Page 30 of Love, Lies, and Whiskey

Doc held his hands up. “I just want to talk.” When he came off the hillside, he said, “Your mom is worried sick about you.”

“I don’t care,” Lucas snapped, his hands fisting as he faced off with Doc. “She doesn’t give a shit about me. She’s a fucking liar.”

“I get that you’re pissed, and you have a right to be. Hell, we all have a right to be. But that’s your mother you’re talking about, so watch your mouth. She gave up her life to save yours when she wasn’t much older than you.”

“She didn’t give up shit.” Lucas’s eyes were shooting daggers. “And don’t act like you’re my father. I don’t even know you.”

“You’re right. You don’t know me, but I’m hoping one day that’ll change.”

“Keep dreaming.” Lucas walked away. “You’re just some asshole who knocked up my mother.”

“Oh yeah? Is that what you think?” Doc strode in front of him, blocking his path. He knew he was walking a fine line, but he wasn’t about to let Lucas get away with assumptions and bad-mouthing him or Juliette. “You seem like you’re pretty grown up, so I’m not going to dumb this down for you. Think you can handle talking man-to-man? Or do you want to act like a child and run away again?”

Lucas crossed his arms, lifting his chin.

It was like looking in a fucking mirror twenty years earlier.

Doc pushed that thought down deep and focused on clearing the air. “I don’t know how much your mother told you, but I’m going to give it to you straight. I wasn’t just the asshole who knocked her up. I was the asshole who fell so damn in love with her, I couldn’t see straight when she was torn from my life. Your mother has owned my heart since she was sixteen years old, and if you think she didn’t give up anything to raise you, you’re sorely mistaken. She gave up a whole fucking ranch full of people who loved her.”

“Yeah, right. That’s why you were never in our lives, because you cared so much.”

“I was never in your life because I didn’t know you existed.” He took a deep breath, trying to temper his frustration and figure out how to get his point across. “Imagine you had a girlfriend, and suddenly her father shows up with bodyguards and drags her into an SUV, kicking and screaming, and he locks her up like a fucking prisoner in her own home. That’s what your grandfather did to your mother, all because I wasn’t from a rich enough family for him. He threatened to ruin my family if I ever came near her again. I went behind my family’s back, risking everything we were and everything we had, and I fought to see her. Your grandfather told me she was back together with her ex-boyfriend and she didn’t care about me. Then he ordered his bodyguards to kick my ass. They left me barely conscious on the side of the road. Don’t think for a second that I didn’t fight for her.”

Lucas swallowed hard, and Doc thought he saw a moment of understanding. But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. “If you two were so in love, why didn’t she fight for you?”

“She did, only I never knew it. Your grandfather monitored the phones, so your mother wrote me letters and gave them to a housekeeper to get them to me, but I never received them. That housekeeper gave your mother a letter that was supposedly written by me, telling her I didn’t want her or our baby. But I never wrote it.”

Lucas’s eyes narrowed. “If you didn’t write it, who did?”

“I believe your grandfather either wrote that letter or had someone else write it for him. But it doesn’t matter who wrote it. What matters is that your mother and I were both deceived. Your grandfather gave her an ultimatum to abort the pregnancy or marry Josh. She married Josh so she wouldn’t lose you.”

“You’re saying my father married her just because of me?” Lucas’s eyes glassed over, new fury igniting in them. “That’s a lie,” he hissed. “My father loved us.”

“Yes, he did. Very much, from what your mother says. And your mother loved him, too, but she wasn’t in love with him, like she was with me. There’s a difference.”

“And you just gave up on her? That’s not love.”

“Don’t you dare question my love for your mother. Her engagement announcement was in the newspaper and all over social media. When I saw that, I thought it was true. You have to remember, your mother never got a single message to me in all the weeks after she was taken away from the ranch. I thought she was done with me. What did you expect me to do? Fight for a woman who I thought didn’t want me? Let your grandfather ruin my family because I was a lovesick fool?”

“Shut up.” Lucas turned away. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

“I get it. This whole situation sucks. But you need to know that your mom was trying to protect you. She thought I’d written that letter, and she couldn’t bear the thought of you growing up thinking you were unwanted by me. Don’t hate her because she made a decision at sixteen years old based on the lies she was told. If you want to hate anyone, hate your grandfather for doing this to all of us. If I’d known your mother was pregnant, I’d have been there every day of your life, loving you as much as I loved her.”

“You don’t even know me.” His voice was low and shaky.

“I don’t have to know you to care about you. You’re my blood, but even if you weren’t, I care about your mom, and by extension, that falls to you.” Doc gave that a minute to sink in. “If you think I don’t care, you’re wrong. I have forty men out there searching for you tonight. But I’m not the one who matters right now. Your mother is, and she’s beside herself with worry. How about you text her and let her know you’re alive?”

Lucas didn’t move.

“Come on, dude. She’s spent the last fifteen years raising you, providing for you, and protecting your heart. Surely you can take seven seconds to send a text that’ll protect hers.”

Lucas’s shoulders slumped.

Send the text. Come on, buddy. You can do it.

Lucas shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone, reluctantly thumbing out a text.

“Attaboy. Now let’s get you and that horse of yours home.”