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“Thank you.” I blink away tears. “I just wish I heard it from him.”
Ford hesitates before he stands. “I don’t want to overstep here, but I will anyway. People do things for all sorts of reasons. They lie and cheat and steal, and usually those reasons are petty and selfish and stupid, but trying to save the life of your father is probably one of the better reasons I’ve ever heard. I know War hurt you. I understand he misled you. I’m not advocating for full forgiveness here. I’m only saying, I think things were more complicated than anyone realized, and maybe War felt like he didn’t want to endanger you by telling you about the Greeks.”
“Right,” I say and wipe my face, feeling stupid and angry. Why the hell didn’t he tell me from the start? I could’ve helped him, worked with him, done anything. I would’ve understood at least when I learned about his deal with my father. “How much influence do you have with Evander?”
“If you’re going to ask me to intervene on War’s behalf, I really shouldn’t. We make it a point not to get involved in each other’s business unless its mutually beneficial. I could ask him for a favor, but you don’t know Evander. Favors don’t come cheap, not even to his best friends.”
“That’s okay,” I say, shaking my head. “Thank you. I’m happy you told me at least.”
“Yeah, I figured you’d want to know. And, Melody, you’re a good person. I know things are complicated right now with your family and War and all that, but you’re a good person. I feel like you should keep that in mind.” He nods and leaves the office.
I sit there and cry into my hands. I sob, feeling stupid and angry, feeling somehow even more betrayed. He tried to seduce me, he lied and fucked me, and he did it for money. But he also did it for a good reason, to try to save his father. That doesn’t change the fact that he broke my heart, but at least I can understand his motivations. At least it wasn’t just for money for money’s sake.
After a few minutes, I get control of myself, wipe my eyes, blow my nose, and make a call. The number rings and rings, and I’m about to give up when Renee answers. She sounds exhausted.
“Hello? Leader Ranch?”
“Renee,” I say and a deep unease blooms in my chest. “How’s everything going?”
“About what you’d expect,” she says and clears her throat, sounding exhausted. “It’s a mess here. Everyone’s stunned even though we knew it was coming. I loved your father, you know, we all did, and we all knew the ranch would never be the same, but now it feels like a piece of my heart’s been scooped out. I’m just grieving, sweetie, that’s all.”
My mouth falls open and a hollow terror settles over my body. “Renee,” I say slowly. “What are you talking about?”
A pause. Then: “Your uncles didn’t call you.”
“Nobody called me. I was calling you to talk about War and to vent and I guess—”
“Sweetie. Oh, god, honey. Your piece of garbage uncles. Oh, god, your piece of freaking trash family.” Real anger burns in her tone.
“Renee, what happened?” But I already know. I knew the second she picked up the phone. Coldness builds in my feet, a numbness spreading up my legs, threatening to stop my heart.
“Honey, your father died this morning. I’m so, so sorry.”
I sit there and stare at the wall as my mind runs laps trying to process what she just said. She’s still talking, but I can’t hear her anymore, and all I can think is, Daddy’s gone, Daddy died, that giant of a man, that titan, that blinding light, he’s gone, he’s all gone, and I left things the way I left them, the way I always leave them, messy and horrible.
“Sorry, I have to go,” I manage to say and hang up.
My father is dead, and I can’t pretend like I don’t care anymore.
I lean forward, put my face in my hands, and I cry, tears rolling down between my fingers. I cry for my lost father, for my lost childhood, for the ranch, for everything that’s gone and will never be again. I cry, sobbing so hard my stomach twists like I might be sick, and I don’t know how I’ll ever come back from this.
Chapter26
Melody
Daddy’s buried in a family plot not far from the ranch.
It’s a hot Texas day. I’m sweating in my black dress as I walk toward the gravesite. The rest of the family huddles together ahead of me—Daisy crying like she really gives a shit, Uncle Lovett and Uncle Dudley both staring like they’re shell-shocked, Dean and Evan limping and looking bruised and battered and unable to meet my eye—but I stay away, off to the side with Renee. The old ranch hand looks like a dozen years were sucked out of her in just the last few days, and that breaks my heart even more. Leader Ranch was my father, but it was also Renee, and all the other men and women that worked with them.
I put an arm around her, and she smiles sadly at me. “Never thought I’d see the day,” she admits. “Your daddy was one of a kind. He held that place together.”
“Hewasthe ranch,” I agree and try not to gaze over at my aunts and uncles and cousins.
It’s hard to listen to the priest as they lower my father’s casket into the ground. There’s so much rage and hate in me, and I don’t know what to do with all this churning madness. It’s like someone lit a match and held it to a fuse and now I’m burning down, burning bright, and I’m going to break apart when it reaches the end.
None of them will speak to me. Not the uncles, not the cousins. Kerry squeezed my hand and said sorry, but that was all. She was the only one that seemed truly broken up about my father’s death—the others are all playacting. And I hate them for it.
The funeral was packed. Daddy was popular in the area. His old employees, his clients, the other ranchers, men and women from his various points in his life, they all packed into the big Catholic church to pay their respects. I heard stories about Daddy I’d never heard before, and some of them made me laugh, but most of them made me cry. I stood apart from the family like a leper, like a rat.
