The Bluff (Calamity Montana)

AT THE SOUND of the front door opening, I shot off my seat at the island and raced into the living room. “Ev?”

“Just me.” Savannah closed the door behind her.

Not that I wasn’t always happy to see my daughter, but this morning, I would have rather seen my wife walk inside.

“Hey, baby girl.”

“Hi, Dad.” She gave me a sad smile.

“Want some breakfast? Coffee?” I’d done some googling to make sure it was okay for Savannah to have caffeine. One cup. Max.

“No, thanks. I don’t want to be jittery in first period.”

“What’s up?” It was early, just after seven, but it was a school day, so she was probably on her way. “Did you forget something?”

She shook her head and walked to the couch, plopping down on the edge. “I saw Everly last night.”

My entire frame stiffened. “Where?”

“Pizza Palace.”

She’d gone to the pizza place? I’d assumed she’d gone to Lucy and Duke’s. “Was she alone?”

Savannah nodded. “Yeah. She was sitting at a table. Mom and Julian wanted to go out to dinner, and they let me pick because I got an A on my algebra test. I didn’t feel like the café since . . .”

Since we’d run into my parents and brother and they’d pretended not to know her.

“I get it,” I said, taking the seat beside her.

“What did you do to her?” Savannah’s tone made me feel like the water cup in my studio after a long day at the easel: dirty and destined for the drain.

“It’s complicated.”

Yesterday had been one of the longest of my life. Since Everly had walked out of the gallery, there’d been a knot in my stomach. I’d tried to work past it. I’d come home and locked myself in the studio until after dark. When I’d finally come inside, I’d expected to find her here, but the house had been empty. Eerie. Lonely. Sleep had been impossible without her beside me, not knowing if she was all right. Every text and phone call I’d made had gone unanswered.

“Complicated,” Savannah repeated. “That’s what she said.”

Complicated was an understatement.

“She looked so sad. And then Mom was being a bitch and called her a gold digger.”

“Christ.” My jaw clenched. Everly had dealt with enough, especially from me. She didn’t deserve to have April coming after her too.

Savannah huffed a laugh. “Don’t worry. Everly dealt it right back. She called Mom a cunt.”

I choked on my own saliva, coughing and clearing my throat. Not just from hearing that word come from my kid’s mouth, but the fact that Ev would lose her composure like that. Normally, she put on a false smile and killed with kindness.

“It was kind of funny to see Mom lost for words. Like a taste of her own medicine. Usually she’s the one throwing shade.”

Still didn’t make it right that Ev should have had to in the first place. “Then what?”

“Everly left. I ran after her and asked why she wasn’t going home. And she said it was complicated.”

“Yeah.” I rested a hand on her knee. “It is.”

“I’m not stupid. I can understand complicated.”

“I know you’re not stupid, Savannah. I just . . . I don’t want to burden you with this.”

Her shoulders curled in. “She could have said a lot more than just calling Mom a cunt.”

“Please stop saying cunt.”

“Sorry.” She laughed. “It was funny.”

I was jealous that Everly had gotten to say exactly what I’d wanted to for years.

“She could have done worse,” Savannah said. “She could have told them and everyone that Julian slapped me.”

My breath caught in my throat. It was the first time Savannah had admitted to me that Julian had hit her.

I was going to kill that son of a bitch. I was going to break every bone in his body and leave him a bloody pile of pulp. I’d always wondered what had happened in that house. I’d speculated. But hearing Savannah admit it created a rage so deep in my veins, violence seemed like the only way to work it out. Dragging a long breath through my nose, I grabbed hold of my temper with an iron fist. Now was not the time to explode.

“When?” I asked even though I already knew the answer. “When did he slap you?”

“The day of the farmhouse. We got in a fight that morning and he slapped me across the face. That’s why I skipped school. Why Travis found me in Widow Ashleigh’s barn. I admitted it to Travis and Lucy and Ev at the farmhouse, right before that psycho tried to kill us. Everly could have called Mom and Julian on it last night and made it public. But she didn’t. I think because she knew it would only make my life harder.”

Only if she had to live with Julian. “If he hit you, then you can’t be there.”

“It was just once.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re never going back to that house again. After school today, you come here. Then we’ll go get the rest of your stuff together.”

The moment she left here, I was calling Aiden.

“No.” She shook her head. “They can’t know that I told you. I’ll just deny it again.”

