“Because if he presses charges against me, he’d be in just as much, if not more, trouble than me.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I hit him. I’m guilty of that. But he must have bribed someone at the doctor’s office.” Clancy quirks a brow, unconvinced. “Come on. How else would he know about my diagnosis? The Duporths have no morals. If he wanted that information, he’d find a way to get it.”
“But why would he be interested in that information in the first place?”
“Good fucking question.”
One I’ve asked myself numerous times. At Bunny’s, I had just found out that he was talking shit about my condition. I was furious and determined to get him to shut his big mouth. But now that I’ve had some time to think, I keep coming back to the same thing Clancy just asked: why would Ridge want to know anything about me, much less that?
Like Maverick’s family, the Duporths have houses all over the country. Two years ago, he returned to Silverstone and took over his family’s winery. I don’t know—or care, frankly—what prompted the move, but word around town is that he had a major falling-out with his father.
Our paths have never crossed. Even when he showed up for a semester in Silverstone High after getting expelled from whatever ritzy Chicago high school he went to, the guy barely looked at me. Why would he? People with money look down on people who don’t have as much. Or any, in my family’s case.
It sucks that it’s like that, but it’s the way it’s becoming more and more around here. Silverstone is a beautiful town, but the undercurrent dividing the haves and have-nots runs deep. Especially as more and more haves move here and take over.
“So you’re over the Ridge thing?” Clancy checks.
“Sure. As long as he keeps his stupid mouth shut.”
Clancy’s eyes gleam as he reaches over for another tuna roll. I can read him like a book, and I know something is going on in that head of his. Something I probably don’t want to know but something I’m too weak-willed to stop myself from asking about.
“What?” I finally snap. “You’re doing that creepy grinning thing again.”
“The one that makes me even cuter?”
A half snort slips out. “You wish. What’s on your mind, old man?”
“I was just thinking…”
He trails off, and I bite like I always do. “About?”
“Well, do you think any of your newfound happiness might have anything to do with Maverick?”
I didn’t think I was acting any different, but he seems to think I am. Nibbling at the tip of my sushi roll, I have to give Clancy an answer that gets him off my back for good. But I also have to play it smart. If I’m too dismissive or lighthearted, he’ll see right through it.
“I guess maybe Maverick isn’t as bad as I thought he’d be. We stay out of each other’s way at the sanctuary, and I can see he’s making a determined effort, which, I guess, might be playing a role in me being less pissed off than I normally am.”
“I see.” Clancy’s totally-not-cute grin widens.
Despite downplaying it, Maverick is actually doing a really good job, way better than any of his predecessors. Damaged fences are getting repaired. Broken stall latches are getting replaced with heavy-duty sliding bolt latches designed specifically to prevent horses from opening them. He’s fired two completely incompetent stable hands and sent an email advising he’s conducting an all-staff review.
And in possibly the best news of all, two three-hundred-gallon water totes have been set up just outside the barn with hoses rigged to gravity-feed into buckets. It’s a temporary workaround, he said, until the barn gets permanent plumbing, but it saves us from having to haul water back and forth from the water tanks all day long.
So any possible happiness on my part is most likely due tothosethings. It has nothing to do with seeing a softer side to him when he’s with Sammy. Or what Clancy said about him being lost, which has burrowed its way into my mind as I try to figure out if that’s even true and, if it is, dissect the reasons why. Or the way Maverick hinted his family might not be as ideal as I assumed it was when we were talking on the bench, watching Sammy ride his bike.
That’s something else I’ve been thinking about. Why is Maverick always helping out with Sammy? I’m sure a big part of it is because he clearly adores his nephew. But the Bensons aren’t exactly short on cash. Surely his brother could afford a nanny to get some help with Sammy. But he hasn’t. I wonder if there’s a reason for that.
And my anger about our family losing the sanctuary and the land it’s on all those decades ago? Logically, I know that’s got nothing to do with Maverick. I doubt he’s gone back through more than the last ten years of sales records. There’s no way he could know the whole sordid saga. Heck, evenIdon’t knowall the details. Clancy has never breathed a word about what happened to anyone, which makes me think that whatever went down was some super-nasty shit.
“Do you like him?” Clancy asks.
Got to hand it to him, he’s persistent. I shoot him a stern frown across the table, drizzling a healthy dollop of mayo over my tuna roll. “Not going there with you, Clancy.”
“Oh, please. Get over yourself. I did your laundry when you were a teenager. Those socks were stiff like concrete.” He drops his voice. “I knoweverything.”
I stare down at my mayo-covered tuna rolls, my appetite suddenly vanishing. “I don’t hate him as much as I did when we first met,” I concede with a sigh.
