Resisting Samantha (Hope Parish Novels Book 10) (9 page)

I laughed sharply
without mirth. “Not everyone.”

“Jake will
come around. He’s just bitter and—”

“Are you going
to tell me that what I do for a living is okay now? You want to bury
the hatchet and have me join family functions? I know we took a hit
two years ago, and things have been tough on the family business.”

“The business
is flourishing.”

“I’m
talking about the putting-on-airs business. It doesn’t stop.”

“That is less
of a concern.”

“Bullshit.
What is Anna Kate’s role?”

“She’s
Jake’s choice. He is taking his place in society. That’s
what he was trained to do.”

I gave another empty
laugh. “Jake’s so brainwashed that if you told him to
wade into the bayou because that would help his social standing, he
would do it.”

“He took over
when you left, Chase. Don’t denigrate your brother for stepping
up and doing what was…shoot, boy. I didn’t come here to
argue with you.”

“No. Say it,
Daddy. Do what’s right. I think you’ve wasted your time.
Again. Nothing’s changed.”

“Everything’s
changed. The scandal about the Colonel, and your sister’s
marriage to Braxton Outlaw, and, above all the sheer embarrassment
over the heinous acts of your Uncle Earl, have combined to make us a
target for speculation, gossip, and scandal, to the point that there
were times when we couldn’t even lift our heads. You out here,
shunning your family only adds to it. Come home, Chase,” he
roared.

He closed his eyes,
then opened them, revealing anger still flickering in their depths
while he shook from his outburst. I had pushed him, and we found
ourselves rehashing the same old argument.

“I didn’t
want to say all that. I came here to remind you that you are a
Sutton, and still part of this family, no matter what’s
happened. That won’t change. If you won’t do it for me,
do it for your momma and your sister. After all, we’re now in
business together.”

“What? What
business?”

“The sauces
you’re stocking. Braxton made the offer to you to show you that
we all want to work together.”

“What? This
was
your
doing?”

“I was the one
who made the suggestion, and Braxton and River agreed it was a good
idea.”

“I was not
aware this is a family thing.”

“Braxton saved
our flagging business two years ago. I owe that boy a great deal, but
we’re in this together, sixty/forty.”

I dropped the fillet
knife and pressed my hands against the table.

Brax hadn’t
said anything about my daddy suggesting this. I will admit, I hadn’t
been privy to family stuff for a long time, but I would never have
imagined that Brax would have deliberately manipulated me. I could
believe my daddy would. But not Brax. The sense of betrayal was a
sharp cut.

“Chase, we’d
like to—”

“I’m
busy,” I cut him off without looking at him.

Out of the corner of
my eye I saw him stiffen. “When an olive branch is offered, it
has to be accepted to make a difference, to begin to come together.
But I can see you’re too bitter and unforgiving.”

“Me? Oh,
that’s good.” I turned to face him. “Just how many
strings are attached?”

“There are
no—”

“The hell
there aren’t,” I growled. “I bought it all once,
and was totally on board for being the golden boy, Chase Sutton,
plantation owner, businessman, gentleman, marry that deb, carry on
the family name, blah, blah, blah. Be everything you wanted me to
be.”

“What
happened?”

“You know what
happened. I had the rug ripped out from under me. I defined myself by
your standards. You and the Colonel were the role models.”

“We all had
that rug jerked from underneath us. We’re all recovering. You’d
had more time to assimilate this information.”

“Maybe so, but
when it happened to me, I didn’t have anything else to fall
back on. You didn’t give me that choice.”

“You blame
me.”

“Yes! I blame
you and some ancient dead guy for taking away my choices. I’m
not going back to that Daddy, ever. Screw family legacy. Ours is in
rubble, and no amount of flaunting Anna Kate around town, cotillions,
and fancy Cadillacs are going to change a damn thing.” I
stalked out of the cooler and faced him. “The Colonel was a
murderer and a thief, and on top of that, he was a fucking coward.”

My daddy’s
lips thinned, and he looked sick.

