Chapter 13 #2
“When I left all those years ago, part of it was because I was sure you were going to pick him in the end. I can’t lie and say it wasn’t a factor.
But it wasn’t the only reason, or even the main one.
” I pause to look up at her, checking to be sure I haven’t lost her yet, before I continue.
“I was keeping a secret for your father. Several, really, and staying with you while keeping those secrets felt like I’d be betraying you.
Lies of omission that I worried would eat away at me—and us—over time.
But telling you would have meant betraying your father.
After everything he did for me, taking me in and treating me like I was one of his own sons, I couldn’t bear the thought of that either.
But if I told you… I worried it would change the way you saw him forever.
Or that some part of you would hate me for telling you.
“Trying to decide between those two choices was eating away at me. And when I found out Ethan was proposing, that he was gonna give you the thing you’d wanted all along, it seemed like a way out for both of us.
“You’d have the man you wanted and the future you’d planned for.
You could go to Boston, attend the grad school you were accepted into.
He could play hockey there. Everything like it was before you came home that winter.
You’d have your own life and your own money.
You’d get away from the ranch and all the hell that was beginning to unfold here.
“It seemed like you’d get the happiness you deserved. And I didn’t have to decide your fate for you.”
“You decided our fate when you left.”
“I didn’t feel like there was a choice but to leave, Aspen. That secret felt like it was crushing me after only a few days. I couldn’t imagine months or years like that.”
“What secret were you keeping for my father?”
“Creighton’s death was an accident. He was out riding that night.
He did fall off his horse and hit his head.
But it’s because I was chasing him down.
Your father and Creighton were arguing that night.
Creighton ran off to the homestead, and Kip was chasing him.
He found me in the barn and told me to come with him.
I don’t know if he wanted my help or hoped my presence would help calm the situation.
But in the process of struggling over a sword, Creighton stabbed your dad.
I didn’t hear the argument. I just saw the blood.
Scared the hell out of me. Creighton took off on horseback, and your dad came out looking like he’d been to hell and back.
I followed when Kip yelled for me to go after him.
“His horse bucked him in the pursuit, and he cracked his skull open. I went to help, but he was already gone. When your dad showed up, he told me to bury the sword and go home. Not to say anything to anyone or ever speak of it again. I tried to argue with him and tell him we could explain it was an accident. I didn’t think we should lie, but he wouldn’t hear me on it.
“He said they could just as easily hold one or both of us accountable for his death. Threatened me into silence and told me to do what he asked with the sword and go back to the barn and take care of the horses. So I did. Then you know the rest. You were there when they called 911 and when the cops came. Your uncle’s funeral.
“After…” I scrub a hand over my face. “Your dad told me I was the kind of person who always did the right thing, and I deserved to be rewarded for it. He offered me the job as foreman of the ranch. Said it would make me like one of his sons, and someday he hoped I would be. I don’t know if he knew about us for sure or just suspected it was something I wanted.
But it felt like a payoff. Like if I kept his secret, I could have everything I ever wanted. ”
She takes a silent step back from me, looking at me like she’s seeing me through new eyes, and my heart clenches tight in my chest.
“You have to understand that it was an impossible choice for me. I either kept a secret like that from you, or I confessed and betrayed your father. I couldn’t choose.
I was worried you’d hate me. Worried you’d hate your father and blame me for telling you.
Worried you’d hate me for keeping the secret.
Everywhere I looked, the truth stained what we had forever.
I knew you’d never choose me if you had the choice, not knowing that.
“The only other option I had was to break things off with you and watch you marry him. And if I’d taken the job your dad offered me as foreman of the ranch, I’d have to watch you come back for every summer and holiday, with his ring on your finger and his name on your lips.
It would have been torture. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. ”
“You ran.”
I swallow hard and nod. It kills me to admit it.
“And you left me and this family with all the lies it left behind.” Her eyes well with tears, and they send pain coursing through every inch of me. Aspen doesn’t shed tears easily. Knowing I’m the cause of them might be the last straw for me.
“I thought I was saving you from heartache.”
“By breaking my heart? By leaving me wondering what the hell I’d done wrong?
Making me wonder for years if you just didn’t love me enough?
Then being broken all over again when no one could find you, and they told us you were presumed dead?
Crying night after night that my daughter would never get to know her father?
That’s what you thought was saving me from heartache? ”
“I know now I should have done the hard thing, whatever the cost was. That’s why when I had the chance to make it right, I took it.”
“Right…” She says the word like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth.
“You came waltzing back in the door like a hero after you saved my brother’s life, and you still didn’t say a word.
You told our daughter what a good man her grandfather was, knowing all of this the whole time.
The lies of omission you were so worried about, you’ve just let them drag on for months.
You must think I’m a fool. That we all are. ”
“I didn’t think you were fools. I saw that you were hurting and struggling with the divorce and with the loss of your parents.
I wanted to find the right time and the right place, but there never was one.
I just had to prepare myself to see this look on your face.
To take the consequences as they came, but it was never the right time. When I told Levi—”
“You told Levi before me?” She cuts me off.
Fuck. I realize the error too late.
“Only just.”