Page 44 of Second Start: Family
He didn’t suppose Dan had seen his aunt more than a half dozen times in his life and most of those had been before he’d turned eight.
“Icould—”
“This is your home. We’re your family. You’re staying with us until you go to college.”
“Because you need my slave labor for the ranch.”
He knew Dan wasn’t serious in that particular accusation because he let it go after Hall’s flat, “That, too.”
“I’ll never get to college without going to Cheyenne for high school,” Dan proclaimed.
“That’ll be a shock to the thousands of Wyoming kids who manage it every year.”
“I’ll end up just like you. Never finishing. Stuck here whether I want to be or not. Probably stuck with a bunch of kids I never wanted, either.”
Hall grasped his arm, yanking his son to be almost nose to nose with him.
“Don’t you ever say that again — that I never wanted you, your sisters, and brother. Not ever, Daniel.”
Surprise and something else flared into his son’s eyes before the wall rose between them again.
“Fine,” he mumbled before yanking his arm free and walking away.
Because Hall had released his hold.
He watched his son’s departing back.
He let him go now. But he wouldn’t make that mistake when it came to the bigger picture — releasing his hold and watching Dan walk away for good.
*
Evan Kevery talked and talked while Dan worked through the searches he’d mapped out beforehand for his paper.
He hit a couple items that would have taken him on tangents. He didn’t follow their tempting distractions. He wrote them down at the end of his list. He’d get to them when it was their turn. He would not be pulled out of his plan.
Evan was supposed to be researching a paper, too. All he’d done was run his mouth and look at some videos.
“…and my dad says you couldn’t afford to take the scholarship even if they did pick you.”
Evan’s words — setting up his father’s view as an echo of Hall’s — tore through Dan’s concentration like a chainsaw through tissue paper.
And Evan knew it. “So why not give up and let me take it? I’d get a lot more use out of living large in Cheyenne than you ever would.”
“Shut up, Kevery. I’m working.”
“Why? Seriously. It’s never going to get you anywhere. I heard the little kids’ teacher tell the Otter woman that she wasn’t comfortable going against the parents’ wishes. Without both teachers’ recs you’re done for.”
Dan swore to himself. Was that teacher just trying to get in good with his father?
He’d seen the way they looked at each other when the other one wasn’t looking.
It was disgusting. It was as if Mom never existed.
Who the hell did this Kenzie Smith think she was?
“Like you’d get a rec from either teacher,” Dan shot back.
But his heart wasn’t in it. Evan seemed to sense it.
