The question brought a smile to her lips, thinking of Haylie, one of the bravest women Emily knew, out there on the road, ready to forge a new life. “Yes. I can never go back to who I used to be. I wouldn’t want to.”
“It’s the same for me. I would never go back to the man I was before all this. But I still don’t know if I want to stop the sale of the resort. Would you resent me if I didn’t? All the hate and the secrets … that place is toxic.”
A tendril of fear snaked through her at the thought of losing Briscoe Ranch. “It’s my home, my family. We have to save it.”
He brought her hand to his chest and pressed it against his heart. “Let me be your home. Let me be your family. We don’t need this place. And what if all this is happening exactly like it’s supposed to? What if I’m supposed to fail? You called yourself a phoenix, and the imagery of that stuck with me. What if Briscoe Ranch Resort is meant to be razed so we can all have a fresh start?”
She’d never thought about it that way, but she remained unconvinced. “This resort has been in your family for generations. Instead of believing that there’s a reason you should fail, what if you believed there’s a reason you’re being made to fight so hard? What if all these trials are to help us all clarify what really matters? I know it has for me, and for Haylie and for Ty. Heck, even for Eloise.” She took his hands in hers. “Nothing worth having ever comes easy. Isn’t that the saying? Maybe all this is really about learning to fight for each other. Maybe we don’t need to burn the past to the ground before we can rise strong, together.”
His shoulders relaxed and his expression went distant as he considered her argument.
Taking his hand again, she stood, bracing her legs apart as the boat rocked. “I’m going to try to save the resort. Will you help me?”
He rose, though his eyes were troubled. “I don’t think we can. Every way I figure it, every calculation I make about the money I could raise in a day, falls depressingly short of the mark. Seventy-five million is a lot of money to collect in forty-eight hours. Twenty-four, now.”
“How much are you short?”
“Twenty million, give or take.” A wry smile spread on his lips. “Any chance you’ve got that lying around?”
Wild, crazy hope buzzed through her. She took both his cheeks in her hands. “Knox, baby, buckle up. Do I ever have some news for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Neither Knox nor Emily currently owned a functioning vehicle. Which made their trip to Knox’s mother’s house the next morning slightly more complicated. Knox got Shayla on the job of calling for another tow truck to pull his truck out of the lake—again—while Emily summoned a Cab’d driver to take them to the resort, where they could borrow a company car.
They’d slept in a tangle of sheets and limbs in his bed, not so much making up for lost time as getting their future off to a magnificent start. Despite all the strife and pain of the day before, or perhaps because of it, they’d both woken up optimistic and ready to face their futures together. Which was a very good thing because there was much to be done that day. First, Knox needed to pay a visit to his mother, followed by an afternoon meeting with the resort’s lawyers, who were already busy composing a buyout offer, and Knox’s team of structural engineers.
But while, yesterday, he’d dreaded the confrontation with his mom, today he knew that it didn’t matter what she said or how she reacted to the news of Knox finding out the truth because he’d already forgiven her. It had been a simple choice, namely that he refused to start his life with Emily while rotting with resentment, the way his father and mother had started their marriage.
His mom met them at the door of her house before they’d even had a chance to knock. Her face was drawn, her eyes red-rimmed.
“Hey, Mom. Is everything okay?”
She pushed the door open wider. Behind her stood Ty, his expression hard as ever.
Knox’s heart sank. So much for an easy conversation. As ready as he was to forgive his mom, Knox had no idea how he felt about Ty. None at all. He wasn’t angry, per se, but he wasn’t at peace, either. The fact remained that Ty had brought Knox to the resort. As Ty had said the day before, he’d tried to do the right thing by Knox, in his own way. Knox was going to have to give that point a lot of thought.
Knox nodded at Ty, who merely blinked in response.
“You know the truth,” his mom said. Her whole body trembled with the words. All Knox wanted to do was throw his arms around her and tell her everything was going to be okay. Except Ty was right there, clouding Knox’s judgment. Had she loved him? Was his dad her second choice?
