”—but your dad…” I continue. “He kept this going for you. For all of you. And if you sell without stopping to consider what you’re losing, you might never get it back.”
“What would we be losing?” The marble is back in Calder’s face. The same wall that always erects when Ransom is brought up makes him cold again. “An ugly house?”
Ouch. I hit him with sentiment, and he closed himself off. “It’s where you both grew up. It’s where you learned to walk and to ride and probably even to drive.” My throat burns raw when I swallow. “It’s my home.” Where I had the best life, and the best of my sister.
“What’s with the house?” Bowen asks, more confusion gathering in his features.
Calder shakes his head like it hurts to hear the point I made. “Forget the house.” He doesn’t address his brother. “We’d lose not one, but two failing companies.”
“Shit,” Bowen breathes like he’s finally caught up on the conversation.
“You want us to save all this,” Calder says to me, hooking his hands on his hips. “Why? So you have a place to work? A place to live? So you don’t have to run back to Tanner?”
“Low blow.” The back of my throat burns.
Guilt darkens his gaze. “Mer?—”
“I’m sure Dad will throw some money your way in the will.” Bowen’s flippant tone stops any softening that was happening in my chest. “If there’s any left.”
“Bowen, fuck.” Calder still doesn’t take his gaze off me.
Pressure pushes out at my temples. There’s no more arousal. No desire. Only disappointment and betrayal. They’re not getting it, and they don’t want to.
“I watched Ransom work late here to keep the doors open and then get up early to help the ranch survive. I watched him stare at your high school pictures on the wall and get lost in his head when he thought no one was watching. He was doing all this for you, and this is how you repay his memory? Dumping his life’s work—and your mother’s—like it’s worth nothing but a fewbucks?” A disgusted noise rips out of me. “Maybe that’s just me. I grew up with nothing, and what I got in Scandal was so much more than dollar signs. But I guess if that’s all you consider when it comes to worth, then I shouldn’t expect either of you see what the problem is.”
I storm out the door, but neither of them stops me. I get in my car, slam the door, and tear out of the parking lot, but I don’t go to the house. I head for Sawyer’s. I don’t want to be around Calder.
NINETEEN
MEREDITH
“Oh my god, those assholes.”
Sawyer’s repeated the same thing since I told her what Bowen said. We’re on her couch in the old farmhouse she lives in on the edge of town to be closer to both the ranch and the vet clinic where she works. Her decor is more farm chic, but she’s refurbished many of the end tables herself. Two cans of open beer sit on an upcycled crate-turned-coffee table. Her yellow lab, Simba, is asleep at the base, and two cats are passed out on the back of the couch.
I didn’t tell her the whole story. There was no confession about how I was a barnacle on Calder. How close I was to coming with no penetration. How close his fingers were to?—
“Are you okay, Mer?” Her concerned frown is on me. “Those two jackasses really did a number on you.”
“Um…” I blow out a breath. I’m not hiding this from her. I have no one else to talk to. “I’ve gotten close to…I was…Calder and I…” I squeeze my eyes shut.
“No.Noooo.Meredith, what are you thinking? You fell for Calder?”
“No. It’s only been, like, four days. I’m not that desperate.” I peel an eye open. “But we were kissing when Bowen showed up.”
“What!”
“It was just the stress. That’s all. I wanted a release.” And to climb that hard body of his.
She shakes her head, grabs her beer, and chugs it. “I bet that prick Bowen was pissed to see that.”
She has no idea what Bowen’s like. Neither do I. But he’s definitely still hurt, and angry about his dad and my sister, like Calder.
“It just happened, and Bowen’s timing was perfect. Then he asked if I was trying to use my magic pussy to change Calder’s mind?—”
She snorts and immediately looks apologetic. “Sorry. I’m not scoffing at the lack of coercion in your vagina.”
“Thanks,” I say wryly. “Calder basically asked if my only other option is Tanner and that’s the real reason I don’t want them to sell.”
