“Don’t fucking start that shit again, Austin, I swear?—”
“I’m leaving,” I cut him off. If Kenny knew without me telling her, there’s a high likelihood Maddox knows too. If he did, he seems to have forgotten because he rears back as if I’ve slapped him. “That’s always been the plan. And you’re… well, you’re stuck here, so…”
“Aus—”
I pull my hand out of his, don’t let myself relapse. “Look, I appreciate you getting me out of there that night and letting me crash with you, but let’s not make this into something it’s not, alright?”
“You’re the one trying to make it into something it isn’t,” he argues, his voice raising. He takes a breath to control himself and I love that he’s able to rein himself in like that. I sure as shit can’t.
“Why are you still planning on leaving? Your dad’s going to the prison in Deer Lodge and he’s not getting out any time soon. Fifteen, twenty years minimum. They slap new charges on him every day. You don’t have to run from him anymore, Austin.”
His voice is so goddamn hopeful, it guts me. I turn my back to him, slapping the tears off my cheeks. “I’m not running from him.” I can’t tell if that’s the truth or not anymore.
Originally, I was desperate to leave Cedar Creek because I wanted to be far, far away from him. And then, as though he’d sensed it, he’d gotten worse and I started fearing for my life during every fight. Leaving had become more about making it out alive, proving to my dead mother that I’d been able to do something she hadn’t. But now?
Leaving Cedar Creek had been the plan for so long, I was terrified to deviate from it. I knew this town like the back of my hand—the people, the shortcuts, the quirks, the secrets. Worse, this town knew me just as well. Here, I’d always be Austin Taylor—bitchy little bartender-turned-pornstar with daddy issues bigger than her single-wide.
I didn’t want to be her anymore.
“Then whatareyou running from? What’s your reason for leaving now?” Maddox asks. He knows the answer and wants to force me to say it.
I shrug, wincing at what it does to my shoulder, but at least my back’s to him so he doesn’t see. “No reason to stay’s a good reason to go.”
FORTY-SEVEN
MADDOX
Pretendingthat finding out I didn’t even make Austin’s list of reasons to stay felt like a slap in the face. What’s worse was that she didn’t even throw it at me like a jab. At least when she lashed out, I knew that the things she said couldn’t be trusted. That she didn’t mean half of them and just said them to be hurtful because she was feeling trapped.
But her back had been to me when she said it, which spared both of us from her seeing what her words did to me. It was a small mercy.
“Right. Well, I’m going to let Dale know we’re heading back to the ranch.”
She grumbles, but doesn’t argue, and I have a feeling this little trip actually did a bit of good in showing her that she wasn’t nearly as mobile as she thought.
I knock on the door to Dale’s office and poke my head in. I’m not sure what I expected him to be doing back here, considering it was clear he’d only retreated to avoid the fallout of Austin’s anger, but it surprises me that he seems to actually be working.
“Take a seat for a second, Whittaker,” he tells me, hobbling over to the printer to grab a few sheets of paper from it.
“Actually, I just came to let you know I was taking her home.”
He looks at me over the top of his glasses. “Take a seat for a second, Whittaker,” he repeats pointedly.
Raised well enough to respect my elders, I swallow the huff that threatens to break free and take off my hat, hanging it from my knee as I sit in the chair in front of his desk.
He sets the papers down in front of me, but before I can take a look at them, he says, “I want to sign over Quitter’s to you.”
I gape, brows furrowed, as he slowly rounds the desk and sits back in the rolling chair behind it. “Sign over Quitter’s?”
He hums, nodding. “Actually, I want to sign it over to your little spitfire out there, but she won’t take it. I’ve tried probably twenty times in the last six months alone.”
“And I’m second in line to the throne?” I ask incredulously. “With all due respect, sir, I run a thousand-head cattle ranch.”
Dale snorts. “Aware, son. Well aware. But the way I see it, we have a common enemy in Austin’s stubbornness.” He’s not wrong. “You want something to keep her in Cedar Creek and I want to retire.”
I don’t ask him why he doesn’t just sell the bar. I know it’s not an option in the same way selling Whittaker Ranch to any of the businessmen who come through offering millions every year is. He built Quitter’s from the ground up before I was even thought of. He’s not gonna just sell it to anyone.
“She can’t work the bar right now,” I tell him, a bit stern.
