by Devney Perry
Cash
“What about my mother?” Kat slipped her hand free from my grasp.
Where did I even start? Shit. There was a reason I hadn’t told her about this. A reason that I hadn’t told anyone in my family.
Guilt.
I’d made a choice to protect Kat, and at the time, I’d been confident in my decision. I’d done it with her best interests at heart. But year after year, doubts had crept in, making me question my actions on that day. I realized now that I’d stayed quiet not to protect Kat, but to protect myself. I didn’t want to lose her.
I hadn’t wanted to miss this chance to love her and the chance she might love me back.
Fuck, this was going to be bad. She was going to hate me for this. Hell, I kind of hated myself.
“Cash,” she warned.
“She came to the ranch,” I admitted. “Your mother.”
“What? When?”
“Five years ago.” I remembered because it was the first weekend after Kat had moved into my place—our place. I’d wanted to give Kat the chance to settle in without feeling like I was hovering, so I’d left her alone on a Sunday and gone to work.
I was in the stables, in the arena halter-breaking a colt, when a woman appeared at the fence. One look and I knew she wasn’t a guest. Her clothes were nice—jeans and a pink blouse. No-brand tennis shoes. Inexpensive clothing, not something any of our guests would have worn. And she was missing four front teeth.
Like Kat said, she was tall. I went over to the fence and she stood only a few inches shorter than my six foot two. She had Kat’s hair, dark though streaked with thick strands of gray. Her eyes were blue but not as crystal clear as Kat’s.
The resemblance didn’t register until she asked to see her daughter, Katherine Gates.
“Five years?” Kat shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She introduced herself. She told me her name was Jessica Gates and she was looking for her daughter, Katherine.” Her visit had instantly put me on guard. Rightly so. “I asked what she wanted.” I hadn’t been nice about it. I think my exact words had been, What the fuck do you want? “She said that she needed to find you. To talk to you. I told her no.”
“You what?” Kat shot off the bed, standing above me.
“I was trying to protect you. All I knew was that you’d run away from home. That you’d lived in a junkyard. You didn’t speak of your parents but it didn’t take much to put together that she wasn’t a good mother. All of us had talked about it.”
“You talked about me?” The color drained from her face. “Behind my back? Like a pity party.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was just . . . your story was shocking. None of us really knew what to think.”
“So yes, a pity party. That’s why you started inviting me to Friday night family dinners.”
“No. Look, it wasn’t like that. We just wanted to include you. Make sure you felt like you had a home. Is that so wrong?” And of all the staffers who’d come and gone at the ranch, none had ever fit into our circle like Kat.
“My mother.” Kat crossed her arms over her chest. “What did she say?”
“When I told her no, she begged to see you.” Jessica Gates had reached her bony fingers across the fence separating us as we’d spoken and grabbed my hand, squeezing it with more strength than I’d expected from a woman who looked like she’d lived hard.
“And you still turned her away. How could you?”
“Because she just wanted money.” The hurt that flashed across Kat’s face broke my heart. “I told her that we knew all about your childhood. That you were better off without her. And I told her that you didn’t want to see her.”
“You had no right.”
“I was trying to protect you. I wanted to see what she’d do. How honest she was in her intentions. You know what it looks like when you roll onto the property.” Like money. The lodge was enormous. The stables and barn too. The Greer Ranch and Mountain Resort was designed to impress the wealthiest people in the world.
“And?” Kat stared at me, her face twisted in rage, but the hurt was beginning to show through. Her features were beginning to crumple. Because she already knew where this was going.
“I told her I’d give her five thousand dollars, cash, to leave the ranch and leave you in peace.”
She swallowed hard. “She took it?”
“Yes.”
To her credit, Jessica had waged an internal debate. She’d stood across from me, her eyes cast to the dirt, and weighed my offer for a solid five minutes. As the time dragged on, I almost gave in. I almost offered to go get Kat and bring her to the lodge. But right before I could cave, Jessica held out her hand.
Maybe she thought that my five thousand dollars was more than she’d ever get from Kat. When the selfish bitch accepted my offer, I didn’t waste a second before getting her off my ranch.
“She’d flown to Missoula, then paid for an Uber to drive her to the ranch. I went to the lodge. Got some money out of the safe in Dad’s office. Then I gave it to her and drove her to the airport in Missoula myself.”
The forty-mile trip was the longest of my life. A few times I caught Jessica catching a tear with her fingertips as she stared out the passenger window. When I pulled up to the airport’s terminal, she opened the door, ready to leave without a word, but paused.
Tell her I’m sorry.
Then she was gone.
I’d wondered for the past five years if we’d see her again. If she’d come begging for more money now that she knew a trip to Montana was an easy payday. But I’d never seen Jessica again.
And for years, I’d unsuccessfully prodded Kat for information about her youth. I’d needed to know that I’d done the right thing by sending Jessica away.
“Did she ask about me?”
Damn it, this was going to hurt. “No.”
Jessica hadn’t once asked if her daughter was happy or safe or loved.
