His chest shook with a nervous exhale. “Your uncle said you want me to sign divorce papers.” He looked at the folder in my hand. “Is that it?”
My jaw jutted. He wasn’t even going to try to talk me out of it. Not that he could. There was nothing he could say that would ever make me take him back. But he wasn’t even going to try? I wasn’t worth even that?
I held the folder out and laid the pen in his hand. In thirty seconds it was done. After four long, lonely years, my shackles were unlocked.
“I’m no good,” he said. “Not for a girl like you.” He glanced at Cash, thirty feet off. “You deserve someone like him.”
“Is that your idea of an apology?” I shook my head, disgusted. “Goodbye, Lorne.”
“Hey,” he whispered, looking a little frantic. “I don’t have any money to get home. Back to Florida. Can you spot me some cash?”
I shivered with anger. “I already sold my car to pay off your…debt,” I growled. “Ford gave me that car.” But he knew all that. I’d told him when he’d begged me to sell it. He didn’t care. He just needed the money.
His eyes were wide and fearful, looking past me to Ford. “Does he know about the car?”
“Not yet. But I imagine I’m going to have to explain it at some point.”
“He’s the one who killed your dad?”
My head jerked back like he’d physically slapped me. Lorne knew full well how much I struggled with the fact that Trevor’s blood ran through my veins. And how the image of his cold, dead eyes, staring up into the night sky as he bled to death on my parents’ lawn haunted me every night as I fell asleep.
But I wouldn’t let him have the satisfaction of knowing he’d hurt me. Even with his careless words. Not today.
“Ashton is my dad, not Trevor. Get your facts straight. But yeah, Ford shot the man who tried tokillmy dad,” I said in a threatening voice. I hoped standing across the riding arena from my sharpshooting uncle scared him witless.
He ran a hand over his mouth. “I wouldn’t ask for money, y’know, but I don’t have even a dollar. I’ll get paid on Monday.”
I was about to reach into my back pocket for the hundred Gramps had slipped me earlier. But I heard someone coming toward us. I turned to see Uncle Holden wearing a grim expression, his gaze trained on Lorne.
Holden reached for the folder and I handed it to him. He flipped through to check the signatures. “Looks good. It should be final in about ten days.” He shot Lorne a terrifying glare and jabbed a finger into his chest. “I know what you did. So stop asking for money. You’re lucky she’s not pressing charges and suing.” Then he glanced at me. “Boundaries, Charlie. You need to learn ‘em.” Then at Lorne, he hissed, “It’s a good thing I’m a law-abiding citizen, otherwise you would’ve been greeted by my twenty-two in your backside.” I choked on a laugh though it was anything but funny. “You got me?”
Lorne stared at him, horrified. Lorne was a self-proclaimed pacifist. I’d thought it so attractive when we met. Really it was an excuse to be a pushover who stood for nothing and stood up for no one. Uncle Holden might be a little over the top at the moment, but he’d never, ever let someone mistreat his wife the way Lorne had let me be treated.
“Yes,” Lorne said, his knees shaking.
Holden cracked his thumb knuckles, looming over him. “In these parts we say ‘yes,sir.’”
“Yes, sir,” Lorne squeaked, his gaze jutting around, searching for an escape. “I’ll get out of your hair.” He turned to go.
“Uh, uh, uh.” Holden grabbed his shirt collar and yanked him back. “You’re not done here.”
Lorne’s entire body was on high alert. I’m pretty sure Holden was the last one he thought might do him bodily harm. Honestly, I was a bit shocked myself.
Holden whacked him on the top of the head with the folder. “Charlie’s going to get the apology she deserves. Not that pathetic ‘my bad’ you gave her a minute ago.” I gave Holden a look. Could he hear our conversation? More importantly, could Cash or Ford hear? “I know how to read lips,” he said. Shoot. I hadn’t known that, and would be sifting back through every hushed conversation I’d ever had tonight. “You left her to die,” he breathed. “So repeat after me, loud enough for everyone to hear,” he commanded at full volume. “I, Lorne Green, am a selfish, no-good excuse for a husband.”
Lorne swallowed hard. “I, Lorne Green, am a selfish, no-good excuse for a husband.”
Thirty feet away, Cash chuckled, delighted. Ford shook his head, a hard look in his eye. Jeff was silent behind me. I wanted to crawl in a hole and I knew that was part of my problem. I hated seeing people suffer, be humiliated, or even get their just dues.
Holden slapped the folder against his other hand like it was a baseball bat. “I abandoned my incredible, saint-like, way-out-of-my-league wife like a garbage bag on the side of the road. But unlike me, at least, garbage gets picked up.”
Tension coiled in my stomach and I wished I could melt into the dirt beneath my feet.
Eyes on the ground, face bright red, Lorne recited verbatim, “I abandoned my incredible, saint-like, way-out-of-my-league wife like a garbage bag on the side of the road. But unlike me, at least, garbage gets picked up.”
Cash grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
But Holden wasn’t done. “And I hereby swear to never, ever, as long as I live, come sniffing around here for money, sympathy, or?—”
