“Like disappearing and being gone aren’t the same thing.” I pick up my glass of bourbon and hold it with both hands.
“What did you help Jay find out about my mother?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a second before he turns to me. “Not as much as either of us wanted. The last thing he confirmed was that she was alive. He never stopped looking for her. I want you to know that. He searched for years.” My mother is alive. Or was. I sit with that fresh on my conscience and make the decision to put it on a shelf somewhere to deal with later. There are too many things more important and I would rather keep that door closed until I’m ready to open it.
The evenings on the porch become the place where we sit and have some real conversations. Something about sitting in the dark makes the hard things easier to handle. He tells me more about Vivian and the deal they made and the way she has been watching Jarrell for years. He tells me how she had people watching him and reporting back to her, and he did what he needed to keep her from finding out the truth. “She’s not stupid,” he says.
“No,” I agree. “You can’t be stupid and be evil.”
“Which means going back can’t be impulsive.”
I look at him. “I didn’t say anything about going back,” I tell him. “I’m thinking about it.” He doesn’t say anything, just reaches over and picks up his glass and takes a sip and I realize again that I’ve started noticing all the right things he does and I’m not as angry with him now as I have been. “Who did she have watching you?” He pauses, taking another sip with a sigh before answering.
“That’s a conversation for later,” he says. I turn my head and look at him then look back out into the dark woods and decide to trust the order he’s putting things in because so far he’s only told me the right amount of information each time we talk. I don’t have the energy to fight every piece of information as it arrives.
“Okay,” I say.
The next morning when I wake he is already on the porch and I stand in the doorway in nothing but an oversized shirtand socks and watch him through the glass. He’s leaning on the rail, shirtless, with his coffee in hand, watching Duke run around on the grass. The morning light hits his skin, highlighting every single line of muscle on his sculpted torso. I lick the drool from my lips as I rake my eyes up and down his body for far too long and think about how I woke up without him the last six years and how that used to feel like I’d barely survive the day and now it feels almost normal. I push through the door and he turns around, eyeing me then grunts as he turns back around. “Payson…I can only take so much,” he grunts.
“Would you prefer I walk around naked instead?”
He runs a hand down his face sighing again before letting out a long breath. “It’s going to rain,” he says, looking toward the sky. I look up at the sky, the gray clouds hovering angrily above us. “When?”
“Afternoon probably.” I lean on the rail beside him, looking at Duke roll around on the grass before my eyes make their way to his muscular frame.
“I don’t hate you,” I say, my eyes finally finding his. “I thought you should know that.” His eyes search mine, relief running through them. “I’m not there yet, but the more I see you like this, the more I’m starting to.”
He pulls me into him gently, kissing my head and letting his hand settle low on my back just above my ass. “Thank you,” he says finally, and in this moment everything is right.
CHAPTER 51
Ledgar
She’son her second cup of coffee when I walk in with the folder I’ve been holding onto for three days, waiting for the right moment to give it to her. I’ve watched her every morning sipping her coffee, every walk we have taken, and every evening when we talk. She takes every piece of information I’ve given her and processes it like she’s known it all along. She isn’t the same woman I left in bed six years ago, she’s stronger, and a little bit more argumentative if I must say. This morning when she came down the hall in that same ole oversized T-shirt of mine she found in the room, she grabbed her mug quietly and is now standing at the window in the kitchen, looking out at the yard with something quiet and almost peaceful in her face.
Not that I want to ruin mornings like these but it’s the right time. I set it on the counter in front of her and lean against the counter across from her with my coffee in hand. I watch her with enough distance between us to let her feel what she needs to feel without my presence suffocating her, yet still close enough tocatch her if she starts to fall. She looks at the folder then back at me. “What’s this?”
“Something you need to see.” I nod to the folder. She opens it and I watch as she reads the first page. Her eyes move across it and stop, go back to the top and move across it again. The second time through her hands go still on the paper and she doesn’t move and I know then she’s read the results. She flips to the second page, and her chin drops just a fraction as she reads it through once, twice, and then to me.
“He knew,” she says. “This entire time.” I nod at her, hoping this doesn’t set us back again as I brace myself for the next question I know is coming because I knew this entire time too, but it doesn’t come. “These past few years we became closer than we ever were when I was growing up and he knew.”
“He was protecting you.” I keep my voice soft but stern. “The same way I thought I was protecting you by leaving.”
“From what?” She looks up at me, tears in her eyes, and questions I can’t answer for her. “From knowing who I was? From knowing I had a father the entire time right there in front of me.” She puts both hands flat on the counter and breathes, slow and deep. “He was right there the whole time.”
“Payson.”
“I know.” She shakes her head. “I know he thought he was doing the right thing. The same as you. It’s just…it’s a lot.”
“I know it is.” She quiets for a moment, her eyes still scanning over the birth certificate. “Did you know?” she asks. “When you were helping him find my mother? Did he tell you?” I hold her gaze as I answer.
“Yes.” She nods slowly. “I found out shortly after Vivian sent those men to kill you.” Her head snaps in my direction.
“He was my father,” she whispers, her voice trying not to crack.
“Yes he was,” I tell her assuringly. “So everything tied to the Reith name…toourname…”
“Is yours,” I say softly, just the way I imagined I would tell her since the day Jarrell told me on the phone. “Rightfully, and legally. Everything. The casino, the properties, the accounts, all of it. Everything has your name on it whether Vivian wants to acknowledge that or not. Griffith made sure of it.” She looks at the folder sitting closed on the counter between us.
