Gone Country (Rough Riders #14)(108)

He turned to look. “Holy shit. There’s got to be thirty boxes there.”


“Twenty-seven.”


He groaned. “That’ll take weeks to scan.”


God, I hope so.


Boone faced her. “What did you say?”


“That we’d better get cracking.”


When Marin called the following week, asking if she could come over, Sierra almost said no. Being in pain was a legitimate excuse for denying visitors, but Marin probably knew most of the McKay family had been by, so she said yes.


Rielle escorted Marin upstairs. Sierra sensed Ree wanted to hang around. During their knitting sessions before Christmas, Sierra had mentioned her frustration with Marin constantly ditching her for Mitch.


Despite her closeness to her dad, he didn’t understand girl drama. His advice was to ignore Marin, stop complaining about her and find new friends. God. That made her want to scream. So she should just walk up to a group of girls in her class and say, hey, you wanna be my friend? like she had in preschool? No one did that. She’d rather eat lunch by herself every day and have no friends than come off that weird and desperate.


Sierra tried to talk to her mom over Christmas break about her lack of friends problem, but she’d gone on a rant about how all women were bitches, they all started out mean little girls and never evolved. The trick, she’d told her, was to become the bigger bitch. Don’t care what people think of you. Tell them to kiss your size two butt if they don’t like you. Then her mother also warned her that women would always be gunning for her because she was pretty and rich. Sierra hadn’t said much—she hadn’t needed to; her mother had gone off on another tangent—but she’d secretly thought that’d be a cynical way to go through life.


But her mom had been nearly hysterical when she’d heard about Sierra’s car accident. She swore she was leaving Paris and moving in with them until Sierra was healed up. As much as Sierra appreciated that her mom…well, was acting motherly, she knew having her here would put a huge strain on everyone. So they talked on the phone at least once a day. Her mom had sent her flowers and balloons, stuffed animals and candy. It seemed something came air mail every day. Fun things. Quirky things. Sweet things. Items that proved her mom had been listening to her.


How was it they’d gotten closer after her mom had moved across the globe? Sierra hadn’t mentioned the positive change in her relationship with her mother to her dad, because he’d make some nasty comment about how it wouldn’t last. She didn’t believe it made her a sucker for hoping the change was permanent.


She glanced up and realized Rielle and Marin were staring at her, waiting for her to say something. “Sorry. The pain pills make me spacey.”


“You’ll be all right?” Rielle asked.


“Yeah.”


“Okay. I’ll check on you in a bit and see if you need snacks or something.”


After Rielle left Marin said, “She’s nice. Is it weird that she’s acting like your mom?”


She couldn’t point out that her mother and Rielle were nothing alike. “Ree is awesome. She’s always there for me when I need her.” Unlike you.


“She’s still with your dad?”


Sierra nodded.


“Is that awkward?”


“Sometimes when I see them making out or if they both disappear and I know they’re off doing it. But it’s kinda nice, actually.” Almost like she had a normal family.


Marin perched on the edge of the recliner. “Speaking of doing it…are you and Boone West really doing it?”


“Why? Is everyone at school saying we are?” she demanded.


“Well…you guys were at that party together before your accident. And Kara and Angie said you’d locked yourself in the bedroom together for a long time. So is it true?”


“Is that the only reason you’re here, Marin? To verify gossip about me and Boone?”


“No!”


“Why are you here? Because it’s not like you gave a crap about me since before Christmas. You’re so all over Mitch all the time you don’t have time for anyone else.”


Marin stared at her. “That’s what you think?”


“What else am I supposed to think? You never called me on the weekends or asked me to do anything. The only time I see you is at school.”


“And every time I saw you before Christmas, all you did was bitch, bitch, bitch about how freakin’ bored you are out here in this fancy house. How much of a jerk your dad was for not letting you drive. Do you know that’s all you talked about for months? How you couldn’t wait to drive. Oh, and you bitched about how much it sucks here and how much you’d rather be in Arizona. Yeah, Sierra, you were some fun friend to talk to. Can you blame me for not begging you to hang out?”


Sierra’s jaw dropped. That wasn’t true! That’s what Marin thought about her? She hadn’t been like that at all.


Had she?


“Then you came back from Christmas break and started partying with Angie and Kara. Did you ever think of asking me to go out with you? No. How do you think that made me feel?”