Instead of a hug, Knox bussed her cheek, then squeezed her hands. They were ice-cold. “You remember Emily, right?”
“I don’t think this is going to be a conversation fit for company,” his mom said, casting a worried look at Emily.
“She’s not company,” Knox said. He shot a look at Ty. “She’s family. And I’m planning to keep her by my side for a very long time, so I’d like her to be here with us today. Let’s go inside and talk, shall we?”
He took Emily by the hand and followed his mom into the house. Ty stepped aside to let them pass, but he held Knox’s glare. It’d been that way since the beginning—two alpha dogs circling, sizing each other up, planning a strategy of attack. They were so alike. In looks, in the way they came at the world with a unique Briscoe brand of brash confidence. Father and son.
Fucking hell. Who would’ve ever guessed?
His mom bee-lined for the kitchen and flitted around them, wringing her hands. “Knox, can I get you a coke? What about you, Emily? I don’t have any beer, but I could … I mean, I could run to the store, if you want.”
“Linda, sit down,” Ty said, taking a seat at the head of the table.
She did as she was told. Knox and Emily followed suit.
Knox had zero interest in distressing his mom any more. He reached across the table and captured her hands. “I love you, Mom. I’m not mad.”
Her mouth screwed up and her eyes turned glassy. “Oh, Knox,” she croaked.
“Damn it, woman, get ahold of yourself,” Ty said in a low growl.
Knox shot him a warning glare before turning his attention back to his mother. “Don’t cry, Mom. Everything’s okay.” Beneath the table, Emily set a supportive hand on his thigh. He took a fortifying breath, then continued. “I’d just like to hear some details. I’d like to know how it happened. That would help me sort everything out in my mind. But I’m not upset and I’ve already forgiven you.”
She pulled her hands away and extricated a tissue from the sleeve of her sweater. “I’m not proud of what I did. Praise God for having mercy on sinners like me because I am not worthy.”
“Mom, please.” He wasn’t sure how to move the conversation past her transgressions against God. For the whole of Knox’s life, that had been her way during times of stress and grief. She took solace in boiling a situation down to black and white, good and evil, the sins of mankind clashing with the divinity of the Holy Father. “You’re worthy. You did the best you could.”
“No, I did not. I let myself become an instrument of Satan. Your father might as well have been Job for how cruelly I tested him.”
My father Clint or my father Ty? With Ty’s eyes on him, Knox bit back the question, asking instead, “Tested him how? Please. What happened?”
“I was too young, and the Briscoe boys, they were charmers, both of them.”
Knox’s patience was fraying. “Mom, come on. Please. You dated Dad in high school, I know that much. So how did you end up sleeping with Ty? He didn’t…” There was no way he could voice the word rape. This was his mother. His sweet, fragile mother.
Emily’s hand moved to his back, sharing with him her strength.
Ty cleared his throat. “Linda, the boy wants answers, not blubbering. Are you gonna tell him, or should I?”
“Ty, thank you,” Emily said, in the calm, neutral voice of a moderator. “Hel
p us understand.”
Ty ran a hand over his bald head. “Of course, I flirted with Linda in high school, but I never expected her to take that seriously. Back then, me and Clint had a healthy rivalry. My father was a good, good man, but he had a thing where he liked to pit us boys against each other. He had a phrase he used with us. He said our responsibility as brothers was to push each other to greater heights. In his mind, there wasn’t anyone better to compete with than your own brother. I don’t suppose he ever expected us to take that as far as we did.”
“You two were always neck-and-neck, in sports, in academics,” Knox’s mom said. “It was a big joke in the neighborhood. When one of you had a girlfriend, the other one did. When one of you got a job that paid two dollars an hour, the other would get a job that paid four. And on and on. I remember my own mama talking about you two and all your ambition. It was why I went after Clint in the first place. I liked myself an ambitious man.”
Knox looked between Ty and his mom. “So you slept with Mom because she was your brother’s girlfriend?”
“She was the one who came after me, not the other way around,” Ty said.
