Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 77936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“No time for that.” He waved a calloused hand dismissively. “Cut yourself a piece and send the rest out to the bunkhouse. Got a buyer coming down from Cheyenne for some horses. I want you there.”
“Me?” I groaned and rested my head against the big double fridge. “It’s graduation day. Colt’s family invited me to their party.”
That earned a loud snort. “Ranch doesn’t stop for holidays. You know that.”
“Yup.” I let my tone shift dangerously sarcastic, but I was in no mood for one of his usual ranch-first lectures. The ranch had come first my whole life, put before birthdays, Christmas, trips, school, grieving. Ranch first. Always.
“Yes, sir,” my dad corrected, voice stern. “And CU will give you the book learning, but no degree is a substitute for what you’ll learn right here on the ranch.”
“I’m not going to CU.” I hardened my gaze. He hadn’t listened to me even for a minute over the last year. “Told you that for months now. I applied to other places. Got in.”
“I’m not paying for anywhere else.” He poured himself a cup of lukewarm coffee, simple as that. But for once, Melvin Lovelorn’s word wasn’t law.
“I got a scholarship to UCLA. Don’t need your tuition money,” I shot back, heart pounding with a new level of brashness. And anger. I was righteously pissed that he wanted to ruin my graduation day to sell a few horses, that he couldn’t even manage a congrats or eat a damn piece of cake. “Or this ranch.”
“This ranch isn’t a gift, Mel—Maverick.” He corrected himself just in time. He did that some, confused Mel and me, usually when angry or after his nightly whiskey. He wasn’t a drunk, but he damn sure couldn’t sleep without it. Every time he called me Mel by mistake was another papercut to the heart, one of hundreds of little slivers, none deadly, all stinging like hell. “It’s a responsibility. A birthright. An obligation.”
“More like a prison sentence.” I wrenched open the cake box. Congratulations, Maverick! greeted me, written in the school colors of green and orange, a gaudy celebration that felt like a mockery.
“Watch your mouth.”
“Does it make you happy?” I had to know. I was done holding back my questions. Ever since Mom and Mel had died, I couldn’t say as I’d seen him crack a single smile or seem anything remotely close to content. Everyone said grief got easier with time, but I missed my mother’s cheerful humming more every day. “Does the ranch make you happy?”
“Son, life’s not about being happy, and the sooner you realize that, the better.” And here came one of the patented Melvin Lovelorn lectures, one I’d heard so often I could deliver it right down to the defiant tone and fiery gaze.
“What’s the point of doing your duty if it doesn’t get you anything worth having?” I pulled a cake knife and server out of the utensil drawer. I was old enough now to understand that life was more than being one of the wealthiest kids in school, more than a shiny truck, more than a town bearing my last name. And ever since the night of prom with Colt, I’d been even more convinced that things truly worth having were the sort of intangibles my father had never valued.
“Everything worth having went down in that plane crash, and you know it,” he spat back.
“Everything?” Guess that answered the unspoken question of where I ranked in his life, although I’d certainly had a clue prior to this moment. For four years now, Dad had been a hollow shell of a man, held together by spite, whiskey, and that unending sense of duty. “And you weren’t that happy even when Mom and Mel were alive.” He’d had rules upon rules for us, chores, standards, plenty of lectures, but never affection or playfulness. Colt’s mother played board games and read books to the younger siblings. The idea of my father with a hand of cards or a storybook was laughable. “You’ve been bitter your whole life. Why would I want that for myself?”
“Lord, you try me, Maverick. You really try me.” He shook his head, judgment clear in his blue eyes, the same damn ones I saw in the mirror every morning. “At least your brother used to listen.”
“Say it.” I drove the cake knife into the soft, fluffy frosting. “You wish it had been me, not him, in that plane crash.”
“Well, hell. You always were a dramatic one.” Huffing, he glanced toward the door, not bothering to disguise his desire to escape this conversation. “Your brother knew his duty and was happy to do it—”
“He was miserable.” I’d waited years to throw that punch, holding it close to my chest, waiting for maximum impact or perhaps simply the moment he might listen.
“You fucking watch your mouth.” This likely was not that moment, but I wasn’t done.