Junie lifts her gaze from her magazine and gives me the raised brows ofWhat just happened?
“Does Flint know?” the lone guy asks.
“He’s going to lose his shit.”
I flinch.
Right.
Mr.Rule Follower for Soccer has been using Uncle Tony’s ranch for wayward kids while I didn’t have the insurance to cover accidents. “I need to take a closer look, but from the outside, it doesn’t appear structurally sound, and I don’t need the liability if it collapses while someone’s in it.”
“Reasonable,” Opal says.
“I’m not saying I won’t rebuild a barn, but I’ve started a priority list for the ranch, and—”
“And safety comes first,” Charlotte finishes.
“Yes.”
She gives me a look that says she suspects there’s way more to my story.
But it’s not the same suspicion that Flint aimed my way yesterday.
This feels like genuine curiosity coming from someone who appreciated my uncle enough to give me a chance.
“When’s the last time you were here?” she asks. And I don’t think it’s judgment. I think it’s curiosity.
I glance at Junie and do quick math. “Maybe eighteen years ago. I didn’t come back after I left for college.”
“So you and Flint wouldn’t have been here at the same time,” she muses.
Hello, story that I don’t think I want to hear. “I have very little recollection of anyone here from back then other than Uncle Tony.”
“Suppose you should know that Flint’s used the ranch for years to help struggling teenagers who needed an outlet.”
I sigh.
I get it. I do.
I’m the outsider with land that was used for good before I was here, and now things are changing, and that’s hard. “I’m not saying that’s out of the question,” I say slowly. “But I need to get liability insurance first, and that’s going to involve the ranch being inspected, and that’s going to take time.”
Opal sucks one of her cheeks in. And I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad sign. Is she amused?
Or does she think I’m some big-city person who loves lawsuits?
“I know things are different in small towns,” I say quietly. “Believe me, I’ve been in a lot of them the past six or seven years. But this is the home I need for Junie right now, and Icannotdo anything to risk her stability.”
“We’d all do anything for our children,” Opal replies, equally quietly.
“You have kids?”
“Just Flint. He moved in with me right before his junior year of high school.”
Junie peeks over the magazine.
I open my mouth to ask what happened, but Opal cuts me off.
“Are we fixing this mess or not?” she asks me.
