One More Taste

by Melissa Cutler

  The rush of blood in Knox’s ears sounded like a gust of wind as he was sucked backwards, forced to helplessly watch the scene in front of him as though looking through a long tunnel. He swallowed back his revulsion. “No. Impossible.”

  Emily slipped between Eloise and Knox and cupped his cheeks in her hands. Her gaze bounced between Ty’s and Knox’s faces, then tears crowded her eyes. “My God.”

  “The resemblance is uncanny, isn’t it?” Eloise’s every word dripped with poison.

  Knox closed his eyes, unable to bear the truth and horror in her expression. His pulse pounded in his throat, in his ears. None of this was real. None of this was happening. The rift had been about business. Nothing more. Had to be. Knox’s mother was a devout Christian, there was no way she would have … The thought died in his mind, the idea was so unthinkable.

  “It doesn’t matter what happened,” came Ty’s growling drawl. “You are not my son.”

  Knox’s eyes flew open at that. “Goddamn right, I’m not.” Knox’s whole life was not founded on a lie, with everyone from his mother and father to his grandparents complicit in the deception. No.

  Knox raised a hand to his mouth, but it was shaking. The corners of his vision were narrowing. Anger whipped through him, frenzied and powerful. His dad’s command echoed through his mind. Never lose control. Oh, but he was perilously close. He refused to desecrate his father’s memory by violating his number one rule. His father—the man who’d taught him everything and loved him until his last breath, the man who was watching Knox from on High. The man who haunted his truck.

  Emily’s hands had slid down from Knox’s cheeks to rest on his chest. He couldn’t quite bear to look at her, but he took her hands in his and held on tight, the better to steady the trembling.

  Eloise flattened her back against the wall and glared at Ty through slits of eyes. “Did you think the truth wouldn’t come out? You brought him here. Isn’t this what you wanted? Your bastard son to take over our family business, to steal everything we hold dear? I told you this would happen, but you didn’t listen to me. You never listen to me.” Her voice cracked. A ripple of raw emotion shimmered through her and was gone just as fast. She swallowed, the sneer returning to her lips. “It was always her, wasn’t it? It was always Linda. I guess it’s time for me to get out of this marriage and get my slice of the pie while there’s any pie left. I’ll wait for Carina to get out of surgery somewhere else. June, call me when the baby’s born.” With a dignified shake of her hair, she pushed away from the wall and walked toward the exit.

  Knox was a lot of things, but he was no man’s bastard son. No way had Ty brought him to Briscoe Ranch as some sort of gesture of atonement or to reveal himself as Knox’s fa—. No. He refused to think the word.

  Ty chased after Eloise. He grabbed at her wrist, but she jerked her hand away and sped her pace. “Eloise, don’t go. Not now. We have to stick together now. For our girls, for our grandbaby,” he shouted after her. “I was a stupid kid. You know that’s all it was. Linda meant nothing to me. She never did.”

  But Eloise was out of there. Granny June sped past them on her scooter. “I’ll go talk to her,” she said. “We’ve got to make this right. For everyone in the family.”

  Knox watched his grandmother leave, while all the while Ty’s words rang through his mind, loud and clear. You know that’s all it was. Linda meant nothing to me. Ty really had slept with Knox’s mother. My God.

  Ty whirled to face the room, zeroing in on Knox. “Linda never meant anything to me and neither do you. You’re not my family anymore than she is.”

  Emily squared a searing look at Ty. “Stop this. Right now. Before you say something you can’t take back.”

  Snickering, Ty jabbed a finger at Emily’s face. Her flinch was unmistakable. “That’s rich, you giving me advice. You stay out of this, girl. You have no dog in this fight.”

  “Like hell, I don’t,” Emily said.

  Ty’s attention dipped to Knox and Emily’s joined hands, then gave a bark of mad laughter. “Because you’re fucking him? You think I don’t know? You think we all don’t know what’s been going on between you two, you little slut?” Every word was hurled at her like shards of glass, meant to wound.

  That cleared the fog from Knox’s mind right good. “Don’t you dare speak to her that way.”

