Page 36 of Bad Cowboy, Tennessee

Thoughts swirled inside me like a brewing storm.

All the things I wasn’t going to say to him.

Lyons Agriculture had been about to score a merger with Franklin Cooperative. But Bill Franklin’s son had ended up in the hospital after a night at one of my parties. Devvy Franklin was 20, apparently, not 22 like he’d said to everyone before coming into my house party. He seemed a little green, maybe even naive, but eager to get his hands on a drink.

That 20-year-old had watched, wide-eyed, as my friend Griffin grappled with another guy and then he quickly wanted to show us he could do it, too.

When Griffin got in close to him, our mistake was obvious immediately. Devvy didn’t know how to fight. Didn’t even know how to defend. He ended up with a black eye and two broken fingers pretty quickly and gave up the fight.

He said no when I offered an ice pack, downplayed the injuries, and insisted he wanted to stick around for a good time.And when my other very beautiful friend Heidi arrived, Devvy ignored his fractured metacarpals and shared a bottle of rum with her in one of my hot tubs instead.

Then he cracked another bottle.

Then he ended up with acute alcohol poisoning at age 20 inadditionto broken bones and a black eye… and a latent concussion that nobody knew about until he was in a hospital bed.

My father was furious when he heard from his friend who worked the graveyard shift at the hospital, and I didn’t blame him for being furious.

For the first time, I’d felt true regret about something that occurred at one of my parties.

I needed Dad’s help, one last time, but he was insistent on not giving me any. Bill Franklin only wanted to go forward with the merger if he could press charges and get me tossed in jail. Even if the jail time was short, or if we could easily make bail, Bill Franklin was steadfast about something that mattered even more: he wanted meoutof Lyons Agriculture forever. My family’s legacy, for generations before me. It wasn’t just my inheritance, it was my family’s entire world.

Dad told him to go right ahead, instead of trying to defuse the situation.

He wanted to choose business over family. Over me.

He would rather see me in jail than lose the merger with Franklin, so I’d left town with Lily before anything worse could happen.

Dad had expresslytoldme the merger wouldn’t net the company any real profits.

It was an ego play.

Pure and simple.

To bring yet another company under the Lyons corporation name, erasing every other independent agricultural business in the region.

There was only one reason why my name wasn’t already scrubbed from the company.

Dad knew the cards I was holding. The things I knew.

Now, apparently, he was trying to get me to back off with money. But I’d always had money.

I pulled in a long breath of air.

It was such a stark contrast.

The simplicity of things for me here in Tennessee.

Max’s baby-blue eyes. The blush he couldn’t keep off of his cheeks.

Fuck,I wanted him.

And I was tired of playing games.

I picked up the phone and called Max, spurred on by my own anger.

I pushed the button to make it a video call, because I needed to look at something, anything, to distract me from my own life.

It was a goddamn good idea.

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