Chapter Thirty-Three #3
“My father, he…” I say this without knowing why I’m telling him after everything that’s happened. “He isn’t my biological father. Hank Turner is.”
He straightens up then or rather straightens up more because he was already pulled tight like a string.
“So apparently, I’m a Turner after all,” I half declare and half chuckle because the irony is fucking gut-wrenching. All this time he needed a Turner to get his revenge, but still, somehow I’m the wrong girl. Maybe I always will be the wrong girl.
“You’re not a Turner.”
As opposed to mine, his words are all declaration and even after so much time, they pierce me right in the chest. “My mom slept with Hank Turner at some point. To teach my dad a lesson but I guess it backfired, and she paid for it with her life.” I shake my head, looking down at the glass of water.
“It doesn’t matter though because you’re right, I’m not a Turner.
I’m no one. Except some girl you were sleeping with. ”
Which is why they took me in the first place, I’m assuming. Because maybe they thought he cared about me enough to give up on his quest. He does care about me, but not enough to give up on ruining his life.
“A blowout,” he says then.
I look up. “What?”
“An oil well blowout,” he explains. “I was gonna rig their oil well, cause an explosion that’d destroy their land, their oil and every single thing on it. It’d make their land useless. And if there’s no land, there is no war.”
His revenge plan. This is it. I guess it makes sense, taking the land away, because they did it all for the land. Besides, Annie died in an explosion, so a retaliatory explosion would bring things full circle.
“So, you lied about letting them keep their business and sharing oil profits and all of that,” I say pointlessly.
Of course he lied. He told me he was lying. Again, I need to take a step back. I need to stop worrying about him and his affairs. I need to come up with my own plan now. My plan of exiting, going back to my old life and somehow living it.
“You know what, you don’t have to tell me anything,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t—”
“I met her at the town fair,” he says, cutting me off, his eyes full of something shiny and glittering, something I can’t make sense of right now.
“She was new in town. Never saw her before that day. Thought she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.
” I flinch, and he catches it because he’s watching me with an intensity that’s making it hard for me to breathe.
“I was a fool. Back then. Didn’t know what I was talkin’ about.
I was young. I was horny, reckless. Girls would throw themselves at me because I was a cowboy, and I was a Grayson.
So, I was a fuckin’ rich cowboy whose family pretty much owned everything and everyone.
When she threw herself at me, I didn’t think it was anythin’ different.
All I was lookin’ for was a good time, a one-night stand.
Somethin’ I was very good at back then. I was good at not gettin’ tied down, no steady relationships.
I thought I was some kind of a big shot, a stallion. ”
He shakes his head. “But all I was, was a goddamn asshole. So when she kept comin’ back to me, I took her up on her offer.
Told her it wasn’t serious and she agreed.
Even though after a while, I could see she was fallin’ for me.
I should’ve cut her loose then. But I didn’t.
” His jaw clenches here before he goes on, “She was on her own, takin’ care of her sick mother and her younger brother.
Had a job in town, on one of the ranches.
She was bold, gutsy, adventurous. Everythin’ I thought I liked in a girl.
Because again, I didn’t want any responsibilities, no one dependent on me.
“Anyway, somehow, we became steady. She’d come over to the ranch, spend time with my family.
Haven, Ax. They both liked her. Not Mars though.
Mars was suspicious. But then, Mars is always suspicious of everyone.
Back then I was goin’ through a phase where I loved him but hated his guts so if he wanted me to do one thing, I’d do another.
When he told me I should be careful with Annie, that no one knew where she came from, who her people were, I told him to fuck off.
I told Rad to fuck off too. He wasn’t as bad as Mars but he was wary of her too.
Sometimes I think that’s why I kept her around, as a big fuck you to my family.
To show them they couldn’t control me. Fuck”—he scrubs his hands down his face, taking a deep breath—“I sound like a shithead. I was a shithead. Anyway, they all turned out to be right because one day a few months into our ‘relationship,’ she told me.”
