I don’t know where to go. I don’t want to bring the destruction that comes with me back to Aunt Jackie’s yet.
Jesus, what if Mrs. Riscoff dies? Aunt Jackie will lose her job for sure.
Not that a job is life and death, but if Jackie were to get fired from The Gables, she’d probably have to move. Like she told me before, the Riscoffs own nearly everything and control the majority of the jobs in this town.
I never should have come home.
And why did I let him kiss me?
The last thing I need in my life is to complicate it by adding Lincoln Riscoff to the fray. I’ve only been home for a couple of days, and everything is already falling apart.
I don’t want to go through this again. The whispers. People talking about me wherever I go. I left Gable to make it stop, and that’s the same reason I escaped LA.
It doesn’t matter where I go—I’m cursed.
I point the car in the only direction that feels like a viable option. There’s only one person I know who would probably hand me an award if Sylvia Riscoff were to die just from seeing me.
My great-uncle Magnus.
His cabin is more of a shack precariously held up on the side of the gorge that leads down to the river. I have no idea how he’s able to maneuver the rickety stairs that wind to the water since he doesn’t have a fancy hydraulic chair on a rail like the house next door, but the fishing pole on the platform below tells me he’s been out there recently.
I knock on the cracked wooden door and am met with the sound of a cocking shotgun.
“Who is it?”
Magnus always was a crotchety old man, and that hasn’t changed.
“It’s Whitney. Your grand-niece.”
After a few thumps, he pulls open the door. “I know who the hell you are. ’Bout damn time you came around to show some respect to your elders.”
“I think I might’ve killed Sylvia Riscoff.”
His rheumy blue eyes widen. “’Bout damn time someone did that too.” He jerks his bald head toward the inside of the house. “Come on in. I’ve got some moonshine that’ll go nice with this story.”
I step inside the cabin and pick my way across the uneven boards. For a man older than dirt, he moves with more pep in his step than I would have expected. In fact, he seems just as nimble as he was ten years ago.
He snags a mason jar off the counter and walks out the slider onto the deck. “Hear your daughter-in-law almost kicked it today, Commodore!”
Good Lord. Commodore Riscoff lives next door?
I don’t know when that happened, but that’s the worst thing I could imagine for these two. Commodore still lived at the Riscoff estate when I left Gable, but neither he nor Magnus ever miss a chance to rile the other and keep the feud alive.
Like that lit rag Magnus shoved in the gas tank of Commodore’s fancy Mercedes right before I left town. The car blew up just like in the movies, according to everyone who saw it. Of course, though, no one actually saw Magnus do it, or at least no one would admit it. Regardless, there was no doubt in my mind that it was my great-uncle.
“The fuck you say, Gable?”
I step out onto the deck behind Magnus against my better judgment and immediately fear for my life. The railings are barely attached, and there’s nothing else to keep me from tumbling into the rushing water of the river below.
Making sure I’m directly in the middle, I turn to the left. A white-haired old man in a fancy-looking chair sits on a much grander deck holding a shotgun pointed in my direction.
“Oh my God.” I duck behind Magnus, and he waves an arm.
“Don’t shoot my grand-niece. I’ll really kill you for that.”
I peek over Magnus’s shoulder, and Commodore lowers his gun to his lap.
“You finally kill Sylvia, girl?”
I shake my head and realize his eyesight probably isn’t good enough to see me.
“They took her to the hospital. Chest pains. I don’t know what happened.”
The old man’s chest shakes with booming laughter. “It’s always chest pains. Mark my words, she’ll die of spite when she’s older than me.”
I don’t know exactly how old Commodore Riscoff is, but I think it’s a few years north of Magnus’s advanced age.
“Guess I better call for an update.” He pierces me with a stare, and I realize I might be wrong about his eyesight. “Stay away from my grandson. You hear me? He’s gonna give the family an heir, and there ain’t gonna be a drop of Gable blood running through that boy’s veins.”
