Page 54 of Marrying Mr. Majestic

“He was one of those ‘do as I say, not as I do’ guys, you know? Told us not to drink and drive but said he could handle a few drinks before getting behind the wheel. Wouldn’t let us go swimming in the river alone but didn’t hesitate to go in himself at the end of a hot day.” Way took a moment to suck in a deep breath and let it out. “It was the last weekend of the hunting season, and he still hadn’t gotten his deer quota. Normally, I would have been with him, mostly to keep him out of trouble since he was known to drink while hunting, but I was in school down in Laramie.”

I didn’t want to do or say anything to stop his story, so I stayed quiet and simply listened.

“The girls hate hunting. So do I, but I also recognized it was necessary to our grocery budget. My mom had explained it to me early on and encouraged me to keep Dad company and help make sure we got enough food to put up for the year.” He’d left his cowboy hat at home and had replaced it with a ball cap, but he still pulled it off and settled it again with the same nervous gesture. “I’d gone out with him the week before, when I was home over Thanksgiving, but we didn’t have any luck. Bad weather and… I don’t even remember now. So the next weekend, after I was back at school, he went out again—alone this time, even though he knew better.”

“What about your brother? Was he still home?”

“Nope. Wynn was away at a piano thing. Aunt Blake had taken him and our cousin Anna to Billings for some concert that day. He felt awful afterward, like he should have given that up to make sure Dad had someone to go with.”

“That’s not fair,” I said.

“No. But Wynn was too young to understand that.”

I glanced over at Way again, but he was still focused on the trail ahead. “What happened to your dad? A hunting accident?”

He shook his head. “Froze to death. When he didn’t come home that night, Mom called the authorities, and they put together a search party for the next day. Found him in the deer blind along with an empty bottle of scotch.” He cleared his throat. “His blood alcohol was so high they think he passed out from drinking and didn’t realize night was falling and the temperature along with it. He obviously hadn’t planned to be out overnight since he hadn’t taken any gear for it.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured.

Way let out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah, same. I’m sorry he made such a piss-poor parent. I’m sorry he set himself up for a horrific death after worrying my mother out of her mind. I’m sorry he’d run the damned ranch into the ground. And I’m sorry…” He snapped his jaw shut and shook his head. “I’m sorry I’m not more sorry he’s gone.”

I wanted to grab him and hold him, squeeze him tightly enough to convince him someone cared about him, but I got the feeling touching him just then might have resulted in a quick uppercut to my chin.

Instead, I continued walking and gave him time.

“It haunts us all,” Way admitted softly after a few minutes. “My mother couldn’t handle staying here. Sheridan felt like she needed to take over as the positivity patrol. Wynn’s guilt drove him into the army. ZuZu feels disconnected from the rest of us because she hardly remembers him. And Foster has spent every spare minute of the past eight years trying to improve and perfect our Search and Rescue program to prevent anyone else from a similar experience—not that SaR would have helped in my family’s case. Dad wasn’t lost. Just stupid.” He huffed out a breath and corrected himself. “That’s not fair. Addiction is complicated. Maybe I shouldn’t continue to carry so much resentment, but I do anyway.”

This explained so much.

So much about his need to be in charge, to take care of everything for his family.

So much about never wanting to rely on anyone else.

He was trying to be the man, the leader, his father wasn’t.

“Tell me more about how you ended up mayor,” I said, hoping the slight change of subject would ease the stress tightening his entire body.

He let out a soft, humorless laugh. “When Dad died, I’d quit school to move back home and take care of everything. The kids, the ranch, the debt. Three years later, the mayor suddenly absconded with eight million dollars of Majestic’s municipal funds. It was shocking. Dwight Erikson had been the mayor for eighteen years by then. He’d grown up in Majestic and knew everyone. The man was a volunteer at the church, a Scout leader, and the kind of neighbor who shoveled old Mrs. Winshaw’s drive and walkway when her son couldn’t do it.”

We came to a small creek that crossed the trail, and Way immediately reached back for my hand, as if stomping through an inch of water was likely to confound or endanger me.

I took his hand without arguing and allowed him to pull me across the shallow water before he continued his story.

He didn’t release my hand.

“We still can’t figure out what happened. He apparently took a singles cruise down to Mexico or something a few months before he left Majestic. So you can imagine the stories people concocted. Illicit affairs, gambling addiction, running afoul of a drug cartel… You name it, someone’s suggested it. The FBI is on the case, but they’re tight-lipped. And to be honest, I get the feeling they think the amount we lost isn’t worth much of their resources. They did confirm what Bernice and I figured out ourselves, which is that he’d been siphoning smaller amounts for the previous five years. So I don’t think we can lay the blame completely on the cruise to Mexico.”

“So you were, what… twenty-three?” I asked in surprise. “Why did they elect someone so young?”

Spots of sunlight danced across the trail in front of us as a light breeze ran through the trees. It was cool now that we were at a higher elevation, but the sun and our movement kept it warm enough for comfort. There had been several other cars at the trailhead, so we weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the clear weather.

“Maybe everyone else was smart enough to say no,” Way said, smiling as if it was a joke. I could tell it wasn’t a laughing matter, though, by the way he pulled his hand out of mine and lifted his hat off before pulling it back on again. I missed the feel of his hand in mine, but there was something reassuring in being able to recognize his agitation.

“Why didn’t you say no?”

He blew out a breath and glanced off the trail, leaving me with a view of the thick blond hair flicking out from the edge of his ball cap. “I wanted to fix it. Couldn’t stand the idea that one lying asshole’s dick move would cost the rest of us the town we’d lived in for so long. My family has been in Majestic for generations, and we’re not the only ones. The idea of having to get rid of our librarian or our firefighters or any number of other essential elements of our community… it was untenable. So a group of the largest landowners got together to brainstorm in hopes of staving off bankruptcy. Each family agreed to loan as much as they could, only in my case, it couldn’t be cash. The ranch was just coming out of the worst of its debt and definitely didn’t have capital to loan.”

“But you could give your time and effort,” I suggested, finally understanding.

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