Page 84 of Forget That Guy
“Her leaving was the best thing that ever happened to you,” she continued in that frail voice that most elderly had. “It may not have seemed like it. But when I tell you that she was theworst kind of cancer, even worse than the kind that took your daddy from this earth, you need to trust in what I say. If she’d stayed, if she’d raised you, you’d be just like her right now. You’d be mean and obnoxious, think you’re better than everyone else. She comes to this town twice a year since she left, and she expects everyone and their brother to fawn over her like she’s God’s gift to Bear Pass. When, in reality, she was a washed-up has-been that peaked in the eighties.” Margery looked my way. “Did you see the last thing she did was a commercial for the female version of erectile dysfunction?”
I giggled.
Margery placed her hand on mine. “Not to switch topics here but…be careful with his heart.”
I blinked and turned, studying the woman’s face.
“I may be old, but my eyesight is better than a forty-year-old’s, thanks to a laser doctor in Bozeman.” She smiled softly. “I know when my boy, my precious baby boy, is falling in love. And he’s halfway gone with you already.”
My cheeks flushed. “Do you think that’s bad? Our age difference…”
“The only time age matters is when you’re in grade school.” She smiled again. “My Sol and I were twenty-four years apart. And other than losing him way sooner than I ever wanted to, he was the best thing that ever happened to me. And he was virile. My god.”
I covered my ears and started to laugh.
A poke in the thigh had me turning to see Denver had arrived on his horse, a look of wonder on his face. “What’s so funny?”
I looked over to Margery.
Margery beamed and said, “I was telling Holly how virile your father was, even at fifty-five.”
Denver shook his head. “My god. Please don’t.”
TWENTY
I want you to know someone cares. Not me, but someone.
—Holly to Denver
HOLLY
I was in a room full of motorcycle men, and every one of them was looking at their president and me making assumptions.
They were, of course, making the correct assumptions. But assumptions they were making.
And I didn’t like being the center of attention like this.
But, alas, the men who were at that table were men that needed to be there.
In an hour, I would be walking into a courtroom to fight my mom on my dad’s life insurance.
My lawyer, a sexy looking man with sharp eyes and a jaw like granite, had gone over my case just yesterday and had some questions before he represented me in the courtroom this morning.
There were several others of Denver’s club in the room, but none of them interrupted or interjected as my lawyer lobbed questions at me one after the other.
“Does your mother come into town often?” Jedidiah asked.
I shrugged. “About twice a year, maybe. She’d show up in town, visit with Dad, then leave. I’m not sure what they visited about. But she always came to see him.”
“How long would she stay?” Jedidiah asked.
“A half a day, max. She’d fly in on a private jet, rent a car to get here. Visit with Dad. Drive right back to the airport,” I answered.
“And when did she leave for good?” he continued.
“When I was eleven,” I answered.
He wrote some more information down on his legal pad. “Did she pay child support?”
