by Jessie Evans
Grayson left the meeting knowing he would have to cut three hands before the new year and sat down to lunch with a sister who refused to so much as look at him, let alone carry on a conversation. By the time his turkey sandwich was half eaten, the loaded silence and the pinched expression on Layla’s face finally proved too much for him.
“I said I was sorry,” Grayson said. “I planned to come home after I exercised the horses, but Reece was sick and the doctors said she might need surgery. I couldn’t just dump her at the hospital and run off.”
“I know. I understand,” Layla murmured, her eyes still glued to the turkey salad she was herding around her plate with a fork. “I’m not mad about that.”
“Then what are you mad about?”
“I’m not mad. Not at you, anyway. I just…” She sighed as she set her fork down and looked up, meeting Grayson’s eyes for the first time since he sat down at the table. “I went into Daddy’s office yesterday after you left. I wanted to take a look at the expense sheets and see if I could find a way to keep everyone on. I used to help Wayne’s dad with their budget and I thought I might see something you and Hamm missed.”
Grayson nodded. “Good. I’m grateful for any help I can get. But I’m guessing from the look on your face you didn’t find an answer, either.”
“I’m not sure yet.” She folded her napkin in half and then in half again. “I might still find a way to squeeze more money into the payroll budget, but I got distracted before I was finished crunching the numbers. I was organizing Dad’s desktop, trying to make sense of his filing system, and found a hidden, password-protected folder.”
Grayson’s stomach clenched and his bite of sandwich went gritty and tasteless in his mouth. “That doesn’t sound good.”
Layla shook her head slowly, seeming to brace herself for what she was going to say next. “That’s what I thought. So I started trying to get in, thinking maybe it was something related to the ranch or the unpaid taxes or something. I eventually cracked the password, but it…wasn’t anything like that.”
“What was it?” He could tell from the haunted look in his sister’s eyes that whatever she’d found wasn’t good. He hadn’t seen that expression on her face since the morning she showed up on the front step, telling him she’d left Wayne and was afraid for her life.
“Pictures of young girls,” Layla said in a strained voice. “Thousands of them. The kind that would get a man sent to prison if they were found by the police.”
Grayson cursed as he shoved his plate away, so sickened he knew his appetite wouldn’t be recovering any time soon.
“I didn’t recognize any of the faces,” Layla continued. “So I don’t think Dad took the photographs, but he still had a huge collection. Some of the files dated all the way back to when I was a kid.”
“Jesus.” Grayson brought his hand to his face, digging his thumb and middle finger into the tops of his eyes. “I knew he liked younger women, but I had no idea…”
“I deleted it as soon as I realized what it was,” Layla said. “But I haven’t been able to get those girls’ faces out of my mind. I lay awake all night last night feeling sick.” She paused, before adding in a softer voice. “And thinking about Reece Hearst.”
Grayson looked up sharply. “Reece? Why?”
“I don’t know. So many of the girls in the pictures were blonde,” Layla said, her distress clear in her voice. “And I got a good look at Reece yesterday, when she ran across the yard. That wasn’t what she looked like when we were in high school. Back then she was this tiny, skinny little thing. She barely filled out an A cup, even when she had a padded bra to help her out. One of the meaner girls in my group used to call her Miracle Bra. Right to her face.” Layla let out a shaky laugh. “Reece would get so mad, I swear her eyes glowed red.”
“What are you saying?” he asked, though he had a pretty good idea where Layla was headed with this. And he was starting to feel pretty fucking stupid for assuming Reece hated his father because he’d broken her heart.
“I’m saying she didn’t look like a woman.” Layla wadded her napkin tightly in her fist. “She looked like a little girl, like the kids in those disgusting pictures on Dad’s computer. I was thinking about that last night, and about the way Reece was with him. The way she—”
Layla broke off with a shake of her head. “She looked up to him like a father, Grayson, not anything else. Deep down, I knew that. I was just so scared to admit that my father wasn’t the man I wanted him to be that I made myself believe Dad’s side of the story instead of hers.”
