Page 33 of Call Me Yours (Lodestar Ranch #4)

STEVEN

“What do you mean, she hasn’t spoken to you in eight years?” I asked incredulously. “You’re here every week. You lived with her.”

“She found a way,” Chloe said flatly. “That’s Grams for you. She’s resourceful.”

“Chloe,” Angie said. Her forehead pinched with concern. Concern—but not surprise.

Chloe’s hands flexed with agitation before she pivoted to the sink. “It’s fine, Mom.” She smacked the faucet on and then stared blankly at the empty sink. There weren’t any more dishes to wash.

I silently handed her a dishtowel and grabbed a second one for me. She blinked at me and reached for a pot in the drying rack. “It’s fine,” she repeated, more calmly this time, like she was soothing her own fractured nerves.

“It’s not fine,” I said. “There’s nothing fine about your grandmother not speaking to you for eight years. What happened?”

Chloe paused for so long that I wondered if she was going to answer at all.

Then she glanced at her parents still seated at the table, like she was looking for their permission.

Her mom nodded and Chloe sighed. “Eight years ago, I was a senior in college. I was about to graduate with a B.S. in agriculture, but I was already working part-time for my grandfather at the Adams’ farm.

It had been in our family for several generations. Wheat and corn. That’s what we grew.”

Her hand moved the towel in quick circles around the pot, despite it no longer having even a speck of water on it. There didn’t seem to be a reason to point this out to her, so I just nodded.

“At first everything seemed fine. I thought the farm was turning a decent profit. Nothing that would make us rich, but enough money that we could weather a few disappointments, as long as they didn’t happen back-to-back.

But of course the disappointments hit like a one-two punch.

Too little rain followed by too much rain followed by political bullshit.

” The circles got faster and angrier. “The thing was, though, on paper, it seemed like we were still doing okay. And that didn’t make sense at all.

I got curious and followed paper trails Gramps never intended me to see. ”

Her hands stilled. I gently took the pot from her and set it on the counter.

She blinked rapidly. “It turned out the farm was not okay and hadn’t been for some time.

By that point, even selling off everything wouldn’t pay the debts.

It was so far beyond my knowledge and capabilities.

I knew we needed help, but I didn’t know who to go to.

I told him we at least needed to tell Grams and Mom and hire a lawyer.

Gramps begged me not to say anything, to give him more time.

He said he was on the verge of making a partnership deal that would bring an influx of cash.

I agreed. God, I was dumb.” She laughed harshly.

“That was the stupidest thing I could have done. It kept him isolated and ashamed. I didn’t understand that at the time. ”

An awful, sinking feeling lodged in my gut. I glanced at her parents. Angie clasped her hands on the table, fingers woven so tightly together her knuckles were white, while Terry rubbed her back.

“That May, I discovered Gramps hadn’t paid the taxes back in March like he had promised he would.

It was a Sunday. I told him I was done hiding.

He agreed we would tell Grams together that evening when she came home from church.

He seemed…relieved. So I went ahead to my stupid school luncheon for magna cum laude graduates.

” She gave a derisive snort. “While Grams was at church and I was laughing with my friends, Gramps laid a tarp down in the barn and shot himself in the head. I found him there, with a note that said he was sorry for the mess.”

“Chloe,” I said hoarsely.

She frowned. “Suicide is always a mess in one way or another. I never could get the blood out of the walls. When the barn was finally torn down, I was relieved I never had to see it again.” She twisted the dishtowel in her hands. “Grams never forgave me for any of it.”

“What?” My brow furrowed as I studied her. “She blames you? What for?”

Chloe shrugged. “For not telling anyone the farm was in trouble. For not being able to save the farm. For leaving my grandfather alone that afternoon. Any of it. All of it.”

I shook my head. “You didn’t kill him. You’re no more at fault than she is.”

“That’s the thing, isn’t it? When you’re left picking up the pieces and have more questions than answers, and you can’t blame the person who died because they’ve clearly already suffered enough. So who does that leave? If she didn’t blame me, she might have to blame herself.”

“Or no one,” I said. “No one is to blame.”

Chloe smiled sadly. “That’s harder to live with. All that pain and anger…Someone needed to carry the weight of it so it didn’t crush her.”

