After a moment, Sawyer nodded in response.
“He never had any social media accounts before he left either,” I told Rae. “But everyone thought it was because he was too cool, or something. After he left, and then with the phone thing, it all seemed like ways to hide.”
A soft, acknowledging hum came from her. “If Cayson didn’t say otherwise until now, he was probably fine with letting you think that. Same as he was okay with letting everyone have their assumptions to keep them from the truth.” She gave me a look that was at once encouraging and disheartened before sinking to the floor so she could search through more balloons. “How did he find out he was dyslexic?”
I cleared my throat, beyond thankful for her words and presence, and reached for the discarded note once again. “Uh, this guy who took him in recognized the signs—his late wife had been dyslexic. He taught him to read and everything.”
“Greatest man he ever knew,” Sawyer mumbled.
Rae made a questioning sound and asked, “You knew about him?” on a delay as she picked up yet another balloon.
“Just found out about him the other day.” He gestured to his nose. “Didn’t take it well.”
A startled laugh left me when I realized he was talking about their fight, but then my attention was on the note, on what Cayson had written to me.
Hunter found this in my floorboard.
You were always it for me.
Happy birthday.
I read the words over and over again before I was scrambling for the shoebox and lifting the lid.
I wasn’t sure what I expected to find, but my high-school-smiling self wasn’t it. Still, I knew what it meant for him to have had the photo.
“Oh, Em,” Rae said softly as she set the note down and sank to the bed next to me.
I hadn’t even realized she’d stood or grabbed the note.
“Look at you,” she said, a smile in her voice.
“I don’t know how he had this.” I handed her the picture and gently lifted the stack of old papers.
When Sawyer spoke, his words were short and filled with something like disbelief. “I think I do.”
I barely offered him a glance before looking at the drawing sitting on top.
A baby duck.
“I had that wall of you, Leighton, and me . . . remember? And there was a year, whatever year this was, you gave me so much shit for not putting your picture up. So, you put up that huge one to be obnoxious.” Sawyer tapped the picture. “Except I had.”
I might’ve laughed at the memory, but I was so completely absorbed in what was in my hands that I couldn’t be sure.
After countless drawings of little ducks and even more of other incredible imaginings, I’d come to different papers.
Papers that had clearly been smoothed out after being crumpled up.
Papers that lacked any drawings, but were full of lines and curves and symbols that didn’t make any sense at all. And they were all full of so much frustration and pain and sadness.
I had no idea what they were, but they were breaking my heart.
“Is this you?”
I tore my gaze from the papers to where Sawyer was holding a couple of the ducklings, my head nodding numbly.
“Why the hell would he think this would mean something to you other than bad memories?”
I let my attention fall to the pieces in my hands again and tried to speak around the emotion threatening to break me.
“It wasn’t my lips—he called me that because of the way you and I were. Said we were each other’s shadows. Like ducks following each other around.” I swallowed painfully and said, “He’s showing me that I always meant something to him.”
He hesitantly took the note when Rae handed it to him, taking his time reading the few words there before letting his arm fall.
Standing in a cloud of uncertainty and pain and regret as he tried to understand this Cayson he’d never known. Tried to absorb all I’d told him.
“Where is he?” he asked after a while.
Soft.
Repentant.
Soul-wrenching.
Rae’s hand settled on my back when a shuddering breath ripped from me. When I didn’t attempt to answer, she said, “He left.”
“That it?”
I stared at the darkened screen for a few more seconds before raising my head to look at Hunter. Curling my hand around the phone, I gave a faint nod before taking the few remaining steps toward the back door.
The crisp, fall air was curling through the screen door, but it no longer seemed like enough.
Wasn’t sure my lungs knew how to expand anymore.
I pushed outside and stormed onto the porch, trying to drag in what felt so necessary to live.
Letting the phone slip from my fingers and clatter to the wood. Fingers gripping my hair. Chest weakly lifting. Eyelids closing as I tried to remember this was what I’d been waiting for.
“Thought you were waiting for that call.”
A weak laugh tumbled from my mouth when Hunter’s words echoed my thoughts. “I have been.”
The call that rumors were circulating of the furlough ending. Whenever those began, the official call that we were back up always came within the next two days.
Considering our shift that had been cut short would’ve ended tomorrow, I needed to be back in two weeks. Business as usual.
Except it wouldn’t be.
I hadn’t expected my life to shift so completely when I’d come back to Amber. But after wanting that shift for most of my life, I’d gladly welcomed it. I’d just never expected it to change back.
I’d known I would go back to Beaumont . . . but I hadn’t thought I’d go this way. Without having her here. Without having her.
“She isn’t worth it.”
My muscles tensed.
Jaw tightened.
I lowered my hands and looked over my shoulder at where Hunter stood, casually leaning against the doorway with his hands in his pockets.
“The hell you just say?”
He nodded to the side as if Emberly were there. “Whatever you’re thinking, she isn’t worth it. You have a good career that you’ve worked hard for. No girl is worth throwing that away. Trust me.”
“Not that I was considering that, but keep your bitter past to yourself next time. Yeah?”
