In retrospect, she wasn’t ready for marriage. She would have been an albatross around Chance’s neck. But she should have worked it out with Chance. She shouldn’t have allowed the outcome to be dictated by her raging father.
Not being ready for marriage did not mean she hadn’t loved him. If she could just get him to understand that, then maybe this hollow feeling would go away. She didn’t know how she would make it up to him, but seeing him so battered and bruised and in need of help, she knew she had to try.
Last night she realized sometimes you didn’t get to choose your fate. When you did have a choice, you needed to seize the moment. This morning she’d received a call from the Western Stock Show asking for an interview. She took it as a sign.
“This have anything to do with you spending all of yesterday and half the night at the hospital troubling yourself about that good-for-nothing cowboy?” His eyes flashed with anger, like sparks off flint. “Don’t you tell me he’s turned your head in two days, Libby. He was a bum then—he’s just a richer bum now. He came from bums, and he’ll never be anything but a bum.”
It was similar to the litany he’d recited all the way home in the car that fateful day. She’d been terrified then. Of her father’s anger, of his influence, of his power. She wasn’t terrified anymore.
“This is about me.” She took a deep breath. “I need to work at something I want to do. You found something you liked. I need to find something I like.”
He snorted. “My family hadn’t a pot to piss in. I didn’t have the luxury of finding something I liked, Libby. I’ve worked since I was twelve. Worked two jobs once I graduated high school until I found something better, and that was selling cars. I didn’t sell cars because I liked it. I sold because I could make money at it. And I found a path to my own dealership. Now I have three. And the whole damn thing is going down the drain due to bankers gambling with billions of dollars, some of which was my hard-earned money. And if that wasn’t enough of a kick in the pants, my only daughter kicks me again by walking out when I need her most. You are ungrateful, Libby.” He ran his large hand through his graying hair.
“I know you had it rough. Maybe I need to have it rough, too.”
“You need to understand loyalty. Family loyalty.” He shook a cigar-like finger at her. “This better have nothing to do with Chance Cochran, or I swear—”
“This has to do with me. I was at the hospital with Chance because he has no one else.”
“That’s not what I hear. I hear he’s got so many women he doesn’t know what to do with them.”
“There was no one there but his friend Lonnie Kasin. I was married to Chance, after all.”
“Married for a day doesn’t mean shit. In some states that wouldn’t have even qualified as a marriage. You’re divorced. I saw to that.”
Yes, he’d seen to ending her marriage. Paying this one and that one. Her young age and the short duration of the marriage had lent credibility to her father’s claims of duress and coercion, resulting in a filing for irreconcilable differences, and the no-fault divorce had been granted.
She’d signed those papers even as the pen shook in her hands, even as she felt the bile in the back of her throat. She’d signed those papers and dutifully gone off to continue her education, but back East. Back East where she wouldn’t have to face Chance after what she’d done to him. She’d run away. A coward.
Seeing him had brought all that back and amplified the guilt she’d been carrying around. What if he hadn’t been strong enough to handle the blow she’d given him? What if, instead of turning to the rodeo, he’d turned to alcohol like his mother had, or drugs, or…the bad choices were limitless.
She’d been young, scared, and immature. And she’d been carrying the guilt around with her for over five years. She was through running from her own bad behavior. She needed to make amends. She’d start by helping him in any way he needed. Running errands or running interference. She’d make herself useful. It was a small gesture, but it was a beginning, and if he let her in, just a little, maybe she could get him to forgive, if not forget. Maybe if he understood who she was rather than who he’d thought she was, he’d be relieved their marriage hadn’t worked out.
“Is this what your mother would have wanted you to do?” he continued. “Your mother, who did everything for you, for me, for the family. What would she think of you turning your back on me, Libby?”
He knew just what to say. Just how to get to her. But not this time. She could almost hear her mother’s voice telling her to go. To stick up for herself. The same thing she’d urged when a young Libby squabbled with her brother.