  Emily went rigid, though her expression was one of pure control. “It’s okay, Knox. I can handle this.” To Ty, she said, “You think that insult is new? You think you’re the first man to call me that? Do you have any idea of the number of bruises I carried on my body as a child?” She held her index finger out like a sword and stabbed Ty hard in the shoulder. “So many of them fingertip-shaped bruises. But I’m not a kid anymore, and I don’t have to take shit from anyone. Not even you.”

  Ty rolled the shoulder she’d jabbed. The expression in his eyes turned rageful enough that Knox took a step back, pulling Emily with him.

  “You were nothing when I took you in, you ungrateful bitch,” Ty bit out, looking more rabid by the second. “Homeless, jobless. I gave you a chance at a real life. I opened my family to you. But look at you now. All these years, it turns out you were just using my family’s good fortune, and then, when the next moneybags showed up, you moved on to him. Could you be any more transparent? You were nothing before you came begging me for a job. And you’re nothing now. Nothing but a user. My God, it’s embarrassing to watch.”

  “Shut up,” Knox said to Ty. To Emily, he added, “Let’s get out of here.” He needed space to process everything Ty, Eloise, and Granny June had revealed. He’d wanted to be there for Carina and Decker, and he knew Emily would want to be there, too, but Ty had turned the experience too toxic for either of them to withstand.

  But Emily wasn’t ready to back down. “I’m so tired of these … these powerful men projecting their anger onto me. All these monsters clawing at me, trying to drag me down, telling me, You’re nothing,” she said, mimicking Ty’s deep voice. “I’m not nothing. I’m a goddamn phoenix, reborn from the ashes of a childhood hell. I remade myself completely and I’ve got the scars to prove it.”

  Knox tugged Emily’s arm. “Come on. Please. Let’s leave. I need air.”

  “Not so fast,” Ty said. “You’re just as bad as her. I brought you both into the Briscoe Ranch family. I vouched for you. I tried to do the right thing for you in my own way. I trusted you. Both of you. And I guess the joke’s on me because you’re both a disgrace. A disgrace for everything the Briscoe name stands for. And you, Knox, will never, ever be a son of mine.”

  Before Knox knew what was happening, Emily raised her hand, wound back, and backhanded Ty Briscoe across the face.

  A hush fell over the room and time seemed to stop. Even Ty froze, his lips slack as a pink stain spread on his cheek.

  “I get it now. This is how it works with you.” Emily said. “The minute your back’s up against the wall, you turn on people to protect yourself. Is that what happened when Linda got pregnant? Is that why you abandoned her and your baby? What a coward.”

  With a curse, Ty lunged at Emily, his hands up as though he was going for her throat.

  Knox didn’t think. He didn’t plan. He released Emily’s hand, made a fist, and punched Ty in the gut. The release of anger felt so damn good, that he ducked his head and went at Ty again. This time, he slammed Ty against the lobby wall, using the skills Big Tommy taught him in the ring. He raised his head, ready to tell Ty off, right in his face, but when he looked up, he was looking into the eyes of his father.

  His father. Holy shit.

  In that moment, Knox’s anger seceded to compassion. Ty had lost everything. The business, his self-respect. His wife, most likely. Which meant Knox had accomplished what he’d set out to do from the day he first stepped foot on Briscoe Ranch Resort. He’d ruined Ty Briscoe in the name of revenge.

  Except that now, Knox didn’t want any part of it. He didn’t want revenge; he didn’t want the resort or a
ny profits from it. Had that been what his dad was trying to tell him by preventing the truck from driving onto the resort? Knox could almost hear his dad’s voice. Don’t do this. It’s not too late to turn this truck around. There are things you don’t want to know.

  Damn right, there were. And if he could, he would’ve scrubbed it all from his memory. The knowledge of what Granny June’s laugh sounded like and that Shayla and Haylie shared the same eyes. He didn’t want to be aware of Carina’s new baby and the life she and Decker enjoyed on the resort grounds, each pursuing their dream careers—businesses that would be torn down if the sale to Lux Universal went through. He didn’t want to know that the father he loved with his whole heart and whom he spoke to every damn day had lied to him. That his father and mother had been lying to him his whole life.