That stunned Knox silly. He sat back in his chair, mouth agape.
“You see, I graduated a year before Clint, and my buddies and me had a habit on the nights of the high school dances to grab some beers and some girls and make our own party out in Chicory Hollow. It was the night of the Sadie Hawkins dance during Clint’s senior year when out of the blue, Linda showed up at our party, all hopped up like someone had lit a fire under her feet. She was all over me, and I didn’t bother to ask what she was thinking since she was Clint’s girl. Competition took hold of me and I lost my good judgment.”
“Mom? What happened? Why go after Ty when you were already dating Clint.”
She shook her head, while her hands teased off bits of fiber from the tissue in her hands. “That’s the sinner in me. At the Sadie Hawkins dance, Clint and I had a fight, a real bad one. He’d been flirting with Patsy Burleton, so I thought, two can play at that game. Back then, I didn’t know Christ like I do now. I was blinded by sin. I knew where Ty and his boys were drinking, so I ditched Clint and I … I sacrificed my virginity to the Devil.” She crumpled over her hands.
“It’s okay, Mom.”
Ty stood. “You know, I don’t think it is, Knox. We’re the ones who should be comforting you instead of the other way around. We’re the ones who should be asking for your forgiveness for keeping you in the dark all these years. Linda, stop hiding behind your religious safety blanket and talk straight with our son. You tell him why you took him away from me. You tell him why you forced me to lie to him all these years.”
Holy shit. “Mom?”
“I was getting there,” she shouted in dramatic indignation. “When I found out I was pregnant, I told my mother, who told my father. And I let them believe their assumption that the baby’s daddy was Clint. Before I knew it, they went to Tyson and June. Nobody asked my opinion. Nobody asked me what I wanted.”
“My dad thought Clint was the father, too,” Ty said. “But I knew it was me. And as soon as your parents left, I told my folks and Clint as much. I tried to do the right thing. I offered to marry you, but you wouldn’t have me.”
“The one sin was enough.”
Ty’s spine was rigid, his face a stone mask. “You think you were the only one being pressured by your parents that night to do the right thing? I was prepared to make you an honest woman, but you chose this shit-poor life with my mediocre brother over what I could have given you.”
“Clint gave Knox what you can’t, you heartless sinner. He gave him a real daddy, with love and a Christian upbringing and enough food on the table to never go hungry.”
Ty’s careful façade cracked with a derisive huff. “That wasn’t love. It was revenge, pure and simple. My mother was ready to set up a nursery in the family compound. But Clint and your parents had you so brainwashed, you couldn’t think for yourself. You didn’t want anybody to know what you’d done with me, your folks included. And Clint preyed on your weak-willed vanity. Your shame. He married you and deprived me of my own son out of revenge against me for sleeping with you. Like he’s using Knox now to ruin my business. Even buried six feet under, he’s still controlling you all.”
Unimaginable hurt threatened at the corners of Knox’s conscious thought. Ty had wanted to be a father to him. He’d wanted Knox to be a part of the Briscoe Ranch legacy. Knox pushed the hurt away and locked it up tight. There would be time enough later to unpack this conversation and work through the pain in a rational, constructive way.
“My husband was a hero,” his mom said. “He took me back, the worthless sinner I was, and forgave me in the merciful spirit of Jesus Christ.”
“Shut up with that religious garbage, woman.”
Knox stood. “She may have made some mistakes, but you don’t get to talk to her like that.”
Ty grimaced. “You think it was easy for me to give you up? I would’ve cast aside Eloise for you—I would have given up everything to keep you—but your mother, she wasn’t going to leave Clint and he wasn’t gonna let her go, so I didn’t have a choice. All that Briscoe pride running through Clint’s veins … there was no reasoning with him. As my father reminded me that night, business at the resort was just starting to boom, and our family’s reputation was on the line. He was right that no good would come of speaking the truth about Linda’s baby, not for our family business and not for you, since Clint was hell-bent on eye-for-an-eye revenge. I took what belonged to Clint the night of the Sadie Hawkins dance, and so he took what was mine.”
