I feel more than a little dizzy, but I manage to paste a bright smile on my face. I’m good at going through the paces, even when I have no idea where my steps are leading me.
“Oh, you know how it is. Busy as always.” I force myself to relax a little when she turns to pull another coffee cup from the cabinet. A deep breath doesn’t do much to actually calm me down, but it feels better than standing here like a deer in the headlights. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize the ranch name when I got put on this project. I’m glad your plans all worked out for you.”
She and I weren’t ever close, but that class wasn’t big, and it was the only one I assisted for in my graduating year. I’m trying to figure out how I’m supposed to feel about this turn of events, but I have to focus on the conversation I’m currently a part of.
“It’s been rocky,” she admits, scoffing in frustration as she pours me a cup of coffee. “I’m glad it’s you helping us out, though. It’s nice to have someone I trust to get stuff done, y’know? Anyway. cream and sugar?”
“Just sugar, thanks,” I say, stifling a wince at the thought of having her trust.
I wonder how that’s going to change when she finds out about me and Everett. God, this is going to be a wreck. I need to talk to him when he gets back and figure out how we’re going to handle this.
She slides the cup over toward me along with the pot of sugar, and I focus my attention on spooning sugar into the steaming liquid, grateful for even a momentary distraction.
“Has my dad been a dick about everything?”
I snort out a laugh before I can stop myself. A week ago, I probably would have wholeheartedly agreed, but I’ve been seeing a different side to Everett recently. He might actually be ready to take this seriously, especially if both Jenny and I gang up on him.
“He was… reticent, at first,” I say, tactfully. “But he’s been more helpful recently. He didn’t want to finalize anything until you got back, so I’ve mostly been working on the website and promotional materials. We were supposed to go to a meeting with a family butcher shop in Copper Flats, but my car broke down on the way there, so we’re trying to reschedule that.”
Jenny tilts her head to the side curiously, a frown on her face.
“Copper Flats?” she asks. “Not the Duffy family, right?”
I hesitate, unsure why she has such a disgusted look on her face. Her brows hike up toward her hairline when I nod slowly, taking a sip of my coffee to give myself a moment to think.
“We were supposed to be meeting with Duffy Jr. at his shop,” I say.
“Junior,” she draws out. “Huh. Figured he’d have cut and run after his dad died.”
I’m not really sure what to say to that, but Jenny looks so contemplative that I think it might be invasive to say anything right now. She stares down at her coffee like she’s looking for answers in the bubbles resting at the surface.
“Was Everett close with them?” I ask when the silence draws out long enough to be uncomfortable.
Jenny barks out a scathing laugh, her lip curling on a disgusted sneer.
“They fucked us over after Mom died.” Her voice is rough and dry, bitterly accepting. “Stole a bunch of contracts out from under us and took a huge cut of our profits. We were all too torn up over losing her and trying to get the funeral dealt with to stop him.” The frown on her face is pained, but the dregs of anger in her eyes are cold and half faded. “Duffy Sr. was a real piece of work. He drank himself dead, and we got our contracts back, but Dad and my brother never really got his head back in the game after we lost Mom.”
A million different thoughts whirl through my head, and I find myself at a loss for words. Everett was going to let me drag him out to somewhere shrouded in such painful memories? Guilt sits heavily in my stomach at the thought. He hadn’t even said anything about it.
He’d been fully prepared to suffer through such a thing in silence to make his daughter happy. I swallow past the lump in my throat and hope I don’t look as stricken as I feel.
Jenny, thankfully, seems too distracted by her own memories to notice. She clears her throat and laughs weakly, forcing a smile to her face. The pain is still so obvious in her eyes when she looks at me, but she seems to be trying so hard to ignore it. All I can do is smile back at her.
“Sorry,” she says with an awkward chuckle. “Didn’t mean to dump all that on you out of nowhere. Been a while since I slept, and my flight was nothing but turbulence.”
“Oh, that’s rough,” I say. “Maybe you should try for a nap? We can go over everything tomorrow.”
There’s a grateful twinge to her smile, but she shakes her head. It’s kind of funny to see the same stubbornness Everett leans into in his daughter. She carries it in such a different fashion, but it’s just as immovable.
“It’ll be better if I stay up,” she says. “I don’t want to mess up my sleep schedule. Why don’t you show me what you’ve got?”
EVERETT
I’m teeming with frustration and worry by the time I make it back to the ranch.
My plan was to pick Al up and bitch at him for working himself so hard, then convince him to spend at least today in the office so he’d stay out of the sun. Jenny’s back early, so I figured if he wouldn’t listen to me, her puppy dog eyes would do the trick. She and I may not join forces often, but we both care about Al.
It was a fairly simple plan, and I hoped it wouldn’t eat into too much of my time.
