Chapter 58 All Comes Tumbling Down
JADE
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WHAT HAVE I done?
I can’t answer my own question yet. Not when the world feels like it’s closing in on me and the burning inside me is too loud to ignore.
I move with purpose—run.
I can’t stay here.
I slip past volunteers and handlers without making eye contact. I find a quiet corner near a pen where I know horses are tied.
Animals don’t judge.
They don’t ask questions.
They just are.
I press my palm to a horse’s shoulder and breathe in the smells of sweat, hay, and leather.
Familiar.
Grounding.
And in that moment, I finally let a few hot tears fall.
Not loud.
Not broken.
Just real.
Watching him walk away nearly brought me to my knees right there, where anyone could see. That’s not me, but that’s the effect he has on me.
But I couldn’t chase him. I couldn’t entertain the idea that my daddy would hurt a human with such anger, but I know when it came to a Wilde all those years ago—hell, last year—he could. He would. I know he’s capable. I’ve seen his anger.
Then why did I push Hart away? Why did I call him a liar?
I should go after him, but instead I bury my face in the horse’s neck.
What the hell would I say to him?
Sorry, I believed my daddy over you.
Sorry, I tore you down to keep the version of my past that made sense.
Lord, what if this is the last time he ever looks at me like that, and I just let him walk away?
I hear boots crunch against the hay, and for a second, I think it’s him.
“I heard you and Hart had words.” My daddy stops at the edge of the pen and leans against the rail.
“Yeah.” My fingers curled into the thick, coarse mane. “He had words.”
“You okay?”
I don’t answer right away.
What do I even say to that?
I’m not okay.
I’m standing here in the dark, having yelled at the one person who loves me, and the one person I love with all my heart. My whole heart. And maybe that’s why I pushed him away. ‘Cause I’m damn good at pushing people away.
“I’m fine.” And here I am, even pushing my daddy away.
Just like I always have. It’s easier to keep everyone at a distance.
We stand there for what feels like forever before my daddy speaks.
“What Hart said about me pushing his father—”
My gaze snaps to his. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t know. All these years,”—he takes a deep, shaky breath—“I had no idea. Calvin just told me.”
“Why? Why would he do that? How does he even know?”
“I reckon Hart had some words with him.”
The more my daddy speaks, the more my insides begin to crumble, fearing what he’s about to admit. Because if he says the words, the truth I don’t think Hart would lie about, then I have to face my truth.
And I’m not ready for that.
He’s quiet for a long minute, and that only deepens my fear.
“I’d never want a kid to bear that weight. To bear my mistake, but that’s what happened, and finding out has nearly gutted me. I understand why you don’t want to believe it. Hell, I don’t want to believe it.”
I hold my breath.
“But what Hart said is true, Jade. I pushed Calvin off that loft.”
The breath slams out of me. Every muscle in my body locks up. My heart seems to stop for a beat, then begins to race in a way that feels like a panic attack.
“I never meant for it to go that far.” My daddy’s voice is steady, but rough around the edges.
I step away from the horse. He doesn’t need the anger pouring through me.
“Never meant for it to go that far? To almost kill him? You almost killed someone, Daddy. And Hart saw it. It ruined him. It tore him away from me and landed him in the hospital after his hit. A hit that took his career. And he watched his daddy almost die. You did that.”
“I’m sorry, Jade.
I shake my head and unlock the pen. “You’re sorry? To who? To me? To Mr. Wilde? Or Hart? Because he saw the whole thing, and his life has never been the same.”
“I’m sorry to everyone, my action caused pain.”
“It’s not enough.”
“I know, but back then, I was young, angry, and sad. The day I saw Levi on our land with your sister, something inside me clicked.”
He rubs a hand over his face, fingers pressing into his eyes as though he’s trying to block out the memory.
“They were young. Only twelve years old and just playing on the land like they—like they belonged to each other.” He looks away, unable to meet my eyes.
His gaze fixes on something distant as though the memory itself is too much to bear.
“Instead of seeing the beautiful friendship they shared, I saw Calvin and my sister. I saw them sneaking away together, and I remembered sneaking away with them.”
His words are new to me. Anything involving our parents together has always been hush-hush and not discussed, not even known to people. Which makes sense, considering their folks also hated each other.
