Marek (Cold Fury Hockey #11)(47)
“Listen…is Tim around? I need you to put this on speaker so he can listen in.”
My jaw drops and I make another futile grab for the phone, to do what with it I don’t know. Maybe drop it down the garbage disposal to prevent this call from going a step further.
Marek taps his speakerphone button and then I hear my mom’s voice, “Okay, Marek. Tim’s standing here with me too. Are Gracen and Lilly okay?”
Marek gives a slight wince from the worry in my mom’s tone. He quickly assures her, though. “They’re both fine. Gracen is standing here with me now, also on speakerphone. Lilly’s with my parents.”
“Hey, honey,” Tim Moore says to his daughter. I’m close to my mom, but I’m also a daddy’s girl. He would have been right beside Marek on that porch, beating Owen to a pulp for the things he said.
“Hey, Dad,” I say softly, my throat threatening to close off.
Marek, not one to beat around the bush says, “Owen Waller was just here at my house. Long story short, he said some shitty things to Gracen and I punched him. He’s gone now, but he said something before he left that has me worried.”
My eyes plead with Marek not to go into this with my parents. I’m not prepared just yet for everyone to know just how far I’d sunk with Owen.
He stares at me, acknowledging my silent request, but his lips are pressed into a grim line. He leans over the phone and says, “Before he left, he’d said Gracen was a bad daughter. And then it was creepy as hell when he said, ‘Tell Mommy and Daddy I said hello.’ Now I know Gracen is the furthest thing from a bad daughter, but she won’t tell me what the hell is going on. I need to know, because I want to know how to handle this douche if he shows back up.”
My parents are silent, and I imagine it’s because they have no clue what’s going on. They were absolutely kept in the dark by me and had no clue I was marrying Owen in a desperate attempt to save their house.
Marek’s eyes stay pinned on me expectantly, and the silence coming through the phone from my parents is brutal.
It makes me take a deep breath and admit to all three of them, “I was marrying Owen because he was going to pay off your note that was in default with the bank.”
Marek blinks at me in surprise and confusion.
I rush to fill more of the silence. “Obviously, since I’m not marrying him now, he’s going to push it through. I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop it. I tried but…well…I just can’t marry him.”
“Gracen Calliope Moore,” my mom shrieks into the phone, and I wince as Marek holds the phone farther away from him and toward me. I take a step backward. “How could you agree to do something so stupid? You marry for love, not for money.”
My face burns so hot that I feel sweat pop out on my forehead and upper lip. “It didn’t start out that way,” I feel the need to defend myself.
But then my words stutter as even I know how lame that sounds. I knew from the get-go that Owen was a horrible person and I’d never love him. Rather than cut it off, I let him suck me into this notion that he could at least be a savior to me and my parents.
“I just can’t believe this,” my mom says in bewilderment. “I’m so disappointed in you, Gracen.”
My shoulders slump and my gaze drops to the floor. My parents’ approval means the world to me, and while I knew they would be pissed, I’m not prepared to handle their shame in me.
“Let’s not go there, Sheryl,” Marek says tightly into the phone, and my head pops up in disbelief he’d defend me. I know he has got to think I’m a dipshit too. His eyes come to me, but he’s asking my parents, “What are the terms of the note? I’ll help you out with it.”
I expect silence from my parents. They’re prideful and won’t want his help. Instead, my dad chuckles into the phone. “We don’t need help with the note. It will be paid off soon.”
“What?” I say through lips numb with shock over this revelation. My father’s been out of work for a long time.
“Well, your mom and I found out several months ago that we have natural gas on our property. We’ve been working with an attorney to explore avenues. We looked at letting them put a well on the property and leasing rights, but ultimately we just decided to sell the place to a gas company, which will include payment of the second mortgage.”
“You’re selling the house?” My voice is thick because my mouth is so dry.
“There’s apparently a lot of gas,” my dad says with another chuckle, but then his voice turns somber. “I’m regretting not telling you this now. We were going to keep it as a surprise and help you and Lilly get set up in a home of your own.”
I stumble a few feet backward, my legs hitting the edge of Marek’s bed. I sit down heavily on the mattress, staring at the floor.
“Owen knew about it,” my mom says, and my head snaps back up to look at the phone with surprise. “He’s been trying to buy this place from your dad and me for months now. I find it horrendous that he stopped asking once you agreed to marry him, I guess figuring he’d get it through inheritance.”
“But how did he know?” Marek asks.
“Because we provided a letter of intent to the bank, showing them the proof of the gas and that we were in the process of leasing or selling. It’s why the bank extended the note for us the first time. But after you left for North Carolina, Owen started hounding us again.”