Kat dropped her gaze to the floor. Her hair draped in front of her face but I still saw the quiver of her chin.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should have told me,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“How could you keep this from me? All these years?” She looked up and the pain in her expression wasn’t just from her mother’s visit, but because I’d betrayed her.
“It was for your own good.”
“Oh, fuck you,” she snapped.
I flinched. “Kat—”
“You and your family are always trying to protect me. Except what any of you don’t seem to realize is that I don’t need your protection. Carol forbids me from touching base with the resort staff while I’m on this trip and it’s for my own good. Gemma sets up this entire trip and it’s for my own good. You don’t tell me about my mother coming to find me ten years after I’ve seen her and it’s for my own good. I don’t need your protection. I’m capable of judging what’s for my own fucking good.”
“We’re just looking out.”
“I don’t need anyone to look out for me.”
“That’s what family does.”
“Family?” She scoffed. “You sent my only living relative away. You took away the last chance I ever had to see my mother.”
“I’m sorry. If it means that much, we can go find her. I’ll go with you to California. We can leave today.”
“Too late.” Kat’s eyes turned glacial and her expression flattened. “She’s dead.”
The air in the room went still. My heart dropped. “What?”
“She died of an overdose. Five years ago.”
No. Oh shit, no.
“I remember because it was the second weekend after I moved in with you. We were supposed to have everyone over for pizza.”
But she’d canceled because of a migraine. We’d rescheduled to another weekend. Except Kat didn’t get migraines, did she? That was the one and only time I recalled her having one, and at the time, I hadn’t realized it was a
lie.
“How?” I choked out. How had she died? How had Kat known?
“The sheriff came out that morning. I was at the lodge, weeding one of the flower beds. I’d thought he’d come to have coffee with your dad. Instead, he’d come to find me. To tell me that my mother had been found dead in her home two days prior.”
I stood, ready to hold her and tell her I was sorry, but she shook her head and took a step away. My feet froze.
“When her neighbor went through her things, she told me she found four thousand dollars cash in her purse. I never understood how, but now I know. The other thousand must have gone toward a plane ticket and however much it cost to flood her system with meth.”
Fuck me. My head spun and I sank down to the edge of the bed. I’d given Jessica the money she’d used to end her life. Horror coursed through my system. Despair and guilt clouded my vision. I dropped my head forward, my elbows on my knees. “Kat, I’m sorry.”
“She was clean before that. She’d changed her life.”
“What?” My head snapped up. “How do you know?”
“Gemma’s not the only one who can hire an investigator,” she said. “After I found out she’d died, I had to settle her estate. Not that there was much. And I wanted to know what her life had been like but I didn’t want to visit.”
So she’d hired an investigator. Meanwhile the rest of us hadn’t had a clue that she’d been carrying this burden alone.
Kat barked a mocking laugh. “Turns out, all she’d needed to get clean was for her daughter to abandon her. According to her records, she went to rehab about a year after I ran away from home. She stayed sober ever since. She worked at a local women’s shelter. She moved into a nicer neighborhood. One of her coworkers at the shelter told my investigator that Mom had spent years setting aside money to go to Montana. She’d just been too scared to make the trip.”
And I’d chased Jessica away.
I’d chased her back into the drugs that had cost her a daughter.
I’d chased her into a grave.
“I had her cremated and spread her ashes on Hangman Peak,” Kat whispered.
“You did?” Hangman Peak was one of the hardest hikes we offered to our guests, but the view at the top was worth every step. I made it a point to go up there at least twice a year.
She lifted a shoulder. “I thought she would have liked the view.”
“You went alone?” Why hadn’t she asked me or anyone else to go with her?
“Alone means people won’t disappoint me.” She leveled me with a glare. “How could you?”
“I’m sorry.” I stood again but she took another step away. “I’m so, so sorry. It was a mistake.”
“You stole my chance to see her.”
“I didn’t know you’d want to.”
Her stare narrowed. “That doesn’t make it right.”
“I know.” I held up my hands. “Tell me what I can do. Please.”
Kat didn’t answer. Instead, she flew past me, going to the dresser and opening the top drawer. She scooped out the clothes she’d put in there when we’d arrived and rushed to the bed, flipping open her suitcase and dropping them inside. Then she did the same with the second drawer.
“Kat.”
She shook her head, disappearing into the bathroom. The clink of plastic bottles being shoved into a bag echoed in the room.
“Kat, please,” I said when she came back into the room, dropping her toiletry case into her purse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. You never told me.”
“Don’t you dare blame this on me.”
“I’m not.” I held up my hands. “I’m only trying to explain. I didn’t know. You never talked about it. I made an assumption and it was the wrong one.”
“Why would I talk about it?” She whirled on me, her face flushed and her eyes blazing. “Why would I talk about how my mother hated me? Why would I talk about living in the dirt for two years because sleeping in a trash heap, in a makeshift hovel with tarps and metal sheets and mice, was better than the alternative?”