“What was her side of the story?” Acid burned the back of Grayson’s throat as his mind skipped ahead to the logical conclusion.
Layla looked up, blinking wide eyes. “He never told you?” A bitter smile twisted her lips. “Of course he never told you. Why would he? You were half a world away and it wasn’t like you came home often enough to keep up with all the ugly gossip.”
“Just tell me,” Grayson said tightly. “I need to know.”
“She said he tried to rape her,” Layla whispered, her eyes shining. “But almost no one believed it. They believed Daddy when he said she’d come on to him and gotten her feelings hurt when he pushed her away. That she was lying just to hurt him.”
Grayson’s jaw clenched so tight his entire skull began to ache. His fists clenched on top of the table though he knew there was no point. It was too late to put a fist through his father’s jaw, too late to take back all the stupid, insensitive things he’d said to Reece yesterday.
“And sure, Dad ended up getting kicked off the rodeo board because of the scandal,” Layla continued. “And he lost some of his clients, but he built his list back up again. He could still coach and watch his kids compete. He had to put up with the suspicious looks for a while, but eventually everyone forgot about the accusations and moved on.”
“Not everyone,” Grayson said, the quiver in Reece’s voice yesterday, when she said she hated his father, taking on an entirely new meaning.
How could he have been so stupid? Neil was three decades older than Reece when the scandal broke, for God’s sake. Grayson should have smelled something rotten from the get go. But he’d been like Layla, stubbornly clinging to a lie because the truth was too ugly to face.
“Yeah, I bet.” Layla sighed as she covered her forehead with one hand. “What are we going to do, Grayson? The pictures made me so sick I didn’t think before I deleted them, but what if some of those girls need help? Should we call the authorities and turn Dad’s computer over? I know they have ways of recovering files, even if they’ve been deleted.”
“We have to,” Grayson said. “They might have a way to trace them to the person who posted them for sale. If even one of those monsters gets shut down it’s worth the scandal.”
“Can a dead man be charged with a felony?” Layla asked, sounding as shell-shocked as Grayson felt.
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “But it doesn’t matter. Dad gave up the right to have his memory untarnished when he did the things he did.”
The things he did…like trying to rape one of his students. To rape Reece.
The thought made Grayson so sick and ashamed he wanted to drop everything and drive over to the Hearst ranch to apologize on behalf of his entire family. But he and Layla spent the rest of the afternoon dealing with the police, answering questions, and helping the officers carry his father’s computer equipment down to the waiting squad cars.
“This was a brave thing you did. The right thing.” As Ned Wyatt, the police chief, stood facing them on the front porch, his tired eyes were filled with sadness. But then, he’d known Neil and was obviously as shocked by this discovery as Grayson and Layla were. “I’ll let you know when we turn the computers over to the feds and try to keep this quiet for as long as possible.”
“Thanks,” Grayson said, pressing the chief’s hand. “Let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”
Ned nodded before descendi
ng the porch steps and crossing to his cruiser. He pulled down the long drive just as the winter sun was dipping behind the ridge, turning the orange sunset light to a moody winter blue. Grayson stood next to Layla, watching the car disappear, knowing it was time to go, but having no idea what he was going to say to Reece. An apology would mean less than nothing after what she’d been through, but he didn’t know what else he could offer her.
“I’m going to head over to the Hearst ranch,” he said. “Will you be all right alone until I get back?”
“I’ll be fine.” Layla crossed her arms tight, huddling against the cold as she turned to him in the fading light. “I would go with you, but I don’t think Reece would enjoy seeing my face. I treated her badly back when we were in school. I was jealous of how much attention she got from Dad.” Her gaze shifted to the barn, their father’s kingdom when he was alive. “But I guess now I should be grateful he didn’t love me the way he loved other girls.”
