Moose paced back and forth, wearing down a path in the lush carpet in his bedroom. When he’d come home last night from the Rowland’s, his father had already heard the news and was furious. Apparently, the mom had called over to relay the news as soon as Moose had walked out the door.

Dad had laid into Moose, telling him how he was failing the Garrett family, he was making the wrong choice, blah blah blah, not letting Moose get a word in edgewise, and then…he suddenly got quiet. Scarily quiet. He told Moose he needed a day to “get used to the idea,” and that he would talk to him again the next evening.

Moose had been completely taken aback. Who was this man, and what had he done with his father? Rocky Garrett was not the kind of man to want to think through decisions cooly and logically before making pronouncements. He tended to be the shoot-first-ask-questions-later sort of guy. Moose finally stuttered out his agreement to this plan and had watched his father walk out of the room.

It was over with…for the moment.

But now it’d been 24 hours, and it was time for The Talk. Moose had spent the whole day wanting to call Georgia – wanting to tell her what had happened – but had made himself hold back. He wanted a resolution when he went to Georgia. He wanted to be able to tell her that he and his father had worked it all out.

Honestly, he wanted to give Georgia good news, but dammit, if his father didn’t come home soon, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to contain himself much longer. He’d settle for giving “I don’t know what will happen” news, if it meant being able to talk to Georgia. More than possibly anything in the world, he wanted to just hold her, without guilt or worry or the vague feeling of cheating on Tennessee.

And then, he wanted to kiss her. Kiss her until they couldn’t breathe, and then carry her over to…

His mind screeched to a halt. Where, exactly, was he carrying her? He couldn’t make love to her in his parent’s house. He couldn’t afford a hotel. It would all have to be done at her condo.

Which he was all for her making money and pursuing a career, but…could he really be a kept man? Could he handle living in her place, knowing that she was way out-earning him, at least until he took over the dealership?

If he even got to take over the dealership?

His head hurt.

The front door slammed open and Dad came clomping through it, his steps echoing and creaking in the ceiling above him. “Deere!” he thundered. “Get up here right now!”

Moose could be sure of one thing that his father hadn’t spent his “thinking time” doing: A nice round of yoga and contemplation on how to become a better father. Or at least one less prone to yelling his thoughts out at the top of his lungs.

Moose hurried up the stairs, feeling frustration welling up inside of him with every step. He was sick of being called to the carpet like a child. He was 26 years old, for hell’s sakes, not a 12-year-old who’d snitched the last of the ice cream.

“Rocky!” his mother scolded. “Why are you yelling at Deere like that? There is no reason to raise your voice in this house.”

“Then Deere and I are gonna have to take it outside,” his dad snarled, just as Moose came walking into the room, “because I’m not going to play patty-cake with my son. Not when he has a whore chasing after him, trying to get him to throw his future away.”

Moose heard his younger sister on the living room couch behind him suck in a breath at that. The room went dark around the edges as anger washed over him.

“Do not call Georgia a whore,” Moose said deliberately, shaking with rage as he stared at his father. “Do. Not. Do it.”

“Now you two,” his mother said placatingly. “We just need to—”

“I only want what’s best for this family,” his dad said, ignoring his wife completely. “That’s all I’ve ever done – what my family needed me to. You, though, are a selfish bastard who doesn’t care about us. Georgia’s father has no land, no influence, no money. Have you seen that house they live in? A little 1970s shoebox. You need to choose your family, or I’ll make the choice for you.”

“Everything you do is for this family?” Moose repeated, sputtering and laughing sarcastically as he said it. “You don’t care about this family, and you sure as hell don’t care about me.”

“I’ve had to work hard so you could take over this business!” his father shouted, his face turning a deep red as he did so. “Just because I don’t hand it to you free and clear when you’ve done nothing to earn it doesn’t make me a bad father. In fact, it makes me a good one!”

“So working me into the ground, treating me like shit, and dictating who I marry before I get to take over the dealership is your way of being a good father? Just curious – do I ever get to vote and ask for a shitty one to replace you, then? Because I’m pretty sure no father out there could be worse than you. When, exactly, were you planning on telling me that I only got to inherit the dealership after I married Tennessee? You always told me it was five years, five years, five years. You never said a word about Tennessee being part and parcel to that. When were you planning on telling me the truth?”

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle the truth!” his dad shot back. “Just because I know what’s best for you, and am making sure that you’re not throwing your life away over the ugly cousin doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“The ugly cousin?” Moose repeated, bewildered. “Hold on, you think Georgia is the ugly cousin?” He started laughing uproariously. “Okay, now that’s a good one,” he snorted, slapping his knee with glee. It felt good to laugh. He needed to laugh just then.

“You cannot honestly think that Georgia is prettier than Tennessee!” his dad gasped, staring at his son in shock. “Georgia is a little mousy thing—”

“Just because Georgia doesn’t wear ten pounds of makeup and spend seven hours curling her hair every day doesn’t make her ugly, Dad. I honest to God have no idea what Tennessee looks like when she wakes up in the morning. She wears so much goop on her face and in her hair…it’s not for me. And fake fingernails? What is up with those? Going every week to get her hair and nails done – Georgia doesn’t do that because she actually has a full-time job. Tennessee’s full-time job is to look pretty and play the piano. That isn’t a job, Dad, that’s the life of a southern belle.”

“Tennessee looks like the future wife of the most important man in town,” his father said acidly. “Unlike Georgia, she actually takes the time to present her best side to the world. There is no such thing as natural beauty, and Tennessee is smart enough to know that.”

“I. Don’t. Love. Tennessee. Do I need to hire a skywriter? If you saw it written in the clouds, would you believe me then?”