I stared at her. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

“Eight years,” I said. “She’s blamed you for eight years so she doesn’t have to question why she knew nothing about her own home and husband and—” Anger licked up my spine and I whirled to face her parents.

“And you let her? She hasn’t spoken a single word to your daughter in eight years, and you thought that was fine?

You let her get away with treating Chloe like that under your own roof? ”

Angie looked flustered. “We couldn’t—I don’t—Grams cannot be reasoned with,” she stammered. “But we don’t blame Chloe.”

Like that made it okay.

Terry’s mouth flattened. “What exactly would you have had us do? It kept the peace. You don’t know how hard things were for this family back then. Angie’s sickness, the bankruptcy. We all did the best we could, but it was a heavy time for all of us.”

“So you let Chloe carry the extra weight. Like always. Not because you have to , but because she can. It’s easier that way.” I split a look between them, and they stared back in shock. Fuck that. My jaw clenched hard. “Get your things, Chloe. We’re leaving.”

“You can’t leave yet,” Angie protested. “We haven’t had pie.”

I almost laughed. “Angie, I like you a lot and I know Chloe thinks the world of you, but your priorities are seriously out of whack if pie is what you’re worried about right now.”

Angie flushed.

I took Chloe’s elbow. She stared up at me with wide eyes, her lower lip falling open.

“Do you want to stay here and have pie with the people who thought it was perfectly okay for you to carry the blame of your grandfather’s death for eight freaking years, or do you want to come home with me and I’ll make you something sweet? ”

Her gaze shifted over my face and then her lips firmed. She nodded. “Take me home.”

I steered her out of the kitchen and through the living room. “Let’s go, Amy. We’re leaving,” I said as we made for the door.

“Without pie—” Amy said in consternation, glancing up from UNO. One look at my face and she jumped to her feet. “Right. Coming. Thanks for dinner. It was great.”

I brushed aside her brothers’ protests and helped Chloe into her coat while Amy hastily grabbed her jacket and bag, and then we were out the door.

Chloe didn’t lose that dazed expression until we pulled onto the highway. She shifted in her seat to face me. “What you did back there…the way you stood up for me?” She shook her head slowly, disbelievingly. “No one’s ever done that. Not once in eight years. I can’t believe you did that.”

My hand found hers in the space between us. “I can’t believe you put up with anything less.”

The knock on the door was so faint I thought it was wishful thinking. I froze, every cell in my body on high alert, my heart beating out of time in my chest, my breath stuck in my throat. A moment passed, and then another. Hope ebbed like a July snow field.

The second knock was louder and unmistakable.

I kicked free of the covers, launched myself across the room, and wrenched open the door. Chloe stood there, wrapped up in her fluffy robe, her feet bare.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice rough and breathless like I had run a ten-mile race instead of crossed a tiny ass bedroom.

She fidgeted with the belt on her robe, looking uncertain. “Do you want me to go?”

I reached around her for the doorknob and pulled the door closed. “Don’t even fucking think about it, princess.”

One eyebrow flicked upward. “Good.”

She gave one quick tug on the knot at her waist and shimmied her shoulders. The robe tumbled to a heap at her feet.

I stole one fevered look at her luscious naked body and slammed my eyelids shut with a groan.

“Steven,” she said, and I could hear the bafflement in her voice. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t think straight when I look at you.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not here for thinking,” she said.

Her hands landed gently on my bare pecs, making me tense, but I still didn’t open my eyes.

“We should talk,” I managed, clinging to my resolve by a gossamer thread as her fingers trailed over my stomach, tracing the squares of muscle, following the V-line to my groin. God, her hands felt good on me.

“I don’t want to do that, either.”

The air fluttered around us as she went to her knees. My stomach tightened with anticipation. When she curled her fingers around the waistband of my boxers and dragged them down my thighs, I inhaled sharply. I stopped breathing altogether when she palmed my dick with one hand.

“Hmm,” she purred. She rubbed her lips with the head of my cock.

“Fuck, Chloe,” I groaned. I ground the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. “You’re going to break me.” What I didn’t say: You’re going to break my fucking heart .

Her tongue swiped my slit. “Should I stop?”

I tried to breathe. Tried to think. This wasn’t fair. We weren’t on an equal playing field. She just wanted sex, and I…

I was fucking in love with her.