Stone Cold Cowboy(33)
“Fuck me. He did that to you?”
His ignorance and the way he’d gone on about his life oblivious and uncaring to what happened to her after he left set off another wave of anger. “What did you think he was going to do to me? Smack me around. Rape me. Murder me. Which of those things was okay for you to live with, because you had no problem with him stripping me and punching me in the face,” she shouted, letting her anger get the better of her.
“Sadie, honey, you’re home.” Her father walked out of his room, leaning heavily on a thick stick she’d never seen.
Sadie sucked in a breath, calmed herself, and tried her best to appear composed for her father’s sake. “Dad, are you okay?”
He stared down at the stick. “My legs aren’t working quite right. I stumbled earlier, so I thought I’d give this a try. What are you two fighting about now?” Her father glanced at Connor. “Did you miss school again today?”
Connor’s gaze collided with hers, his confusion clear to see. “Uh, Dad, I haven’t been in school for years.”
“Why not? Does your sister have to ride you every day to get you to do what you’re supposed to?”
Connor looked to her for an explanation.
“You only think about yourself. You never see what is right in front of you. You didn’t see the threat that man posed to me. You don’t see what is happening here.” She held her hand out to indicate their father, a man who didn’t look anything like he did just a few short months ago.
“Don’t you see the truth that is right in front of you?” She didn’t want to let their father know they were talking about the fact that he was dying right in front of them.
“Sadie, I can’t get out of it. I’m in too deep. I didn’t know . . .”
“You don’t care.” She spoke the sad truth. He only cared about himself.
“You don’t understand . . . the people I’m involved with . . .”
“Nearly killed me. But you don’t care about that, not really. You don’t care about us, the things we’ve sacrificed for you. The love we pour out, trying to get you to see and do the right thing, but all you do is wreak havoc in our lives. Do you have any idea what you’ve cost us this time?”
“Sadie, if I didn’t take the cattle and pay some of what I owe they were going to kill me.”
Sadie shook her head. “But it would have been okay if they killed me, so long as you got the cattle. It’s okay that I had to turn over all the horses to the Kendricks to put even a small dent in what we owe them. It’s okay that I spend hours over there cooking and cleaning to repay the debt when I should be here with our father, spending what little time I have left with him. It’s okay that I make things right when you’re the one who’s done them wrong.”
“You don’t owe them shit. They’ve got the money to buy more cattle.”
“That is not the point. You stole from them.” She fisted her hands at her side, trying not to stoop to the level of wrapping her hands around his neck and shaking some sense into him. “You steal from your own family. You treat us like what we want and need doesn’t matter. You take and take and take and leave nothing but destruction in your path.”
Connor slammed his hands on the table, making the bowl, glass, and silverware rattle. “They’ll kill me if I don’t do what they want.” The glimpse of the boy she remembered disappeared behind his anger, justifications, and the drugs that even now muddled his mind.
“Sadie, honey, what is going on?” Her father looked back and forth from her to Connor. “I don’t understand what is going on?” The confusion in her father’s voice broke her heart.
“I’m sorry, Dad, but Connor has to go.”
“It’s time for school?”
“Yes, Dad. He needs to go and learn something.”
“Okay.” Her father walked into the other room, sat in his favorite chair, and turned on the TV.
“What the hell is wrong with him?” Connor whispered from the table. “He’s wasting away to nothing, and this talk about school? I’m twenty-one, not twelve.”
“Then act like it. If you’d been here these last months instead of crashing on your buddies’ sofas and doing wrong at every turn, you’d know that he’s been sick and getting worse.”
“What can I do?” He didn’t really mean he’d do anything at all. He always offered when things got tough. Maybe he’d help out by putting in a halfhearted effort, but he never saw anything through. He never put them first.