He shrugged, looking unapologetic. “Know what I’m talking about.”
I faced him, a harsh laugh sounding in my chest. “I’m sure you think you do. But again, I’m not planning on giving up my career. When the time comes, I’m still leaving. I’ll still be on that rig.” I tossed a hand in his direction and sneered, “I don’t get you. Sawyer’s always telling me that he wanted the ranch, that he wants it, and you’ve refused to let him have any part of it even though you’re so resentful of this place. Why the fuck do you even want it?”
“I want it because it was mine in the first place.”
“It was ours.”
“Mine,” he corrected on a warning. “Dad always said I was the only one who cared about the ranch. Who stepped up without being asked. His will? It said the orchard, the house, the business—all of it—belonged to his son who had always cared about it.”
Surprise flooded me at the two words he’d tossed out so casually.
Separately, they were simple. Harmless. Together, they seemed foreign.
“And Saw can fuck off whenever the hell he wants about thinking I kicked Mom out,” he continued as if anticipating where the conversation would go next. “I tried to get her to stay here. I’ve tried to get her to come back. She wanted out of the house after you left and Dad died.”
“Dad had a will?”
Hunter went silent. Went still.
“What did the rest of it say?”
His jaw flexed and his stare fell to the porch.
“Hunter,” I nearly pleaded, uneasiness crawling across my skin at the sick look on his face.
It wasn’t that I wanted anything from our dad
. It was that he’d died so damn long ago, and no one had mentioned a will to me before that moment, and clearly never intended to.
Hunter released a slow sigh before lifting his head to meet my stare. “You weren’t in there, Cays.” He raised a hand only to let it fall unceremoniously. “There was a part for Mom, and there was a part for his sons.” A grimace crossed his face and his eyes creased apologetically. “His three sons.”
“Y’all were named,” I assumed when he didn’t continue, a disbelieving huff leaving me when he nodded. I dragged a palm over my jaw, that old resentment flaring. “Such a bas—wait, Sawyer knew about this?”
After a few seconds, Hunter dipped his head again. “We were all there. When it was first read, we all kinda looked at Mom, thinking there was something she should tell us. But she looked about as shocked as we all felt. Then Beau laughed in that pissed way he does, and said something like, ‘Damn, Dad didn’t waste any time cutting Cayson out after he skipped town.’”
“Yeah, I doubt that,” I mumbled coldly.
Hunter gave me a confirming look. “The attorney said Dad hadn’t changed his will since Sawyer became a teenager.” He lifted a hand as if to say he was sorry, as if he didn’t know what to say for what a dick our dad had been. “After that, Mom got quiet while we tried to figure out what shit you must’ve been into—what Dad must’ve known.”
“Come up with anything good?”
“The best.” A sly smirk crossed his face before he lifted a shoulder. “Probably. I don’t even remember anymore.” The grin faded and a dark shadow fell over his eyes when he mumbled, “And then I took over.”
“You didn’t have to.” My eyes rolled as I turned to look out over the back of the property—what could be seen of it anyway.
From here, it was a perfect view of the barn and corrals. Behind that? Acres and acres of fields before the peach orchard began.
I’d always loved standing right there, looking out, before taking off running until I couldn’t run anymore. Until I was somewhere on the property where no one could find me.
Usually wanting to hide from my dad if no one else was around.
Beau, if I’d pissed him off.
Sawyer and Emberly, if the way they followed each other was more than I could take . . .
“Yeah, I did,” Hunter grumbled, interrupting memories—good and bad.
I sucked in a steeling breath and mocked his argument I’d heard about plenty of times over the years. “Someone had to step up, no one else was.”
When I glanced at Hunter, he was eyeing me curiously.
“Sawyer talks.”
An irritated huff punched from him. “Yeah, well . . . the will and all that shit.”
“Except Sawyer wanted the ranch,” I reminded him.
His head moved in fast, tight shakes. “As soon as that part of the will was read, I knew who it was meant for. But I still had my military career. Before I could say anything . . .” He lifted his hands, mimicking a miniature explosion. “Beau said he couldn’t take it. Said he had his job and was drowning with what they were trying to do for Blossom. Sawyer said he would take it, but we all started yelling at him that he had his full-ride to think about. His future with football.”
“Leighton,” I murmured, bringing up Sawyer’s late girlfriend uncertainly. Unsure of the timeline since I didn’t know when any of this had gone down.
“She was already dying,” he confirmed. “Think she died just a couple days later. So, Sawyer was in no position to take it. Besides, the will specified me. And by the time Sawyer asked about coming in on the business with me again, it was too late. I already knew too much.”
Hesitation pulsed from me when I asked, “What do you mean?”
Hunter moved across the porch to lean up against one of the wooden pillars, looking out at the land the way I had been not long before.
After a while, he said, “That Dad was a piece of shit.”
A hard laugh burst from me before I realized that Hunter hadn’t known what Dad had done and said to me until just a few days before. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what else he might know.
“What?” I asked lamely.
