Page 8 of Cash

I’m still paying that fucking thing off.

Then again, paying that bill means we’ve managed to hold on to Rivers Ranch for another year. And my brothers and I have been able to pay because of Garrett Luck.

He wasn’t perfect. But he was kind to me when no one else was, and he was always a man of his word. It’s not like him to say one thing, but do another.

Also not like him to leave his life’s work in the hands of aspoiled brat with a sense of entitlement as big as her goddamned mouth.

But here we are.

I miss Garrett. So damn much. He was the father figure I needed over the past decade. What in the world do I do without him?

Right now, I just gotta pray the truck my daddy bought used back in ’96 makes it through another calving season. I keep my head down as I dig my keys out of my pocket and unlock the driver’s-side door. I don’t want to see Mollie as much as she don’t wanna see me. Even if I couldn’t stop staring at her back in Goody’s office.

My stomach swoops at the memory of Mollie’s eyes. Same as her daddy’s, dark brown and deep set. Expressive.

Gripping the chrome door handle, my bones go heavy. This grief—it’s gotta get gone already. I have too many people depending on me to keep feeling this busted up.

I’m pressing my thumb into the button that unlatches the door when I hear a low moan.

Glancing over my shoulder, I look through the Rover’s passenger-side window and see City Girl slumped over the steering wheel. My stomach swoops again when I see her back convulsing in time to what appears to be deep, heaving sobs.

They’re loud enough that I can hear them over the engine.

For a second, I feel sorry for her. I know what it’s like to lose a parent, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Even her.

But then I remember she barely knew her daddy. I remember the sad look Garrett would get when he talked about her. I remember attorneys calling the ranch, telling us they were “retrieving” his body so they could transport it to Dallas. Garrett didn’t live there a day of his life.

A voice sounds over the sobbing. Bluetooth, coming from the Rover’s speakers. Mollie’s on the phone.

“Get out of that hellhole and come home,” a woman says. “That money belongs to you, sweet girl, and I’ll make sure you get it, come hell or high water.”

“I don’t understand,” Mollie replies. “Why make me work for it this way?”

“Your dad…he was always so damn difficult.”

“That’s an understatement.”

I climb into the truck and start the engine. I hold the steering wheel in a death grip, my knuckles white. I’m already sweating, my shirt sticking to my back.

Mollie’s not upset because she lost a father.

She’s upset because she didn’t get her money. That’s all Garrett was to her—an ATM.

To me, he was everything. The father I lost. The mentor I needed. The friend who kept me sane when I was drowning in grief.

Losing Garrett could very well mean losing everything now. Our way of life. The land we’ve called home for five—no, six generations, since my niece, Ella, was born a few years back.

I just lost everything, but here’s this spoiled city girl, sobbing over the millions she has to wait a year to get while calling the man who saved my life and my family “difficult.”

Mollie is pretty. Anyone with two eyes and a pulse can see that. But nothing turns me off more than her kind of carelessness. Her sense of entitlement.

Yanking on the gear shift, I put the truck in reverse and whip out of the parking spot. Glancing at the Rover, I see Mollie’s head pop up. Even through the tinted glass, I can see how swollen her tearstained face is. My chest twists.

I ignore it and hit the gas. Mollie Luck is not my problem.

Figuring out how I’m going to support my family—and keep all six of us together while honoring Garrett’s memory and his work—is.

My truck doesn’t have AC, so I roll my window all the way down. Hot, humid air blows into my face. Glancing up atthe sky, all I see is haze. We need rain, but it doesn’t look like we’re going to get it today.