“It doesn’t matter. None of it does, because I quit today.” I kept my gaze on the window as I answered, but I could feel Candace’s eyes on me. I knew if I turned around, she would be giving me one of her open-mouthed, shocked looks. Then she would launch into a sermon about how irresponsible I was being. I held my breath and waited for it. Her wrath would be nothing compared to what I could expect from my father when he finally found out. Of course, I would be a coward and not tell him until I actually left.
“You did what?”
“I quit,” I repeated.
“Um, Timber, you do realize that you have bills to pay? I can’t afford to cover your half of everything until you find something new.”
“Of course, I know that,” I said as I faced her. “I wrote you a check for the next six months’ rent and utilities.”
She stared at me in disbelief. Candace knew I came from money. She simply didn’t know how much money. I got a job as soon as I started college and worked as much as I could without it affecting my grades. Since my father paid for my tuition and living expenses, I tried to never touch the extra money he put into my account—I simply let it grow. I had hired Cory, a financial advisor, the moment I turned eighteen at the advice of my father. He was happy to see I was looking out for my own future, and even more impressed that I wasn’t going to “piss away your mother’s money,” as he put it.
“What! You just wrote me a check for the rent for six months?” Candace asked, her voice higher than normal.
“Yes, because I didn’t want to leave you in a lurch. I’m not only going to Montana for Christmas, I’m going to stay. At least, I think I am.”
Candace smiled, but I saw the instant sadness in her eyes. “Your horse rescue and training stables, right?”
I nodded, but her smile faded and worry etched across her face. “I thought that was always just one of those…what if dreams. I didn’t realize you were serious. I’m going to miss you so much, Timber.”
My chest squeezed. “I’m going to miss you too, but I know this is the right thing to do.”
She sighed. “Can you make money off of that kind of venture?”
I gave her a cocky grin. “Don’t worry. It’s all going to work out.” Candace didn’t need to know I had enough money with my investments and the money in my trust fund to last me the rest of my life if I simply wanted to live off of that alone. But I needed a purpose, I needed to follow my passion.
She shook her head as if trying to shake off some confusion. “What a pair we are. Isn’t it always me saying things will work out and you’re the one saying nothing will go right?”
We both laughed.
Candace stopped laughing and looked at me seriously. “How are you able to write me a check to cover the next six months? I mean, I know your dad is wealthy and all, but six months’ worth of rent money, Timber?”
I let out a breath. “Tomorrow I have access to the trust fund my mother left me. Well, actually, it was her trust fund, and when she died it went to me. I didn’t have access to it until I turned twenty-four. Honestly,” I said with a halfhearted laugh, “I think my father has forgotten about it. Anyway, I want to use that money to find myself a nice-size piece of land. Something with at least one stable on it and a house. It doesn’t have to be anything big, but I want the space to be able to grow my business. And with what I saved up during college from working and not touching the allowance my father gave me, I have a nice nest egg. Covering the rent for six months isn’t going to be an issue.”
My father had liked to remind me that it was my mother’s money and that I should be grateful that she left it to me. She came from a wealthy family herself. Her father had invented some medical equipment to help monitor oxygen or something like that. That was how my mother and father had met. Through their parents. My father, along with his father, who was also a doctor, came up with one of the top allergy medicines prescribed to date.
“I know you wouldn’t leave me stuck. I’m just surprised you would up and quit. That isn’t like you at all, Timber.”
I let a wide grin move across my face. “I know! It’s not like me and I love it! Since I was a little girl, I knew my soul was connected to horses. They have helped me through so many times in my life when I felt alone or frustrated with my father’s lack of interest.”
“Don’t even get my started on your father!” Candace said.
I grinned. “This is my way of paying it back to the horses. I know I can do this. I know I can be successful at this and do something I love as well.”
Candace flashed me her brilliant, confident smile. “I believe in you, Timber. You’re going to do great things; I feel it too.”
“And just think, you’ll have the apartment all to yourself. You can have crazy sex and not even worry about me hearing it.”
Her cheeks turned red. “It was one time!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Candace had let herself have one crazy night of mindless sex with a hot guy she met at a club about a year ago. They’d kept me up nearly all night with the moans, groans, and pleading for it to be harder, faster, take me into your mouth, deeper. Ugh. It was the longest night of my life. No amount of burying my head under my pillow made it stop.
My face scrunched up at the memory, and I quickly pushed it away. “I can give Henry the rent check if you want and tell him it’s to cover my half for the next six months,” I said. “That way you don’t stress, and I won’t stress.”
“Are you not planning on coming back to Atlanta at all?”
I swallowed hard and shook my head.
Her eyes widened. “What about all your stuff?”
With a quick glance around the apartment, I faced her. “Sell it, keep the money, I don’t want any of it.”
“What?”
“I’m starting fresh!”
She shook her head in disbelief and then looked around as if taking the apartment in before she focused ba
ck on me. “I don’t think you have to pay for six months, Timberlynn. Our lease is up in four months. This is the perfect excuse for me to find a smaller place closer to work.”
“Well, I’ll write you a check for at least four months, then.”
She simply smiled and nodded. Her eyes looked troubled, and I hated that she was worried about me. Oh, how I would miss her and her mothering nature.
“Besides, maybe I’ll meet a handsome cowboy and have some of my own mindless hot sex where I’m begging the guy to give it to me harder.”
Candace laughed as her face went red again. Then she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at me. “What about Ty’s brother...what was his name again? The one you said was so good looking. You couldn’t stop talking about him when you got back home.”
My chest did that weird flutter at the mention of Tanner.
“Tanner, that’s it!” Candace said. “I can’t believe I forgot his name with as much as you first talked about him. You said he was hot and had a smoking body.”
I deliberately kept my voice light. “Oh, he did, but I’m not even sure he’ll be there. He ropes for a living and might be out on the road.”
“Ropes?” Candace asked.
“Yeah, I told you what he did for a living.”
She stared at me with a blank expression.
“He ropes the steer’s head, and his partner ropes the back feet.”
“That’s right. Cowboys aren’t really my turn on. I must have forgotten it the moment you told me.”