Scars Read Free Page B

managing what my father built with his own bare hands,” Harry Springford said, all but spitting out the words. “How dare you even suggest that?”
     
    “How dare you suggest that I marry some idiot you hand-picked for me? How dare you plan out my life for me?”
     
    “Holly, enough.” Harry Springford did not yell. He didn’t need to. There was an authority of steel in his voice, and he knew he would be heard whether he screamed his throat raw or not. In fact, his not screaming made it so that he was heard even better. “You are going to marry Tim Sutherland, and you are going to take over the ranch. You will make sure that this business continues to thrive, just as I have. You will respect the horses, just as I and my father before me have, and you will respect the livelihood they bring us. You will have children, and you will teach them how to take over once you have to step aside.”
     
    Holly could feel tears spring to her eyes. She somehow managed not to let them fall, although that was all she would have wanted—to cry and scream and throw a tantrum the way she did when she was a toddler. But she wasn’t a baby anymore, as her father seemed to have so keenly noticed when he decided she was old enough to be married off.
     
    She lifted her chin a fraction and swallowed the enormous lump in her throat. “You can be sure of one thing, Dad,” she said, relived when her voice did not shake or break. “If I ever have children, I won’t be choosing their path for them. I won’t trap them somewhere they don’t want to be. I will not kill their spirit. I will never, ever insult them the way you are doing to me.”
     
    She didn’t wait for her father to say anything—not that she thought her father would; he had said plenty already. She turned on her heels and walked out.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    It wasn’t until the next morning at the very crack of dawn that the realization of what had really happened the previous day hit him in full force. Matt sat bolt upright in bed, heart hammering in his chest. He looked around in dismay, barely taking in the room bathed in the soft the gray/blue-ish light of pre-dawn. His sister had come home after spending one month in the hospital undergoing yet another round of chemotherapy. As if that wasn’t cause enough of celebration, she had also brought good news with her. And Matt had not felt a thing.
     
    He sneaked out of the house before anyone could get up, although he suspected it wouldn’t be for another few hours—Becky would be worn out, and Joe had taken a few days off work to be with her—and he proceeded to wander aimlessly through the town. He spent the rest of the hours that separated him from the beginning of his work day in a diner, nursing one single cup of black coffee and not giving a damn that the staff was giving him the stink eye.
     
    He went to work in a daze, and he worked in a daze all day. Ironically enough, however, his thoughts were clearer than they had been in weeks. His five a.m. “a-ah!” moment stuck with him throughout the hours, and the more he thought about it, the more he convinced himself that he had found the very source of all of his suffering past and present.
     
    He was a terrible person.
     
    There was no other explanation for what was going on. His sister was home from the hospital, and the odds of her battle against brain cancer ending with a victory on her part were looking good for the first time since the diagnosis. And Matt could not feel anything. He could not give in to hope or joy or even a hint of relief. He felt nothing.
     
    Either he was a horrible person, or he was even more fucked up than he thought which would be saying a lot. Whichever the case, he had the sinking feeling that his time at his sister’s house was coming to an end. He couldn’t even contemplate the thought of looking her in the eye tonight. Becky had no idea that her brother couldn’t even bring himself to rejoice at her coming home. Becky