“But—”

“Dad, please.” She gripped my forearm, squeezing it as she begged. “Please. They can’t know.”

“Why? Explain it to me.”

She closed her eyes, a move I’d seen—and done myself—a thousand times. She was shutting me out.

“Talk to me.”

Moments passed and she sat silent. But I waited, my heart in my throat, until she finally spoke. “She said you’d go back to prison.”

“Who? Your mom?”

She nodded. “Mom told me that if I ever told anyone about Julian, she’d make sure you paid the price. That everyone in town believed you were a criminal and all she had to do was tell them that you hit her and raped her. Then they’d send you back to prison.”

Cunt.

Next time I saw April, I was calling it to her face too.

“It’s bullshit,” I seethed.

“She’ll do it, Dad.”

And my beautiful teenage daughter believed that to the depths of her soul. April could have been telling Savannah that nonsense for years. Savannah was too young to know any better, so she’d decided to take it upon herself to protect me.

“I love you, Savannah.”

Her beautiful blue eyes flooded. “I love you too.”

“There’s nothing your mom can do to me. No matter what lies she tells, it’s not possible. There’d be no evidence. And I’m never going back to prison. I screwed up when I was younger. Made the biggest mistake of my life. But it won’t happen again.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. “Positive. Just like I’m positive you’re never going back to that house if you don’t want to.”

“Could I really live here?”

“We’ll make it happen. But that means you’ll have to tell people that Julian hit you.”

The color drained from her face.

“Was it just that once?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

I put my arm around Savannah’s shoulders, pulling her close, then kissed the top of her hair. “We’ll figure it out. Promise.”

“What about Everly?”

“What about her?”

“Why did you marry her?” she asked.

I opened my mouth to dodge, but Savannah had confided in me today. She’d given me that trust. She deserved the truth from me too. “For you. We thought it might help improve my chances for you to live here.”

“Makes sense. It would be kind of weird for me to move into a bachelor’s house. Probably better keep that a secret, though.”

I chuckled. Of course she wouldn’t be fazed. “Yeah. That doesn’t leave this house.”

“Why did Everly marry you? What did she get?”

Nothing. She hadn’t asked for a damn thing. “She had her reasons.”

And at the moment, I couldn’t seem to remember exactly what those reasons were. Yes, she’d done it to help Savannah. Because of lingering guilt after the farmhouse. Because maybe she saw some similarities in her life and my daughter’s. But was that really enough?

What was I missing? Why had she married me, of all people? Living with me wasn’t a damn picnic.

Ev hadn’t married me for my money. She wouldn’t take any of it. Even yesterday, when she’d left the gallery, she hadn’t taken the car.

Why? Why would she marry me?

Why go through all this bullshit? Why put up with Savannah’s attitude? Why deal with Katie’s cold shoulder?

I hadn’t the faintest clue and until she came home, there was no way I’d find out.

“I really like her,” Savannah said.

I blinked. What had she said? “You like her?”

She shrugged. “She’s cool. Nice. And no one else would ever call Mom a cunt to her face. You never did that.”

“No.” I rubbed my jaw. I’d been too terrified of April to put her in her place. But not Everly. My wife was fearless.

I’d spent all of last night pondering our argument in the gallery yesterday. I’d mentally replayed her words.

I have never done anything but help you.

I have never been anything but honest.

And no matter what I do, you don’t trust me.

Fuck my life. She’d been right. She’d never done anything but help me. Maybe that was the reason I was suspicious.

Because people didn’t do things simply to help other people.

So why had Everly married me? Why had she tied herself to my mess?

Until I knew that answer, I couldn’t trust her. Or maybe, the reason I didn’t trust Everly had nothing to do with Everly. It was my own insecurities shining through.

From the moment Ev had come into my life, she’d thrown me for a loop, constantly surprising me—always in a good way. Somehow, I’d deemed her too good to be true, so I’d kept her at a distance.

I’d made sure that when she tried to break my heart, she’d fail.

Except I hurt. I was tired. I ached.

I was fucking miserable.

“You’d better get to school,” I told Savannah. Not that I didn’t want her here, but my list for today had just grown tenfold.

“Okay.” She hugged me, then stood. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Love you.” I stood too and walked her to the door. “See you after school.”

I stood in the threshold and watched as she jogged to her car, waving as she backed out of the driveway. Then I got busy.

