Chapter 33
JACE
“ J ace, I’m sorry I didn’t get home sooner. Is Maddison and the baby okay?” The bastard gets out of his car and heads across the yard like the concerned fuckin’ uncle and I march straight up to him and punch him in his face.
“You know, you almost had me fooled with that act you been puttin’ on these past few weeks. I shoulda known better.” I give him a chance to recover while trying to calm my emotions. Maddison is right inside the house and the last thing I want is for this shit to trouble her.
“What the hell are you talking about?” He stares at me like he’s perplexed.
“The coming over for dinner, asking after Maddison and the baby, it’s all a crock of shit.” I shake my head and laugh at him.
“Jace, you're my nephew, of course, I’m goin?—.”
“Except, I ain’t your nephew, am I?” I check there ain’t no one around.
It’s late, most of the boys are at Sawyer’s bar, or in the bunkhouse and I’m still out here, prepared to do just about anything I can to avoid having to lie to my girl. “When were you gonna tell me that this place isn’t mine? When I planned on leaving it to my sons or once my fingers were run to the fuckin’ bone from trying to make this place earn?” I watch his face drop when he realizes that the secret’s out.
“Who told you?’ he questions, wiping the blood from his lip.
“It doesn’t matter who told me, what matters is that now I know it was you. You wanted Momma gone, you were with her that night her car went off the road, and you…” I’m too angry to get my fuckin’ words out.
“Jace, you got it all wrong.”
“No, Jamie. I’ve just been lied to my whole life, by her, by him, and by you. And now, I have to lie to my girl because how am I supposed to tell her that the roof over her head don’t belong to me and that I got nothing to offer her?” I stumble back when I allow myself to say the words out loud.
“That's not true, this place is your home and as far as I’m concerned it’s always been yours.”
“I don’t want your fuckin’ pity.” I shake my head.
“Jace, it’s not pity, it’s the right thing to do. Your father…he knew you weren’t his but he loved you just as hard. He wanted you to have the world, he was just trying to do what was right by everyone like he always did.”
“How much do you want for the cabin, the one that my great-grand—the one your grandfather built?” I correct myself when I remember that none of this family’s history is mine.
“What are you talking about?” Jamie looks confused.
“I want to buy it. I need a home for me and Maddison. I can knock it down or extend it, make myself a smallholding, and take on some wrangling jobs. Hell, I’ll even work the ranch for you, if you pay well enough. But what I won’t do is take your charity.”
“Now you're just being stupid, you can’t raise a family in a cabin where you’ve slaughtered men.”
“Fine. I’ll move on, find somewhere else.” I click my knuckles, feeling out of control and hating it.
“You're going nowhere, this is your home, you belong here.” He laughs at me as if all this is some kinda joke.
“None of this belongs to me, anymore. It never fuckin’ did. And I’m just gonna have to hope that when I tell Maddison that, she’s still gonna trust that I can take care of her.” I hate myself for sounding so weak in front of him.
“What kinda shit are you talking about, Jace? That girl in there, who’s having your baby, worships the ground you walk on. It took you all of five goddamn minutes to convince her to give you the greatest gift a woman can give. You should have a little more faith in her.”
“Since when did you know fuck all about love, Jamie? You’ve never cared for anyone other than yourself.” I point my finger right in his face but he doesn’t react.
“You're staying in the house. You run the ranch, nothing changes,” he tells me firmly.
“Everything’s changing. I’m not Sullivan, I’m just somebody's bastard and I may not have many morals left but I got my pride.” I go to barge past him and he shocks the fuck out of me when he grabs hold of my shirt and uses all his force to slam me into the stable door.
“You listen to me,” he snarls. “You will stay on this ranch, you will run this yard, and you will raise your kids in that fuckin’ house. Because you are a Sullivan!” His grip on me gets tighter and I see his eyes fill with tears. “This place belongs to you, it’s always belonged to you because you’re my bastard.” He releases me and quickly turns his face away while I stand with my back to the wall, trying to process what he’s just told me.
“Jamie… No.” I shake my head refusing to believe him.
Yes, Jace.” He turns back to face me looking disappointed in himself. “And to say I never cared for anyone but myself is way off the fucking mark because I was desperately in love with your mother.” His face is too serious to question but there's no way this can be true.
“No, no. I saw the way you used to look at her. You hated her!”
“Do you have any idea how it feels to want something with all your fucking soul and know it can never be yours? Now, imagine if that something was right in front of you, every day, lying next to your brother at night and letting him raise a child that could be yours.”
“So you knew? You knew I was yours–”
“I had my suspicions, but I didn’t know for sure until you were sixteen years old and Keith came to me and told me that you weren’t his.” He runs his hand over his mouth.
“He’d used a strand of your hair and had a DNA test to be sure, had the results sent to my office so your mom would be none the wiser, and seeing the devastation on his face when he opened that letter was hard to handle. He asked me to change the will there and then, leaving everything that belonged to our family to me, and the rest to your mom. He already had the trust fund set up for you, he’d been paying into it since you were born.” Jamie smiles fondly, but just for a beat. “Doing what he did broke his heart but he thought he was protecting the bloodline.”
I nod my head as I look at the man who’s convinced he’s my father.
