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I smile despite myself and he kisses me one more time.
Chapter19
Melody
Ispend the afternoon at the top of the tower kissing War, letting him explore my body, letting him strip off my clothes and lick and suck and dig his fingers into my skin. I let him spank and pull and moan and bite, and I let everything pour out into him, all of my frustration and my anger. I let it build and build and release as I come shivering and sweating in his lap.
“We should sleep here tonight,” he whispers in my ear. “I’ll bring up a mattress and our things.”
“Okay,” I say, thinking maybe this is too much, maybe I’m going too far, but I want it. I want to sleep at the top of the tower with him under the stars and feel his body against mine in the darkness. He’s safety and pleasure in a place that’s devoid of all that, and I want to cling to him and hold on tightly.
But we have a job to do. Once we’re cleaned up, we dress and head back to the main house. I hold War’s hand on the way inside, feeling silly, but taking strength from it, and he doesn’t say a word, only squeezes my palm. It takes a few minutes of wandering and running into a few of the aunts and cousins, but eventually we spot Uncle Lovett out in the garage working on an old pickup alone, playing the radio loud, a cold beer sweating on the work bench beside him.
I go in first with War at my heels. Uncle Lovett doesn’t notice us for a minute. He seems smaller than I remember, thinner and softer, like the man I used to know was the toughened version of whatever he’s become now. Everyone in my family feels that way, but particularly Uncle Lovett—he was always harsh, always straightforward almost to the point of being cold. I liked him, loved him even, and craved his approval at times, but for the most part I did my best to avoid him because I knew even back then that there was no pleasing this man, not completely.
He hums to himself but stops abruptly when he looks over and sees me standing there, watching. His expression sharpens, and he walks to the radio and turns it down. “What’re you doing here?” he asks.
“Hi, Uncle,” I say and step deeper into the garage. Tools and spare parts are scattered all over. The vehicle he’s working on looks like an old Chevy truck from the ‘50s, but it’s in bad shape, the body rusting and missing more than a few important bits and pieces. “I was hoping we could continue our conversation from earlier.”
Uncle Lovett stares at me then glances back at War. He wipes his hands on a rag, considering, eyes narrowed. I expect him to kick us out, but instead he walks to a small mini fridge beside the work bench, opens it up, and offers me a drink. “Might as well have this,” he grunts at me. “Your boyfriend too, if he wants.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say automatically, though I pass him a beer. War accepts it, cracks it open, and takes a drink.
“Thanks,” he says.
Uncle Lovett ignores War and studies me. I hold the drink between my hands, the aluminum frosted with condensation and freezing. “I thought you’d be gone by now,” he says after a while and leans back against the bench, arms crossed. “Figured your little run-in with Daisy would drive you off.”
“That’s not the first time one of the girls tried to hurt me. I’m used to it by now.”
He runs a hand through his thinning hair and laughs. “You always were getting into trouble. Daisy’s pops hated it.”
“He’s gone and who cares what the guy thought?” I say, not feeling bad about my harsh tone. Daisy and Rosie’s father was an alcoholic asshole that ran off when I was ten, leaving Aunt Faye alone to raise the girls. But Aunt Faye wasn’t all that great of a mother, and she checked out as soon as her husband disappeared one fine day and she never recovered. I haven’t even seen her since being back, and she might be gone too, for all I know.
“Yeah, well, he thought the girls should’ve had more responsibility. He was always talking how his girls were set to the side and you were put right in the middle. You know, he felt like his girls were always second best, but I guess look at them now.”
“Look at them now,” I agree and grip the can tighter. One’s dead and the other’s got an iron grip over a dying ranch. “Seems like Daisy got that promotion after all.”
Uncle Lovett laughs quietly and moves over toward the pickup. War shifts his position, putting himself between the two of us, but Uncle Lovett doesn’t seem to notice. He brushes a hand on the hood of his truck and gently knocks away some invisible dirt.
“You know, despite everything that happened back then, your daddy never had a bad thing to say about you after you left.”
My eyebrows raise. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I did too at the time. I pushed him on it, kept saying, Colton, that girl of yours said some bad things then up and ran away when life got hard. But your daddy, he didn’t always agree with the claims you made, but he never once talked down about you. I always respected that. My brother’s a lot of things, but he puts family first, and he’s no liar.”
“I’m not a liar either,” I say quietly which only makes Uncle Lovett smile. But my heart’s beating fast, and I know what he’s trying to do, and it’s working. I’m knocked off balance thinking about my father defending me, or at least refusing to denounce me, which couldn’t have been easy back then when everyone despised me and he was struggling to hold the ranch together.
“I’ve wondered about that for a long time now,” he says and watches me carefully. “The way it all went down. At the time, we were so sure you were faking, but we were all raw over Rosie’s death and now I don’t know. Now I have questions.”
I shake my head. I can’t let this asshole get under my skin. There’s no way I’m going to believe he ever had doubts about anything in his life. “It’s too late for that. None of it matters anymore. All I want to know is why Daisy’s suddenly in charge. Why is she the one that stepped up after Daddy got sick? Why do you all listen to her?”
He shrugs like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Nobody else wanted to do it.”
I’m so frustrated I could scream. “That’s not good enough. Why weren’t you the one making all the hard choices, Uncle Lovett? I always thought Daddy looked at you as his second-in-command, but now here you are working alone out in the garage, doing a little girl’s bidding. What happened to you?”
Anger flashes into Uncle Lovett’s face, and I know I went too far with that, but his comments about Rosie and what happened to me and all his questions, it’s driving me insane because I know he’s full of shit. Uncle Lovett never once questioned whether I was telling the truth—he’s only using that like a cudgel now, trying to hurt me, trying to make me weak so I won’t press him. I believed Kerry when she apologized, but no part of me believes this.
“Nothing happened to me,” he says. “You wouldn’t know how things went down because you weren’t here, were you? You ran off to Dallas and put the family behind you, all because we wouldn’t believe your sad little story.” He makes a face, a terrible sneer. “Poor little abused Melody. You couldn’t keep your fat mouth shut, could you?”
