joking, right?” Finn asked.
“Of course I am. Wouldn’t want to mess up your ten-year plan,” Vic said, laughing, then sauntered out of the hall without a backward glance.
Finn shook his head at his friend’s comment. He had to have a plan, he reminded himself. Changing plans and ditching people was his mother’s MO. There was no way he was going to live that kind of life.
As for Jodie, his reaction to her had more to do with her past than her present. He needed to forget it. Move on.
He downed the last of his coffee. He had a few things to do at work before he headed to the Grill and Chill to grab a bite to eat. Then he’d get back to his ranch to work with a horse he was training.
But before he left he allowed himself another glance Jodie’s way.
Only to find her looking at him, a peculiar expression on her face.
* * *
“So what can we do about this?”
Jodie held up the letter their father’s lawyer had just given them, the noise of the Grill and Chill diner a counterpoint to the frustration simmering in her.
After the funeral, she and Lauren had met with Drake Neubauer, their father’s lawyer, at his office to go over the will.
For the most part, it was straightforward. He had bequeathed half the cash in his account to the church. The rest was for any unexpected expenses incurred by his death. The ranch, horses, equipment and any remaining assets were to be split equally among the three girls.
But this letter was a complication that seemed typical of their father’s need for control.
“Read it again,” Lauren said wearily. She leaned back against the booth, dragging her hands over her gaunt cheeks. Jodie guessed the weariness pulling at her sister had as much to do with her humiliation over being left at the altar eighteen months ago as Erin’s puzzling and disturbing no-show at the funeral. Their sister’s only contact with them the past six months had been brief text messages that communicated nothing more than basic information. Lauren and Jodie were both concerned.
“‘I know that I haven’t been the best father.’” Jodie stifled a sigh at that particular understatement as she continued reading the letter aloud. “‘I know you girls never wanted to leave Knoxville and come to the ranch every summer after your mother died. I know you only came because your grandmother insisted.’” Jodie shook her head after she read that. “I don’t know why that bothers me,” she said. “It’s not as though he wanted us there, either.”
“No editorializing,” Lauren said with a wave of her hand.
Jodie cleared her throat and continued.
“‘But it was your first home. That’s why you’re getting it when I die. This cancer is gonna kill me one way or the other. And I know you’re gonna sell the ranch as soon as you get it. But before you can sell it, I want each of you to spend two months on the ranch. I talked to Drake Neubauer, and he said I should change my will officially, but until I do that, consider this a condition of inheriting the ranch. You girls never appreciated it like I knew you should. So this is what I want you to do before you can sell the place. If you don’t want to stay, you lose your part of the inheritance. If none of you want to stay, then I made other plans. Drake will let you know what happens if that’s the case. Dad.’”
Jodie clutched the paper, stifling her annoyance. “This is so typical of Dad. Has he ever given us anything without a proviso attached? It seems as if every job or chore he wanted us to do was issued as a nonnegotiable decree.”
“You might be reading more into this than meets the eye,” Lauren replied, ever the peacemaker. “You and Dad always had a volatile relationship.”
Lauren knew only the half of it. When she and Erin turned eighteen, they’d stopped coming to the ranch. Both had gone to college and took on summer jobs, leaving Jodie to spend two more summers alone with their father. They’d fought at every turn, Jodie often on the receiving end of his anger.
She tamped down the memories, as she always did when they threatened.
And how are you going to keep them at bay for two months if you stay?
“I always figured Dad and I never got along because I was the only one who got to see the big fight that changed everything,” Jodie said, fingering one edge of the letter.
Jodie had been in the barn loft, playing with kittens, when she’d heard her parents’ raised voices below her. She’d come down to see her father yelling at their mother to leave the ranch and take her daughters with her. Jodie, shocked and defensive of her mom, had yelled at him not to talk to her that way. But he’d ignored her, walking away. Her mother and sisters had left the ranch the next day and Jodie had never forgiven him. She was only seven at the time.
“It didn’t help that you always egged him on,” Lauren continued.
“It also didn’t help that he never believed me when I told him I’d just been out with friends, and not partying like he always accused me of.”
“Well, you were partying, toward the end.”
“Only because I figured I may as well do what he always accused me of, and have fun.”
“Was it fun?”
Jodie caught the unspoken reprimand in her sister’s tone and looked down at the letter.
It was an echo of the one she’d voiced whenever Jodie had tried to tell her sisters about what had really happened those summers alone on the ranch. They’d often questioned her, citing the steady antagonism between Jodie and her father as the reason. So she’d kept her mouth shut, endured her father’s alternating stony silences and spewing anger.
And, increasingly, his physical punishment.
“So what do we do about this?” Jodie said, resting her elbows on the scarred Formica table.
“I’m too busy to take two months away from work,” Lauren said, clutching her coffee mug. “Things are too iffy with my job. Would it stand up in court if we don’t agree to the terms of the letter? Could we still sell the ranch and get the money?”
“This document was verified by the lawyer...” Jodie let the sentence fade away as she skimmed the letter again. Her father’s distinct scrawl covered the page, and below that was a note from Drake Neubauer proving this was indeed Keith McCauley’s handwriting and that this was a legal and binding document. “I can see why Dad wanted us to read this after the funeral. I’m sure if I heard it before, I would have had a hard time concentrating on the service.”
Not that Finn’s presence had made it easier.
“What do you suppose the ranch is worth?” Lauren asked.
“Enough to help us out in our own ventures, I would guess,” Jodie said. “Might be something you’d want to look into before you decide you can’t do this.”
“And you?”
Jodie shrugged. “Money’s never been that important to me.”
Lauren