“Told you what?” I whisper, my eyes glued to him, his tortured face, his tight frame.
“That she was workin’ for the Turners,” he says, his liquid eyes boring into mine, and I freeze.
“For Hank Turner. Said she met him at this strip club she worked at. She gave him a lap dance and he, drunk and horny, told her all his secrets. He promised that he’d pay her mother’s medical bills and help out with her brother if she did this one thing for him.
Find an in with the Graysons and find out about the Rawhide Redemption program so they could get our land.
And she was desperate enough to say yes.
Desperate enough to come up with a plan, seduce me, lure me out and use me.
Mostly because being the reckless asshole I am, I was the easiest target.
Mars would never have fallen for her and Ax was so young.
So she found me, targeted me at the town fair, tryin’ to establish a relationship with me.
She said she was feedin’ him information about our business, our bids on the livestock and other contracts, but she hadn’t found anything about what he really wanted from her.
And now she didn’t want to either. She didn’t want to do this anymore because she’d fallen for me and she… ”
This time his breath is so big and large that I feel it all the way over where I’m sitting. I feel it waft over me, his scent, and I hold on to it, because for some reason I think the worst is yet to come. There’s something life-changing that’s coming, and I need to brace.
“She was pregnant,” he says, and my heart drops.
“Four months. She said it was mine, but she didn’t have to because I knew.
I could see the truth on her face. She was scared, terrified.
She said she loved me. Again, she didn’t have to either because I already knew.
Said she didn’t wanna betray me anymore.
Didn’t wanna betray my family that’s been so good to her.
She wanted to start fresh, get a clean slate.
Wanted to have this baby with me, raise it together. And I…”
He takes a few deep breaths, pausing, and I find myself relating to Annie.
In that she fell in love with him, fell in love with the Graysons.
I could see how. When I leave, I realize I’m going to miss them too.
Haven, even Ax, Rad. Maybe I’ll miss Mars, too, just because he loves his brothers so much.
I’m not sure, but I think that’s why he did what he did, getting information on Annie. I understand that sentiment.
“I promised that I would. I would raise the baby with her. Even though I…” Again, he pauses as if he doesn’t know what to say or rather how to say it.
“I didn’t love Annie, not even a little bit.
I realized that as soon as she told me she loved me.
But I loved her. The baby. It was going to be a girl.
” He swallows thickly. “Didn’t even know you could tell the sex of a baby that early but apparently, you can.
At ten weeks and as soon as she found out it was going to be a girl, she decided she had to tell me and God, I…
I understood why she had to. Because the moment I heard she existed, somethin’ shifted inside of me.
Something big. Something that changed me.
It wasn’t anything I’d ever experienced.
All I knew was that I wanted her. I wanted her so badly in my life. She was mine. I made her. Rose.”
“Rose,” I repeat, because I have to after how reverently he said that name.
“Her name,” he says gutturally. “Knew it the moment I heard about her. Knew I was gonna name her after my ma. She always wanted a girl, see, but she got stuck with us three rowdy boys. So I thought I could… give her that. All my life, everyone told me that I was reckless. That I did things without thinkin’ them through and they weren’t wrong.
But the moment Annie told me about Rose I knew I had to be smart.
I had to think things through so I… bought a ranch.
Away from Black Rock. I always wanted to do it but it was somethin’ way into the future.
Somethin’ that I would do once my rowdy phase passed.
But I knew I had to do it for Rosie. My baby girl wasn’t gonna grow up on Rawhide.
I had to keep her away from all the Grayson-Turner bullshit.
All the bloody history, the feud, the war.
I promised Annie I’d keep her safe until then.
Until we were ready to move. Told her I’d take care of it all.
Hank Turner, her family, everything. I promised to be there for her, throughout her pregnancy, love her, love Rosie.
But I knew I was lyin’. I knew I’d never love Annie but for Rosie, I was gonna try.
I was gonna try to give my baby girl everything but I… ”