Bile rose in Grayson’s throat. “I’m betting there are others. If this was a lifetime obsession, I doubt it’s something he tried just once.”
“Just talk to her,” Layla said, a faintly hopeful note in her voice. “Maybe we’re jumping to the wrong conclusions. Maybe it was like Dad said, at least with her.”
“You don’t believe that,” Grayson said.
Layla sighed and her shoulders fell. “No, I don’t. And I’ve spent too many years hiding from the truth to keep sticking my head in the sand. I’ll write Reece an apology tonight. I owe her that much. I owe her more, but I don’t know what else to do.”
Grayson put his arm around Layla and hugged her to his side. “It’s not your fault. You wanted to believe your dad was a good guy. That’s what all kids want to believe about their fathers.”
“But he wasn’t,” Layla said softly. “I knew that. I was just looking for someone to blame for it other than myself.”
“Why would you blame yourself?” Grayson asked. “That’s crazy.”
Layla shrugged. “When your own father doesn’t seem to love you, it makes you wonder. I thought there was something wrong with me. I never imagined that he refused to hug me or touch me for…other reasons.”
Grayson shook his head. “Shit just keeps getting more messed up.”
“No, shit is finally making sense,” Layla said with a sniff, standing up a little straighter. “And you’re right, none of this is our fault. This is on Daddy’s soul, wherever it ended up. We just need to focus on moving forward, making amends where we can, and putting the ugliness in the past.”
Grayson thought about what Layla said all the way to the Hearst ranch. He was all for putting ugliness in the past, but Reece obviously hadn’t. This shit with his father had haunted her to the point that she hadn’t been home to see her family in over a decade. Grayson had no idea how to begin to make amends for that, let alone reparations. He only knew that he felt sick and sad and wished he had a better reason to be on her doorstep.
His father had stolen so much from Reece and was stealing from his son from beyond the grave. What Grayson had learned today made it clear why Reece had pushed him away. No amount of chemistry or effort on Grayson’s part could make up for the fact that he was his father’s son. Neil had poisoned any chance Grayson had with Reece long before they ran into each other at the Blue Saloon. If only they’d never learned each other’s names…
But they had and there was no going back.
Grayson knocked wearily on the door, feeling the effects of the miserable day from his aching shoulders down to his frozen toes. Judging from Reece’s response when she opened the door, he looked as bad as he felt.
“You look like you were ridden hard and hung up wet,” she said, blue eyes skimming down his body before returning to his face. “You okay?”
Grayson shook his head, but no words came. In a pair of gray spandex pants and a loose blue sweatshirt, with her curls pulled back in a ponytail and no makeup on her face, Reece looked so much younger than she had yesterday or the night before. All Grayson could think about was how much younger she must have looked when she was eighteen and how much he hated his father for proving, once again, that the evil people in the world so often came out on top.
“Come in,” Reece said, opening the door a little wider. “I can make you some tea or hot chocolate or something, let you bend my ear.”
Grayson wiped a hand down his face. “I shouldn’t.”
“No, you should,” she insisted. “And you should take me up on my kind offer before I change my mind. I’m not usually the type who offers to listen to other people’s problems, but you’ve caught me in a good mood.”
Grayson smiled. “I won’t take much of your time. I just came to apologize.”
“Then do it inside.” Reece waved him in with an urgent circle of her arm. “It’s cold and you’re letting all the heat out.”
With a final bracing breath, Grayson stepped through the door. Inside, the air smelled like popcorn and melted butter and he could hear the sound of the television set in the other room. When Reece moved around him, the increasingly familiar smell of her perfume—an addictive mixture of cedar and orange blossoms—wafted in to join the other smells, making his chest ache. He didn’t want this to be the last time he smelled her perfume or looked down to find her watching him with her fathomless blue eyes.
“I don’t know why you’re here to apologize,” she said, propping one sock foot on top of the other as she leaned against the doorway leading into the kitchen. “I’m the one who was a stubborn cuss yesterday.”
