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I suck air between my lips, a dozen images of the sleepless nights fluttering through my head. The thoughts of caring for my dad with his condition make my shoulders tense, and a knot forms in the pit of my stomach.
I shove the thoughts aside, refusing to take the bait of my sister’s downplay of my father’s condition. Grinding my teeth, I turn back toward the coffee again.
“Then maybe you and Jaxon should take him to live with you.”
I hear the gasp of indignation before she can hide it. I smirk at Val, raising an eyebrow innocently.
“What? You don’t want to take Daddy home with you?” My voice is laced with sarcasm.
“Why would we?Thisis his home! He’s still so young—not even sixty years old yet. He belongs here!”
“And he can’t take care of himself here!” I snap, whirling back around. “He wanders, gets into the machinery, trips down the stairs! He doesn’t take his meds and fights me on it! He’s going to get seriously hurt or worse!”
And he blames me for every second of it. He always has, and he always will.
“Then hire a nurse to watch him! He shouldn’t be in a home, Hudson! That’s just cruel!” my sister argues, throwing up her manicured hands.
I stare at her, wondering if she is really that oblivious.
“He’s already with care twenty-four seven, Val,” I answer calmly, remembering my promise not to lose my temper. “Why would I fix what isn’t broken?”
“He could recover so much faster if he were here!” my sister insists.
“I thought you said he was already doing better,” I counter.
“Don’t do that, Hudson,” Val growls. “You know what I mean.”
Our gazes clash, and I force myself to be the bigger person—again.
“What if something happens to him while he’s here?” I ask quietly. “Could you live with yourself?”
Val scoffs. “A nurse would?—”
“A nurse can’t be everywhere at once,” I cut her off. “I put him in that home after he fell headfirst down the stairs, Valerie. He got a concussion and four stitches. He was lucky that time, but next time?”
Val stands from her chair and folds her arms under her chest. “You’re a terrible son!” she barks, and I immediately have a flashback of my father barking the same words at me from precisely the same spot she’s standing. It shouldn’t sting me, not after hearing it so many times over so many years, and yet it does.
“Yeah. Probably,” I concede, turning around, swallowing the thickness forming in my throat. “Does that mean you’re not staying for coffee, then?”
“I don’t know why I bother with you, Hudson. Daddy was right about you. You’re ungrateful and selfish.”
The click of her heels on polished wood fades away, but I stand with my hands splayed against the countertop, steadying my trembling body. Even with my father out of sight, he still looms over me in everything I do. There’s no escaping his voice, even without engaging.
CHAPTER6
Rose
Over the next couple of days, I learn all about the tiny town of Stannich, located northeast of Helena. It boasts a population of four hundred sixty-seven. I didn’t ask if that included the endless hordes of cattle I saw everywhere I looked when we traveled to town in my grandmother’s rusted, cherry pickup truck.
“Town” consists of exactly seven buildings: a grocery/hardware store, a hair salon, a tavern called “The Pickle Barrel”, a post office, a gas station, a ranch supply store, and a nondescript office building.
But today, Connor insists on driving us, his hand dangerously close to my bare legs as he keeps his hand unnecessarily rested on the gear stick of his pride and joy.
I focus on his fingers, twining along the gear shaft, imagining howhisshaft compares.
I blush, turning away as my grandmother’s voice pipes up from the backseat, explaining more of Stannich’s history. I realize she’s been talking all the way from the ranch, and I haven’t heard a single word.
“What’s in there?” I ask her as we pull into one of the spaces in front of the grocery store. She follows my gaze toward the offices.