Knox felt himself swaying. It was all too much. Then Emily was behind him, her arm around his waist and her strength fanning out over them both like a protective shield.
“I thought bringing you to work for me was righting a wrong,” Ty continued. “I thought I could be in your life, finally. I was prepared to pass my legacy to you as my only son—the son I was cheated out of parenting. But Clint got the last laugh, didn’t he? Using you from the grave for his revenge. I never factored in that Clint had raised you to believe all that eye-for-an-eye bullshit. And now you’re selling our family’s hallowed ground out from under us. How does it feel to be a puppet for a dead man?”
Emily waved her arms. “Both of you, stop. Can you even hear yourselves? Talking about your son like he’s your greatest sin, your greatest regret. I can’t…” She pressed her fingers to her temples and closed her eyes. Everyone in the room waited in collective silence for her to regroup and finish her thought.
When she opened her eyes again, she looked at Knox’s mom. “Thank you for Knox. For raising him to be such a good man.” She turned her attention to Ty. “And thank you for bringing him back to Briscoe Ranch. And for asking me to provide lunch for your meeting that first day. You two created a miracle together and I’ll forever be indebted to you.”
She turned and faced Knox. Their eyes met. “I love you. And I’m so grateful that our lives unfolded exactly as they did so we could be here together right now.”
All the pain and anger melted away as he looked into her eyes. She was right. He wouldn’t change a thing. “I think it’s time you and I bought some property together,” he said.
The edges of her lips kicked up into a dreamy smile. “We’ll be partners, in every sense of the word.”
The thought left him giddy. “Emily Ford, are you proposing to me?”
Her eyebrows flickered up and her smile turned impish. “If only I had a ring to offer you right now.”
“What’s happening?” Linda said. “What property?”
Knox put his arm around Emily and faced his mother and Ty, steeped in the power of the truth—the power of his love for Emily. It flowed from his heart and all around him. He felt his dad watching him from on High and harnessed that power, too. Nothing could stop him, nothing could hurt him. He was above it all, with her.
“You’ll see,” Knox told his mom and T
y. “Soon enough. You’ll all see. Now, if you two will excuse us, we’ve got some money to move.”
Epilogue
One month later …
With a blanket wrapped around them to stave off the chilly late-November air, Knox and Emily sat in the bed of his newly repaired Chevy and watched the stars come up over Briscoe Ranch Resort from their favorite lookout point on the fire road right at the edge of the resort where Knox always parked his truck. Somewhere, a group of carolers sang Joy to the World to the merriment of the resort guests. Knox didn’t think he’d ever been happier than he was in that moment, surveying the hill country kingdom he shared with the woman he loved.
In so many ways, tonight was a night of celebration. Not only because the Chevy was finally back in working order but also because today marked the finalization of their purchase of Briscoe Ranch. In the end, with the help of Knox’s crackerjack team of structural engineers and geologists, it hadn’t been too tough to convince Lux Universal that Briscoe Ranch wasn’t worth the sandy, ever-shifting ground it sat on. Certainly, it wouldn’t be a safe bet for senior housing.
But even though Lux withdrew their offer, Knox and Emily decided to buy out Briscoe Equity Group’s shares of the resort anyway. There was no sense in risking another near-catastrophe, not when Knox planned to spend the rest of his life at Briscoe Ranch by Emily’s side.
He turned to kiss her and found her grinning from ear to ear. “What’s that smile about?”
She snuggled in closer to him. “I’ve never owned anything before, nothing of value. I love that this is ours now.” Her hand roved lower on his chest, then dipped to his jeans. “But as happy as I am watching the stars with you, I think I’m ready to get to the necking part of the whole sitting at a lookout point experience.”
He gave her a kiss on her nose. “Are you sure you are? Because my neck is definitely not down there. Besides, Movie Night’s going to start soon. Carina and Decker are bringing Sam. I told them we’d be there.”
She teased the corner of his lips with hers as her hands roved over his body. “We might be a little late.”
One More Taste Page 30
