“Wrong number I guess.” I hoped. I couldn’t rule out someone from back home, trying to find me, but surely then they’d have asked about Cheyenne. Must’ve been coincidence. “Where was I?”
“Telling me how the dinner I cooked was so amazing that you couldn’t eat any.” She started to rise.
“Cheyenne!”
She plopped back down on her butt.
“I’ve let it go so far, but we need to talk.”
She pretended to check a wristwatch that she didn’t have. “It’s been less than twelve hours since our last heart-to-heart.”
Shit. “That’s true. But I still don’t have a grasp on why you’re here. What was so urgent that you couldn’t wait. I need more.”
“You said we could talk about it with Arthur.”
I barked out a laugh. “First you drive him away with your antics, and now you want?—”
“What antics?”
“You slammed your door, threw a shoe at the wall and made a dent, Cheyenne.”
She crossed her arms in clear defiance.
“You’re not four anymore. You’ve got your words, and I’d appreciate if you would use them. So, if you could just?—”
“I’m supposed to marry Harvey Jefferson. On my eighteenth birthday.”
My jaw dropped. “What the fuck?”
“Yeah, exactly. So, like, that wasn’t going to happen. But they weren’t giving up.”
“So you ran?”
“Well, I was planning to, if I could get away. But then Mom tried to bribe me with a fancy wedding dress, not just something Mary-Sue would sew. She was heading to New York to pick up some radiation-counter thing Dad wanted, because he said it was too fragile to ship. So, she offered to take me along, and we’d go round the consignment stores and find a real dress. While we were in New York City, I gave her the slip and…you know the rest.”
I blinked. “Harvey? Isn’t he already married?” The town didn’t endorse bigamy—that I knew of, anyway.
“Nancy died last month while losing their third child. Like, super tragic. But that’s not enough reason for me to marry a thirty-year-old.”
She said thirty like the word was dirty or something.
I wasn’t going to point out I was thirty. Or that I’d gone to school with Harvey. To someone seventeen, I’m sure we both looked old.
He’d been a nasty bully back then. I’d been surprised, when I’d been home, to hear he’d married Nancy—a sweet-tempered young woman in our sister Nevada’s class. Cheyenne had brought me up to speed on the insular community and everything that’d happened in the twelve years I’d been gone, while I had nothing to do but lie around and heal. In some ways, the list had been long. On the other hand, since just about everything was predictable, she managed the recitation in less than an hour.
None of them mattered to me, and Harvey less than any, as long as that cruel bastard was out of my life. “You can’t marry him.”
She rolled her eyes, the duh unspoken. Still, she hunched her shoulders. “You know I wouldn’t have had a choice.”
Even knowing how serious our parents were about the community, it was hard to believe they’d hold her there by force. I’d gotten out. Except she was a girl, expected to obey, and in fact, I hadn’t escaped. I’d been expelled. Therein lay the difference. If Cheyenne thought they’d force her, she was quite possibly right. I drew a deep breath. “You really don’t want to marry him, right?”
Her eyes widened, as if she questioned my sanity. “Hard no.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. But I needed you to say it. Because if we’re going to fight to keep you here, you’ll need to be crystal clear with everyone you speak to about this. If you waver?—”
“I won’t.”
No, I didn’t figure she would. With her intuitive nature, she’d likely figured out early on that Harvey wasn’t a man to be crossed. Just…bad news. He was being groomed to be a leader and had some of the sharpest prepper skills—good with electronics, methodical about rotating his supplies, the most fortified homestead, and a top-notch sharpshooter. Plus, whatever other resources he’d accumulated that I hadn’t figured out while I’d been home recovering. “Okay. We need to see a lawyer.”
