“I still am,” I said with a wink.
She smiled. “In my search, I stumbled upon a book. It fell and opened, and when I picked it up the writing caught my eye.”
My stomach dropped. “My journal? Mom, you read my journal?”
“No! I mean, yes. I mean, only that one page. I’m so sorry! But when a mother sees the words, I think I love him, well hell, she’s bound to stop and read.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. If it was me and Liliana, I’d probably do the same.
“What else did you read?”
She shook her head. “I swear to you just that page. I had a feeling I didn’t want to read what was next.”
I shut the door and walked around to stand in front of my mother.
“Truitt and I have talked about our past. We both know that we felt something for one another, and it appears Tim had a hand in keeping us apart. He lied to me about Truitt. I believed him and it broke my heart, because I truly did think at the time that I was in love with Truitt.”
My mother placed her hand on my cheek and gave me a sweet smile. “I really would like to rip that boy’s balls off.”
I laughed. “Me, too.”
“Okay, let me get going with Liliana, keep me up to date on the delivery.”
“Will do,” I said as I kissed her on the cheek.
“Sweetheart, I am sorry I read part of your journal. And even though all I had planned was the playhouse in the beginning, I did have other ideas after I saw your confession.”
I shook my head and kissed her once more. “It’s okay, Momma. Everything turned out as it should. Y’all have fun.”
“Oh, we will!” my mother called out as she got into the car. “A-shopping we shall go!”
There was something about watching Truitt work. He was commanding yet kind. He was a perfectionist and wanted everything to be just so. I knew it wasn’t simply because this was for Liliana; no, he had to be like this for every playhouse he built.
We stood in front of the giant castle. Truitt’s cousin Lee was inside adding all the interior touches. The yellow exterior of the castle was perfect, and Liliana was going to die when she saw it. Off to the side of the playhouse was a swing set with two swings, a seesaw, and monkey bars. I covered my mouth and nearly cried. It was stunning. It was over the top. It was the castle I had drawn when I was a little girl. Truitt had recreated it perfectly.
“You know, if you’re looking for a job, I could really use someone who knows how to draw up the designs.”
Truitt’s voice from behind me caused me to spin around.
“You didn’t say anything to me about this design starting with my old drawing,” I said.
He laughed. “Your mother asked me not to. The original drawing is in the playhouse. Lee had it framed and is hanging it up in the bedchambers.”
I hit him on the chest. “The bedchambers.” Looking back at the playhouse, I sighed. “Truitt, is it obnoxious? Too much? I can’t believe this is scaled down.”
He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me to him. “Confession: I didn’t really scale it down as much as I told you I would.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Well, someday it might not just be Liliana playing in it. I tried to keep that in mind.”
My stomach did a somersault and I turned to look at him. “I like the idea of filling it with one or two more little ones.”
A wide smile grew over his face, and when his dimples came out on display, my knees went weak.
This man…oh, this man.
“I’m glad you like the sound of that.” Truitt went to kiss me, but we were interrupted by someone clearing their throat.
Lee gave us a smile that said she knew what she had just walked up on. “The house is done. Ready to see the inside?”
I shook my head. “I want to wait until Liliana sees it for the first time. I want us to see it together.”
Lee smiled. “I think that sounds like a great idea. Well, I’m done here, so I’m going to take off. I want to get home and finish wrapping up a few things.”
“Oh, Lee, thank you so much for doing all of this and giving up your Christmas Eve,” I said as I gave her a hug.
“Don’t be silly! Most of it was done. It was just a matter of fixing up things that shifted in the transport and bringing in all the goodies we bought. I already staged it all at the warehouse, so I knew where everything was going. I really do hope Liliana likes it.”
I looked back at the castle and then to her. “She is going to love it.”
“Great! Listen, I’ll talk to y’all later. Let me know if you don’t like something, and we can change it around.”
I nodded and watched as she walked off toward the driveway.
“I feel so bad that so many people had to work on Christmas Eve to make this happen on time,” I said.
Truitt took my hand in his. “Nah, don’t. They’re all getting holiday pay for today.”
I leaned into Truitt’s body. “That is sweet of you to do.”
“It’s not sweet, it’s the right thing to do.”
My phone beeped, and I pulled it out. I had sent my mother a photo of the finished playhouse, or playcastle if we wanted to get technical. There still needed to be some landscaping around the castle, but Truitt had told everyone that could be done after Christmas.
“It’s my mom. She loves it and cannot wait to see it in person.”
“What time is the big reveal in the morning? I’d like to be here,” Truitt said.
My head jerked up. “Where else would you be?”
Truitt laughed. “Home.”
It felt like my heart dropped straight to the pit of my stomach. “Home? You’re going home?”
Tilting his head, Truitt studied me. “Saryn, I was only at your place for a limited time.”
“What if I don’t want you to leave? What if I want you and Rus to stay with us?’
The corners of his mouth twitched with the grin he attempted to hold back. “Are you asking me to move in with you after one date?”
I laughed. “I think we can safely say we’ve had a few more dates. And I’m not asking you to move in, at least not yet. But it would be nice to have you there tonight and tomorrow morning.”
