Page 16

Swallowing hard, I stare at her, but she pins her gaze on the vista beyond the house.
This isherroom.
It overlooks one of the lakes that we have on our property and lets her keep an eye on the corral too.
Even as we sit drinking coffee in china cups that were hand-painted a century ago and are arguing about purely human matters which are of no consequence to the land that’s been here before the first McAllister was born and will outlive us all, a stag drifts from the forest line and lowers his head to sip from the lakeshore.
My heart stutters at the sight.
I used to adore the Bar 9. Now, my skin crawls being here.
The sensation jars me so I bow my head and take in the contracts in front of me.
Contracts, I can do.
Finding solace in the familiar legal terms that perplex so many, I begin rereading them. But my heart pounds once I realize what’s on the line.
When I reach the final page of the contract, she places a piece of paper on the table beside me.
Startled, as I didn’t realize she’d gotten to her feet, I pull away from her.
“Hush, child. I hit you once in your life and you react as if I’m the devil incarnate.” She harrumphs. “You were hysterical.”
“I wasn’t but I have every right to be. You’re ruining my life,Grand-mère.”
She shoves the piece of paper at me. “Read that, Susanne.”
I peer at the bank statement with dawning horror. More documents are handed to me, so I read them too—letters from our bank manager. The hand clutching the paper balls into a fist that crinkles the notes as I stare at her.
“What the hell were you thinking wasting money on airfare?”
“Clyde Korhonen paid for your ticket.”
God, we’re already indebted to that monster.
Blindly, I stare at the statements. “How did it get so bad?”
I guess I knew when she asked for help with the mortgage, butthisis so much worse than I perceived.
“The price of cattle sunk. Interest waned. Everyone wants to eat vegetables and… we haven’t diversified,” she admits.
For a second, my indomitable grandmother looks every one of her ninety-two years. Yet, though her shoulders hunch as she moves over to the window, she does so with a grace that belies her age.
She presses her fingers to the glass like she’s trying to find solace in the Bar 9—the land that reared her. “It’s getting to be more than I can handle. That’s why this would be so perfect. The boys are too young to take over and say what you will about that old bastard, Colton’s love of the land is as strong as mine. As strong as yours used to be. He can protect the Bar 9 and modernize it.”
I hear her reprimand, but I don’t care.
The minute Tee and I had enough money to leave Saskatchewan behind, we did.
Tee had a scholarship for Juilliard.
I wanted away from here. Away from the Korhonens and their land and that family’s poison.
And Colt.
Who broke my heart by pretending I'd ceased to exist.
Now, she wants me to become one of them!