Page 16 of Property of Bigfoot
“What in the hell are you doing here?”
I got out of my truck and circled around the back where they stood in the drive closest to the cabin I’d been living in. My stepmother was dressed in what amounted to a power suit you might see an executive-level woman in the big city wearing, which was insane because we were in the middle of nowhere, and she was not employed.
“I was waiting for that brat to get home.”
“Why? I don’t have anything to say to you,” I called out to her as I moved closer.
“I had to step in and do your job for you while you were out partying for days on end!” The bitch screeched at me.
“I wasn’t out partying. I was at the hospital with a friend.”
Brady did a doubletake in my direction at my admission but turned back to Colleen and shook his head. “Sammy hasn’t taken a single day off since she came home from the Army. Even if she was out partying, which is none of your fucking business, she has more than earned her time off. I can’t say the same for you, though.”
“I don’t have to work,” Colleen retorted with that smug look on her face that always made me wish I could punch her without consequences.
“If you want to continue to live on family land, you do. We let Brian get away with not contributing for too long. There is a stipulation that we each have to work for the family business three days a week minimum as long as we live here, unless there is a medical reason why we can’t.”
Colleen laughed. “I know for a fact that Brian owns our house outright.”
“He might own the house, but he doesn’t own the land it sits on. That is part of our family trust that has legal stipulations attached to it. When Joy was alive, she did the work so Brian could focus on his security business. You are supposed to work three days a week in his place as your land rental.”
I almost laughed as Colleen sputtered and fumed. “Bullshit!” When she finally yelled, her whole face turned a bright red, nearly purple color.
“Tell your wife the truth,” Uncle Brady demanded. We all looked around for my dad. He wasn’t there but Brady held his phone up.
I could hear him huff down the line and felt his frustration in that sound. “He’s not wrong, Colleen. We are supposed to contribute and I haven’t done so for the five years we’ve been together.”
“I don’t understand,” she mumbled.
“I’ll explain it later. Sam?” he called out and I moved so that he could see me on his end of the video call.
“Yes?”
“Who were you at the hospital with?”
“That’s really not your business,” I shot back. My dad barely had anything to do with me since he hooked up with Colleen. He allowed her to influence him into distancing himself from me, and it wasn’t something I was willing to forgive. I had already lost my mom. Because of Colleen’s demands and my father bowing to her wishes, it felt like I’d lost my dad, as well. He was nothing more than a stranger to me.
“I knew she was lying!” Colleen shouted triumphantly. Her “gotcha” moment was shot all to shit in the next couple minutes, though.
“Sammy, I heard some things, baby girl. Need to know if they’re true. Who were you with?”
“I helped a man who was in an accident and stayed at the hospital in Springerville with him until he woke up,” I admitted.
“Bigfoot?” Uncle Brady asked. I nodded, shocked that he knew the man had been hospitalized, not that he knew him. They were around the same age. “Shit,” my uncle groaned. Dad remained quiet.
“Do you know what you’re doing getting mixed up with the Kings of Anarchy?” my dad asked.
“Getting mixed up with them?” I questioned. “I saved the guy’s life and made sure he was going to pull through. I wouldn’t exactly call that ‘getting mixed up’.” I shot back at him. “And even if I was, again, I don’t know what business it is of yours.”
“I’m your father,” he insisted.
“Funny, Brian, but the only man who has behaved like a father to me in the past five years is your little brother. You stopped loving me as your daughter and giving a shit the minute your little fling got knocked up and told you to.”
“Sammy, that’s about enough.”
“You’re right, it is. Tell your wife to get the hell off my part of the property because I don’t want her here.”
“You have to go to work, you ungrateful little bitch!” Colleen snapped at me.
