Page 24 of Rancher's Return

“It’s worse than a date,” Lily said. “You’re supervising me.”

“You made yourself worthy of supervision, Lily.”

Lily scowled.

“All right. Let’s just get there and see how it goes. Anyway, his house is bigger, and you were excited about seeing the house.”

“Yes, yes.”

Teenagers really were so mercurial. But normally, Marigold wasn’t the subject of Lily’s changing moods, so she couldn’t say that she’d noticed so much. Or been bothered by it.

That felt significantly different right at the moment.

“It is a really nice house,” she said as they pulled up to the large, modern dwelling.

“What does he do?” Lily asked.

“You didn’t ask Colton?”

“I did. He said his dad used to work at a camp for troubled kids. Which is how he ended up adopting Colton. But that doesn’t make any sense. Because I know everything is more expensive than you could possibly believe, and that you don’t get paid good money for being a decent human being. This house is billionaire money. This is scamming other people’s money. And yeah, you don’t get that kind of money helping kids.”

“Colton’s grandfather is the commissioner for the rodeo.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You don’t really know the Carsons, but they were a big factor when I was growing up. They moved to town right before I started middle school. And they brought a lot of money with them. They had a lot of kids too, and they infiltrated every single school around. You couldn’t ignore them.”

“I don’t know the lore,” Lily said.

“Well. That’s the lore. Abe Carson is the bigwig of the largest rodeo organization in the country. They travel all over the place putting on events, he has made a massive organization and he has tons of money. And what Buck said was that they had trust funds. All the kids.”

“Wow. Must be nice.”

“Right?”

“So that’s what he used to buy this?”

“Yes.”

“I guess at least a good person got the money.”

It was interesting that Lily saw him simply as a good person. But then, why should she see him any differently? Jason’s accident was theoretical to her. He had been gone long before she was born. And all Marigold could really say about Buck’s connection to the accident was that he had been there. Everything else had been innuendo.

About the way he might’ve influenced the evening. It wasn’t actually fair. Not if she stepped back from it.

It didn’t make the wound less tender.

But that was all it was. Tender.

Such an old pain now. Dull and aching.

They got out of the car.

They walked up to the door together this time, rather than Marigold going alone, being on a warpath, and Marigold rang the doorbell.

Colton was the one who answered. “Come on in. My dad said you were making dinner?”

“He is correct. I’m offering dinner in exchange for the use of the house for studying. Since we decided not to do it over at our place. But I hear tell that you have a lot more room.”