Page 9 of Winning His Wager
“Why?”
“Because…I don’t…really…the inn, the diner, they are okay, but…they just don’t really feel likeme,you know? Like where I am supposed to be right now or where I want my life goals to be. My younger sisters, they are okay with doing college classes online while working as Talleys. It seems easier for Devaney and Dorie, for some reason. And Dahlia can hide there too. Work when she’s supposed to, with a very clear routine and people to protect her when needed. Then she can curl up with a book about the past when she’s not working or studying. She’ll be safe and protected and secure there, so I am really good with that aspect of things, at least. Big time—Dahlia will have a safe place. Don’t get me wrong. I am eternally grateful for Grandma and for Uncle Gerald not throwing us out on our ears, especially Dahlia and Dorie. Devvie and I would be okay on our own. We’re pretty resourceful. But the other two, they need a safe place. I guess the inn is going to be it forever now.”
“And it won’t be for you?”
“Dude, the first time I was at the Talley Inn, someoneshotme in the dining room.Just last week,I tripped over two murdered guys in the backyard. Kind of struggling to forget that part, you know. But…I do what I gotta do. This is what my sisters thought we should do. Where they thought we should be. So, now I work for the inn and the diner. Just like a real Talley is supposed to. My dad says that’s my heritage. And he wants me to know what it is. He insists on it. A little too late, I think. But, well, what does what I think factor in, I ask?” She snuggled into his chair again. It kind of smelled like him, she decided. Piney and spicy. She liked it. Even though it was a really ugly chair. He should reupholster it or something. She could do it for him. She’d done that kind of stuff before. “The dark is remarkably freeing, conversationally, Truckie.”
“Don’t call me that, brat. So, if you had your way, what exactly would you do with your life?”
There was a taunt in there. She just knew it. She didn’t trust the man one bit. “I don’t know, really. Something with plants. I like plants.”
“Like flowers? Like Marin?”
“Of course. If something has been done, one of the real Talleys have done it already, right?” Dylan asked. Nothing she had done was original in the Talley family. She completely got that. “No. Not like Marin.Different.I like gardening. Vegetables and fruits. Not just flowers. Flowers are pretty, but I always grew stuff with purpose. A lot. I used to have lots of veggies. At our last place. I had a big garden. I was experimenting—trying to figure out which strains I liked best of each veggie. I had really nice fruits planted too. But…we moved. And I had to leave them all behind. So no more. I want my own place someday. Hopefully, this whole business degree I will get…someday…will get me a good job so I can pay for my own place. Myownhouse. Where I don’t have to leave it every year or so. Where I can plant fruit bushes and trees and a really big garden. That’s all. I took a few classes, you know. My science electives. Dad wanted me to do something like chemistry, but I waited until the last minute and switched to plant sciences and agronomy every single time.”
“Tell me something, kid,” he said.
Kid. Yep. She knew exactly what he saw her as. Just like her father.Hethought she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself. Just like Arthur Talley. “Yes, Truckie, darling?”
“Has your whole life beenin spite ofthat man?”
* * *
Fletcher honestly wanted to know.He was getting a picture here, and he definitely wasn’t liking it. Dusty had let a few things slip. About her father. About what he was like. Dusty hadn’t known her parents until recently.
It was a wild story to begin with. Dusty and three of her sisters had been literally left on the doorstep of the inn by Arthur Talley and his wife while they had been running for their lives from Morris Preston. Morris Preston had been a local wealthy businessman who had been involved in everything from drug running to multiple murders. Going back decades.
Geena, Arthur’s wife, still had horrific scars from Preston’s attack. They had left their four daughters for Arthur’s mother to raise. And then had four more daughters over the next five years. Geena had been pregnant with Dylan at the time they’d fled.
Morris Preston had been arrested when he’d nearly killed Fletcher’s brother Gil and sister-in-law Sage. Dylan and her younger sisters had shown up a few months later—in search of answers about their family.
Dylan and her three younger sisters had run into Preston’s deranged sociopathic son. Who had shot Dylan—while holding the people in the dining room at the Talley Inn hostage. Including Fletcher’s sister and brother-in-law, and his brother Ben and Ben’s now fiancée, Nikki’s best friend, Dusty.
But Fletcher had thought Dusty might be exaggerating a little. Dusty was becoming ridiculously protective over her four little found sisters. Especially when it came to Arthur Talley. Fletcher had just thought it stemmed from that.
Now, he wasn’t so certain.
“Well, I suppose it has. So what? That part of my life isover.As soon as I figure out whatIwant, I’m going to go for it. Life is too short not to take a few risks, Cowboy Truckie. You have to go for it, right?”
“You have a reckless streak a mile wide.” She had taken off in the middle of a snowstorm at night with three younger sisters in search of answers—after being told they’d grown up in witness protection. Then, she’d chased a man holding her sister hostage after he’d run them all off the road. She’d stolen Fletcher’s truck right out of his driveway to track that sister.
Just three days ago, she’d gone on a rescue mission to save her cousin Meyra from crazy drug runners tied to Morris Preston somehow.
Dylan drew trouble. Period.
“Now, actually, I really don’t. Only when it is absolutely necessary for the people I love,” she said around a yawn. “I am so tired. I’m sorry. I haven’t been sleeping all that well, you know. Not since we came here, anyway.”
He wondered if she knew what she was revealing.
Probably the damned trauma. He’d gotten a more detailed account from Ben of what had happened that day. Dylan had been right in the middle of it. She could have been killed. Devaney certainly could have been. But Dylan? She had taken a lot of risks that day to get her sister back. Just like she’d almost blindly rode in with Meyra when her cousin needed rescuing.
Well, Fletcher could understand that, at least. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for the ones he loved.
They had that in common. She’d still stolen his truck, though—and there had been a dent on it when he’d finally gotten it back. It hadn’t exactly been a great way for him and this woman to meet at all.
“Why?”
“Who knows? Maybe because the inn’s attic is haunted?”