“It’ll be okay, Sage.” My lips part, but I think better of saying anything more just yet, and my mouth snaps shut again, jaw clenched.
She pushes back from the table. “He’ll be wondering about dinner. But I might be a little too keyed up to eat right now. What the hell do we tell him? This is so fucked.” Her voice hitches, and it damn near breaks my heart.
Scrubbing a hand over my stubble-coated cheek, I huff out, “I don’t know.” A bomb exploded in her father’s office, sending scandalous debris flying in all directions. All these years, Sage thought her mother left her when the reality is Ridge must have sent her away andnever said a word. Jesus H. Christ. It’s a lot to take in. For all we know, we’re the only ones who are aware of Laurel’s whereabouts and why she disappeared and never came back. Now, the burden of sharing our findings falls squarely in our laps. I wish we could spare everyone from the uproar that is certain to follow.
A protective surge flashes through me. They’ll be looking to me for my reaction. For how to handle this. I heave out a stress-filled breath. “This isn’t something we can keep to ourselves.”
“No, it’s not. Secrets like this have a habit of slithering out of their hiding places at the most inopportune times,” Sage mumbles as Kade’s footfalls outside draw closer. With her anxious eyes pinned on mine, she sighs, “Rhett, how thefuckdo we approach this?”
Closing my eyes, I pinch the bridge of my nose, easing the tension as I turn her question over in my head. “I don’t know. I’m trying real fuckin’ hard to put myself in our parents’ shoes, but I can’t imagine what they were thinking… the upheaval and anger and turmoil it must have caused. They chose to bury the secret. But—” Before I can finish, the door swings open and Kade fills the frame with his tall form. I swallow hard like there’s an uncooked bit of potato caught in my throat.
Hovering in the doorway, my brother’s sharp eyes cut quickly between his girl and me. “What’s goin’ on?” Hisbrow furrows hard as he studies us before glancing around the kitchen.
I clear my throat, but Sage speaks first. “Sorry. Um, I haven’t gotten started on dinner.” Her teeth clench. She gives him a half-hearted smile filled with all the worry that’s clearly begun to bottle up inside her.
“No problem, Wildflower. But what the hell is happening? You two are actin’ cagier than a couple of foxes trying to bust into a chicken coop.”
Mashing my lips together, I gesture toward a chair at the table. “I think you’d better sit down for this.”
“The fuck,” he mutters on a harsh exhale, gripping the back of a kitchen chair. “I’ll stand.”
“You know Sage has been concerned with some of the bookkeeping around here…”
He gives a swift nod, removing his hat and plunking it on the table in front of him. “But this feels like more than a simple fuckin’ clerical error. Am I wrong?”
“Well, what we discovered had nothing to do with the ranch itself.” I glance at the girl who is now an extension of our family, though I have no clue of the exact relation. Her hands have begun to twist together on the tabletop. Eyeing her, I murmur, “It’s gonna be fine, Sage.”
“Spit it the fuck out, whatever it is,” Kade erupts, his gaze bouncing between us.
I raise a brow, a disturbed chuckle falling from my lips, unbidden. “Actually, it’s more than one thing.”
The distress etching Sage’s features makes me want to step in, but she gives a swift jerk of her head. “I need to say this first bit out loud.” She trains her gaze on my brother. “We found my mother. She’s been at a mental institution of some sort. There’s evidence of payment from my dad’s personal bank account. He’d known all along and said nothing. He made me believe she’d abandoned me.”
At the tremor in her voice, Kade tugs his girlfriend from the chair. In one swift movement, he eases them both back down, her in his lap, his arms encircling her waist. “Fuck, baby.” They stare into each other’s eyes, and without him saying anything else, she nods. Huffing out a breath, Kade shakes his head. “She’s been there this entire time?”
Sage bites her lip. “It would seem that way. But that’s only a small piece of what we discovered.” She glances my way for help.
“There’s no easy way to tell you this, so I’ll get right to it. Mom had an affair. She cheated on Dad. With Ridge.”
Kade’s eyes bug out, and he blinks several times, his face swiftly leaching of blood. “When?”
I hold up a hand. “There’s more. They had a child.We found a photo of the two of them. Impossible to tell when it was taken, though.”
“What the fuck? Who?”
“That was our reaction, too.” Sage peers at my brother’s clenched jaw, complete with twitching muscle.
“Wait.” Kade’s eyes dart to Sage’s.
She shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she mumbles, answering the question he didn’t ask, but is hovering at the edge of all our thoughts. She twists in his arms, burrowing her face into his neck. “No. I’d know. We’d know.”
I scrub my hands over my face. “Is it Lucy? Is it me? Is it you? The twins? There’s no fucking obvious answer.” I use this opportunity to slide the letter over to Kade. He takes a moment to read, biting back a series of curses as he gets to the bottom.
“Not only did she confess to killing our parents”—his gaze darkens as he stares at me—“she’s alluding that their infidelity had something to do with Jonah’s and Lucy’s death, too.”
My eyes drift shut as I silently nod, then huff out a breath. “We’ve been trying to make sense of her crazed revelations, and all we can figure is that they found out about the secret baby, and they died before they told anyone what they’d discovered.”
“I think we’d better have a fuckin’ conversation withGrandma Jo,” Kade bites out. “She has to know something.”
