“I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner,” Nonna finally said as she turned around to face me. “That girl is mean. Always has been. Can’t for the life of me figure out where her meanness comes from. Her daddy was a good man.”

“She used all my college money,” I told her. That was the one thing that was said I couldn’t shake loose. It affected everything.

Nonna nodded. “I know. I checked on it over the years and saw she was taking some a little at a time. I began to do the same. I ended up saving about seven thousand of it. I added it to my savings account that has the rest of your grandfather’s life insurance money in it, and that is more than enough to get you through college. You’ll need a job of course to pay for your food and extras, but the classes will be paid for and the dorm.”

“She doesn’t know you took some?” I asked, still in a daze going from being told I had no college money to being told I had enough for all of my college.

“Your mother isn’t smart with money. She can’t afford a new baby, yet she’s driving around in a flashy foreign car. I figured I needed to take care of your future, because she’s only worried about hers.”

Tears filled my eyes, and I didn’t hold them back. I let them freely roll down my face as I closed the distance between me and my nonna. Having a mother like mine was hard. But I had my nonna.

Gunner didn’t even have that.

Nonna pulled me into her arms and held me tightly. I sobbed against her chest for the mother I didn’t have, the grandmother I did have, and the life Gunner had been given.

The Good Lord Wasn’t Going to Swoop down and Change Anything

CHAPTER 51

GUNNER

I walked back into my house after several hours on the road with a plan. This was my home, and I was making it somewhere I wanted to come back to. I headed to the office, where I’d last spoken to the man who wasn’t my father.

Without knocking, I walked inside and faced him. I didn’t give him time to speak. “Next month after my birthday, you’ll need to find another house to live in. You can take Mother with you. Your allowance will end. Prepare to get a job.” I turned and started to walk out of the office.

“You can’t do that! You have no idea how to run the Lawton holdings. You’ve not been trained.”

“I’ll hire help. I don’t need you.”

“You can’t do this!”

“You have no Lawton blood. Yes, I can,” I reminded him. “Now go quietly, or I’ll make sure the town knows exactly how fucked-up this family tree is.”

“You would have to tell them that you’re a bastard too! It would ruin your name as much as mine.”

I laughed then because he seriously thought that mattered. “They already think I’m a bastard. I’m not worried about giving them proof.”

“Your mother thinks she can tell you all this and get away with it. I’ll fight you on this. I won’t go down easy.”

“Don’t really care,” I replied, then walked out on his ranting. I was going to turn his office into a gym. I’d like having a good gym in the house. We should really already have had one of those.

My mother was walking inside with her designer clothes and new hairstyle as I came back down the stairs. “Hello, son. How have things been since I’ve been gone?”

“Fantastic, Mother,” I replied, just as haughty as her.

“Ms. Ames left a message for me at the spa. Something about you not coming home. My flight was this morning so I didn’t bother calling back. I would be here soon enough.”

I nodded as if that was completely understandable. “Of course. One doesn’t need to be bothered by a missing child. If you’ll excuse me.”

She gave me a confused look, and I realized she was just that shallow. I wasn’t sure she had even been raped. It sounded more like a story to make her look better. She’d have slept with whoever she needed to in order to live this Lawton lifestyle.

“Has Rhett left?” she called after me.

“If there is a God,” I replied.

Then I walked into the hallway leading to the kitchen. The smells of dinner were wafting from the door, and I was ready for real food. My fast-food lifestyle the past two days had been rough.

“Ms. Ames, I’m home,” I said as I entered the kitchen. Her head snapped up, and a relieved smile touched her lips as if she was truly glad to see me.

“Thank the good Lord. I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“I heard you called to tell Mother, but she couldn’t be bothered calling back. She told me as much out in the entryway just now. She’s home too,” I explained, trying to sound as casual about the whole thing as possible.

Ms. Ames’s immediate frown made me feel even more cared about. She didn’t want me to feel unwanted by my parents.

“Is Willa home?” I asked.

She continued to frown. “She is. But she’s homeschooling right now and can’t take visitors.”

“Visitors? Or just me?” I pushed.

Ms. Ames put the knife down that she’d been using to chop the vegetables. “Willa is much like you. Her mother isn’t a mother to her. She’s been hurt just like you have. Teenage girls go looking for love in places that end badly for them. She has a future ahead of her and getting stuck in Lawton as a single mom is not in those plans. I’ll protect her from that even if I have to send her off to an all-girls Catholic school to do it.”

Whoa. Whoa. Wait up. No sending her off. “I know that. I’d never do anything to hurt her. I love her.” The words had come out so easily I had surprised myself.