The Truth About Hope. Kate James

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СКАЧАТЬ She just had to get it out. “I’m leaving Canyon Creek.”

      “What?” The word exploded from Luke’s mouth. “What do you mean you’re leaving?”

      She inched farther away from him. She couldn’t go through with it if she could feel him next to her, touching her. His nearness made her resolve waver. Her heart was racing, and there was a terrible constriction in her chest that made breathing almost impossible, but she tried to keep her voice unaffected. “I’m going to live with my father in California.”

      Luke jumped off the rock. Bracing his arms on either side of her legs, he caged her in. “Your father? The man you can’t remember? The man who practically destroyed this town?”

      “He’s still my father.”

      Luke shook his head, but kept his eyes, intense and angry, on hers. “What kind of sick joke is this?”

      Hope broke eye contact, focusing on a spot over his left shoulder. She couldn’t continue, if she had to keep looking into his furious gaze. “It’s not a joke.”

      “You’re not making sense. Why would you do that?”

      “Because he asked.”

      Luke turned, picked up a large stone and heaved it into the water, where it landed with a splash. He watched the ripples spread before turning back. His voice was more controlled when he spoke again. “Hope, what’s this all about? You don’t want to live with your father.”

      He knew her too well. She nearly shrieked that, no, she didn’t want to. She almost begged him to make it all go away. Instead, she nodded slowly. “Yes. It is what I want.”

      “It makes no sense. Why?”

      She slid off the rock and threw up her arms. “I’m tired of living in a place that’s so small everyone knows your business. I’m tired of not being able to buy a new pair of sneakers or go on a school trip because I can’t afford it.” More calmly now, and with full honesty, she added, “And I can’t impose on Aunt Clarissa. I can’t expect her to move here and give up her life to take care of me.”

      “She’d do it. She loves you. Or you can live with us. Mom won’t mind. Travis would love it.”

      “No, Luke. I’m leaving,” she said emphatically. And with finality.

CHAPTER THREE

      IT WAS HOPE’S first time on a plane. With every passing minute, she was inexorably transported toward an uncertain and terrifying future. The distance between her and everything she knew and loved increased. Far below, the ranches formed a patchwork quilt of greens and browns. The occasional ribbon of blue water haphazardly transected the rectangles of varying textures and sizes. Gauzy white clouds drifted by.

      Hope leaned her forehead against the cool window and thought about her mother as she watched the ground rush by. It still didn’t seem possible that she wouldn’t see her bright, vivacious, loving mother again. When reality did come crashing down on her, the weight of it seemed too much to bear. Her reflections turned to her father, what she’d known and what she’d learned over the past week.

      Jock Wilson had left her and her mother when Hope was barely two. She wasn’t aware of the details because her mother never talked about it. Aunt Clarissa didn’t know much either or, if she did, she wouldn’t say. Her father had taken off to make a fortune with the internet. Hope had no idea if he’d wanted them to move with him and her mother had refused, or if he’d simply left without giving them a choice. Hope wondered if he’d enlighten her, but did it really matter?

      Her father had owned and operated a computer components manufacturing plant in Canyon Creek. He was reputed to be one of the most successful businessmen in the area at that time. Evidently it hadn’t been enough for him. She and her mother hadn’t been enough.

      Manufacturing was a huge contributor to the Texas economy, and a lot of people in Canyon Creek had earned their living at her father’s plant. His company had been one of the largest employers in town. As a consequence, her father’s leaving—or more accurately, the closing of his plant—had created considerable hardship. Nearly everyone in Canyon Creek had been negatively affected.

      Hadn’t Luke thrown it at her when he’d mentioned her father’s having destroyed the town? Many people had lost their jobs, Luke’s father among them. The impact on the local economy was still talked about fifteen years later.

      Hope had heard, too, that her father’s employees wanted to buy the business from him, but he’d refused their offer. Instead he’d closed the plant.

      She would’ve thought he’d want the proceeds from the sale of his business, either to his employees or a competitor. Aunt Clarissa told her it had to do with some sort of financial advantage folding the company would create for him. Apparently he wanted to show he’d lost money on it. One thing she understood about her father was that he was a shrewd businessman. It must have made sense for him from a business perspective, if not a human one.

      The building had sat empty for years until it was finally torn down. Now there was a Taco Bell and a gas station where the plant had been.

      After Jock Wilson left Canyon Creek, no one heard from him again, as far as Hope knew. If he’d had any contact with her mother, Hope was unaware of it. Her mother had received some sort of financial support, but again the details were sketchy, and it couldn’t have been much. Hope speculated that might be part of the reason her father had wanted to show a business loss, to decrease the amount of support he’d have to pay.

      Whatever the circumstances behind her parents’ split, it had obviously been acrimonious. There hadn’t been a single picture of her father in their home. The only images Hope had of him were those she’d found on the internet.

      He was a tall, distinguished-looking man, slender, with short, slicked-back hair. She guessed the color of his hair would’ve been close to hers at one time, but now it was streaked with gray. His eyes weren’t anything like her deep brown ones, though. They were a piercing slate gray. There was no warmth in them, judging by what she could see in the pictures. Even when he smiled, it never touched his eyes. She pulled a picture from the side pocket of her backpack to refresh her memory of the man who was her father.

      Examining the picture, Hope resented the guilt she felt every time she remembered what her father had done. But was she any better? Here she was, leaving Canyon Creek, too. As far as everyone was concerned, her reasons weren’t very different from her father’s—and she was the one who’d convinced them of that.

      A few days after her run-in with Suzie, Hope had come to appreciate the significance of her impulsive actions. She’d been prepared to endure the move to San Jose, with the expectation that when she turned eighteen, she’d come home again. But what she’d done—what she’d said—made that impossible.

      With the pretense she’d created, there was no way she could return. The dynamics had already shifted during the week since her “revelation.” People treated her differently.

      What she had done weighed heavily on her. Aunt Clarissa had urged her to tell everyone the truth, but Hope couldn’t bring herself to do it. She just didn’t have the strength or the energy to set things right. Still believing that moving to San Jose was her decision, Luke had tried to change her mind until the very end. She couldn’t forget the СКАЧАТЬ