“What in the fiery depths of hell does love have to do with it?” his dad tossed back. “Love and marriage aren’t even remotely related. Have her as your mistress after you get married – I don’t care.” His mother let out a keening cry of pain at that, bending at the waist, rocking and holding her arms tight against herself. His father continued, ignoring his wife. “If you don’t marry her, I’ll…I’ll give the dealership to Rhys!” he said triumphantly.

Moose laughed sarcastically even as his heart was breaking for his mother. He wanted to rush to her side; hold her and stroke her hair and tell her it was all going to be okay. It was pulling her to pieces to have her oldest son and her husband fight like this, and Moose felt awful for his part in that pain, even if he couldn’t stop it from happening.

He focused his eyes on his father. He was the villain here, and Moose had to keep his head in the game, no matter how hard it was to see his mother hurting.

“Rhys wouldn’t take the dealership if you handed it to him on a silver platter,” he said baldly. “He hates this town, and he hates you. Do you really think he felt a burning desire to join the military? He didn’t want to – he told me that he had his fill of being ordered around with you as his father – but it was the only ticket out of this hellhole you’ve trapped us kids into. He’s in Japan right now because it’s the farthest base on the globe from Sawyer, Idaho that he could get sent to. Face it, Dad – you’ll have to live forever if you’re not going to give the dealership to me.”

“Well…well, I don’t have to make a decision about who I give it to for a long time,” his dad snarled. “I have a lot of years left in me. Maybe Rhys will change his mind by then – who knows. All I know is, it won’t be you.”

“Thank you for telling me that,” Moose said with a smile that he didn’t necessarily feel. “In that case, there is no reason left to stick around. I’ll go pack my bags now. I’m not going to stay under the same roof as a man who thinks that dictating who I marry is the sign of a good father. Someday, you might realize how much you screwed this up. Or maybe not. But I won’t sit around and wait for you to extract your head from your ass.”

He spun on his heel and marched back down the stairs to the basement, the slow clap of Zara as she applauded his performance echoing down the stairs after him, intermingled with the cries of devastation from his mom. Zara’s clapping wasn’t exactly appropriate, but Moose couldn’t help a quirk of his lips anyway. She was such a teenager sometimes. No wonder her and Virginia were best friends.

“Shut up!” his dad roared at his younger sister. The clapping stopped abruptly. Moose wanted to thunder back up the stairs to defend his sister and his mom; gather them up behind him and save them from the wrath of his father. But he knew even as he thought it that it would do no good at all. His mother had chosen a long time ago to stay with his father, despite his verbal abuse, and Zara was too young to move out. She would do it once she hit her 18th birthday though; he was willing to bet the dealership on that.

Ugh.

His heart squeezed a little at the unbidden thought, as he began throwing clothes and toiletries into his duffel bag. A saying he’d used his whole life – I’d bet the dealership on that – was no longer something he should say.

He couldn’t bet what wasn’t his.

He shoved the thought deep down, past the anger and hurt of his father’s betrayal, so he didn’t have to think about it or deal with it. If he buried it a mile down, so far down that no sunlight or moisture could ever get to it, then maybe he’d survive this mostly sane.

Maybe.

His mom knocked lightly on the open door, a Kleenex clutched in one hand. “Deere, you can’t do this,” she pleaded with him, dabbing at her eyes with the used Kleenex. “Your father is just upset right now. He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He will—”

“Your husband,” Moose said pointedly, throwing his charge cords into his bag along with his beat-to-shit laptop, “knows exactly what he’s saying and doing. He has worked his whole life to wrap me around his little finger and get me to jump as high as he wants me to jump, because he knew that I’d perform tricks for him in exchange for the dealership. No more, Mother. No more.

“People in this town think of me as a spoiled rich kid because my dad is the almighty Rocky Garrett. They probably think I’m still living at home because I don’t want to grow up and face the world and pay my own bills. They don’t realize that after all this time, my father is still paying me Idaho’s minimum wage. I’ve been working down at the dealership since I was ten years old – stocking shelves, making coffee, pushing a broom – and yet I am the lowest paid employee of the company. I don’t deserve pay raises, because all of this work is ‘sweat equity’ and I’m paying for the dealership through my blood, sweat, and tears. I was never told I had to pay for it with my soul.”

He zipped up the duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder, turning to look at his distraught mother. “If you ever want to leave your husband, let me know. I’ll help you walk away. Nothing is worth this, Mom – not the vacations, not the fancy house, not the nice car in the garage.”

“Is that why you think I stay?” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears yet again. “For a car?! I stay for you children, and because—”

“If you’re staying because of me,” he cut her off, not wanting to hear her proclaim her undying love to her bastard of a husband, “then you’ll walk out that door with me right now.”

“I can’t leave right now,” she protested. “Zara is upstairs. She needs me—”

“She needs you to show a backbone. She needs you to get her out of this hellhole. We can all walk out together, right here, right now.”

“And go where?” his mom asked plaintively. “And do what? I have no marketable skills. I have no resumé. I cannot write down, ‘I make beds and do laundry’ on a job application.”

“You can if you were applying to be a maid,” Moose pointed out. At the shocked look on his mother’s face, he let out a painful sigh. “I get it, Mom. It’s scary out there for you. And it’s scary for me. Dad just stole my future from me and I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself now. But I do know that I’m ready to go see what I can make of this world.”

He hugged her hard, kissed her on the cheek, walked up the stairs, waved to his sister, and walked out the front door. For a second time in two days, he’d chosen freedom over security. The choice was scary as hell…

But it also felt like the most euphoric drug on the planet. He was finally his own person.