Ruthless: Contemporary Military Romance Read Online Free

thought her brother was normal…a little damaged, perhaps, but generally normal. Matt was just becoming to realize that she was wrong. His reaction—or lack thereof—to the recent events was anything but normal.
     
    Matt spent the whole day trying to find a solution. The first thought that popped into his head was that he should give therapy another shot, but he quickly dismissed the notion; he and the local psychologists and psychiatrists had told each other all there was to say. The second thought was that he should leave town. He should pack his military rucksack, give his sister a kiss, and drive out of her life.
     
    The more he thought about it, the more it sounded like the only sensible thing left to do.
     

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Holly did not go downstairs for dinner that evening. In fact, in pure distressed princess fashion, she refused any food. Nobody came to hunt her down for it, something she suspected was probably her father’s idea. She could almost hear him: “She can come when she’s hungry,” Harry Springford would say, stern and adamant as always. Well, Holly would not come. Not tonight. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
     
    The more she thought about what had happened, the more she felt like a fool. It still felt surreal to her. She had always known her parents had fully bought into the socialite kind of lifestyle—after all, that was how they had met. Although Harry Springford was mainly responsible for bringing the Springford Ranch’s fame to a nationwide level, the family was still well-known, wealthy, and respected by the time Harry was born. When her father was born, Holly’s grandparents were already active members of the high-end social circles of the town of Lincoln, Texas. It came natural to her father to think within that box, a tight box made up of strict social rules and traditional expectations.
     
    Still, Holly had always nurtured a glimmer of hope—a delusion, perhaps—that her father may be a slightly more modern man. He was a worldly man, after all. He traveled for business, he had seen…
     
    …what had he seen, really? Other ranchers. Other small-minded realities. Holly should have known better. She should have known just how to-the-bone traditional her father really was. She should have known he wouldn’t have understood. In fact, she had somehow expected it. She had expected Harry Springford to refuse to believe that being an artist could be a serious path for anyone, let alone for his beloved and only daughter.
     
    What Holly had not expected was the adamancy. The utter refusal to listen. The wall between them. The dead end. Harry Springford had refused to listen to reason or to any word she might have to say, and she had the feeling that would not change anytime soon.
     
    Holly rolled off her bed, where she had been laying for the past hour and a half, staring angrily at the ceiling. She walked to the window and sat on the small bench underneath the windowsill. Outside, the night sky was lit with too many stars to count. That was something of Texas that she would miss—the bottomless, endless night sky.
     
    Holly almost started when she realized where her train of thoughts had taken her. Leave, no matter what her father say. She simply could not spend any more time in this dead-end town.
     
    Or could she?
     
    Could she really leave, turn her back on her family? Could she leave everything and everyone she had ever known behind? And to do what? She couldn’t apply to any school without her father’s economic support.
     
    A knock at her door stole her away from her reverie.
     
    “Who is it?” she called out, making no move to leave her spot.
     
    “It’s your mother.”
     
    Holly sighed. She shouldn’t really be surprised about this, either. Whenever her father went a little too far, her mother always came along to smooth the edges. This time, however, Holly didn’t think even Eleanor Springford could breach the riff that her father had created