“It’s okay. Like I said, I understood where you were coming from.” He paused, shaking his head. “Or I thought I did, but after the day I’ve had, I’ve realized I probably don’t understand jack shit.”
Reece frowned. “Sounds like you might need something stronger than hot chocolate. My dad’s got bourbon in the liquor cabinet if you want.”
“Yesterday, when we were talking, I didn’t know what really happened with you and my dad,” Grayson said, plowing ahead when Reece’s frown became a scowl, knowing there was no easy way to get this out into the open. “I didn’t know he’d attacked you until Layla told me this afternoon. I was overseas at the time and he never mentioned the accusations. He only said—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Reece said, her flushed skin paling.
Grayson held up his hands, palms facing out. “I know and I’m not here to dredge up things you want to leave in the past. I’m just here to say I’m sorry. I had no idea and if I had, I never would have brought you back to the house the other night. I don’t want to bring you more pain or hurt you any more than my family has hurt you already.”
Reece cocked her head. “So…you believe me?”
“Of course,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Layla found some pictures on Dad’s computer that prove he was sick, but I would have believed you anyway.”
“What kind of pictures?” Reece asked, curiosity creeping into her guarded expression.
“Child pornography,” Grayson said, an increasingly familiar sour taste rising in his throat as the words left his lips. “I didn’t see the photos, but Layla said most of the girls were small and blonde.”
Reece cussed and crossed her arms tighter at her chest. “What the hell? What was wrong with that sick fuck?”
“I have no idea.” He sighed. “But finding the pictures made Layla start rethinking a lot of her assumptions about the past. That’s when she told me your side of the story. We turned the computers over to the police and are trying to make things right, but I wanted to come apologize to you on behalf of my family. Obviously it’s too little, too late, but—”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Reece said, eyebrows drawing together. “You weren’t even here, Grayson. There’s no reason for you to apologize or beat yourself up over things Neil did.”
“No, there is.” He paused, jaw clenching as he silently cursed himself again for his own stupidity. “I should have sen
sed his story was bullshit from the beginning, even without hearing the allegations. But he was my father, and no matter how much I hated him sometimes, I didn’t want to believe he was that sort of man.”
“I didn’t, either.” Reece’s gaze softened. “I get it. I don’t know what I would have thought if one of the other girls at the barn had come forward with a story like mine. I wouldn’t have wanted to believe her, that’s for sure. I had Neil up so high on a pedestal I was sure he could do no wrong.”
“I knew better,” Grayson said. “He’s the reason I joined the service straight out of high school. I couldn’t wait to get away from him.”
Reece’s lips curved in a wry smile. “Sounds like we’ve got even more in common than we thought.”
“Yeah. All shitty things.” Grayson sighed as he took a step back toward the door. “But for what it’s worth, I like you, Reece, and I…wish things were different.”
“Then let’s make them different.” She reached out, grabbing a fistful of his jacket sleeve, halting his retreat. “Stay a while. I made popcorn and I just turned on Die Hard. But we could start it over from the beginning if you’re not lucky enough to have every scene memorized the way I do.”
“Now I have a machine gun,” he said, quoting his favorite part of the movie. “Ho, ho, ho.”
Reece grinned. “I knew it. You look like a man who knows his eighties classics. Come on, Broody. Take your coat off and come tell me what you want to drink with your popcorn.”
Grayson reached for his zipper but hesitated before he tugged it down, studying Reece’s face. “Does this mean we’re forgetting about arguing in the barn yesterday and the Emergency Room last night?”
Reece shook her head. “Nope, we’re going to remember all that. That way you’ll know better than to play shrink or boss me around. And I’ll know to listen when you’re making sense instead of being in a rush to give you the middle finger.” She paused, tongue slipping out to dampen her lips. “And I’m sorry about threatening to get out Daddy’s gun. That was way over the line.”