“Then we had
the piece of work that was Cousin Earl, our blood, who silenced Brody
Outlaw because he was going to do the right thing. Earl was so
obsessed with power and reputation, he was going to murder his own
niece and nephew to protect our “good” name. He had no
compunction about killing Brax, either, just more of the same, and a
chip off the old Colonel block! His statue should be pulled down, and
Suttontowne should be renamed something else. He doesn’t
deserve any of those honors or accolades.”

And, as his
descendants, neither did we. The shame and the anger backed up into a
huge ball of pain clogging my throat.

My harsh laughter
rang off the rafters. “So, the Outlaws must look pretty good
right now. At least you have
that
association going for you. You wouldn’t even let us hang out
with them, but, even in the face of adversity and condemnation, all
three of them built something solid, honest, and profitable.”

My daddy’s
humiliation and shame broke through the simmering anger. I jammed my
hands on my hips, not proud of making him squirm, or hurting him. I
knew what it meant to him, but I couldn’t go back. “This…
this
is who I am, and I’m sure it will be a cold day in hell before
you accept that. So I’m so very sure there are strings, and
plenty of them. I stopped being a puppet, long about ten years ago.”

“You’re
wrong, but I can see I’m not going to change your mind. You
won’t hear me. We’ve had some setbacks, but in the end
it’s about how you handle them that’s important. About
being a man.”

“I built
something out of nothing with honest sweat and my own two hands, not
a legacy built on
blood
money and terrible
betrayal
.”
I growled. His face went white. “I live simply, and without any
apology for who I am. That makes me feel damn good. I’m not the
one trying to get back what I lost. I don’t want it. That’s
the difference between us.” I went back into the cooler and
started working on my next snapper. “Give my regards to Momma,
River and Jake,” I said.

He jammed his hat on
his head, gave me one last, drilling stare, then turned and left,
slamming the door shut behind him.

I didn’t let
go of my sick rage as it churned and sent adrenaline rushing into my
blood, the fury threatening to explode.

I got the fish
cleaned, weighed, packaged, and packed for delivery in short order.
But the anger kept eating away at me. I swore savagely, worked up
over everything, and shocked at the deep well of my bitterness. I
thought I had put everything into perspective, worked through the
mess, but it was clear I hadn’t. My outburst shook me to my
core. Ten years of unresolved resentment and bitterness dumped on my
daddy’s head.

Now he knew what I
had been closed up about, what I was hiding, even from myself. The
guilt swamped me all over again, thinking about how long I had sat on
the knowledge that my ancestor had definitely not been the man we
believed he was. Some pillar of the community. It would be laughable
if it weren’t so sick and twisted.

The journals I found
had been buried, hidden, along with their terrible secret, for
hundreds of years, and all the while the Outlaws had been stuck
taking the fall for us.

I clenched my jaw,
stifling my emotions while I made each of my deliveries. When I drove
by Outlaws, where Brax usually was this time of day, I swerved into
the parking lot at the last minute.

I got out, slamming
my truck door and marched up to the building. When I entered the dim
interior, I homed in on Braxton Outlaw, who was at the bar talking to
Ethan.

On top of the other
turmoil of this crappy day, seeing my old friend Ethan made me
cringe.

There were some
people talking off to the side, but otherwise the lunch crowd had
cleared out, and the dinner crowd hadn’t started trickling in
yet.

When I snarled
Brax’s name, he jerked around, tensing for battle.

Ethan said, “I
hope your insurance is paid up.”

Braxton was a master
at knowing when someone was there to kick his ass. I didn’t
intend to get physical with him, but I did have a bone to pick.

He stood and watched
warily as I crossed the room. “You’re a backstabbing
bastard.”

His chin came up and
his eyes narrowed. “I told River this was going to have some
blowback,” he said under his breath.

“I thought
this deal was between you, me, and my sister. I didn’t know my
daddy had a part in your sauces.”

“Chase. This
is a family business. River is the one who came up with the idea to
market them with my name, but under your family’s label. She
handles everything, and we all profit. Everything I own belongs to
River and it’s the same with her. We can’t get out of
family. Believe me, I know. I’ve got the tripdar skid marks to
prove it.”