Truitt swallowed hard. “I’d like that, but what about Liliana?”
“Let me ask you something, Truitt. Where do you see us in six months? Our relationship, I mean.”
He blew out a breath and looked up before he focused back on me. “Well, I don’t want to push my luck, but since we just built this massive playhouse here on your folks’ ranch, I see me spending a lot of time here. With you and Liliana. I’d like to see y’all at my place, too. I’ve already thought about building something for Liliana there. On a much-smaller scale.”
I smiled. “Yes, nothing so extravagant like this. Maybe just a normal tree house and some swings.”
He nodded.
“But back to the other stuff,” I said. “I see that, too. I’m not worried about Liliana, Truitt. She adores you. She loves you, she told me so.”
Truitt’s eyes widened a bit before filling with wetness. He blinked rapidly to keep from crying.
When he tried to speak, his voice cracked, and I fell more in love with him. Finally, he got his speaking voice back. “I love her, too.”
Placing my hand on his chest, I drew in a slow, deep breath then exhaled. “She’s not the only one who has fallen in love with you.”
Truitt sucked in a breath.
“To hell with all the people who say it’s way too fast for me to feel it, let alone say it. I fell in love with the boy who was my brother’s best friend, and I don’t think I ever stopped loving him.”
Truitt cupped my face within his hands and kissed me. Neither one of us cared who was watching, what anyone said, or what rumors might spread. He kissed me like he had been wanting to do it for days. Months. Years.
“I’ve already fallen, sweetheart.”
; I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him again. This time the kiss caused a few people to whistle and yell for us to get a room.
“Are you done snogging my sister, dude?”
“Snogging?” Truitt repeated as we stepped away from one another. He took my hand in his and I loved how it made my stomach flutter.
“Kissing? Sucking face. Making out with her in front of everyone, including my father who currently looks like he might want to rip your balls off?”
Truitt and I turned to see my dad in a deep conversation with Jack and not paying the least bit of attention to us.
“Asshole, you interrupted a perfectly good kiss,” Truitt stated.
“Whatever, just do it when I’m not around to see it. Please.”
As Ryan walked away, I glanced up at Truitt. “My mom said you didn’t want to go to your folks’ house tonight. Is there a reason why?”
His smile instantly dropped, and Ryan stopped walking. He turned and looked at Truitt. Something seemed to pass between them. It was then I remembered a couple of weeks back, when Truitt and Ryan had acted strangely after they went out for a few hours. I had forgotten all about it. Life got so busy with Christmas, it had slipped my mind.
Truitt rubbed the back of his neck as he blew out a long deep breath. “Let me make sure everything is good to go here, and then we need to talk in private. The three of us.”
Ryan made his way back over to us as Truitt walked toward Jack. I couldn’t help but notice how much he was limping, and I wanted to say something about him not using his cane, but I let it go. For some reason, things just turned very serious. A part of me was scared to hear what Truitt had to say. Did this have anything to do with his strange behavior a few weeks ago?
“Come on, let’s walk back to your place,” Ryan said as he took me by the elbow.
“What’s going on, Ryan?” I asked.
He focused straight ahead. “It’s for Truitt to tell you, not me.”
Truitt
RYAN HEADED BACK to Saryn’s house with her, giving me a few moments to get my thoughts together.
I knew I had to tell her, I was just figuring out how to do it. After I first found out, I didn’t even want to think about everything that Tim had said to me. I was angry about so many things. Angry at Tim for lying to Saryn. Angry at my father for having an affair and leaving Tim to fend for himself. I was even somewhat angry that Saryn believed Tim’s accusation when he said I only wanted to sleep with her.
All of it swirled around in my mind and confused me. I had planned on telling Saryn the day we went to my house for the first time, but one thing led to another and we ended up spending a glorious morning in bed together, and I totally let it slip from my mind. That was until Evie had reminded me of the dinner my mother invited everyone to tonight. I’d texted Roger to ask him if Mom had invited him, as well, and he said yes.
A million questions ran through my mind. Did my father really know Tim was his son? Did my mother know? Did Dad know Liliana was his granddaughter? What would Saryn say when she found out?
“Fuck,” I mumbled as I made my way up the steps of Saryn’s front porch.
When I walked into the living room, I saw Ryan sitting on the sofa and Saryn pacing across the floor.
“Truitt, you went and saw Tim? What were you thinking?” she asked.
My eyes swept over her body. She stood there, hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. My God, she was beautiful.
And she was mine.
“I was thinking he needed to stop hurting you and Liliana. That he needed to take his ass back to Dallas and leave you alone. And it worked.”
She smiled slightly. “Is it true you hit him?”
My eyes darted over to Ryan who wore a smug smile.
“Yes, but only once. Unlike Ryan who kept hitting Tim until I pulled him away.”
Saryn’s eyes widened in horror. “What! Ryan! Why?”
“He said some pretty bad shit about you, Saryn. I’m your brother and that kind of talk isn’t going to fly with me.”
