and darts, and at the far back was the elevated stage where a band currently played a quick, invigorating country beat.
I could already feel my insides quickening with the pulse, ready to let go.
Through the dimness, I scanned the high, round tables that were situated around the dance floor.
Excitement throbbed when I found my friends at a table about halfway down on the right.
I began to wind through the crush, saying hello to familiar faces as I went. Mack’s drew a crowd from all around, so while there were a ton of people I knew, there were just as many I didn’t.
Like she felt me approaching, Dakota swiveled around on her stool when I was three feet away. “There you are!”
Her face lit in welcome, her brown eyes dancing. Clearly, my bestie was already having a blast.
She had on one of her signature dresses, this one short but flowy and red with dainty pink flowers, her brown hair up in a high, stylish ponytail.
Beth and Chloe were also at the table—two of our friends who worked at the café, as well.
Apparently, I was the only one who couldn’t be suckered into working for her.
“Since when aren’t you the first to show when there’s a good time to be had?” Dakota teased. “Bad day?”
Blowing out a sigh, I plopped my butt onto the empty stool. “Oh, you could say that.”
“I thought you told me just last week there are no bad days?” Beth shouted above the mayhem to be heard, lifting her beer glass into the air before she took a sip. She wore her black hair short, her dark skin glowing beneath the lights.
Even when things felt grim, I tried to look to the bright side. It seemed Mr. Greyson had stomped out that flame, too.
“I was proven wrong,” I said, my voice droll.
“She’s been having all kinds of bad days lately.” A wry smile played along the edges of Dakota’s mouth. “It seems someone brings out the worst in her. What did that asshat do this time?”
“He did it good. I quit.”
Chloe gasped, her purple hair that was cut in a long, angled bob swishing around her shoulders. “From training that little girl? I thought you loved it?”
“I did love it.” I just didn’t like getting degraded by her father.