“I see. So you
went along with what she wanted, even if it meant I didn’t have
all the information.”

“Yes. Guilty,
but, damn, huckleberry. You’re
hurting
her.” He jabbed me in the chest, his expression determined and
fed up. “Every day you stay away. Hell, you haven’t even
been by our place, not once, not even to see the boys. She told me to
keep my mouth shut and my opinions to myself, but
goddammit
,
I can take about anything except River’s tears. So it’s
time for you to either cut us loose for good or make peace.”
His eyes went steely, he jabbed me in the chest again. “And,
boy, if you’re going to cut us loose, you’re going to be
the one to tell her, and you need to make sure I’m far away so
I don’t beat you down,” he growled. “If I can
forgive the Suttons for their offenses, maybe you can find a way to
work out your own issues.”

He was right, and it
washed the anger right out of me, until there was nothing left but
cold, sick shame and twisting guilt. My expression must have tipped
him off, and he lowered his voice, and swore softly under his breath.
It wasn’t lost on me that he was caught up in my family
situation because he’d married my sister and wanted to do right
by her. I had to respect that.

He shifted and
tapped the bar. Ethan set up two whiskeys, but I couldn’t meet
his eyes. “I get it. I do,” Brax continued, his voice
filled with understanding, “But your daddy came by to offer you
an opening. That wasn’t easy for him.”

I looked away,
swallowing hard, my fists clenching. I couldn’t sweep this all
under the rug just to appease my sister. I loved her, deeply, and it
just about killed me to find out that I’d hurt her. But I
didn’t know how to fix this, or reconcile my own feelings in
the matter.

“I know all
about anger, Chase. I lived with it in my gut for years. It’ll
eat you alive unless you deal with what’s causing it. You
figure it out, or you’re going to lose any connection you had
to your family and your past. And you’d regret it eventually,
even as fucked up as it is.”

I stared at him, his
expression fixed and controlled. Then, ruthlessly suppressing even a
flicker of emotion, I turned on my heel. I froze. The people talking
together in the corner were Boone Outlaw and…Samantha.

She looked at me,
her eyes pools of bottomless green, her expression haunted and
tender.

It took me a lot of
years to learn how to shut down and disconnect. But I had learned the
lesson well. Disconnection was a little like fishing. A good angler
had to empty his mind of everything except the line, watching,
waiting, listening, then reeling in the big catch, working against
every slick trick the fish and all its ancestors developed to survive
and stay out of the frying pan. A good angler had to focus. Focus.
And it wasn’t until that fish was landed that the pain of a
hundred old injuries would surface. This wasn’t much different.
I had to empty my mind. I had to stay focused.

Only this wasn’t
a fish tale, and I was the one fighting for my life.

SAMANTHA

I watched Chase’s
retreating back, and my heart just about broke. He looked so bleak.
My head whipped around to Braxton Outlaw. Everyone in the bar was so
quiet you could hear a pin drop. Boone said, “Fuck,”
softly, under his breath.

I had originally
gone to find Boone at home, but when I arrived, Verity opened the
door looking frazzled, with Duel on her hip, two babies crying in the
background, and a dazed look that I could only associate with a
protracted lack of sleep. She told me Boone had gone down to Outlaws
to talk to Brax about the softball teams Boone was organizing among
the business owners of Suttontowne. The first game was going to be on
Saturday. Outlaw Landscaping against Outlaws.

When he saw the look
on my face, he made a grab for me, but I wrestled my arm out of his
grasp, marching up to the bar. Ethan Fairchild took one look at my
face and said, “Incoming.”

“What the hell
is wrong with you?”

Brax stiffened.

“We’re
going to go a few rounds now, darlin’?”

“Don’t
darlin’ me. I’m sure that once you get home and tell
River Pearl what you just said to her brother, you’re going to
need all the darlin’s you’ve got. Maybe for the next
decade.”

He ran his hand over
his face. “In my defense,” he said, “I’m
caught in the middle, here, and my allegiance is to my wife. I was
just trying to tell him how it is. I don’t sugarcoat things.”