Aiden was my first phone call. He was as angry as I was and promised to have something prepared before the end of the day. With him tackling my upcoming custody siege, I hopped in the shower, got dressed, then drove to the gallery.

I had research to do.

“THANK YOU,” I told the customer on the phone. “I’ll get to work on it right away.”

“No blue.”

“No blue.” I cringed. “Can I ask why?”

“I have tritan color blindness. It’s rare but blue looks green. Yellow looks different too, sort of purple, but the blue bothers me the most. It never looks right in art.”

Now I felt like an asshole. Well, a bigger asshole. “No blue. You got it. Have a nice day.”

After ending the call, I dropped my face into my hands. “Fucking hell.”

I’d spent three hours digging through Everly’s new inventory system. I had to give her so many props. Without any training or instruction, I’d found everything in my bookkeeping program. Every painting had been added, cataloged by size and tagged with a description.

It was all there, plain as day. And I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Five paintings in the inventory system were highlighted with a note from yesterday. Five paintings I remembered creating. Five paintings that should have been in the storage room, but no matter where I searched, they were gone.

Only one was accounted for. According to the customer I’d just spoken to, it was hanging on her friend’s wall. The customer, my no-blue fanatic, wanted one exactly the same with some color variations. She’d texted me a picture of her friend’s piece so there’d be no misunderstanding.

And she’d given me her friend’s number.

The friend was my next phone call.

Thirty minutes later, I was coming out of my skin.

Son of a bitch. That phone call had been one of the hardest of my life.

The woman had been kind. I’d explained that I was an artist, not an accountant, and that we’d had a mishap with our records. I’d asked if she could resend me the payment screenshot she’d sent to Everly. In all my searching, that was the one thing Everly had mentioned that I couldn’t find. Probably because it had gone to her personal email.

I shook my mouse, refreshing my own email. And the one I’d been waiting for was right there.

An online payment from PayPal, from the customer’s email address to Reese Huxley Gallery.

Only my PayPal email wasn’t Reese Huxley Gallery. It was Reese Huxley Art. I didn’t have a gallery email.

It was a fake, created by someone I’d always trusted.

I stared at the proof. It was right there. Easy enough to find. Proof that Everly had tried to show me yesterday. Instead of listening, I’d told her she was wrong. I’d chosen Katie over my own wife.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I scrubbed my hands over my face again, pissed at myself. Pissed at Katie. Then I shoved out of my chair and walked out of the office.

“Hey! Good timing.” Katie smiled when she saw me walk down the hallway. “I was going to order lunch for us.”

She’d been all smiles today, since I hadn’t arrived with Everly. How could I have been so fucking blind? How could I have not seen what was happening here?

I swallowed the lump in my throat and strode to the front door, flipping the lock and turning the sign from Open to Closed.

“Hux?”

I closed my eyes, drawing in a fortifying breath, before turning to face my oldest friend. “Need to talk, Katie.”

“Okay. Is it about Everly? Did you guys have a fight?”

She’d probably heard raised voices from the office, though I doubted she’d been able to make out specifics. Otherwise she would have been scrambling to cover up her crimes. Though she might have overheard Everly ask for a divorce. It would explain her cheery attitude this morning.

Only to me, it had been like a slap to the face.

I’d been lying to myself for far too long. This marriage was as real and important as they came. Along the way, I’d fallen for my wife.

I was in love with Everly Christian Huxley.

And I’d let my fears push her out the door. I’d made the wrong choice yesterday. Now I had to fix my fuckup and convince Ev to keep my last name.

“No, this isn’t about Everly,” I told Katie. “Why’d you do it?”

“Huh?”

“The paintings. Why’d you take them?”

“W-what?” The shock that crossed her face was almost genuine. Almost. But I’d known her for a long, long time. Katie had a tell. She blinked too fast when she was hiding something. At the moment, her eyelids fluttered like trapped flies behind her glasses.

Guilty. Damn it.

“Just . . . tell me why.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Blink blink blink.

I waited, staring at her as she avoided eye contact and fiddled with a pen on the desk. “Katie. After all we’ve been through. How could you do this to me?”

“To you?” Her mouth fell open. “It’s always about you, isn’t it? Chase was right. I was so blind.”

“Chase?” Wait, had he done it? Had this been him? After what I’d seen him do to Everly, I could see him screwing with my business too. Manipulating Katie.