  Mostly, his temper howled at the heavy weight of responsibility pressing on him. He held the Briscoe family’s future in his hands—their legacy, their livelihoods. The future of people who’d lied to him, who’d marginalized him. The biological father who’d rejected him before he was born, and who rejected him now. Someday, Knox wanted to find out why. But he couldn’t think past his outrage at the corner he’d painted himself into.

  If he wanted to save the resort, he’d have to put his reputation and career on the line to drum up enough money. He’d have to pour his entire net worth into this place and these people who’d betrayed him. Did he even want to? Maybe selling to Lux was the right choice. Maybe he needed to let it all burn to the ground. Like Emily had so many years ago, the Briscoe family legacy could rise from the ashes of a sordid and cruel past into something new and beautiful. Maybe it was time to let Briscoe Ranch go.

  He let the fury of betrayal seize hold of him. With a curse, he slammed Ty into the wall again. “Were you ever going to tell me the truth? Were any of you?”

  Ty shoved him back. “No. Never.”

  “Knox, let him go,” Emily said. He felt a tug on his belt, as though she were trying to pull him away. But Knox was nowhere near done. He could hear that she was trying to talk him down, but he could barely make out the words over the rush of adrenaline in his ears.

  “Why not?” Knox spat at Ty. “Why cover up the truth in the first place? I have a right to know who I am, goddamn it.”

  “Knox!” Emily called again. “The police!”

  No sooner had he registered her words than strong, male arms looped around his chest, dragging him back. A loud voice barked at him to get back before he was charged with more than just assault. The Sheriff’s department had arrived. Just fucking fantastic.

  “It’s about time,” Ty said to the deputy. “Thanks for getting that animal off me.”

  Knox flexed his fist. Fuck it all; prison would be worth getting another good punch in.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Briscoe. We’re just happy we got here in time,” the deputy said.

  Ty brushed imaginary dust off his shirt, the picture of civility. “When you get back to the station, be sure to give Sheriff Mendez my regards.” To Knox, Ty added, “You might think you hold all the cards, but guess again. You’re about to find out what my longstanding reputation in this community is worth.”

  “I’m assuming you want to press charges?” the deputy who was restraining Knox asked Ty.

  With harnessed anger and pride, Emily stepped between Ty and the deputy. “Don’t. Do. This. You’re his—”

  “I’m his nothing. Yes, I’m pressing charges, Deputy Thurman. Nobody assaults me and gets away with it.”

  Seething that his own biological father would have him arrested within minutes of the truth coming out about his parentage, Knox played the last card he had as the deputies dragged him out of the lobby. “If they arrest me, I can’t stop the sale.”

  Ty followed them out, strutting like he owned the place, Emily on his heels. “As if you would stop it,” Ty said. “As if you haven’t been trying to stab me in the back since I brought you on board. I’m done with your lies.”

  The fragile strings of Knox’s composure snapped all over again. “My lies? You’re done with my lies?”

  “Sweet Mother of God, Ty. Knox. What the hell’s going on?” A pale-faced Decker jogged to meet them at the curb, where they stood next to an idling patrol car. “Knox, are they arresting you? What happened?”

  Emily braced her hands on Decker’s shoulders and shook them until she had Decker’s attention. “Are they all right? Carina and the baby, did they make it out of surgery okay?”

  Decker cast a sideways glance at Knox as a deputy strong-armed him into the backseat of the cruiser. A tentative smile kicked up at the corners of his lips. “I’ve got a son, and he’s good, strong. Eight pounds, probably thanks to all that good food you fixed for Carina. And as for Carina, she’s a tough one. They have her in a recovery room and the baby’s taking a brief detour to the NICU since his heartbeat was so erratic in the womb. But that’s just a precaution, they said.”

  Ty took off back in the direction of the lobby.

  Knox bit his lip, disgusted that his only option out of this pissing match was to swallow his pride and beg Ty to direct the officers to release him. Was he really prepared to invest the bulk of his wealth to take on full ownership of a resort with crumbling foundation that would need a complete overhaul? Was he really willing to risk everything to be a part of the family that shunned his and lied to him about who he was?

  Don’t do it for them. Do it for Emily.