He adjusted his baseball cap and turned toward me, face unreadable. “I don’t know if you remember what Dad was doing with the business before he died . . . but he was gonna stop selling to grocers.”
“Cost went down.”
“And it was cutthroat.” He nodded, a little laugh creeping from him. “Right. That. Turned out, grocers were no longer doing business with him because they found out he was a bit of an asshole. Bad shipments to grocers whose prices dropped, perfect peaches to grocers who would pay a good price. If the price dropped at all . . .”—he slashed his hand through the air—“he punished them with bad product, and they stopped buying from him.”
“What the hell?”
“Yeah.” He made a face as if to say you don’t know the half of it, and said, “What’s worse? He’d been paying the crews less and less each year and hadn’t paid taxes the last couple years before he died.”
“Shit.”
“Shit,” he agreed. “I found all that out right as peach season was starting, right when my life was being turned on its side, and started scrambling. I had to beg the skeleton crew to come back, and only about half did after Isabel made me promise them massive raises.”
He waved toward the far side of the house, where the office was. “She took over bookkeeping, and thank God for that. I would’ve never been able to crawl out of all the shit Dad had been hiding without her help. But I still had the IRS calling like clockwork for two years before I had everything paid off. And during that time, I was trying to make peace with the grocers in case I ever wanted to do business with them.”
I stood in stunned silence as I tried to absorb what he’d told me. “Jesus, Hunter. Who knew about this?”
His chest pitched with a silent laugh. “Right.”
“I’m serious.” My tone and expression were harsh. “It was one thing when I thought it was just me, but he involved other people—a lot of people. I don’t know how this town still idolizes him.”
“Because none of the skeleton or seasonal crews actually live in town, and they all know that it was him. Not our family. Not Mom. None of them would ever want to hurt her by letting what happened come out.”
“Fuck that,” I said on a breath. “Now you sound like Dad. Trying to protect our family . . . protect Mom. If you didn’t hear me the other day, Dad’s protecting y’all is what pushed me away.”
“I heard you, but this can hurt her.”
“What he did to me won’t?” The question was all a lethal warning.
I wasn’t sure when I’d taken a step toward him, but I was standing tall and shaking. Arms tense and hands curled tight.
“Damn it, Cays, that isn’t what I meant,” he said calmly, sagging against the pillar as though all the air had fled from him. When he continued, his voice was cautious. “I’m sorry. What he did to you was fucked up and, yes, it will hurt her. But that’ll be different—that’s going to wreck her emotionally, mentally. What he did with the business can hurt her publicly.” His shoulders lifted in a weighed-down shrug. “What he did to you probably can too, I don’t know at this point.”
I watched as he took off his ball cap and dragged his fingers through his hair, sighing as he did. As though sharing the burden had made it harder to bear rather than easier.
“That’s why you believed me . . .” I murmured after minutes had passed in uncomfortable silence. “About the way he was with me.”
His only answer was a delayed nod.
“If you knew all this about him, then why have you always hated me for leaving?”
An amused sound crept up his throat. “You don’t get it?”
I lifted my arms out to the sides before letting them fall, as if to say I clearly didn’t.
“If you hadn’t left, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be up in rank in the military. Very
unhappily married to Piper, if we’d even still be married at all. And I wouldn’t have had to deal with the bullshit Dad left behind. Fixin’ all his mistakes. You would’ve. Two years of not making a dime because I was paying the government and the crews. Of wondering if I was gonna lose the ranch and the business and break Mom for good. All that would’ve been on you.”
“He left it to you.”
“I already had a career,” he said unapologetically. “You didn’t.” He let that hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “But knowing what I do now . . . I never would’ve wanted any of y’all to get caught up in that. Still don’t.”
“Sawyer,” I assumed.
“I’ve fixed everything I can, doesn’t mean it’ll go away.” He placed his hat on his head again, fixing the bill low over his eyes. “Saw tell you about the buyers that come around every year, wanting the land?”
“Of course.”
It was always a bad week to talk to Sawyer when he was livid with Hunter.
Raging about wanting the ranch because Hunter didn’t give a shit about it. Because selling it seemed like a decision that could change depending on Hunter’s mood.
Had a feeling I was about to find out that wasn’t exactly the case.
“They know,” he said soberly. “They started coming around because Dad was pulling us under, and they continue coming at weak times for us. Poking and reminding me about the position we’ve been in.”
“Then why not just tell Sawyer that you don’t plan to sell? That you actually want the ranch?”
“In his mind, if I tell them I don’t want to sell, they’ll go away. That isn’t how it works—they’ve come back every year.” He gave me a knowing look. “Easier to let Saw and the family think what they want than tell them the truth.”
The double-meaning in his words hit hard.
It was what I’d always done. What I still did most of the time.
“Understood.”
“I wanted this place,” Hunter said after a while, tone different. Softer. Distant. “I always had . . . and maybe that’s why Dad left it to me, because he’d known. But when Madison left, I thought I could get her back by leaving too—by showing her that I wasn’t tied to the ranch and Amber.”
Whiskey (Brewed Book 2) Page 32