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“You gonna tell us yet?” Cade asked, his finger still on the spray trigger.
I burned a hole in him with my glare.
Cade shrugged. “Your funeral.”
Before he got off another shot, I shouted, “Wait!”
The room was silent, my head hung. If I didn’t tell them something, they really would keep me here all day. But I couldn’t tell them everything. I scrambled for a half-truth.
“I … we’re quitting the homeless shelter.”
They stared at me, gawping.
“We’re what?” Cole asked stupidly. “Why?”
“Because we don’t have any equipment, asshole.”
“Right now we don’t, but we’re getting it back soon enough.”
I shook my bowed head. “We just … we can’t do it. It’s costing too much, and now that I have to pay for the expense of repairs out of pocket, there’s no way we can take on any more charity.”
“We don’t have any more expenses on the project past labor. Everything’s paid for.” Carson noted. “You gonna fire the guys?”
“No, I—” I swallowed. “We just can’t work on it anymore, okay?”
Cade shook his head. “And you didn’t tell us?”
“What good would it do? No point in all of us upset about it.”
“And Daisy … is Daisy mad at you for quitting?” Cole asked. “This doesn’t make sense. If she knew you had to do it for the business, she wouldn’t fault you.”
The walls closed in, my half-truth sporting too many holes to appease them, nosy bastards. My heart twisted and shook in my chest.
“Why won’t you finish the project, Keaton?” Cole asked darkly.
“Because I can’t.” Three miserable words cracked as I spoke them.
“Why?” he asked again, firmer.
Defeat left me sagging in the chair. “Because if I do, we’ll lose the business.”
Silence.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Carson asked.
I shook my head, shaking water droplets off my lank hair. “We’ve been in trouble for a long time. Since Dad died. I’ve been … I’ve been trying to make ends meet, but the only way I’ve been able to keep us afloat is with Mandy’s trust. I’ve been skimming off it.”
Cole sank into a chair, his eyes sharp. “Mitchell’s trust.”
The weight of my shame dragged my chin to the ground, too much to bear. The admission was too much to make, too much to say after so long. Now that I’d opened that door, the weight had multiplied by exponents. I couldn’t lift my head, couldn’t meet their eyes. All I could do was nod.
“Mitchell made you quit?” Carson’s voice shook with fury.
“And not just the job,” Cade guessed. “He made you quit Daisy too.”
I couldn’t acknowledge the words, just sat there, hating the truth with my entire heart and soul. But they heard my answer in the thick, heavy silence.
“No,” Cole said softly.
I raised my head. “What do you mean, no? I can’t pay for the damages and keep the business open without that money.”
“Then we’ll close it.” The words were quiet. Resolute.
I barked off a string of dissent, arguing fiercely. They just watched me, lips flat.
I met each of their gazes, one by one. “That’s not an option.”
“If we liquidate, we can get out of it with money left over, at least a little,” Cole noted. “You can’t tell me we’re that deep in the hole. Are we?”
“Not, but—”
“Good,” he said. “We all have savings, and we’ll take whatever’s left and figure out what’s next. Start a new company, maybe. Do custom jobs for people. We can make it work. What we can’t do is let Mitchell keep us under his thumb. What we won’t do is give up our integrity to him. And what you absolutely are never going to get away with is not having Daisy. Not over this. Not because of him.”
“But we can’t—”
“It’s our legacy,” Carson said. “We all know it, Keaton. But do you think Dad would have bent to Mitchell? If Dad were here right now, what do you think he’d tell you to do?”
I didn’t answer.
“He’d say, Fuck that sonofabitch and sell the business before letting someone else dictate what we did. He’d tell us that our morals and our commitment to this town were more important than his money.”
“Even if it ruined us?”
“Even if it ruined us,” he echoed. “And especially if he knew you’d found somebody to love after Mandy.”
My throat locked, tight with emotion.
Cole squatted, looking up at me with Mama’s eyes and Dad’s grit and said, “You’re gonna go tell Mitchell he can shove his money up his tight, crusty ass. And then you’re gonna go get your girl.”
“I can’t,” I said miserably.
“You can.” He reached up, cupped my neck, bowed my head to touch his forehead. “We’re gonna figure the rest out. And goddammit, if you ever keep something like this from us again, expect to spend a lot of time in this chair.”
A choked laugh escaped me. I nodded. He squeezed my neck and let me go.
