Indie: Are you okay?
She was about to set the phone down when dots popped up.
Colt: Yeah, I’m all right. Are you? I’m sorry about this morning.
Indie: I’m okay. Confused, but okay. What haven’t you told me?
Colt: A lot.
Her pulse picked up, and she didn’t know how to feel about that. She knew she didn’t have the right to feel angry, when she hadn’t shared everything either. She’d kept every passive-aggressive comment his mother had made over the years from him. She’d kept the hurt to herself. The anxiety at the prospect of seeing her. So how could she be angry that Colt had kept a part of his past hidden?
Her phone suddenly rang. She picked it straight up. “Colt—”
“He was a drug addict.”
She closed her eyes and let that information sink in. “I’m sorry.”
“He would drink and do drugs. And then he’d get mean. Hit my mom. Try to hit me.”
Pain gripped her heart. It squeezed so tightly that she almost grabbed her chest. “Try?”
“My mom would get in front of me, to shield me. I fuckinghatethose memories.”
And Colt had seen it all. Sadness and grief and agony swirled inside her.
It explained so much. Why Colt never saw the parts of his mother that she saw. Why he never heard the unkindness in her voice. He was forever trying to make up for his childhood.
Because not protecting her from his father would have hurt Colt. And more than that, his mother had taken the brunt of his fathers cruelty to protect him.
“It took Mom a long time to cut him off. Too long. She put the accounts in her name so he wouldn’t have access to any money. She tried to get him help. Instead of accepting that help, he stole drugs and money from the wrong people.”
Her stomach dropped, because she knew what was coming next.
“They broke in. I hid in the library. That’s the day she finally kicked him out.”
Her heart broke for the child version of Colt. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.
“Because I was a coward. It hurts to talk about. To think about. And I hate admitting that his blood runs through my veins. So when I told you my father left, and you accepted it, I took the easy way out and left it at that.”
“Your past, even if it’s painful, is a huge part of what makes you who you are, Colt. My past, with my parents’ death and sister leaving, is painful too, but I shared that. You left out this big part of yourself.”
“I know.” Regret weaved into his words. “I’m sorry.”
She pushed off the kitchen counter and moved to the living room window. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find him.”
“No.” The response was instant, and a complete reflection of the panic that flared in her chest.
“I need to make him leave town,” Colt pushed.
“You told him you wanted him gone today. If you have that conversation again, in private, without any witnesses…” She didn’t finish her sentence, because she didn’t need to. The anger she’d seen in Colt this morning was something she’d never witnessed before. That man had been capable of things that could get him into a lot of trouble.
“Indie—”
“I don’t want you to find him, Colt.”
“What am I supposed to do then?”
