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I had descended the stairs wearily and sat down at the table next to Nan, straight across from the thinnest, straggliest, most angry looking teenager I had ever laid eyes on, and I had seen my fair share.
Her brown hair fell past her shoulders in thin greasy locks, and a pair of boys Levi's hung on her skinny frame. Her plain blue T-shirt was stretched all to hell and several sizes too big. Her cheekbones protruded and her eyeballs sunk into her face. She had been neglected and malnourished; I could tell from looking at her.
I could also see that she was beautiful. Even when she filled out, those cheekbones would be stunning, and her long lashes framed gray-blue eyes. Her heart shaped lips were currently fashioned into an angry snarl, but if they hadn't been, oh, boy. And it wasn't about her looks, either. You could tell she had been through a lot, but you could tell that, deep down, there was something special, just waiting to be exposed to the world. Yeah, I could see what Nan saw. Dammit.
I had been twenty-four, and she was fifteen, at the time. I had kept my distance; there was more than enough work on the ranch to keep me busy. It had been easy regarding her as a surly younger sister, and mostly, keeping an eye out for Nan. Nan had worked her magic with Merry, just like she had with all of us. With strict rules, a thin switch, and a giant heart.
Then Merry had turned eighteen, graduated high school, and Nan had given her a job on the ranch with the horses and the outreach program. She had been underfoot of me all damn day, every damn day, and when Nan had taken her yearly sojourn to visit her sister in California, well, that's when it had happened. For me, anyway.
"Slade?" Merry's voice interrupted my trip down memory lane, and I stared blankly into her eyes, shaking my head as if to clear thoughts of the past. What had I been about to say? Oh, yeah.
I cleared my throat and hoped she couldn't tell the effect she was having on me. "Now listen here, little girl," I continued. "I don't much appreciate the way you have been talking about yourself, and I sure as hell don't appreciate the way you keep bringing the conversation around to other things, when we are supposed to be focusing on what's most important here."
"Which is?" she deadpanned.
"You, going home, where you belong. You packing up the mess you claim to have made of your life and going back to your family. Letting them take care of you. You seem to have forgotten, but Nan, she loves hard, and that love can be mighty healing. Now, I don't know you well these days, this much is true, but seems to me a little bit of healing love is just what you need, right now."
"Home? Family?" Each word was a derisive scoff. "What home? What family?"
My eyes narrowed to slits, and my answer came between gritted teeth. "The ranch is your home. Nan, Blake, and I—we're your family."
"You've never told Nan what really happened between us, have you? And now, she wants me back, and you and Blake would rather put up with me than tell her the truth and risk her wrath, is that it?"
My hands balled into fists at my side. "No, Merry, that's not it. If it's that important to you, I'll call Nan and tell her the truth right now, but I can guarantee you it's not going to change a damn thing, so all you are doing here is stalling the inevitable."
Her head jerked up and down. I had never seen so much sarcasm packed into a simple head nod before. "The inevitable, huh? Which is?"
The inevitable in my mind at the moment was her butt, my hand and Blake's belt, but I wasn't going to say that. "You, home, where you belong. We never asked you to leave, little one. You did that on your own."
"You never would have. I knew that then, and I know it now. But I didn't deserve to stay, and I don't deserve to go back."
This was a dead end convo, going nowhere. She had a gift for getting under my skin that way. I pulled myself back to a standing position and strutted down the small hall without a word. I opened each door as I went, until I found the bedroom. Merry was hot on my heels.
"Slade! Slade David! What are you doing? You can't just come here, into my home, and invade my privacy like this! Get out of my bedroom!" She was jumping on me, grabbing for my arms, and trying her hardest to stay my mission. It wasn't working. I shrugged her off and opened the closet, pulling two large suitcases off the top shelf and tossing them open, onto the bed. Armfuls of clothes and shoes followed.
"What are you doing?" she shrieked, pulling clothes out as quickly as I put them in. I grabbed her wrist and held it.
"I'm helping you pack. Talking was getting us nowhere, and I've always been more of an action man, anyway. Now you can either help me, or you can sit down and be quiet, but if you get in my way again, you're gonna find out what my next course of action will be, capiche?"
* * *
Merry
There was no mistaking the meaning behind his threat. It was one I had heard before. I hadn't heeded it, then, and I had been quickly tossed across his knee like a rag doll, with my panties and jeans around my ankles getting my backside paddled with a horse brush, while the horses looked on.
There were no horses, no brush, and no way in hell I was letting Slade spank me like an errant child.
I sat on the bed, between the suitcases and watched him.
"I never said I was going," I pouted.
"No, you didn't. I did," he confirmed with a smirk. "As you've repeatedly pointed out, you're not exactly the best at making wise decisions these days. So I went ahead and made this one for you. You're welcome."
"Oh, gee thanks," I muttered sarcastically. "I've just been waiting for some giant Neanderthal cowboy to swoop in and make all my decisions for me, since I'm just a lowly young girl child, unable to make them for myself."
Slade snickered, not one to let my overdramatic digs faze him. "You said it, darling, not me. C'mon now; if you help, this will go a hell of a lot faster. We're leaving at sunup, and I'd like to get a few hours of sleep before we hit the road."
