“I can’t go to Montana!”
“I hope that’s not true, Peaches, because I think it’s just the place you need to be.”
“I’m not Peaches anymore!” She obviously couldn’t pull this off. She was too dang upset.
“You will always be my baby girl. I love your brothers dearly, but you will always hold more of my heart than anyone else. And I know you can do this. I wouldn’t have asked you to do a task I thought you’d fail at.”
They gazed at each other for several moments. Two personalities so much alike in some ways, but so different in others. But the bottom line was that Brielle knew he had the upper hand, knew he didn’t need to back down. He knew that, too.
“And if I do fail, I lose everything?”
“Failure isn’t an option. You’re a Storm.”
“You don’t know me anymore, Father!”
“I know you better than you think, Brielle. You’re a fighter. I got lazy as a parent and forgot how to raise you, but it’s never too late. Don’t give up before you’ve had even a chance to see yourself shine.”
“Crew gets to be in sunny California and I have to go to Montana. How is that fair?”
“You shouldn’t have taken so long to choose.”
“So I’m being punished because I didn’t want to play your game?”
“You’re not being punished at all, Brielle. I know you’ll figure that out once you’ve decided to put your heart and soul into this.”
“Well, it sure as hell feels like a punishment.”
“I understand that, darling, but go to Montana and I promise that you’ll find yourself.”
He had to be crazy. How could she find herself amongst a bunch of cows?
“I need money. I have nothing,” she told him. If she could just get enough to get by for a little while, she’d manage to find another job, and she’d show him that she didn’t need him to prove herself a success.
“You have a budget to work with,” he said, then paused before speaking again. “You’ll get it once you reach Montana.”
“And how am I supposed to get there? It took the last of my funds for the damn bus ticket here.” She was still ticked he hadn’t even paid for an economy-class flight.
“I will get you there.”
Brielle greeted his words with silence, but she knew she’d been defeated.
She’d go, but only because she had no other options before her. She wouldn’t succeed, and she knew it. Still, it would be a place to rest her head, a place where she could figure things out and begin mapping out her next steps.
Yes, she would go. But she certainly didn’t have to be happy about it.
Chapter Two
It was a freaking nightmare. Sure, most ranches probably had dusty old trucks, and what else did she expect to be waiting for her at the ridiculously small airport in Sterling? But the rusty orange clunker didn’t even have air conditioning!
And now that she’d managed to get this antique off and running — sort of — she was hit with another shock as she looked at the house standing before her. What could she say about it? Country bumpkin?
She stood aghast in her stiletto heels and stared at the giant monstrosity of an ugly house before her. It was large, that was for sure, with a huge wraparound covered porch that some people might have found appealing, but Brielle wasn’t the type of girl to hang around on a front porch. Screw that quaint little rocking loveseat; she’d never use it in a zillion years.
The house was in desperate need of a paint job, and the windows looked as if they hadn’t been updated — ever. Taking a cautious step forward in the dirt and gravel, she let out a very unladylike curse as she stubbed her toe and broke a manicured nail, her high-heeled sandals offering zero protection.
“This can’t work. There’s no possible way,” she muttered. How could her father do this to her?
She could come up with only one answer: Because he doesn’t love me.
Think about it. There was just no way that the man who had raised her could love her. He’d put her in the wilds of Montana with a bunch of cows and wheat fields. Ten thousand acres of that stupid wheat and those wretched cows. Or bulls. Or whatever.
The only thing she knew about cows was that they tasted damn good when prepared by a top-level chef. Maybe that wasn’t sensitive — some of her best friends were vegetarians. But get real. She knew nothing about the world’s bovine population, and she wanted to keep it that way. Sensitivity had its limits.
Once she finally made it to the wide front steps, Brielle reached a tentative hand out to the railing. It didn’t look sturdy enough to hold her weight, and she didn’t weigh much. She made sure of that.