She rubbed her temples. “Okay, well, what does this have to do with going to your parents’ house tonight?”
“You might want to sit down,” I said as I motioned for her to sit next to Ryan. When she did, I sat across from her.
“Tim enlightened me on a few things during our…talk,” I said.
Her brow rose. “Such as?”
“Well, for one, he told me that he overheard me and Nolan talking in the library my senior year of high school. I told Nolan how much I liked you, and that I was worried what Ryan would think if I asked you out. Nolan talked me into it. That was the same day I came over to your house and …”
Her face went white. “I told you I was going out with Tim. He told me that day that you…”
“Wanted to take your virginity and brag about it. Yeah, I know. The way you acted makes a hell of a lot more sense now.”
“Truitt…”
I held up my hand. “None of that matters now. What matters is this moment. You and me, right now. Tim isn’t going to be interfering with us ever again.”
“We think,” Ryan mumbled.
Dragging in a deep breath, I went on. “Some of the things Tim said that day didn’t make any sense to me. He was clearly very jealous of me and made comments about me having everything: a family, girls, popularity. He mentioned he liked you, and when he found out I did, too, he was hellbent on making sure I didn’t get to be with you. It didn’t make sense why he hated me so much until he dropped a bit of a bomb on me.”
Saryn swallowed hard. “What kind of bomb?”
Ryan reached over and took her hand as I somehow managed to say the words.
“He’s my half-brother.”
If I thought her face was white moments ago, I was wrong. I almost stood up to go to her because I thought she wasn’t breathing.
“Wh-what? How?”
“According to him, and I’m not really even sure if he’s telling me the truth, but according to Tim, my father had an affair with his mother. His father found out about it, and from that moment on he abused both Tim and his mom.”
Saryn closed her eyes and shook her head. “My God. It all makes sense. All of it.”
“What do you mean?” Ryan and I asked in chorus.
She looked between us both. “Tim’s father has always been…distant. I even remember one time asking Tim where he got his blue eyes from because his father had brown and so did his mother.”
Her eyes met mine. “His eyes aren’t nearly as blue as yours and Roger’s, though. Now I know why Liliana’s eyes always seemed so familiar. Tim doesn’t look anything like the two of you.”
I nodded. “No, he doesn’t, but I got to thinking as Ryan and I drove back from his hotel. Tim looks almost identical to my grandfather. I never saw it before, because honestly I never thought to look for it.”
“So, he disliked you so much that he only came after me to get back at you. I get that. But why did he keep up the act all through college and ask me to marry him? And when our marriage wasn’t working, why did he fight to keep me…oh, my God. He only wanted to keep me from you.”
“Look at what happened when you did leave him. What did you do?”
She wrung her hands together and looked at me. “I didn’t come back thinking you and I would be together. Honestly, I assumed you would already be with someone. I won’t deny that I still had feelings for you, though. I did.”
“When Tim came back to town and heard someone say you and I were dating, he lost his shit.”
Saryn buried her face in her hands. “Oh, my God. This is insane.”
“He played both of y’all and took it as far as he could,” Ryan said.
“I don’t know if my father really knows about Tim, or if my mother does,” I said, “but I’m not sure you and Liliana going over there tonight is a good idea.”
Saryn stood. “If we’re going to be in a relationship, Truitt, I’m not hiding from your parents.”
/>
I smiled. “I don’t want you to hide, but I also don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“What in the world would happen?” she asked.
Ryan coughed. “Oh, let’s see. Jealous wife meets her husband’s grandchild who is not her grandchild. Flies off the handle, goes into a drunken rage, and Liliana sees it all happening.”
“You really do know my mother,” I said with a slight chuckle.
Saryn let out a frustrated moan. “Stop it, both of you. If you ask me, I think it all needs to come out in the open. At least with your father.”
“I would like to remind you of something, as well,” Ryan said. “Truitt is actually Liliana’s uncle.”
Saryn sat back down on the sofa. She covered her mouth.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “I feel so dizzy all of a sudden.”
“Saryn, I am in no way expecting you to have Liliana call me her uncle.”
“Oh, God, Truitt, it’s not that. I don’t care that you’re possibly related to her. Actually, it makes your connection with her make more sense. Right now, I’m trying to decide if we tell my parents about this. I think they should know what they could be walking into tonight.”
“You still want to go?” I asked.
She looked at me like I was insane. “Yes. We are going and you are going to talk to your father and get this figured out. We’re not starting our future with a secret.”
I glanced over at Ryan who gave me a look that simply said, good luck, dude.
Truitt
SARYN TOLD HER parents the whole story about Tim, the affair that I still wasn’t sure really happened, and how none of us knew if my mother or even my father knew. Of course Evie concluded that my mother did know. She stated that around the time I was two she started to travel more, leaving us behind with our father.
I requested that Roger come and pick me up and used the excuse of my knee acting up. I could drive fine now and had been released to do so. It gave me a chance to get my brother caught up on everything.
He seemed just as surprised and taken aback by Tim’s accusation as I was.
“We need to talk to Dad about it,” Roger stated.
Lucky in Love Page 27