“I’m—”
“Sorry?” She went to the suitcase, slamming it closed and zipping it tight. Then she turned to me, her hands planted on her hips. “I can’t talk about that time. I don’t want to relive those memories. Sure, we all pretend that living in the junkyard was this magical fairy tale. But it was scary. We were scared. You have no idea what it’s like shivering yourself to sleep on cold nights and wishing you had just one more blanket. You don’t know how it feels to wake up so hungry you can’t see straight because all you had to eat the day before was half a peanut butter and honey sandwich on stale bread.”
I struggled to breathe. The raw, ruthless emotion on her face cracked my heart.
“We were sixteen,” she said. “So young and so foolish. But that was what life had dealt us and we made the best of it. Yes, there were some happy times. Yes, we were relatively safe. But the fear. You don’t know what it’s like to live in that kind of fear, so forgive me if I don’t want to remember just so you and your family can talk about it over coffee.”
She hefted her suitcase from the mattress and took three steps toward the door but stopped and turned again. “The reason I painted back then was because I needed something pretty. I needed to wake up to a world where I was in control. Where the flowers were pink and the sunshine was yellow because I said it was that way. It was the only control I had.”
My throat was burning, but I managed a nod and a hoarse, “Okay.”
“I stopped painting because I didn’t need it. I wasn’t scared anymore. When I came to Montana, I could wake up, look out the window and there was my magical meadow. There. In real life. For me to touch and know that tomorrow would be okay. I was safe because I’d found a home. And I was safe because I had you.”
“You’ll always have me.”
She shook her head, blinking away a sheen of tears. “No, I won’t.”
“Kat, please.” I closed the distance between us, putting my hands on her shoulders. “Don’t go. Let’s work this out.”
“I’m such a fool.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Pining after you for all these years. Hoping and dreaming that one day you’d love me the way I love you.”
My heart dropped. She loved me? The words unknotted the twisting fear in my belly. If she loved me, then we’d figure this out. We’d be together and we’d find a way to put this behind us. We could overcome this, right?
I opened my mouth to tell her I was in love with her, to drop to my knees and plead with her to stay. But before I could, she stepped out of my hold and my hands sank like bricks in water to my sides.
“Thank you.” Her voice was as icy as her glare. “You know what this trip was about? It was my chance to let you go, to stop wasting years waiting for you to love me. When you came along, I didn’t think it would help. But here we are and now I have what I wanted. You’re nothing to me now. Not even my friend.”
“We’re more than friends.”
She turned and opened the door, her parting words ringing loud and clear even after the door slammed shut. “Not anymore.”
Chapter Fourteen
Cash
In less than one week, I’d fallen in love with my best friend.
And in a single hour, I’d lost her.
I drummed my fingers on the reception desk, willing the man who’d disappeared behind the employees-only door to hurry the fuck up. My duffel bag rested at my feet. I’d tossed the clothes inside as haphazardly as Kat had done her own.
Stupid bastard that I was, her confession about loving me had sent me into a tailspin. When I should have been running after her, I’d stood frozen in the middle of our room.
It had probably only been five minutes, ten max, that I’d stood like a dumbfounded chump, but it had given her enough lead time to escape.
She loved me.
How long? How long had I been blind to the truth?
I’d realized, standing in that hotel room, there was a re
ason I constantly bought Kat trinkets and gifts and chocolate bars. When I saw something that would bring a smile to her face, I had to have it.
Just because.
Just because.
Just. Because.
Just because I was in love with her.
After shaking off my epiphany, I’d flown into action, packing while leaving a panicked message on her voicemail. Since then, I’d left six more and ten texts, none of which had been returned.
Damn, I was a fucking idiot, though idiot wasn’t strong enough a word. Once I got Kat back—and I was getting her back—she could call me every awful thing from prick to asshole to douchebag that popped into that gorgeous head of hers and I’d agree with them all.
If she wanted to take a job in Oregon, then Heron Beach would be our home. I’d give up the ranch, the horses and that life, because she was worth it.
My mother had always told me the reason our ranch worked was because every generation had tackled it as a team. Granddad and Grandma. Mom and Dad. Easton and Gemma. They worked it together because that was what made it special. A partnership. Two halves making a whole.
And at the moment, my other half was nowhere to be found.
This time, I wasn’t going to find Kat in the café or on the beach. She’d packed her bag and was either at another hotel, far away from me, or she’d hauled the Cadillac out of valet and was on her way to . . . anywhere. So I’d checked out of the room, then asked this clerk to find out if the Cadillac was still parked.
Had he gone to the parking lot or garage or wherever the hell they kept the cars to check himself? How hard was it to find out if a ticket had been claimed for a goddamn car?
Beside me, a couple laughed as they checked into their room. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Honeymooners. They’d been telling anyone who’d listen.
That should be me and Kat. We should be the ones kissing and smiling and anxious to get behind a closed door to strip our clothes off.
I dragged a hand through my hair. Come on. Come on. What was taking so long?
My eyes were glued to the door where he’d disappeared. My foot tapped on the floor. If they’d just tell me where they parked the cars, I’d go find out if the Cadillac was there myself.
