Chapter 51
Ledgar
She’s on her second cup of coffee when I walk in with the folder I’ve been holding onto for three days, waiting for the right moment to give it to her.
I’ve watched her every morning sipping her coffee, every walk we have taken, and every evening when we talk.
She takes every piece of information I’ve given her and processes it like she’s known it all along.
She isn’t the same woman I left in bed six years ago, she’s stronger, and a little bit more argumentative if I must say.
This morning when she came down the hall in that same ole oversized T-shirt of mine she found in the room, she grabbed her mug quietly and is now standing at the window in the kitchen, looking out at the yard with something quiet and almost peaceful in her face.
Not that I want to ruin mornings like these but it’s the right time.
I set it on the counter in front of her and lean against the counter across from her with my coffee in hand.
I watch her with enough distance between us to let her feel what she needs to feel without my presence suffocating her, yet still close enough to catch her if she starts to fall.
She looks at the folder then back at me. “What’s this?”
“Something you need to see.” I nod to the folder.
She opens it and I watch as she reads the first page.
Her eyes move across it and stop, go back to the top and move across it again.
The second time through her hands go still on the paper and she doesn’t move and I know then she’s read the results.
She flips to the second page, and her chin drops just a fraction as she reads it through once, twice, and then to me.
“He knew,” she says. “This entire time.” I nod at her, hoping this doesn’t set us back again as I brace myself for the next question I know is coming because I knew this entire time too, but it doesn’t come.
“These past few years we became closer than we ever were when I was growing up and he knew.”
“He was protecting you.” I keep my voice soft but stern. “The same way I thought I was protecting you by leaving.”
“From what?” She looks up at me, tears in her eyes, and questions I can’t answer for her. “From knowing who I was? From knowing I had a father the entire time right there in front of me.” She puts both hands flat on the counter and breathes, slow and deep. “He was right there the whole time.”
“Payson.”
“I know.” She shakes her head. “I know he thought he was doing the right thing. The same as you. It’s just…it’s a lot.”
“I know it is.” She quiets for a moment, her eyes still scanning over the birth certificate. “Did you know?” she asks. “When you were helping him find my mother? Did he tell you?” I hold her gaze as I answer.
“Yes.” She nods slowly. “I found out shortly after Vivian sent those men to kill you.” Her head snaps in my direction.
“He was my father,” she whispers, her voice trying not to crack.
“Yes he was,” I tell her assuringly. “So everything tied to the Reith name…to our name…”
“Is yours,” I say softly, just the way I imagined I would tell her since the day Jarrell told me on the phone.
“Rightfully, and legally. Everything. The casino, the properties, the accounts, all of it. Everything has your name on it whether Vivian wants to acknowledge that or not. Griffith made sure of it.” She looks at the folder sitting closed on the counter between us.
“Wait, Vivian knows?” she asks.
“She suspected.”
“That’s why she had him taken before Griffith and I could get there.
” She spits the words with venom and the color in her face changes as she says them, eyes cold.
It makes complete sense given everything I know about what she’s capable of when she’s decided on something.
“She was trying to get ahead of it. Has she been in those accounts yet?”
“Griffith is working on confirming the full extent of it. He’ll have something concrete soon.”
I let her sit with the news I just gave her as she processes it better than I thought she would.
I don’t try to sugarcoat anything because she doesn’t need that right now.
What she needs from me right now is to stand here and let her be as angry and hurt as she is and not try to manage either of those things into something else.
I top her coffee without asking and set it beside her as I lean back against the counter and wait.
Duke comes in from the living room and crosses to her, sitting directly on her feet.
She looks down at him, smiles and chuckles softly.
That fucker. I look at her again as she stands in my kitchen holding the proof of everything she was never given the chance to know.
Jarrell told me on the phone that day in my office, his voice low and threatening.
She’s mine, he said. My blood. I told him I understood and I kept that secret for years and now watching her hold the proof of it, I think about the email from him as well.
The one Griffith found and sent me. The line that said though I couldn’t see it at the time, I forgive you.
I think about what it cost him to write that, and trust that I’d read it at exactly the right moment.
She closes the folder and sets both hands flat on top of it.
“I need a minute,” she says as she walks out the kitchen and onto the porch.
Duke looks at me from the doorway and I open the door so he can go out to her.
Leaning against the doorframe, I think about Vivian sitting somewhere calculating her next move and think about everything Griffith is pulling together and then about the woman walking to my favorite spot to think.
She has no idea how much is about to change and no idea how ready she is for it.
But I do, and when she’s ready, I’m going to be standing right beside her.