chapter TWENTY-FIVE
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1968
If I never have to go through a day like today, it’ll be too soon.
We laid my sisters to rest today. Both of them.
Going to the cemetery and watching as they lowered not one but two of my beautiful sisters into the ground was the most devastating thing I have ever witnessed. Most of the town showed up to pay their respects, doing their best to console Momma. She is taking it hard, but that’s completely understandable. My heart is shattered and they were my sisters. I can’t imagine what Momma is going through. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to want to talk to me. I tried twice. The first time, I chalked it up to her being upset. The second time… Well, it wasn’t what I expected.
Curtis would be more than willing to never again have to go through what he’d gone through today. More so because seeing his wife so devastated was the equivalent of stealing his heart right out of his chest.
The past week had been brutal. Between the news of Kathy’s death, then Celeste’s steady decline, followed by her death, it had been a whirlwind of emotions. And because the Jamesons were going through so much, Curtis had taken it upon himself to handle the funeral arrangements, working directly with Mitch. Lorrie’s brother hadn’t deserved to take it all on himself, and Lorrie’s mother had proved to be in no shape to deal with the details.
Although horrifically sad, it had been a nice service, and he expected the graveside service to be the same. Curtis remained with Lorrie, sitting on the first row with her brothers and sisters and mother. Dorothy had taken the seat at the opposite end, as far away from his as possible. Whether that had been intentional or not, he wasn’t sure, nor did he really care to know.
He kept his arm around Lorrie the entire time, even as they lowered the caskets, holding her tight to him, her body trembling uncontrollably. She was doing fairly well composing herself, but he knew how hard it was for her. For all of them.
“I wanna go say something to Momma,” Lorrie told him once the service had concluded.
Curtis nodded, taking her hand and leading her toward Dorothy.
“Momma.” Lorrie’s voice was hoarse from all the tears she’d shed, so the word didn’t carry far enough.
“Mrs. Jameson,” Curtis called, getting Lorrie’s mother’s attention.
Dorothy turned around, and when her eyes landed on him, the sadness disappeared, and something that looked a hell of a lot like rage filled them.
“What do you want?” she seethed.
Curtis’s eyebrows darted down in confusion, not sure what he’d done to provoke this sort of response. He’d spent the entire week putting things together, not wanting any of them to have to deal with this while they were grieving, so her reaction seemed entirely out of character.
“I hope you’re not expecting me to thank you,” Dorothy snapped.
That had been the absolute last thing on his mind.
“Momma, come on,” Mitch said, his eyes meeting Curtis’s briefly. Based on Mitch’s expression, it looked as though he didn’t know what was going on, either.
“I don’t know who you think you are throwing your money around, acting like we’re your charity. It might’ve worked when you bought Lorrie, but you can’t buy me. Or my other daughters.”
He felt Lorrie’s eyes on him, but he didn’t look away from Dorothy. There were so many things he wanted to say to her at the moment, but he remembered where they were, what they were here for. It wasn’t the time or the place.
“Momma,” Mitch whispered loudly. “What’re you talkin’ about? I paid for this. Janice and I. Curtis didn’t pay a dime.”
He hadn’t, either. He had offered it to Mitch, but Mitch had kindly declined, just as Curtis had thought he would. Mitch Jameson was a proud man. A good man. He had taken it upon himself to take care of his family after their father had died, and Curtis respected him for that. The only thing Curtis had done was handle the logistics, with the help from his own mother, who had been just as devastated by the loss of Lorrie’s sisters as everyone else.
Dorothy’s head snapped toward Mitch, her eyes wide. She looked horrified.
Since she’d basically revealed the fact that Curtis had paid Phillip Jameson in order to get his approval for Curtis to marry her, she should be shocked. And ashamed.
He took a deep breath and glanced down at his wife. She was staring back at him, tears in her eyes. She didn’t know the whole story, but he knew Dorothy had said just enough for her to put two and two together.
Now, the only thing he could do was hope she would hear him out.
Lorrie wanted to crawl into a hole and die. As people started leaving the graveside, she felt dozens of eyes on her, all likely feeling pity. Not a lick of it was due to her sisters’ deaths, either.
She didn’t have a clue what her mother was talking about, but she’d heard enough to know that it wasn’t good.
She tried to free her hand from Curtis’s, but he held tight.
“Let me go,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice low.
“No,” he insisted, his grip firmer on her hand as he led her toward the car.
“What did she mean when she said you paid for me?”
“We’ll talk about it when we get home,” he said brusquely.
Again, she tried to yank her hand from his, but Curtis stopped abruptly, then turned to face her. “It is not at all what you think,” he said, his voice low, rough. “But I expect the benefit of the doubt, and I expect you to hear me out.”
“What makes you think you deserve that?” she countered hotly, fury replacing the sadness that had consumed her for days.
It actually felt good to get angry. So much better than the throbbing ache in her chest that she’d endured since the minute she’d learned of Kathy’s death, followed closely by Celeste’s.
“Because I’m your husband,” he remarked.
Lorrie noticed people were watching them, and she knew how things worked in Granite Creek. If they thought for a second that there was trouble in paradise, the rumors would run wild. That was the last thing she needed on the heels of such a tragedy.
Composing herself, she relaxed her hand in Curtis’s and allowed him to lead her to the truck. A short time later, after they had pulled into the drive of their house, before he pushed in the emergency brake, she bolted out and ran up to the door.
