I froze when Dad spoke.What the actual hell?
“Who told you that?” I asked incredulously.
“Your ex. He was seeing someone in my office building, I guess, and I ran into him in the elevator. I told him I was sorry to hear you’d broken up because you’d seemed so happy together. And he told me the reason was because you lied at work and tried to steal something. I was shocked. I told him it had to be a misunderstanding, but he said he tried to save your job. The owner wouldn’t do it because they’d given you so many chances before.”
“And you believed him? Youactuallybelieved him? Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Because after it happened, you were…I…I’d never seen you like that. You weren’t yourself. You were angry and irritable. And when we tried to talk to you about it, you said, and I’m quoting here, ‘I made the biggest mistake of my life,’ but you refused to tell any of us what that was. So when he told me what happened, it made sense that you wouldn’t want to tell us anything.”
My dad’s words sounded like English and, in theory, I should have been able to understand them. But I couldn’t.
“For the record, I believed then and still do that it was a wild misunderstanding. I know you’re not a thief or a liar.” After Dad’s revelation and the attempt at cleaning it up, no one moved. Heck, we all barely breathed waiting for the next shoe to fall.
“Did it occur to you that he might have been the mistake?”
“What? You two were so happy together.”
“We were, yes.”
“So how would that make it a mistake?”
“Because he tricked me into writing down my wildly successful recipes, passed them off as his own, and kept the money that the new owners paid to keep using them. And to make it better, my own Daddy”—my legit dad flinched at the word but didn’t interrupt—“got me fired.”
“He fucking did what?” Gage yelled from his spot at the counter. He jumped from his seat and rushed around to me. “Why the fucking hell didn’t you tell us?”
“And what? Have my big brothers beat him up? Bail me out again? There wasn’t anything you could do, and I didn’t want the pity or the lectures or, god help us all, another PowerPoint on the care and proper feeding of littles.”
“You’re like a gremlin,” Gage said with a stupid grin. He might be quick to get mad, but he hadn’t ever let a joke get by him.
“Your face is like a gremlin,” I grumbled.
“It’s okay, pookie. Daddy’s home.” Gage opened his arms toward me. Absolutely not. Done. I ducked under his outstretched appendages, like the monster he was, and headed for the kitchen back door.
“Eff off, Gage. I’m going to take care of my goats, and you can get your own damn breakfast.” With my head held high and a slam of the door, I headed off to the barn.
At least my ladies respected me, even if my family didn’t.
“Sugar, you left a little fast,” Daddy said when he found me in the barn.
The ladies were munching on their grain, and I sat on a bale of hay in the corner, watching them. Normally, they’d be all over me, but food took priority over the deep and abiding love we had for each other.
“Yeah, I just needed some air. I’m sorry I left you in there with them.”
Daddy just shook his head, grabbed my hand, and plopped down on the bale next to me. We both watched the goats in silence until I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Did they say anything after I left?”
“Yeah. Your dad read Gage the riot act. I think he forgot I was there because I don’t think he would’ve said what he did if he’d remembered.”
“Yeah? What’d he say?”
“Something about how he was supposed to be a goddamn grown man and needed to fucking grow up. He said he was tired of his shit.”
My jaw hit my chest. “He actually cussed?”
“Yep. That was it, verbatim.”
“Wow. I don’t think my dad has ever cussed at Gage before. I mean, maybe he has, but I sure don’t remember it.”
