Page 130 of Then You Happened
“How fast you zoomed in here. How you’re slurring your words.”
Another laugh that goes as unreciprocated as her first one did. “Aren’t you cute?” She scrunches her nose as she studies me. “And for the record, I don’t slur my words. I just prefer to talk in cursive.” A lift of her eyebrows. A visual challenge for me to push her on this.
I will let her say whatever crazy things she wants so long as she doesn’t climb back behind the wheel again.
She steps out from behind the door, her gait unsteady, but her eyes are sharp somehow. She looks like she stepped out of a fashion magazine with her designer clothes and Italian leather boots. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a fancy ponytail, and there are numerous diamonds adorning her fingers.
“Do I know you?” I ask.
Her smile is arrogant and looks familiar, but I can’t exactly place it.
I breathe a small sigh of relief when I see Jack’s truck on the stretch of road leading to the turnoff for the ranch. This drunk woman may seem harmless, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t make me uneasy.
The cluck of her tongue and her scrutiny draws my attention back to her.
“He just had to have you, didn’t he? He couldn’t keep his hands to himself. Like father, like son, apparently. Expectations and tough love for one of them, unconditional and immediate love for the other. So, of course, he came here and made sure to leave his mark on you,” she says as if I’m able to follow her crazy. “Of course, he had to have the ultimate fuck you.”
“He? Him? I’m sorry, but I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.”
Jack’s truck turns onto the driveway, the dust that just settled from her arrival now stirred back up.
“Nope. I know exactly who you are, Tatum Knox. You’re a sweet little thing, aren’t you?” A smile. “My Jack-Jack,” she says with a shake of her head, and for the briefest of seconds, I think she’s Jack’s wife. But before the panic sets in wholly, she continues. “My brother comes off like a sheep, but don’t be fooled, he’s a wolf underneath. Cunning, vindictive, and apparently, territorial considering the way he’s staked his claim on you. That’s the one thing our father never expected him to be when the promise was made.”
My head all but explodes when I realize she’s Jack’s sister.
“Lauren?”
She nods, her eyes assessing me and judging, her smile sliding slowly. “Ah, so between your sweet lovemaking and the sordid lies he fed you, he did mention me.” She clutches a hand over her chest. “Be still my heart.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not following you. Did you hit your head on the steering wheel by chance?”
Her laughter is back. The roll of her eyes follows right after it. “Our brother had it, you know? Our dad gave it to him freely.”
“What? Lauren—”
“Approval. Tatum. Fucking approval.” She snaps like a frustrated teacher. “I had it regardless of what I did because I was the only girl. Jack never got it because he was the only son . . . but when our brother came along out of the fucking goddamn blue months before he died, he got it simply because Dad felt guilty. He was the bastard love child my dad never knew about. The one who tried to ruin each one of
us in exchange for the money he’s now going to end up getting anyway.”
The horn starts blaring as Jack gets closer, but I’m so lost in what Lauren is saying, in the hairs standing up on the back of my neck, that I don’t turn and look his way.
That I don’t heed his warning.
“I’m not following you.”
“The Sutton household was a crazy place to grow up. Forty-five thousand acres loaded with cattle and horses, and I never had to lift a goddamn finger on that ranch. Not a one. Our father was too afraid I’d run away the first chance I had, just like our mother did . . . but Jack-Jack? He had to work his ass off day-in and day-out regardless of whether he wanted to or not. The kicker? It was never good enough. Never fast enough . . . never fucking enough.” She snorts.
“I’m sorry. Jack will be here in a second if you need him,” I say around the dread beginning to trickle through me. Deep down, I fear whatever she’s going to say next.
“Oh, but it’s you I want to talk to.” She scrunches her nose. “Our dad wanted to make a man out of Jack. Make him live by strict rules and hold him up to unrealistic expectations. Push him away and make him hard. And, of course, Jack bucked it all. He left to go be the man he wanted to be and flee the name he couldn’t escape.” Her laugh is anything but sympathetic and borders on manic. “When our brother turned up and daddy dearest, who was sick and lonely in his final months of losing the battle to cancer, couldn’t see the forest through the trees. Nope. He sees this surprise as his chance to get a do-over as a father. This is his chance to fix all the things he did wrong when it came to Jack.”
The honking continues, but I don’t even spare a glance his way. My heart is in my throat and every part of me is bracing for an impact I can’t quite begin to fathom yet.
Jack’s halfway up the driveway.
“But the bastard son didn’t want any love or approval. No. He only wanted money. He thought he could take advantage of his sick father who he didn’t give a damn about, so he showed up in person and harassed him. He charmed him at first, conned a dying man into thinking he was sincere. He pushed and pushed until my father collapsed from his constant barrage and I banned him from ever coming back. Then he turned his conniving ways on me. Tried to tempt me with my vices so I’d force our father to just give him the money and be done with him. Didn’t take him long to figure out that the person who held the most power over my father was Jack, and when he did, he set out to try to successfully blackmail him. You get a threat and you get a threat . . . you all get threats,” she says dramatically à la Oprah Winfrey fashion as she throws her hands up. “As if spilling the big secret of his connection to the Sutton name even registered on our radar. He was too stupid to know that not a single one of us cared.” She pulls a flask out of her purse and takes a long swallow of what is most definitely not water. “But then there’s you. Look at you making out in all of this.”
“Me?” I cough the word out as confusion reigns.
