Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Destini jumped up, her nervous energy propelling her across the room. She began to pace, her sneakers leaving faint prints on the soft carpet. Her hands moved restlessly, fingers twisting and untwisting, a physical manifestation of her internal turmoil.
"I'm just… so nervous," she blurted out, her voice a mix of anxiety and uncertainty. "Aunt Gemma told me all about him, but what if—" She stopped, biting her lower lip. "What if we have nothing in common?"
The room seemed to shrink around her, the walls closing in with the weight of dread. Jewel's mind raced with the upcoming awkward conversation and the possibility of disappointing her daughter hung like a heavy curtain in her soul.
The time had come to bare her heart and soul to her daughter, and she just hoped and prayed she didn't hate her for her past mistakes.
Jewel watched her daughter, seeing the familiar nervous gesture—the lip bite, the restless pacing—that was so uniquely Destini. Yet there was something else there. A vulnerability that made her look younger than her almost-sixteen years.
"When did you ask Aunt Gemma about him?" Jewel's question cut through Destini's pacing.
Destini stopped mid-pace, biting her lip. Her eyes darted away, then back to her mother's face, a complex dance of emotions playing across her features.
"I don't know," Destini said softly, her fingers tracing an absent pattern on the windowsill. "A few Christmases ago. You got sad when I asked about him, so I stopped asking you and went to Aunt Gemma instead. She was telling me stories, you know? About how you two used to run around the ranch, playing and hiding from other kids." A small, wistful smile flickered across her face. "She said he loved poetry and astronomy and mythology. His name is Hunter, and he's a good guy but just doesn't know I exist."
Something shifted in Jewel's expression. Her breath caught, a sudden recognition sparking behind her eyes. The astronomy. The mythology. The way Destini had become obsessed with NASA, with star charts, with ancient stories about constellations—it wasn't just coincidence. It was a desperate attempt to draw closer to a father she'd never known.
Jewel swallowed hard, the realization settling like a stone in her stomach. The man Aunt Gemma had been describing, painting with such romantic, adventurous strokes—might not actually be her daughter's father.
Her hand trembled slightly where it rested on the bed, a barely perceptible movement that betrayed her inner turmoil.
"Sweetie," Jewel's voice was quiet, weighted with an emotion she couldn't quite name. "The man Aunt Gemma told you about… might not be your dad."
Destini froze by the window, her silhouette stark against the fading light filtering through the blinds. When she turned, her eyes—a piercing hazel so achingly familiar—locked onto Jewel's face.
Jewel's hand shook as she spoke, the words dragging like broken glass. "There was an incident with my boyfriend's brother."
The silence stretched, thick and heavy with unspoken implications. Destini's breath caught, her body going rigid. "Did he…" Her voice cracked. "Did he force you?"
The question hung between them, a razor's edge of potential violence and vulnerability. Jewel could see the protective rage building in her daughter's eyes—that same fierce intensity she'd seen in herself, in her sister Gemma, a generations-old flame of maternal protection that burned bright and dangerous.
"What—no," Jewel said quickly, her hands instinctively reaching out, palms open. "Hunter and I had drifted apart. We both had different ideas for what to do after high school."
She watched Destini's posture soften slightly, but her daughter's eyes remained sharp, analytical. Jewel felt like she was being dissected, her past laid bare under a microscope of teenage scrutiny.
"I was determined to go to A&M," Jewel continued, her voice finding its rhythm. "But Hunter wanted to stay home and continue ranching."
A bitter edge crept into her tone. "I despised him for being so content with his life when I had so many dreams and goals. He was just so at peace being who he was and doing what he loved."
The words tumbled out, a mixture of old frustration and remembered ambition. Jewel remembered those days—how suffocating the ranch had felt, how small her world seemed compared to the expansive dreams she'd cultivated. Hunter had been—still was—a good man, but he'd represented everything she was desperate to escape.
Destini's eyebrow arched, a gesture so reminiscent of Jewel herself that it momentarily stunned her. "So you slept with his brother?"
The question hung in the air, direct and uncompromising.
Jewel hung her head, her cheeks burning with a sudden flush of shame and remembered confusion. The memory flooded back—a night blurred by exhaustion from a full day of haying, dim lights from the sale barn, the scent of cedar and leather so familiar she'd thought he was Hunter.
"The first time was an accident," she whispered, her fingers twisting the bedspread. "I thought he was Hunter."
The silence stretched between them, charged and electric. Destini's gaze felt like a physical weight, pressing against Jewel's carefully constructed defenses. She could see her daughter processing, analyzing—those sharp hazel eyes inherited from a father Jewel had not yet identified.
Destini sank onto a chair, rubbing her temples in a gesture so adult, so weary, that it made Jewel's heart clench. "So what's his name?" she asked, her voice flat. "What's he like? And why didn't you contact him before now?"
The questions were a demand, not a request. Jewel recognized the steel in her daughter's voice—it was her own determination reflected at her, a mirror of ambition and unresolved complexity.
Her throat dried. Explaining would mean unraveling a story she had kept tightly wound for almost sixteen years.
"His name is Chase," Jewel began, her voice low and controlled. She watched Destini carefully, gauging her reaction. "He's always been a genius, which is why he was always inside reading instead of running around the ranch with us. He skipped a grade and when we… started talking, our future goals actually lined up. He wanted to go to A&M too, escape the small-town life that was holding him back. He was an eleventh grader, and at Christmas, he said he was going to double up his classes and graduate a year early so he could join me in College Station."
"But he didn't go to A&M?" Destini asked.