As Magnus hollers out a few choice slurs, Commodore wheels himself inside, a dog trotting beside him.
I turn to go back in, but Magnus takes a seat on the deck. “Make sure you don’t say anything you don’t want that old fucker to hear. He’s like a hawk even now.”
“Shouldn’t we go inside then?”
Magnus shakes his head. “Nah. I don’t know how many years I got left, but I’m going to spend as much time outside as I can, enjoying this view.”
I glance at the pockmarks in the peeling paint of the siding. “Are those from buckshot?”
Magnus nods with what almost looks like a grin on his face. “We like to keep it interesting around here. Otherwise, we might get so bored there’s no reason to live.”
I scan him for injuries, noting a few spots scabbing over on his arms. “You don’t aim at each other . . . do you?”
With a shrug, he ignores my question. “Tell me about this new hullabaloo you caused.” He takes a swig of the moonshine and holds it out to me. “Because it seems to me that’s your specialty in life these days.”
I almost wave off the offer of the home brew, but it’s been a rough day. I clasp the glass jar in both hands and take the smallest swig.
I regret the decision immediately as my mouth catches fire and it spreads down my throat, all the way to my belly. “Jesus Christ.” I cough, and Magnus snatches the jar out of my hand before I spill any.
“Don’t tell me you went soft living in that city.”
I hack up a lung until the flames in my mouth finally settle down and I’m left with the flavor of gasoline. “How do you drink that?”
Magnus shrugs again and swills enough to knock me unconscious, and all he does is smack his lips at the end like it’s delicious. Maybe he really is crazy?
“We’re not talking about me, kid. I want the play-by-play. I assume you came here for a sympathetic ear, and I’m ready to hear every dirty detail.”
I bow my head and pinch the bridge of my nose between my left thumb and forefinger. “I didn’t even do anything. All I have to do is exist for her to have a heart attack.”
“Which seems more like a her problem than a you problem, to my senile brain.” Magnus takes another sip.
“It could be a Jackie problem if she gets fired because of it.”
Magnus’s shoulders rise and fall again, which has always been half of his communication. “Jackie will land on her feet. She’s smart. She’s a Gable.”
“In this town, that seems to be a liability now as much as it ever was.”
“Maybe to Sylvia Riscoff, but that old bat hates everyone and everything. Why do you care what she thinks of you, anyway? You gave her the biggest fuck-you of all time when you rejected her son in front of God and everyone. One of the most entertaining days of my life, I might add.”
Why do I care what Mrs. Riscoff thinks of me? Oh, that’s right, guilt.
“But—”
Magnus holds up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say, but nothing that happened a decade ago was your fault. You weren’t involved in that mess, so why do you keep trying to take on the responsibility for it?”
The old man is full of questions I’m not ready to answer today.
“I don’t know.” I release a long breath. “I’ve been holding on to it for so long, I don’t know how to let go.”
“No, you’ve been running so long, you don’t know how to stop. Maybe you oughta give that a try and see what it’s like to just be.”
As he takes another swig of moonshine, I wonder how much he’s already had today and whether I should be taking his advice. Then again, he’s probably immune to its effects by now.
I stare out over the gorge. God, I missed this view. But that doesn’t matter.
“Sylvia will never let me just be in Gable. She’ll run me out of town if it’s the last thing she does.”
Magnus glances over his shoulder at the house a hundred feet away. “Good thing Sylvia isn’t the one whose opinion matters in that family.”
“Like Commodore would ever take the side of a Gable. You two shoot at each other.”
“On the daily. Keeps us both on our toes. But he’s got a leash on Sylvia, or should I say a tight grip on the purse strings.”
I don’t quite take his point. “What are you suggesting I do exactly?”
“Put some steel in your spine, hold your ground, and don’t let Sylvia Riscoff decide your future.” He tilts his head to the right, his gaze sharp. “You never know what might happen.”