She was inside before Curtis even got out of the truck. Anger sparked the dry kindling of emotion still in her chest, and the only way she could release it was by screaming her hatred for the situation. It wasn’t even Curtis she was mad at, although she definitely deserved an explanation. No, her hatred was at God for taking her sisters from her, for leaving her family in shambles. She wasn’t sure how they would pick up and move forward without Kathy and Celeste there.
She screamed until she was hoarse, then she found herself in Curtis’s arms, her face buried in his chest as he held her tightly. Her knees gave out again, but rather than move her to the couch, he lowered them both to the carpet, pulling her into his lap.
“I never wanted you to find out,” Curtis said softly when her sobs quieted.
“About what?” Lorrie was too weak to even lift her head to look at him. She knew he was referring to what her mother had said.
“About what your father did.”
It wasn’t difficult to figure it out. Lorrie wasn’t stupid. She remembered the conversations that had taken place right before Curtis had asked her to marry him. She hadn’t been privy to the details, but her father had gone from forbidding her to see Curtis to shipping her off the next morning.
“You paid him.” It wasn’t a question. She already knew he had.
“I had to,” he whispered, his voice broken.
Needing to look into his eyes, Lorrie slipped out of his lap and onto the floor, kneeling across from him. She didn’t even have to ask him to explain before the words started tumbling from his mouth.
“Your father came to me, gave me an ultimatum. You already know that part.” Curtis looked down at his hands. “I wasn’t going to allow him to take you away from me, so I asked you to marry me. That was what he wanted, but I didn’t understand why at the time. I knew I would marry you eventually, so it wasn’t a big deal.
“I stayed up all night trying to figure out how we would make this work. Where we would live, how I would make money to support you. Then, out of the blue, your father showed up first thing that next morning. When I walked into the kitchen, I found him sitting at my mother’s kitchen table.” Curtis frowned. “I still remember the smug look on that bastard’s face.”
Lorrie didn’t interrupt, knowing there was more.
Curtis lifted his eyes and met hers. “It was no secret that your old man hated my family. He was jealous of what we had; everyone knew that. But my father never let it bother him, and we kids never thought much of it. A lot of people didn’t like us. Mostly because they didn’t understand us. We were wild, often out of control. I got that. What I didn’t get was how a man could walk into another man’s house and blackmail him.”
Lorrie’s eyes widened. “What?”
She saw his Adam’s apple move slowly up and down. He seemed to be processing what he was going to say.
“Just tell me what happened, Curtis. No more secrets.”
“That’s the thing,” he replied harshly. “It’s not that I purposely kept it from you because of what I did. I’d do it all over again if I had to. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to know what your father had done.”
“What did he do?”
Curtis took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “Your father had somehow found out about the details of my father’s will. No one knows how he managed to do that, nor have I ever asked. It doesn’t matter. My father stated in his will that all of his land and the ranch would go to the first of his sons to marry.” He narrowed his eyes as he met her gaze. “I didn’t even know about it at the time. No one did. No one other than my mother, anyway. So, he confronted my mother with that information, and she confirmed that it was true. Apparently that had been your father’s angle from the beginning.”
“Oh, my goodness.” Lorrie’s hand was on her mouth; she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It all made perfect sense, right down to why her father had insisted that she get to know Curtis shortly after Mr. Walker’s death.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Your father pushed you into meeting me because he wanted to benefit from my father’s will.”
“But why’d you pay him?” She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know how much.
“That morning, after I had asked you to marry me, he told me that he would not give his permission. That he’d changed his mind.”
That didn’t surprise her.
“I told him he was fucking crazy. That he couldn’t do it. My mother reminded me that you were underage, and I couldn’t marry you without his consent.” His eyes locked with hers. “Your father was a mean bastard, Lorrie. As mean as mine.”
“How much did you pay him?”
Curtis shook his head.
“Tell me,” she insisted.
“Five thousand dollars.”
Lorrie was up on her feet, appalled by the notion that her father would insist on that much money.
In the next breath, Curtis was standing before her, his finger curled beneath her chin, forcing her to look up at him.
“I would’ve paid any amount he asked, Lorrie. I was not going to lose you. Especially not because of a selfish, greedy man.”
“That’s why he seemed so happy that morning,” she mused.
It all came back to her. The way her mother and father had been smiling when she’d come to tell them the news. She hadn’t figured out how they would’ve known, but she hadn’t cared at the time. It was her wedding day and the only thing she could think about was Curtis. Marrying him and spending the rest of her life with him.
“Where’d you come up with that kind of money?”
Curtis’s eyebrow lifted.
“Do I even wanna know?”
He led her over to the couch, easing her down and sitting beside her, facing her.
“Not all of my family’s money is tied up in the ranch like I’d assumed. My father willed the land and the ranch to whichever of his boys married first. What your old man didn’t know was that my father owned all of the land in Granite Creek.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Granite Creek belongs to me now. Us.”
“All of it?”
“Right down to the very land your momma’s house sits on.”
Lorrie frowned. “Did my father know that?”
“No one knows that,” he said, his voice gentle. “And I don’t want anyone else to know. What you and I choose to do with it is our decision to make. I hated your father for what he did, but I wasn’t going to hold it against your family, so I’ve kept it to myself.”
Of all the things she’d expected to come out of this conversation, that wasn’t it. Not only had her father blackmailed Curtis and forced him to pay him, Curtis now owned Granite Creek.
Goodness gracious.
Just when she thought she had things all figured out.