He was shocked, and I couldn’t blame him.
Tanner had thought he knew everything about my brother, so all of this had to be hard for him to accept, too.
“Why did you keep that childhood incident from me?” he asked. “I get that Keith wanted to protect you, but you could have told me about it after you were grown. We’ve always been tight, Lauren.”
I shrugged. “I really didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. I think I just buried it for a long time. I couldn’t change the past, and I wasn’t molested. It was just something scary that happened to me when I was a kid.”
“Thank fuck that Cole was there,” he grumbled. “It could have been a lot worse. I can’t blame your brother for wanting to kill the bastard. I’m surprised because I never saw Keith as a guy who could murder anyone, but I understand why he did it. He wanted to protect you.”
I went on to explain exactly what had happened that day, and how Keith had killed his uncle after the man had sworn that he’d get to me somehow.
“He also knew that your uncle killed your aunt. He told Keith about that to intimidate him. He planned to turn himself in, Tanner. He’d just wanted enough time to get me to adulthood and to make sure I was going to be okay. If he hadn’t died in that motorcycle accident, he would have spent the rest of his life in jail. He sounded like he was resigned to his fate.”
“Fuck!” Tanner growled. “If I’d known, I would have tried to talk him out of that. Your brother wasn’t a murderer, and my uncle was scum who murdered his own wife and put his kids through hell. Keith did what he did out of desperation and fear. It was a gut reaction, and he probably regretted the way he handled it later.”
“Maybe he knew that you’d try to talk him out of turning himself in,” I suggested. “Maybe that’s why he never told you. You knew Keith better than anyone. I don’t know if he could have lived with himself if he didn’t do what he thought was the right thing. He had a moral compass.”
“I know,” Tanner said, his voice full of regret. “Learning all of this has been really hard on you.”
“It upended everything I knew about my brother,” I admitted before I took a large sip of my wine. “You knew Keith. It never even occurred to me that he could be violent in any way.”
Tanner swallowed a mouthful of whiskey. “I think Keith was just pushed to his limit. His reason and logic just shut down in his brain. Maybe there were things you didn’t know, but never doubt how much he loved you, Lauren. You were everything to him.”
“I know that,” I answered. “I’ll work all of this out in my head eventually, but I’m not sure what to do now. I have to go to Ralph Norton. I can’t just let the information go now that I know what happened. Cole and Asher need to be completely exonerated, and the case needs to be closed.”
“Is that what Cole wants?” Tanner questioned.
I shook my head. “I haven’t talked to him. He can’t possibly want to be with me now. My brother killed his father, Tanner. He and Asher were suspects.”
“Only in the eyes of some of the town. If they were serious suspects, they never would have been allowed to freely leave Montana,” Tanner said gruffly. “And just FYI, there’s no way he’s letting you go. He’s crazy about you, Lauren, and I think you feel the same way about him. You two just need to talk. I’m surprised he hasn’t put a ring on your finger yet. But mark my words, he will.”
“I love him,” I said tearfully. “But I’m not sure I can live with the fact that my brother killed his father. People were vicious to him and Asher, especially when they were younger. Cole wasn’t even an adult, yet he was getting attacked by the people in this town for murdering his father, Tanner.”
“I know you’re emotional right now,” Tanner said gently. “But don’t make any rash decisions until you’ve had time to think this through, Lauren. You’d be thinking with your emotions and not your head. It’s going to take a while to process everything. Hell, it’s going to takemea while to come to terms with the truth. I can only imagine what you’re going through right now.”
I watched as Tanner pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“It’s Hannah,” he explained as he looked at his text. “She wants to know if you’re okay. I took off in a hurry.”
“Please tell her that I’m fine. I don’t want her to worry.”
Tanner took a minute to write a text to his wife.
“Go home,” I told him when he finished. “I should have tried to control my reactions and talked to you tomorrow. I just freaked out.”
Tanner lifted a brow. “That’s not something you do very often, so you should understand why that scared me.”
I nodded. “I do. I’m grateful that you came over. I think I needed someone to talk to about all this. You were Keith’s best friend. We’ll talk more once we’ve had some time to think about all of this. Part of me feels incredibly guilty because Keith felt like he had to kill someone for me.”
“Don’t,” Tanner said gutturally. “You were a child, Lauren, and it wasn’t your decision. Keith decided to handle things that way. He could have gone to the police. Hell, he could have picked up and moved you away from here. He could have made a million different decisions. He was thinking with his gut and not his head. I get why he did what he did because I know how protective he was with you, but the way he decided to resolve it wasn’t your fault. I wish he’d talked to me about it before it happened. I wish he’d done things differently. But don’t you dare for one fucking second blame yourself for his decisions. Do you understand?”
I looked at Tanner’s fierce expression. “Reasonably, I do understand,” I explained. “I guess it’s my gut reaction to think that it’s my fault. He made that decisionbecause of me.”
“You need to find the rational part of your brain right now,” Tanner argued. “He was an adult. You were a child. He was your guardian. He made a mistake, Lauren. If he’d gotten caught, he would have left you even more vulnerable because you wouldn’t have had him to look out for you. He felt backed into a corner and made a stupid decision.”
“He was barely an adult himself when it happened,” I said.
“Yeah, but hewasstill an adult,” Tanner grumbled. “Sometimes we think we’re invincible when we’re young. Leave it, Lauren. His decisions werehisdecisions. You didn’t cause the murder, and you were in no way responsible. Don’t let some misplaced guilt ruin what you have with Cole. Hell, he needs you. He’s a completely different man now that you two aretogether, a really good man. I think he’d completely lose his shit if you broke up with him.”