Jewel's stomach twisted at the memories as she shook her head, wiping a tear from her cheek. "When I realized I was pregnant, I was going to go home during spring break my freshman year at A&M and tell him."
Her fingers traced an invisible pattern on the bed, Destini doing likewise on her jeans. The room felt smaller, the air thick with unspoken history.
"I was too scared, and it took me longer to process what was happening," Jewel continued, the admission hanging between them like a delicate, fragile thing. Her eyes drifted to the window, seeing something beyond the present moment. "By the time the semester was over, and I was ready to talk to both Chase and Hunter and figure it out, Chase was gone."
Destini frowned. "Gone? Like, he died?"
Jewel shook her head and took a deep breath, watching Destini carefully to see how she'd react. "No, he'd been in a car accident and was prosecuted for vehicular manslaughter under the influence. He had gone to prison."
Destini's breath caught audibly. Her body went rigid, tension coiling through her shoulders as her hands fisted on her knees. "How old was he?" The question burst out, sharp with sudden emotion. "He was still in high school?"
The accusation was implicit. The judgment clear.
Jewel met her daughter's eyes, seeing a swirl of emotions—confusion, anger, a desperate need to understand. She knew this moment was a fulcrum, a point where everything might pivot or break.
Her fingers twisted together, and her voice shook along with her hands. "He was tutoring someone so he could earn money for college," Jewel said, her voice growing distant. "Someone who… influenced him. His actions led to drunk driving and the accident." The words hung between them, loaded with unspoken implications.
Destini leaned forward, her hazel eyes—so like Chase's and Hunter's, though she didn't know it yet—narrowed with sudden intensity. "Did he go to the hospital? Why didn't you race back home and check on him?" The questions came out sharp, demanding, a knife's edge of emotion cutting through the room's heavy silence.
Jewel saw the mix of anger and vulnerability in her daughter's face. Her breath caught in her throat, waiting to see how this would change their relationship.
"Yes, but I didn't know." Jewel's fingers continued their nervous dance, intertwining and separating. "By the time Aunt Gemma told me about everything, he was already gone from the hospital to jail. So I didn't go home at the end of the semester. Instead, I took classes in the summer so I could take a half-semester off when I had you." The words slipped out like a confession, weighted with years of accumulated guilt.
Destini's glare hardened, transforming her teenage features into something razor-sharp and unforgiving. "You just… left him? Did you even call or write, explain about me?" The accusation vibrated between them, a physical thing with its own brutal energy.
For a moment, Jewel couldn't breathe as she shook her head no. Destini's tears rolled down her cheeks, but Jewel stayed on the bed, giving her time to process. Her jaw clenched just like Chase's used to when he was working through a complex problem.
"I never talked to him or Hunter, never told them about you. Until I moved back to Crimson Creek a few weeks ago. Now they both know about you and can't wait to meet you and figure out which one of them is your dad."
"I want to know," Destini announced suddenly, shooting to her feet, her voice hard and decisive. Her words were a line drawn in the sand between them, challenging Jewel to either support her or be left behind.
"I want to know who my father is first. The cowboy or the convict. How do we get it done? A lab or doctor's appointment? Are they available tomorrow? Tomorrow's a Saturday, so I don't know if?—"
"Yes, we can go tomorrow. I'll book an appointment at the lab for first thing in the morning. Hunter and Chase will go to the lab in Denton tomorrow if we ask—they've both been wanting to get this done for weeks," Jewel said, standing too but hesitating beside the bed.
Destini paused at the words, her eyes piercing with the weight of judgement.
Jewel took a deep breath and asked, "Do you hate me?"
Destini's brows rose as she immediately shook her head. "No, I don't hate you. Confused, mostly. I don't know what else. Hurt that you told them weeks ago but didn't tell me, your own daughter."
Jewel winced and rubbed the back of her sore neck. "I know, it was wrong of me. I—I didn't know how to admit it to you, but I promised them both you'd meet them at Thanksgiving, so we should get the results before then," she said softly.
Destini sank into her computer chair and nodded absently, spinning it to her desk. She picked up a pencil and slid a notebook closer as she fired up her laptop. "Alright."
Her words were short, clipped, creating a distance between them that made tears spill over Jewel's cheeks. She'd said she didn't hate her, but her actions said something else.
The weekend unfurled like a tattered flag, each moment stretched thin with unspoken tension. Saturday had started well, with Destini's foot tapping furiously while they waited at the lab for their appointment. She'd not even flinched when the blood had been drawn, her daughter's face hard, stoic, and such a Williams' look it was frightening.
Then she'd tried to lighten the mood with a shopping trip for back-to-school clothes before lunch. Destini had opened up with food but as they went home, Destini began to withdraw. She must've started thinking about the situation.
She moved through the house that night with calculated precision, her movements deliberate and distant the entire time. She spoke only when absolutely necessary, her replies clipped and sharp. "Yes." "No." "Fine."
Jewel watched her daughter, recognizing the defensive posture, the way Destini's shoulders remained slightly hunched, protecting her heart. It was a stance Jewel knew intimately—she had worn it herself countless times.
At breakfast on Sunday, Destini sat with her phone, scrolling silently. The scrape of her fork against the plate became a rhythm of quiet rebellion. Jewel tried small conversational gambits, the normal, "Did you sleep well?" But they fell into the void between them, a hum the only answer.
Jewel left to drive back to Crimson Creek, her heart breaking in Houston as it remained with her daughter. Her focus had to stay on Destini too, instead of whatever was happening between her and Chase. She'd made a promise to herself when Destini had started school and started asking about her dad. She wouldn't date until her daughter graduated, and she would stick to her word. Destini came first, always.