The Bride (The Bride #1)(4)

I meant I saw my dad open the cabin door and let Mrs. Nash inside. He patted her on the ass—I could tell she’d liked that—and then he’d closed the door.

Luckily, I was a sophomore when this happened so I didn’t have to worry about my grades being corrupted by how good or bad my dad was in bed.

Everybody seemed to know Mrs. and Mr. Nash were not a happy couple. But they had two kids, so I guess they wanted to stick it out for them. Neither Mr. Nash nor the kids were here today.

Today was for her.

She patted my shoulder and then she walked away. I could hear her hiccup a sob into her handkerchief.

See she was crying. I should be crying.

There were more comers. More I’m sorrys. My friends stayed on the other side of the room, all huddled together. Talking and whispering. Sometimes daring to look over at me. I felt like I had this contagious parent dying disease they were all afraid of catching. I wasn’t mad. I figured I would feel the same way if one of them had recently been made an orphan.

Ugh. That word. The sun’ll come out…

“Ellie! There you are. Oh my god, I’m so sorry. What can Jake and I do? We have to do something!”

It was Janet. She was loud and she was making me stand up to hug her. Then she was bawling and I was patting her on the back to make her feel better. Totally intense Janet.

“I mean what’s going to happen to you?” she cried.

That was actually pretty funny, because she was loud enough that almost the whole house heard her. All these people who were all thinking the same thing but no one would actually say it. Hell, I was thinking it but wouldn’t even come close to letting myself say it out loud.

Not Janet. She just let it rip. The one-million-dollar question. What was going to happen to Orphan Ellie Mason?

“Janet, I didn’t know you were here,” Jake said, coming up behind her.

Seeing them next to each other, I kind of saw what he saw in her. Objectively, Jake was hot. Tall, built in the way a man gets from working a ranch. Short dark brown hair, hazel eyes. Square jaw. It wasn’t something I thought about much because he was… well, Jake. However, there was no getting around the fact he was pretty much the biggest catch in Riverbend.

He and Janet made sense. She was pretty with long blond hair, a nice round body without being chunky. Sweet and nice. I shouldn’t have been so hard on her. Only now she was sobbing hard and it was not a good look for her. I could actually see little bubbles of snot in her nose.

She turned to him and hugged him. He patted her on the back too, and I think I saw her rub her nose on his dress shirt.

Gross.

“Why don’t you go help in the kitchen,” he told her when she came up for air.

“Okay. I can go help with dishes and stuff,” she said.

“That’s a good idea.”

And so totally sexist. His girlfriend was freaking out and his answer was to send her to the kitchen? Normally I would have taken the opportunity to point this out to him. I feel like as a new generation of women, it’s our duty to educate men every chance we get, but because I wanted her to go away I kept my mouth shut.

Sorry Gloria Steinem, I’ll get him next time.

She left and everyone got back to the business of eating beef stroganoff and three layer bean dip and not saying the thing they were all thinking.

WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME?

“I don’t want to wait,” I told Jake as soon as it was the two of us.

“What do you mean?”

“I want to talk to Howard. Tonight. I don’t want to wait.”

“Ellie…”

“No. I know you’re going to say I need more time. But the thing that’s going to happen me after all of this, time isn’t going to change that. I need to know now. The sooner I know my options, the better.”

I looked at him then. I needed him to see I was serious. As I said before, I’m a pretty nice person who gets along with everyone. Very easygoing about most things. Until I wanted something hard. When something really counted and I really wanted it, I got stubborn.

My dad had said this was a good thing. He’d said I had grit, and for a person to get what they wanted out of life they needed grit.

I’d told him he watched too many John Wayne movies.

All I knew was in that moment I wanted to know what was going to happen to me. Only Howard had those answers.

“I’ll go find him,” I told Jake. “But we should probably both talk to him together.”

Because it wasn’t just my life. It was Jake’s too.

Our life.

“He’s in the dining room with Mrs. Nash. I think we should wait until everyone leaves first, but I’ll ask him if he can stay after.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

Jake stared at me hard but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Maybe trying to see if I was strong enough to handle whatever Howard said. I had no clue. How do you know if you can handle anything until you have to… handle it?

*

It was three more agonizing hours of tears, whispers, sorrys and hugs. I was like a hugging machine. Which is weird for me, because outside of animals I’m not really a touchy feely kind of girl. I found this out when I was going steady with Mick last year, because he always wanted to hold hands.

He had this thing where he would show up at my class as the period let out and walk me to my next one, which was sweet but he had to hold my hand the whole time. This meant I had my backpack on my right shoulder and my books in my right arm so my left hand was free for holding. Mick was a right-hand hand holder. Anyway I always felt overloaded on my right side.