AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m not Derek.”
“But you’re a Barron.” She said it like it was worse. Maybe it was. I didn’t know. “You’ve already acted just like them. And when they get to you, they’ll tell you the same things they told Derek, and you’ll listen. Because if there’s one thing I know about Barrons, it’s that they think they’re better than everyone else, especially if that person’s a Granger.”
In the week and a half I’d been here, I’d heard enough about how people felt about those who had my last name. I hadn’t grown up here. I wasn’t raised with them. But from what I’d seen, I wondered if the Barrons were just an easy way to dodge blame. Couldn’t take responsibility if it was all their fault.
If Cheryl wanted to point fingers at people who’d made Delaney feel like shit, she needed to face a mirror. “And what about you?”
Cheryl looked at me like I was a steaming pile of cow shit. “What about me?”
“You said that Derek didn’t make Delaney feel like a priority. That he let his family’s opinions affect how he treated her.” I ran a hand over my head. The sun was beating down on my dark hair. I should find a ball cap or a cowboy hat to wear. “Yet, you gave her nothing and gave Kane everything. It couldn’t have been Derek that drove her away from Coal Haven. They’d been broken up for a year, correct?”
Cheryl’s lips puckered as if she tasted my words and they were more sour than any lemon in the world.
“And now?” I pressed. “She’s your daughter, but you hate that she shares my last name, and you’re using it as a justification to continue treating her like crap. How’s that better than how my relatives acted?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You know nothing about what it’s like living like this—”
“You have it pretty damn nice compared to how I grew up,” I snapped, and she recoiled. Great. I was not going to lose my temper with my mother-in-law.
She recovered and snorted. “I doubt it. I heard the payout Allan got was more than this whole place is worth.”
It had been a nice payday. Dad sold his portion back to his siblings and left town. And the property he bought in north Texas had been beautiful. But he hadn’t researched the difference in grazing needs between here and Texas. He’d overgrazed pastures, didn’t prepare for the weather or what was required when six months of the year weren’t winter, and spent more money on the place than the equipment we had needed to do the work. The land had recovered, but our family’s finances hadn’t. He’d tried to go bigger, to make more money, and it had collapsed.
“Doesn’t mean he held on to it. I’m sure if I looked through your books, I’d find them as dismal as when the bank came to take away everything we owned.”
“My books are fine.” Her hostility drained away. “Allan lost it all?”
“All of it. Think he wanted to come home and tell Uncle Cameron that?” It wasn’t exactly a highlight of my life. The stress Dad and Mama had been under. Their fights. The way she grew weaker over the years until she finally went to the doctor. Then it’d been too late. “Unless you have something you’d like me to do around here, I can wait for Delaney at the motel.”
“Ain’t nothing around here for you.” Her hostility was lower than when I had arrived. She’d heard what I said, and it had resonated. Maybe she’d see me as a person and not a last name.
I nodded and went back to my car, hating how wrong Cheryl was. Between Delaney and the family I had yet to meet, I had more here than I had in Texas.