“And, yes, I was in the car the night your momma got in that accident and, yeah, we were fighting but I swear, I never laid a finger on her. I was trying to save her. I never would have hurt her, Jace. I loved her.”
“What were you fightin’ over?” I ask, clenching my fists and trying to keep my cool. Knocking him out ain’t gonna get me the answers I need.
“She’d met me at a bar in the city because I wanted to talk to her. I felt it had been long enough since Keith had passed and I wanted to come clean and tell you that I was your father. Marie disagreed. She was already drunk when she got to me, she was agitated and insisted on driving herself home. I wasn’t going to let that happen so I chased her out to her car.”
I see his hands shaking as more tears fill his eyes. “She was already in the driver’s seat, so I jumped in the passenger side and tried to convince her to let me take the wheel but she took off. She was driving crazy, crying, yelling, telling me that I was selfish. I had to grab the wheel a few times to keep us on the road and she lashed out. She kept screaming at me, asking why I wanted to destroy her life. Jace, I was trying to get her to pull over.” I can see the horror that the memory is bringing on his face and get a feeling that he’s speaking the truth. “I finally managed to calm her down, I thought I’d convinced her to let me take over but when she pulled over and I got out, she sped off and left me.” His hands tremble as he covers his mouth and starts to weep.
“I wasn’t in the car with her when she crashed, and I didn’t hurt her but what happened is all my fault, I upset her. I was being too pushy but only because I'm so damn proud of you.” He looks up and stares me right in the eye and seeing this strong man break in front of me, tugs at my chest.
“I saw how you stepped up when your dad died. I've watched you grow from boy to man, and I guess a selfish part of me wanted the world to know you were mine.” His confession surprises me even more.
“So you understand now, that this place is yours? You may not have been his but you are a Sullivan, and one day it will belong to your sons and theirs, after that.”
“How could you have done that to him?” I shake my head when I think back to how close my dad and uncle used to be.
“I didn’t like how it felt lying to him but with me and your mom, there was just that something. I can't describe it, or compare it to anything else in this world, and it didn’t matter how many times we tried to stop what we were doing, it always ended the same.”
I slide down the wall and crouch, still trying to get my head around everything.
“So, knowing what ya knew, when he asked you to change the will, did ya?” I look up at him.
“Keith made me swear not to tell Marie, that he knew you weren't his, and I stuck by the promise. I may not be much of a man but if I give my word, you can rely on it.” He moves closer and sits on the ground beside me. “I could have made him sign some fake papers but it had been a hard few years, profits were down and everyone around us was throwing in the rope and selling out to the Gendrys. I’ll admit it, I was concerned you might do the same if you had full control.” He looks ashamed of himself and so he fuckin’ should be. I’d die before I let that happen. “The ranch is still in my name but I have all the paperwork drawn up ready for that to change, we can go to my office and do it right now.”
“You thought I’d sell out?” Of all the things I’ve learned tonight, I think that one hurts the most. “Do you know the hours and hard work I’ve put in, to ensure that this place doesn't go under? I've killed men to keep the town safe, all for this legacy of our family to survive. I’m not a fuckin’ sell-out.” I let him see how much he’s hurt me when I turn my head to him.
“Jace, you’ve always been strong-minded and stubborn, but a man’s only got so much fight in him when he ain’t got nothing to fight for. That's all changed now. I got the papers to have this place signed over to you written up a few weeks ago. I was here, eating Maddison’s God-awful chili, and seeing the way you looked at her, it reminded me of the way I used to look at your mom when no one was watching.” He smiles. “Since she’s been here I’ve seen you become a different man, and I’ll admit at first I didn’t like it. It scared me, I thought she was making you weak when in reality, she made you stronger.”
“And what makes you so sure I won’t still sell out now, babies are expensive.” I test him.
“Because now, you have something to fight for, someone to leave all this behind to, and I know from experience that when you’ve got that, nothing else matters. I started doing the shit I do now, the day your mom told me you were coming. I may have not been the one putting you on a horse, or telling you to sit up straight in church but even knowing that there was a slight chance you were mine, made me want this town to be a better place for you.” I nod my head because, despite being mad at him, I understand.
“If it was you in the car with Mom that night, why did you kill Billy? Was it out of jealousy because she was seeing him?” I ask curiously. I kept that poor bastard tied up for days thinking it was him, but Jamie would have known it wasn’t him.
“Jace, how many times do I have to tell you? I had nothing to do with Billy being killed. Look, it’s been a long night, you’ve taken on a lot of new information. If you want to talk some more, come to my office tomorrow, and we’ll get that paperwork signed.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” I tell him, standing back on my feet and dusting off my jeans. “Maddison’s cooking pot roast and she’s expecting ya. You better be ready to answer all those questions she’s gonna have,” I warn him.
“Wait, you mean you're going to tell her about this?” He looks at me in shock.
“I’m done keeping secrets from my girl, and I think that this one has been buried for far too long. You want the world to know I’m yours? Have at it.” I turn my back to head inside.
“Does that mean I’m forgiven?” he calls after me.
“Not yet, but we can work on that moving forward. I’m giving you a chance; don’t make me regret it.” I leave him standing in the yard and head inside so I can try and find a way to explain this to Maddison.