“Fuck,” I said out loud. “Dad’s been and gone,” I told Jake, who nodded.
I didn’t slow Boone. I slid down as soon as I reached the house, Jake taking Boone, and I shoved through the door hard enough to rattle it. My heart was still racing, fear gripping me, and I was ready to tip into something worse. Dadpushed the limits, but the only person he hit was me, and fuck, what the hell was going to happen now?
Lucas was sitting at the kitchen table, an ice pack to his left temple, a bottle of meds on the table, and if looks could kill, I’d be dead.
“He can’t help himself,” I lied, because sure as hell, whatever hate my dad had inside him, hitting someone—hitting me—was deliberate. Lucas stared at me, took the ice from his temple, and I winced. Dad had caught him good, and there was a cut there; blood dried down at the corner of his eye. “Fuck. We need to get you to a hospital.”
Lucas sighed. “I’ve had worse,” he said.
My stomach sank at the way he dismissed getting hit in the face and cut enough to bleed, then picked up a towel and patted at melted ice, smearing the blood down his cheek as if this happened every day. I realized I was staring when he gestured to the medical case on the table.
“I need something more up-to-date than the 1998 kit I found in the bathroom.”
“Sure.” I headed out to the front room, where I’d set up my bedroom, and found the emergency medical kit I kept in there, headed back to the kitchen, and placed it in front of him. In a few quick, almost practiced movements, he’d felt his way around the cut, smoothed a wipe over it, and called it done. Then, he sat back in the chair.
“Okay, Jesse,” he said, voice low. “What the hell?”
“I don’t know?—”
“I don’t care how much of our land you own or how hard you try to block me. Whoever the fuck that was works for me, too, and I want him gone. Off this land. Now.”
“I’ll get him off?—”
“He cornered one of my staff and unloaded every slur he could think of. Homophobic. Racist. Vicious.”
“I didn’t know how bad he’d gotten.” Shit. That wasn’t any better. This was hopeless, and I didn’t have the words to explain. “We can’t actually fire him because?—”
Lucas stood so fast the chair slammed back into the wall. “If you think I’m going to stand there and let that happen on my property as an openly queer owner, and with whatever you think you are, then you’re dead wrong.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“The ranch doesn’t employ him,” I began, and it was a lame start with me sounding as if I was defending what had happened. I was still in shock. The way Miguel spoke, it sounded as if Abel had done this before, and Miguel hadhandledit. Why didn’t I know this? Why had no one told me?
“Then what the hell is he doing here?” His expression grew serious. “I’ll call the cops?—”
“He’s my dad!”
If I thought that was enough to end the conversation, I was wrong.
Lucas’s voice dropped instead of rising. Flat. Controlled. “The cabins are falling down. You might have profit, but your books are a disaster. The reality is that I don’t know where to start fixing the accounts before we sell,” he said. “You won’t sell and?—”
“I’m not selling?—”
“—and nowyourfather is allowed onmyland, putting his hands onmypeople.”
“It’sourland!”Not the point, Jesse.“Shit, that’s not the point, and I didn’t mean… look, I’m sorry.”
“What happened wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was violence. And if this is what you allow, Jesse, then I don’t know how you can live with yourself.”
I should have fought. Instead, I took a step back, then another, putting space between us, because if I didn’t, I was going to say something I couldn’t rewind.
“I need to go,” I said, and my voice surprised me with how steady it sounded.
I didn’t wait for a response. I turned and went for the door, putting one foot in front of the other until I was outside in the cold. Jake was untacking Boone. He looked at my face and didn’t ask anything. He stepped aside.
I took the reins from him, my hands already moving, because standing still wasn’t an option.
