“Unemployed,” the figure now coming down those stairs spoke up. “That’s my profession at this current time. Any other questions? I’d be happy to answer them now that I’ve gotten me and Clara settled in.”
Three sets of eyes skipped to the stairway—Avalee’s widening the least, my mom’s widening to the point of being legendary—followed by three mouths falling open as they watched Boone make his way down the stairs. The fourth set of eyes, belonging to Ford, stayed focused on me, narrowing a bit more with every step Boone descended.
Mine though? Mine narrowed into slivers aimed at Boone. What in the hell was he doing? He wasn’t incapable of following directions, and I knew he’d heard me ask him to stay upstairs. He was doing this intentionally. He was purposely trying to make this hard on me. I’d agreed to pay him ten grand to act as my plus one for the week, but I’d forgotten to lay down a set of much-needed ground rules. It was clear he was going to spend the next week paying me back for what he deemed I owed him from our past.
I would have been better off showing up solo.
“Get the hell out of this house, Cavanaugh. You practically destroyed this family and this girl.” Ford’s voice filled the foyer, his finger thrusting in my direction. “You have no right to be here. Leave.”
Boone paused long enough in the middle of the stairs to look at Ford. To the others in the room, I knew Boone appeared as cool and in control of himself as he ever was, but I read the finer print they had yet to learn. The way the corners of his eyes creased when he was fired up. The way his knuckles pulled through his skin like they were readying themselves for a brawl. The way the muscles in his neck stiffened just enough to be visible. Boone had never liked Ford. Ford had never liked Boone. It wasn’t just teenage boy rivalry; it had gone much deeper than that.
“If messing up this family and that woman is your qualification for who does and doesn’t deserve to be in this house, then you better be the first to walk out those doors.” Boone’s hand tightened around the bannister, looking capable of turning the redwood into sawdust.
Ford shook his head, trying to look away from Boone, but he couldn’t. “I’m done talking with you. I learned years ago that trying to rationalize with a wild, savage animal is like expecting them to have a conscience. Neither is possible. It’s just in the animal’s nature to be wild. And savage.”
“Is that a promise I can get your signature on?” Boone continued down the stairs. “Because I really think I’d like that in writing.”
My poor mother was looking between Boone and me like she couldn’t figure out what was happening. She backed away when Boone tromped down the last few stairs. Avalee stayed where she was, giving me a curious look, while Charlotte’s head looked ready to spin.
Ford’s gaze sliced in my direction. “I thought you were smart, Clara Belle. The kind of girl who learns from her mistakes and doesn’t make the same one twice.”
Talking to me like I was a child. Patronizing me like I wasn’t in possession of a scrap of intelligence. If he wasn’t so far away, I might have slapped Ford McBride right then.
“It’s you who’s implying I made a mistake in the first place—no one else.” My voice came out two keys lower.
“I wasn’t exactly implying anything,” Ford replied, his gaze shifting between Boone and me like he’d just witnessed a train wreck and was trying to figure out what to do next.
“And he’s not exactly alone in his not implying that either,” Charlotte added, coming up beside Ford and winding her arm through his.
He tried to wag it off, but Charlotte’s hold was unbreakable.
“What I’ve never understood about you all is why you’re so concerned with everyone else’s business when you have no shortage of your own business that needs serious attending to.” Boone leapt down the last couple of stairs to land beside me. He shot me a sideways look before continuing. “I think that’s what Reverend Simmons would call fixating on the speck in your neighbor’s eye while ignoring the fucking plank in your own.”
“Reverend Simmons doesn’t say that word,” Charlotte said, like she was just as innocent of never saying it. Which she wasn’t. I’d heard her moaning it a handful of times before I stumbled in on her and my boyfriend.
“He should reconsider. Packs a punch, don’t you think?” Boone said, grinning at Charlotte in such a way it was clear he was teasing her.
Her eyes narrowed. “Like you’ve ever sat through a Sunday service in your life, Boone Cavanaugh. Who are you to preach to us about morality?”
Boone stuffed his hands into his front pockets and shrugged. “No one, but with you all being regular church-going members, I would have thought you’d be on the whole speck/plank bandwagon. But clearly I’m way off, because I could see that plank in your eyes, Charlotte, from a mile back. The one dropped there when you decided to set your sights on your sister’s boyfriend and fuck him silly in your sister’s—”