He exhales sharply, a sound full of frustration and self-disappointment.
“I didn’t stop their friendship. Hell, for a long while, I was secretly friends with Calvin.
Your Aunt Naomi was friends with your mother and Lillian.
Best friends. A trio of whirlwind and trouble I grew up with.
” He chuckles, as if the memories are good, but a strain of pain seizes him, stealing him into a moment for himself.
“I didn’t know that,” I say quietly.
I only know the small version of what our fathers decided to share with Levi and Hope about my aunt falling off a ridge when she went out on a date with Mr. Wilde. None of my siblings knew all of them were friends, sneaking around on the property.
“It wasn’t just one summer like you and Hart. We were longtime friends like Levi and Hope. Calvin was my friend as much as he was your aunt’s. Of course, our families didn’t know and never would have approved.”
The story of our damn bloodlines. A stupid feud between settlers who tried to destroy each other over land, property, and stupid cattle.
One that stuck.
One an entire town participated in.
“So when I saw your sister and how easy she was with him, I knew that wasn’t their first time together. I knew there was more.”
He’d been right. Hope had always been sneaking off with Levi, and only my mama and Levi’s mama knew, apparently, until my daddy found out.
“I saw my sister when I looked at Hope. I saw her smile and her laughter. I saw that Levi gave her those things, and this guilt I’d buried resurfaced with a vengeance.”
I hold my breath as the features of his face shift.
“I wasn’t going to let what happened to Naomi happen to Hope.
And I certainly wasn’t going to stand around and let it happen like I did with your aunt.
I’d been convinced that if we hadn’t broken the feud rules, she’d still be alive.
If I had told my father, he’d have stepped in and she’d be alive. ”
His pain engulfs me. I feel it. But I feel Hart’s too. The teenager he had been seeing all this go down.
My heart breaks.
“So when I confronted Calvin and he tried to play it down, because he loved my sister so deeply, I lost control. I didn’t—” He exhales sharply, the words are stuck in his chest. “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.
But I saw red. I saw a man responsible for my sister’s death, and my daughter lying in the ground next to her. ”
It feels like my whole chest is caving in from the inside out. I don’t even know how to carry all the pain I feel for all of them.
So I stand here.
My dad’s words are long gone, scattered somewhere behind me, already swallowed by the noise of the festival. But the truth of them hangs in my chest like a lead weight.
“You put that pain on Hart. That pain and fear you’ve lived with. When you almost killed his daddy, he felt all of it, but worse. Because you meant to do it. You pushed him. He witnessed it. And he took all those feelings and used them to protect the people he loves. To protect me.”
Then the blood in my ears rushes, and the space around me spins just slightly.
I press my palms to my face. “Oh my God,” I whisper. “I accused him of lying. I laughed—I laughed when he said you pushed Mr. Wilde off the loft.” I struggle to catch my breath.
“Jade, breathe.” My daddy’s hands grip my arms.
“And the worst part was the look on his face.” My eyes meet my daddy’s. “He was in so much pain. Telling me about you hurt him.”
My stomach twists.
“In and out, Jade. Slow your breathing.”
But I can’t. The words tumble out. My breath ragged and so hard to grasp.
“He wasn’t lashing out. He wasn’t being cruel or vindictive.”
He told me the story like someone who had carried it too long.
Quietly.
Carefully.
Trusting me with something so raw and only half-healed.
And I flinched away like it was poison.
“I feel sick.”
I drop onto the grass, knees folding under me, because standing is too much.
The music pulses in the distance. People are cheering, laughing, and dancing while I’m here, fists balled into the dirt, trying to remember exactly what I said to him. Trying to count every moment, I twisted the knife a little deeper.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
My dad would never do something like that.
You’re a liar.
I rub my eyes hard, but it doesn’t stop the sting. Doesn’t stop the heat crawling up my throat, or the way guilt sits like a bruise behind my ribs.
I pushed him away. The one person who would do anything to protect me, not cage me.
He loves me.
That’s it.
As I am.
Not as someone he could change, or claim, or bend to fit beside him.
And I was so scared of losing myself, of becoming his wife, his shadow, that I didn’t see it. He’s never asked me to be anything but me. He’s just there.
Steady.
Open.
Loving.
“I have to find him.” When my daddy offers his hand to help me up, I decline. “No. You’ve helped enough.”
