Harper caught the sly wink that Zed sent across the room. “I’ve got all Annie’s guns under lock and key.”
Dana giggled. “Brook, you’ll be good, won’t you? Because if you aren’t, I will get even on your first date.”
“Which is when?” Brook asked.
“When you are forty, but only if you take your mama with you. Fifty if you want to date alone,” Zed teased.
“Thank you, Uncle Zed. I think that’s a fine idea,” Dana said.
“Double crap! I’m going to bed to think about all this stuff before I fight with any of y’all about it.” Brook stormed down the hallway, but then turned around and came back to the living room. She crossed the room and hugged Zed. “Thanks, Uncle Zed, for helping me whip Wyatt three times.”
She’d started down the hall again then stopped, turned, and sighed. “And thank you, Aunt Tawny and Aunt Harper, for babysitting me. And for helping keep my mind off my mama kissing that ponytail guy. Good night.”
“Well, that settles it,” Wyatt chuckled. “I’m not growing a ponytail.”
Zed laughed with him. “Me neither. I’m too old to be a hippie. But it was a good evenin’, Dana?”
“Yes, it was.” She nodded.
“It’s goin’ to be a short night.” Tawny yawned. “It was fun. Anytime you want to go out with your hippie, I’m glad to ‘babysit’”—she made air quotes—“my niece. Good night, everyone.” She picked up a couple of dirty glasses and carried them to the kitchen on her way out the back door.
“Us too.” Wyatt offered his hand to Harper and pulled her up from the floor. “You are a good opponent, Zed. With your poker face, I wouldn’t want to gamble with you.”
Zed narrowed his eyes. “Smart man. I’d own your boat if we ever got serious about a poker game.”
“Good night, and I’m glad that you had a good time, Dana. Brook will come around. Just give her some time,” Harper said as she and Wyatt left the house by way of the front door.
“Uncle Zed, can you stay just a little while longer? I did something stupid tonight and . . . you know what they say about two people keeping a secret?” Dana winced to hear those words coming from her mouth.
“It’s easy if one of them is dead.” Zed nodded.
“Well, one of us isn’t dead but . . . dammit, this isn’t easy.”
“Then don’t say it. When the time is right, it won’t have to be hard.”
“I never was married. I made up that story so you and Granny Annie wouldn’t be disappointed in me. And when we broke up, I let everyone think I was getting a divorce instead. The rest of it is pretty true. I fell in love with him, got pregnant, and then found out he was cheating on me and ended it.” She talked fast, as if she was afraid if she ever stopped, she wouldn’t finish.
“Darlin’ child, I’m so sorry you’ve been carryin’ this load all by yourself. You should have told us. We would have understood. Does he take care of Brook?” he asked.
Dana shook her head. “There’s no father listed on the birth certificate. I was eighteen when I went to work on the ranch and I was taking some online college courses toward a degree. He came into my life not long after that. He was a little older than I was, and we lived together but we never got married. He skipped out when Dana was just a toddler. He knocked me around a few times, but when he slapped my baby—well, I was so angry with him that I told him to get lost and never come back.” Tears began to roll down her cheeks.
“And?” Zed asked.
“It was the third time he’d cheated on me that I knew about, so I kicked him out. He was so mad that he said she wasn’t even his child—that he’d had surgery after his last child with his wife was born. She is his, but I was so mad, Uncle Zed, that I told him he was right and I was glad that she wasn’t his. She’ll see that birth certificate someday. What do I tell her?”
Her shoulders heaved with tears and pain. Zed reached across the distance with his long arm and wiped away the moisture. She grabbed his hand and held it to her cheek. Payton was right. Telling a stranger was so much easier than telling someone she loved like a grandfather.
“You tell her as much of the truth as she can bear to hear at that time. That’s exactly what you’ll do, but you don’t have to worry about it tonight, child. Tonight you put all that sadness out of your mind and you go to bed and dream sweet dreams about this new person in your life.”
She kept his hand in hers and held it on the sofa. “I don’t deserve any of this. Not Granny’s legacy, not Payton, not a daughter who means so much to me, not you for sure.”
“That’s only your opinion. Me and Annie see things different than you girls do,” he said as he pulled his hand away and stood up. “Things look different in the daylight, darlin’ girl. Get some sleep.”
Zed sat down in a rusty old metal chair beside the door to his quarters. “Annie, my heart is broken. One of our girls couldn’t tell us about the baby because she didn’t want to disappoint us. The other one lied to us because of the same reason. It’s humbling to feel so loved that someone don’t want to bring you heartache, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Demons aren’t little red creatures with a forked tail, and they don’t carry a pitchfork around in their bony hands. Harper knew that for a fact. Her black cloud demon hovered over her head and followed her around as little bits of it oozed into her heart and soul. It came around again every April 4, the day she’d signed the papers to give her baby away. The day she’d walked out of the unwed mothers’ home and didn’t even look back.
She tried—God knew that she gave it her best—that Wednesday. She pasted on a smile and bantered with the regular customers in the café, but by the close of the day, her feet turned to lead as she made her way across the lawn to her cabin. She paced the floor and poured a triple shot of Jack and set it on the nightstand.
“I will not drink that.” She stared at the amber liquid every time she passed it. “It only makes it worse. It’s all closing in on me, Granny. I’m not as good as my sisters. They can run this place without me, and they deserve to split everything down the middle, not have to share it with me. I should pack up and leave.”
Tears cannot drown a demon. They only make it angry. Still, Harper’s cheeks flooded with tears as she sobbed that evening. Finally, she dragged a suitcase from the closet and threw it on her bed. Fight-or-flight mode had set in, and to fight with her sisters, she had to come clean with them. It was easier to run away and start again.
So you’re going to let this misery inside you control you and make you leave?
“I can’t fight it. It’s stronger than me,” she argued with the voice in her head.
But is it stronger than your sisters and Zed?
Harper picked up the suitcase and hurled it across the room. It hit the door with a bang and slung clothing all over the room. A pair of lacy underwear hung on the ceiling fan, and a bra floated down over the lamp beside her bed.
“You okay in here?” Tawny opened the door without knocking. “God Almighty, Harper. Why would someone trash your room?”
“Go away,” Harper screamed and threw her stuffed Easter bunny at her sister.