“I love Tristan, Momma. I don’t know when or how or why, because he’s really such a man and doesn’t listen to me, but I love him.”
Her hand drops. “Oh, dear.”
In terms of reactions, I guess this isn’t all that bad. I take her hand in mine. “I know that I shouldn’t. I know you and Daddy won’t understand, but he makes me so happy. While he’s a little dense when it comes to some things, he’s really great about others.”
“Lark, he’s been terrorizing this farm. You can’t love him,” she says quickly.
“He’s not.”
“We saw him on video.”
“That wasn’t him doing anything wrong. He knew I was upset about something, and he didn’t want me to ride my horse home alone. So he came here with me, helped me put Olympia away, and then he went home. He didn’t do any of those things.”
She shakes her head in denial. “He went to jail for it, Lark. Men don’t just do that.”
“He did it for me.”
Her inhale sounds like a gunshot in the silent room. “What? How does that make sense?”
I sigh, pulling out my phone. I logged in to the cloud, got the video, saved it to my phone, and deleted it from the drive. That way my brothers could never tamper with it or watch it.
Yeah, this is the part I was saying about being misguided and stupid. “He knew what the video could show if they went further. He knew they’d see us together, and it would cause issues for me…”
“I don’t believe that.”
I knew she wouldn’t. No one would. I cue up the video and press play.
I leave first, as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening. I’m sure they just assumed I went out to check on the horses, since we entered on the other end of the barn, so you don’t see us together.
Then, a few minutes later, you see Tristan leaving the barn, closing it up.
“That’s him leaving,” I explain.
“And that is proof he didn’t do it?” she asks with a laugh, clearly unimpressed.
“Keep watching.”
The video keeps playing, and Tristan can be seen leaving on his horse. Then, about ten minutes later, the door slides open and out comes someone else, hunched over and shielding their face from the camera.
Momma gasps. “Oh my God. Someone else was in the barn.”
I nod. “Yes, but I can’t see who or…anything really. Tristan…didn’t know what was on the recording. He assumed there might have been something with the two of us.”
Momma catches on, finishing for me. “So he took the fall to protect you.”
It’s my turn to nod. “I tried to make it right, to tell the truth, but he wouldn’t let me.”
She clasps her hands in front of her. “This is…a mess. Your daddy is never going to be okay with it. I can’t even think about either of your brothers’ reactions.”
It really doesn’t matter in some ways. It’s over between us. He’s decided that loving me is not worth the risk. He does this with anything that scares him.
“I don’t even know if telling them is worth it, since he’s decided he can’t be with me.”
My mother bristles. “And why can’t he?”
“Because he’s afraid.”
A look of almost understanding flashes across her face. “He doesn’t want to go through what he did with Emmy Jo.”
