Gone Country (Rough Riders 14)
He placed one last soft kiss on her lips.
Sierra pulled away from him. “Goodbye, Boone.”
“See you around, McKay.” His hands fell away.
Sierra didn’t look at him. Not even in her rearview mirror as she bumped over the cattle guard and drove away.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ben and Quinn had enlisted Gavin’s help moving cow/calf pairs from one pasture to another. Helping wasn’t entirely accurate—he’d been designated the gate opener. But it’d been a great morning. Cruising around on four wheelers and watching his brothers work cattle. Listening to Charlie tell stories.
He climbed out of his Lexus, in desperate need to ditch his dirty clothes and hit the shower, when Rielle yelled at him from the closest garden. He met her halfway down the road and stole a kiss. “Hey, sexy lady. What’s up?”
“Have you talked to Sierra today? She swore she wanted to help me and I haven’t seen her.”
“No. But it’s summer vacation. She mentioned it was her right to sleep in until noon, at least the first week.” He couldn’t believe how early the school year ended in Wyoming. In Arizona, Sierra would be in school at least another month. “I’ll check on her.”
After brushing off the ever-present dust, he scaled the stairs and knocked on Sierra’s door. “Sweetheart? Are you up?” He heard a thump. But no answer. Then another thump. He turned the handle and opened the door.
Boxes were stacked beside her bed. Everything had been stripped off the walls. She stood by the closet, dumping winter clothes into a box.
“I told you not to come in without knocking first,” she snapped.
“I knocked. You didn’t answer.” His gaze moved over the organized destruction. “Are you planning to redecorate?”
“No. Just getting ready to leave.”
“Leave?”
Sierra whirled around. “Yes, leave. I’m done with the living-in-Wyoming experiment.”
Gavin stepped in the room, avoiding a pile of papers. “Whoa. You want to rewind and tell me what’s going on?”
She crossed her arms. Her face distorted into the sneer that indicated he’d just entered the battle zone. “Whoa? Enough with the fake-cowboy shtick, Dad. It’s embarrassing.”
He ignored the verbal jab. “What are you talking about, going home?”
“I promised you I’d stick it out an entire school year. School ended. You promised me if I hated it we could go home. I freakin’ hate it here and I cannot wait to get back where I belong.”
“Now wait just a damn minute. Nothing was set in stone. We were going to discuss it.”
“Nothing to discuss. I held up my end of the deal, it’s time for you to hold up yours.”
“What the hell happened? You didn’t hate Wyoming two damn days ago. I don’t get where this is coming from, so will you please explain it to me?”
“No. My mind is made up.”
“You change your mind about everything, Sierra. So you have to give me more than, I hate Wyoming I want to go home.”
She glared at him.
“Really? I’m just supposed to drop everything and move back to Arizona because you want to?”
“You made me drop everything to move to Wyoming. How is this any different?”
“It’s a helluva lot different.” Do not remind her you’re the adult and you make the decisions. Take a different tack. “You want to tell me what happened to you in the last day? Because this change of heart or mind, or whatever, came completely out of left field.”
She vehemently shook her head. “If you think this is sudden then you haven’t been paying attention. But that’s not a surprise since most your time is spent with Rielle.”
“You’re really going there, Sierra? Making Rielle the root cause of your problem?”
Her cheeks colored with guilt. But that didn’t keep her from snapping back, “Rielle is the cause of this problem—your problem—you don’t want to leave Wyoming because of her, which is not my problem.”
His daughter had him there.
“Anyway I thought she was building a new house so she didn’t have to live with us.”
“Plans change. She’s living with us permanently.”
“And you didn’t even think to tell me about that? Great. Well, it doesn’t matter because I won’t stay here and you can’t make me.”
“What are you going to do? Drive to Scottsdale by yourself? You certainly can’t live there by yourself.”
“You’re forgetting Scottsdale isn’t my only option.”
His stomach pitched.
“Mom has been asking what my plan is for the summer.”
“Why is this the first I’ve heard of it?”
“Maybe because you only hear what you wanna hear,” she shot back.
Hadn’t Rielle accused him of the same thing? “I would’ve remembered that. What did your mother—”
“Are you going to move us back to Arizona or not?” she interrupted.
“I have to decide right now? Then fine. No. This is ridiculous, Sierra. Let’s just take a step back and discuss this rationally.”
“No. I haven’t seen my mom in almost six months. I miss her. I want to be with my mom. You don’t care about that at all. You hate her and you’re trying to keep me away from her.” She started to cry. “I don’t want to be here anymore. I hate it here.”
“Sierra. Don’t.”
“I can’t help it! If you don’t move us back to Arizona, I’m moving to France. And not just for the summer.”
His heart nearly stopped. “What? How did this go from you spending the summer in France to you living there for the entire school year?”
“Mom’s boyfriend is staying there two more years and he bought a house.”
“Your mom will be living in Paris two more years?”
Sierra nodded. “Do you think it’s fair that I’ll hardly get to see my mom at all in the next two years?”
“Moving was her choice,” Gavin pointed out.
“For a year. I know the custody agreement gets reviewed after my birthday. So if I tell Mom I want to live with her, you know she’ll fight to make that happen.”
And Ellen would win for all the reasons Sierra had just given him.
A profound sense of grief choked him. He managed to eke out, “Why are you doing this to me? To hurt me?” He swallowed. “Guess what, it’s working.”