“I assumed Nash would have filled you in,” Mr. Yarbrough said innocently. “We told him the sale of the farm was waiting on this paperwork and the additional acres.”
“Excuse me?” My chest grew tight.
“Did you tell your brother to?—”
The door swung open and Nash walked in. He looked around until he found me and then Beau. They exchanged a look that changed Nash’s demeanor.
“Iris, don’t?—”
“Aren’t you supposed to be at a rodeo?” Brooks interrupted Nash.
“If we knew you were going to be here, we should have gone to lunch,” Mr. Yarbrough said eyeing Nash warily.
Nash walked towards me and I took a few steps back, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you knew and didn’t tell me.”
“Things changed. At first, I didn’t care, but as time went on, I felt trapped. So, I started to look for a solution instead of telling you,” he said.
“If I had known you were coming I would have?—”
“You would have what, Nash?!” I yelled. “Broken the news sooner? But you still didn’t tell me the truth. You lied to me, lured me into believing everything was alright, just so that I could do this for your father without any pushback. You tricked me.”
“Petal, you know that’s not true,” he said immediately.
“Was any of it true? Or did you just feed me a sob story so that I would empathize with you? Did he offer you a cut of the farm?” My lip trembled as I went through our interactions together. “Fuck, Nash. Why?!”
I pushed him away, seeing movement behind him.
“Iris,” Beau said softly, looking around Nash’s shoulder.
“You knew about it.” I looked between them, guilt written all over Beau’s face. “You let me come here to believe I was walking away from my trauma when, in fact, it was being sold!”
“I didn’t know it was being sold so quickly, and I thought that maybe you coming to terms with this on your own was better and fuck…I’m so sorry,” Beau’s voice broke.
“You’re sorry?” I scoffed.
“Don’t blame him. I told him I was going to fix it,” Nash said quickly. “He was the one who told me to tell you, but I was too stubborn and wanted to give you a solution because I knew I had already fucked up.”
“You manipulated me!” I snapped. “Every single one of you used me for your own fucking gain, whether it was for this farm or keeping the peace.”
I gave Beau a look so he would know what I was talking about because he might not have done it for the farm, but he hadn’ttold me. So, whatever arrangement we had could keep going, apparently the sex was worth more than being honest with me.
“It wasn’t like that, Petal.” Nash stepped forward as I shook my head.
I was done with this farm and all the pain it had brought to me. Walking around the table, I grabbed the folder in front of Mr. Yarbrough, pulled out the deed to the land and signed where I needed to.
“Sell it, burn it, for all I fucking care,” I said, walking to my bedroom unable to meet anyone’s eyes.
I threw everything into my bag, looking around my room for anything sentimental I wanted to bring with me, but nothing stood out except a photo of the entire Malone family when I was a few years old. The only picture I had of all of us together. I grabbed that and a few more photos I had hung on to that I had hid from my parents. The rest of my room didn’t even feel like me anymore, this was no longer my home. Right now, it felt like I had no home.
Shouting outside of my room reminded me I needed to get the hell out of here. I thought I would always have the farm even if I didn’t exactly run it. That it would always be here if I missed or wanted to come for a visit. I was so fucking naïve and stupid.
“Goodbye,” I whispered to the room and the house that I grew up in.
I walked out, ignoring the fiasco in the living room,
“Iris.” Beau’s voice almost had me stopping but left straight to my truck. These men didn’t deserve an ounce of my attention anymore.
“Iris!” Nash yelled, as I opened my truck door.