I storm past him.
“He’s hanging the banner,” my daddy calls out.
The banner.
His fear of heights.
I pivot. “You owe Hart the apology. He has a fear of heights because of you. Because he watched you push Mr. Wilde and nearly kill him.”
I don’t give him the chance to reply. I chase after Hart, my fury giving way to fear.
I slip in through a flap on the side of the tent. Here, the music is muffled, but the space is even worse. Cables snake underfoot with tape peeling at the edges. The thrum of the music echoes off metal trusses.
I step over a coiled extension cord and duck beneath a lighting rig.
My eyes scan past the crew hauling cases, heads down, distracted.
Then I freeze, blinking through the glare of stage lights and haze. Up above, near the rigging, Hart stands at the top of the ladder, his fingers working overhead to string the banner, balancing himself against the steel frame that leans into the scaffold.
He did it.
I watch as a smile lifts the corners of my mouth. I’m in total awe of the man I love, facing his biggest fear.
No hesitation.
Just grit and bare hands and a ladder that looks too old and too thin for all of this.
Something swells in my chest. Too big to name. Pride and panic, or both at once.
He reaches up higher. The beam is just out of reach. Then he steps higher.
One foot lifts onto the next rung.
CLICK.
The sound is sharp—wrong.
The metal beneath him gives a sudden jerk. Not a full collapse, but a lurch, like something slipped where it shouldn’t. It happens too fast. His brother’s deafening screams and shouts. The fear on Hart’s face when he realizes the ladder hasn’t locked in properly.
My body moves before I even acknowledge what I heard.
“Hart!”
It’s too late.
The ladder twists. He reaches for the scaffold and misses. His body tips sideways, boots kicking into the air.
Then he’s falling.
It doesn’t look real. It looks slow. Limbs flailing. His body falling at a rapid speed. His shoulder hits the hard-packed ground first. Then his back.
The sound rips straight through my spine.
I can’t even scream.
Can’t think.
The world just drops.
Music blurs
People shout.
Someone yells his name, but I’m already running.
“Hart—” My voice breaks as I drop to my knees beside his brothers. “No, no, no—”
There’s blood. I can’t tell if it’s his head or his mouth.
“Someone get help!” It isn’t a command.
It’s Levi’s deafening scream—a desperate, broken sound, raw and unfiltered, like it’s torn straight from his ribs.
“Shit. Fuck,” Dean chokes out, like the words catch halfway in his throat. “Hart? Hey man, can you hear me?”
Hart’s eyes are closed, but his chest rises, shallow and uneven.
“Why isn’t he waking up?” I sound far away.
Hollow.
Like someone else is asking from a place I haven’t caught up to yet.
“Don’t move him. Don’t touch him!” someone barks behind us.
A rodeo medic? Are EMTs already pushing through the crowd?
It takes all I have not to grab his hand. Not to touch his cheek.
More people are gathering around us now. It’s all radio static.
If anyone should hate a family, it should be me.
My throat closes in.
None of it matters.
Not the feud.
Not the land.
Not the past.
Not if he doesn’t wake up.
“Please,” I whisper. “Hart, please.”
Boots thunder behind me.
Someone shouts, “We’ve got him—move—move!”
I don’t, then hands grip my arms and lift me to my feet.
“You have to let them in—” Levi’s voice is a whisper wrapped in panic.
“He’s not waking up—he’s not—” I can’t stop shaking.
“They got this.” Levi pulls me further back as the EMTs drop beside Hart.
I stumble into him, legs dead, heart louder than the music had been.
Flashlights. Zippers. Bags thrown open. Gloved hands on his face. His neck. His wrist.
“Unconscious.”
“No response.”
“We’ve got a pulse.”
They’re moving fast.
Too fast.
I can’t follow it.
One of them tilts his head, carefully. Another slips something under his neck. A brace. White, stiff. Locked in place.
“Stabilize.”
“Possible head injury.”
“Watch his airway.”
He doesn’t move.
Not even a twitch.
They slide a flat, stiff board under him and begin strapping him down.
Chest. Legs. Forehead. Taped. Secured.
“Let’s go.”
“Call it in.”
“He’s stable enough to move.”
His boots thud as they lift him.
His arms hang heavy.
They carry him toward the tent opening.