Page 116 of The Bitterroot Inn (Jamison Valley 5)
“Dad took Nell being home as an excuse to spend more time at the hospital. He got a promotion, worked his way up to chief of surgery. He’d make it home once, maybe twice a week before I was asleep. It was only when we took our fishing trips that he really paid me much attention.”
Which meant Hunter had grown up angry, sad and alone. “Why didn’t you ever tell your dad how you were feeling? From what you’ve told me, he loved you. Wouldn’t he have tried to make things better?”
Hunter sighed. “Yeah. He would have. But for all her faults, Dad loved Nell. Just not as much as my mother. Nell put in zero effort with me and Everett, but she was all about Dad. Trying to make him love her more than he did a dead woman’s memory.”
I felt a small twinge of sympathy for Nell but it faded fast. “And she was so focused on your dad, she neglected her own son?”
“Pretty much. Honestly, I don’t know how close they were before they ever moved in. They were both so greedy and selfish. I think it just became easier for Nell to ignore Everett once she got set up as a rich doctor’s wife.”
My insides twisted with mixed emotion. On the one hand, it was Everett. I loathed his memory. But on the other, I felt bad that he’d never had a loving and proud mother. “Should I feel sorry
for Everett?”
“Fuck no.” He turned to look me right in the eye. “Everett was a rotten kid and grew into a rotten adult. He made his choices, not Nell. She wasn’t responsible for turning him into a drug-dealing psychopath. That was all him, the greedy motherfucker.”
Clearly, even as grown men, they had still hated each other. “So I’m guessing you and Everett never became friends?”
“No. Things between us just got worse and worse. He’d come back from college and try and seduce my high-school girlfriends. He’d buy beer for my friends but only if they didn’t tell me where they were partying. I am convinced that the only reason Everett became a doctor was because he knew I wanted to follow in Dad’s footsteps and it would piss me off.”
The more Hunter talked, the more I pitied his childhood. I couldn’t imagine the stress of having that kind of animosity in my home. Of living in a house without love. I’d grown up with parents and brothers that had adored me.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Everett was an asshole, but I grew up and got to the point where I just ignored him. Once I started college, I distanced myself, and then, thank fuck, he moved.”
I wasn’t as grateful about Everett’s move to Prescott. The only good thing that had come from his time here was Coby. “Why did Everett come to Montana to smuggle pills from the county hospitals? If he was a big-city doctor, wouldn’t he have made more money just working? Doctors in Chicago make good money, right?”
Everett had scammed his way into three different Montana hospitals, recruiting nurses to steal prescription pills that he later resold. I knew pills could bring in a lot of money, but enough to compete with a doctor’s salary? It didn’t add up.
“He made good money in Chicago but probably not as much as you’d think. Those pills set him up. But I think it was more than just the money. I think it was about power. He wanted to prove he was smarter than us all. And I think it was a big ‘Fuck You’ to me and Dad.”
“Why is that?”
“When Dad died, Nell inherited his insurance payout. She got the insurance. I got everything else. His money. The house. Everything. Everett didn’t get a dime. We got into a big fight after Dad’s funeral and he took off. He said he wasn’t going to work his whole life. That he would get rich faster than me or Dad ever could.”
“And that’s when he came here to Prescott?”
Hunter nodded. “For all his intelligence, he was a dumbass. He had so much fucking brainpower, but instead of using it, he was always plotting for a shortcut.”
Everett’s last shortcut had cost him his life.
“Okay,” I said. “So fast forward to now. It’s been years since Everett’s death. Why did Nell come for Coby after all this time? Why did she wait so many years to file the custody petition?”
Hunter ran a hand over his hair again and when he looked up, I didn’t like the tortured look on his face. “It wasn’t just now.”
My muscles tensed. “What do you mean?”
“The first time I saw you was the day you had Coby. I was sitting in the waiting room when Beau brought you to the hospital in Bozeman.”
“What?” My chin fell. “Why?”
“Nell sent me to ask you for Coby. She wanted you to give him over to her. She was grieving. She wanted that piece of Everett but didn’t want to be around you so I went in her place. The only reason I agreed to come to the hospital and ask you was because she said you’d sent her a letter and you were considering giving Coby up for adoption.”
“That’s a lie!” I shouted. “I would never give up my son.”
“I know that,” he said calmly. “I took one look at you and knew you’d never give him up, so I left.”
“Why would you even think about letting her take a baby if she was such a horrible mother?”
