“Dove…,” he starts again, but I turn, walk away from him, each step like ripping skin from bone.
I look over my shoulder at him on the ground, and I hope he feels it slip under him. “I carry the burden of those other girls, Cade. Now you can, too.”
CHAPTER 25
cade
Idon’t put Evie to bed. I let Tillie handle it.
I can’t look at my daughter, not when I have blood on my hands, figuratively and literally. My knuckles are torn up, and I don’t have the wherewithal to take care of them.
When I tell Dodge he needs to take Evie to Tillie, he doesn’t ask questions.
He saw Sarah’s reaction to Landon, saw how she protected Evie—he has no doubts at all about who lied that night ten years ago.
The night on her porch keeps playing in my head again and again. The things she said, those I did.
I remember Sam coming over the next day, his hat in hand, apologizing for his daughter. Even he didn’t believe her because we trusted Landon. The Golden Boy. The Mercer, who was destined for great things. The one who got into Harvard, while I earned an associate’s degree in Farming and Ranch Management at Fort Collins. Dadinsisted, and I didn’t mind—I worked at a ranch there while I studied, honing myself to run Blue Rock someday.
“Walt, I talked to her and settled her down, okay,” Sam apologizes to my father.
They’re friends. Have been for years.
“What was she thinkin’, Sam?” Dad is furious. “I…you know I didn’t like her bein’ with Cade, you know that?”
He didn’t?Ididn’t know that.
Sam looks at me and sighs. “You both are so young and…you were getting too attached.”
No shit, we were. I love…lovedher. Now I don’t know how to feel.
“It’s my fault,” Landon chimes.
He has a black eye thanks to the punch I threw. But his nose isn’t broken, though he did bleed like a stuck hog.
“We were both drinkin’ and….” He looks at me. “Cade, I?—”
“Save it.” I’m still pissed with him.
So what if Sarah threw herself at him? He should’ve done the right thing and kept his dick zipped up.
“She always said she liked you, Landon. Respects you. I don’t know why she’d do this.” Sam keeps shaking his head. “I’m so ashamed of her.”
“As you should be,” Dad thunders. “She went to the sheriff’s, Sam. Good thing Hugh is out of town ‘cause you know him, he’d have done it by the book. Investigated and…Landon would’ve gotten kicked out of Harvard.”
“I talked to Porter, too,” Sam says, his tone low, subservient.
Deputy Porter Montgomery is a good friend of my father, and he’s the one who talked to Sarah, called Sam, Landon, and Dad to sort this out.
“He made sure she went straight home and didn’t go to the clinic,” Dad continues. “They had sex, and if someone ran a rape kit…then what?”
“I know. I know. Trust me, I know.” Sam runs his hands over his face. “Since her mother died…I checked out. No one raisin’ her, so…here we are.”
“If she doesn’t shut up about this, Sam, she’ll need to leave town. I won’t have the Mercer name dragged through the mud.”
“She won’t talk about it. I’ve made sure of it,” he assures us.
After Sam leaves, Dad looks at me.