“That day he called me, after the whole Everly kitchen thing, he told me I was a fool for waiting around for you. That you’d never see me. That you were just a selfish prick who’d fuck me over the minute you had the chance. Just like you did him. And I guess he was right.”

“Wait.” I held up my hands. “He came after my wife. I didn’t fuck him over. How could you even listen to his bullshit? What the hell is going on?”

“You got married!” she cried and the sweet, kind friend I’d known for years disappeared. A snarl curled Katie’s upper lip. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for you to open your eyes? To see me as more than just your friend? All I ever wanted was you. And then you go and marry that woman. That stranger.”

Oh, fuck. No way. Katie had feelings for me? Everly had been right. Her first day at the gallery, Everly had said that Katie had feelings for me. Asshole that I was, I hadn’t listened. Son of a bitch.

“Katie, I-I didn’t realize you felt that way.”

“Because you’re broken. You’re not ready for a relationship, and I was never going to push you. You’re still healing after what April did to you.”

Broken. April was sixteen years ago, but Katie still saw me as broken. As the helpless ex-con crashing on her couch.

Except I hadn’t felt broken with Everly. She’d made me feel whole. Happy. Loved.

“Tell me about the paintings.” I wasn’t going to pander to Katie, not now. If she had feelings for me, she should have spoken up years ago. And I would have let her down gently. Instead, she’d stolen from me. “Tell me why.”

Katie raised her chin and adjusted her glasses. Then she pursed her lips in a thin line. What she didn’t do was answer my question.

“Was it revenge? Have I not paid you enough? Are you in financial trouble?”

Silence.

She was furious. There was more hate in her gaze than I’d ever seen.

And hurt.

This was her revenge because I’d broken her heart by marrying Everly.

Stealing was not the way.

“Give me your keys.” I held out my hand, palm up.

She didn’t move.

“You’ve got four paintings unaccounted for. Leave my gallery immediately and I won’t call the cops to find them.”

“Your gallery?” She scoffed. “I built this place. It’s nothing without me.”

There was a shred of truth to that statement. Katie carried the lion’s share of duties around here, and a year ago, I would have freaked at the idea of replacing her. Not anymore.

“Keys.” I snapped my fingers. “Or I get Sheriff Evans down here.”

The bravado on her face faded, the seriousness setting in deep. How long had this been going on? How long had she taken whatever it was she thought she was due?

Katie might dislike Chase, but those two deserved one another.

A few months ago, I thought I’d deserved friends like that too. Until I’d met a selfless woman who hadn’t asked anything of me. Who hadn’t expected anything. Not even love.

Everly Christian was the best person in my life.

And I had shoved her away.

I snapped my fingers again, for the last time, and Katie sprang into action. She ripped a drawer open and tugged out her purse. Then she rifled through the bag until she had her keys. With a twist, the three keys to the gallery were off their ring. Then she slammed them onto the desk and marched out the rear door.

I held my breath, letting the slam reverberate through the building. Then I tipped my head to the ceiling. “Fuck.”

There was a mess to clean up here. There was a locksmith to call to change the locks. Katie had long ago memorized passwords to my bank accounts and those would need to be switched. Someone needed to be here today to run the gallery. It would wait.

I had an apology to make first.

Jogging to my office, I grabbed my own keys, then made sure the gallery was locked up. I ran the blocks toward Everly’s apartment. The code to the back door hadn’t changed and it clicked open after I punched in the combination. I took the stairs two at a time, hoping she was inside.

I pounded on the door, then held my breath, listening. Was she there? Nothing but silence greeted me. “Come on.”

I knocked again. And again.

Until finally, I heard the soft rustle of shuffling feet and a groan when she checked the peephole.

Everly undid the locks and flung the door open. “What?”

My mouth went dry at the sight of her. She was only wearing a black tank top and jeans. The same jeans she’d worn yesterday. The tank top had been on underneath her sweater. Her hair was mussed, and behind her, a blanket was bunched up on the couch.

“You were right. About Katie.”

She crossed her arms. “I know.”

“I’m sorry. Fuck, babe. I’m sorry.” I took one step closer but she shook her head. My feet froze. “Ev, let’s talk about this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You were right. Everything you said yesterday. I trust the wrong people.”

She nodded. “Yes, you do.”

“I’m sorry. I’m telling you I fucked up.”

“Yes, you did.”

“And?”

“And nothing. You’re too late, Hux.”

Then my wife slammed the door in my face.