  “Ty, the sale. I’ll stop it if you don’t press charges. I’ll find a way. Do it for your girls,” Knox called, careful not to infuse the word with a single iota of desperation.

  At the door, Ty stopped and shot Knox a look over his shoulder.

  “What sale? And why would Ty press charges?” Decker said, looking more confused by the second. “Did you two get into a fight or something?”

  There was no way Knox was going to interfere with Decker’s happiness. “Let’s just say tensions were high,” Knox said from behind gritted teeth.

  Emily must have agreed with Knox’s decision because she told added, “Don’t worry about it. It was a misunderstanding. We’re handling it. You go back in and take care of Carina. Let her know I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Decker only hesitated for a moment before nodding, then pivoting on his boot heel and fast-walking back inside, bypassing Ty on the way.

  “Knox is right,” Emily said to Ty as soon as Decker was gone. “Tell them to let him go. Do it for Carina and Haylie. For the new baby. Don’t let Knox’s arrest and the subsequent destruction of the resort be the final word of the Briscoe legacy.”

  Those must have been the magic words because Ty’s hard gaze flicked to the officers. He swallowed hard enough that his Adam’s apple bobbed and his jaw rippled. “Let him go.”

  The next thing Knox knew, Ty had rushed him, wearing a sneer that bared his teeth. “But you hear me out, boy. With these deputies as my witnesses, if you sell the resort out from under my family, I’m going to kill you with my own two hands. And that is not an empty threat.”

  And then Ty stormed back into the building.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Knox had borrowed a company car to drive Granny June to the hospital. He parked it in the nearest employee parking lot at the resort and left the keys inside, then set off at a run toward the fire road where his truck was parked. Nothing short of a full-out sprint could match the rage pumping through Knox’s veins at the betrayal by his dad.

  His dad. What a big fucking joke that Knox still thought of him as that. Guess what, chump? The man who taught you to hate your grandparents and your uncle—no, your real father—is really your uncle. Surprise!

  He’d tried, in the only way he could, to prevent Knox from learning the truth about the man he’d groomed Knox to believe was the enemy. Ty, the greedy uncle who’d cheated Knox’s dad out of the family fortune. He was the reason they’d grown up scraping the barrel for enough money every month to get by, the reason Knox and his si
blings had grown up as the poorest kids in their neighborhood. Ty was the reason Knox’s dad had rarely been able to hold down a steady job, the reason he’d let his anger rot his insides until, finally, his body responded with a fatal heart attack.

  “Mom always did say those Briscoe boys were charmers,” Knox muttered as he ran. But Knox hadn’t put it together until today that she’d been talking about both brothers.

  Mom, what did you do?

  But Knox already knew the answer. She’d lied to Knox. Just like his dad had. And his grandmother. The whole lot of them. What a fool they’d made Knox out to be.

  Seeing his dad’s truck parked on the edge of the dirt road just beyond the resort grounds pushed his festering rage out of control. No wonder his dad hadn’t wanted his truck to drive onto the resort. No wonder his dad had tried to thwart Knox’s every effort.

  Knox pounded on the glass of the driver’s side window with the side of his fist, over and over, relishing the shot of pain radiating up his arm until his thirst for destruction grew. He grabbed his pocketknife and without extending the blade, pounded the window with the hilt until the safety glass shattered into a flimsy sheet of tiny beads.

  “Fuck you, Dad. You coward.” He tipped his head back and bellowed directly at the heavens. “Me coming here was never about getting justice for what the family did to me or Mom or Shayla or Wade. This was all about you, you selfish son of a bitch. And not even for a real fucking reason. You used me to get revenge on your brother for sleeping with your girlfriend! Of all the goddamn things! But you know what? I’m not your goon anymore. I’m not Ty’s goon, either. You all lied to me. Every last one of you.”

  He cleared the broken glass with the knife hilt, then picked the shards off his seat and got behind the wheel. The truck started on the first try. He threw it into gear, then barreled down the hill in the direction of his house. He was so far out of control that the road was blurry, but he kept his foot pressed on the gas pedal all the way down. What was a little danger now, after everything? He had nothing left to care about anyway. The resort was going to be sold off, Emily was going to hate him, and his family had screwed him over in the worst possible way.