Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Sometime later, I trek down the half-mile stretch of road to Beau Blackthorne’s house with a packed-to-the-brim Yeti cooler slung over my still-bruised shoulder.
I brought chips, sandwiches, fresh veggies from the garden, a few bottles of water, four separate thermoses of coffee, and a portable charging bank for Ryker’s phone.
Unsure whether or not he actually wanted my company, I took my time showering and changing into a pair of leggings and an oversized Fleetwood Mac T-shirt before finally working up the courage to make my way back over.
The last remnants of my gravel driveway crunch beneath my feet as I step onto the dirt road, the echoing sound punctuated by the synchronized song of crickets and cicadas under the star speckled sky. The air is laced with the scent of dried grass and the dirt I’m kicking up, but it’s surprisingly temperate—which isn’t saying much since anything under ninety degrees feels like heaven this time of year.
My stomach vibrates with nervous energy and my hands tremor slightly with each step I draw closer. Readjusting the cooler strap, I try to tell myself that this is fine, it’s just Ryker , but that makes the jittery feeling worse.
Something rustles in the tall grass, and my head snaps left, horrid images of the snarling Chupacabra and all the other cryptids Elanor tortures me with flashing through my mind with terrifying clarity.
Quickening my steps, I squint and peer into the inky blackness. But it’s useless. It’s so damn dark out here a creature could be five feet away and I wouldn’t see it until after it’d already taken me down.
Darkness is something I never really appreciated before my visit to the University of Texas at Austin campus last year. I hadn’t realized that the city never gets dark—not really. Not like this . Not so dark you can barely see your nose in front of your face. Out here, something is always watching you, and nine times out of ten, you’re never the wiser.
A chill skitters up my spine, but it’s swiftly erased by the pungent scent of tobacco tickling my nostrils. My lips twitch up on one side, and the tension in my shoulders instantly softens as I step into the spindly grass.
The burning ember of Ryker’s cigarette flares to life when he steps out from the tree line, an ocher glow briefly showcasing the deep hollows of his cheeks and heavy set of his brow.
“You came back,” he says, voice low and rough.
“I said I would.” Needing something to do with my hands, I fuss with the cooler strap.
“People don’t usually follow through with their promises when it’s inconvenient.” He inhales another deep drag and closes the distance, leaving the cigarette perched precariously between his lips as he takes the cooler from my shoulder. “Come on, we can sit in the truck for a bit.”
I glance across the street, zeroing in on the well-lit living room window where Beau looks like he’s passed out on the couch. I shift my gaze, spotting Dorothy bustling in and out of the kitchen. “Where’s Charlie? Shouldn’t we be closer to the house?”
Ryker takes one last drag before dropping the cigarette and grinding it into the dirt with his boot. “She just went to bed. I was saying goodnight at her window when I overheard Dorothy arguing with Beau about staying the night and making breakfast. Charlie won’t be alone, so as long as we know where Beau is, we’re fine over here.”
Exhaustion radiating off his body in palpable waves, he lets loose a long, tobacco-scented exhale, his unkempt hair falling forward as he dips his head.
My fingers twitch with the need to reach out and brush the dark strands away from his face. Instead, I quietly follow him to the truck hidden in the trees, pausing in mild surprise when he not only opens my door for me but waits until I’m situated before softly closing it.
Still debating whether I should have come back or not, I rub my sweaty palms on the rough pattern of the striped wool Serape blanket covering the worn bench seat. It’s too dark to see much detail, but from what I can tell, the interior of the truck is well kept and clean, especially for something that’s almost fifty years old.
My nostrils flare. It smells like Ryker in here, but there are other scents, too—the unique hay-like odor of the wool blanket, the comforting smell of old leather seats, and something else that reminds me of dusty back roads and cool evening breezes.
The rusty hinges of Ryker’s door creak when he climbs in, the truck swaying gently as he settles his massive form onto the seat and closes the door. After he places the cooler on the floor near the shifter, a tense silence creeps into the cabin, settling into the space between us and coiling around my throat until I can’t breathe.
I shouldn’t have come. This is too awkward. What the hell are we going to talk about? Noah would kill me if ? —
“Why did you hesitate when I opened the door?” Ryker blurts, his gruff voice cutting through my spiraling thoughts.
I clasp my hands together, struggling not to wring them. “I didn’t.”
“Don’t play coy. Are you afraid to be alone with me?”
Terrified , I think to myself.
“Of course not. It’s just…” I exhale sharply, cursing myself for what I’m about to admit. “I’m not used to you being so nice. It caught me off guard, that’s all. People don’t usually open doors for me,” I add as an afterthought, not wanting to disrupt the tentative truce between us by dredging up old wounds.
Ryker manually cranks down his window before leaning into his seat with a scoff. “None of the morons you’ve dated open doors for you?”
Thankful for the darkness hiding my heated ears, I roll down my window and breathe in the warm summer air. “This is Deadwood,” I say with a humorless laugh, making sure to keep my head angled away to avoid seeing his reaction. “The morons in this town are too scared of my scars to ask me out, and Noah and Dad are pretty good deterrents for anyone who isn’t.”
Muscles tightening, I wait for the teasing, but it never comes.
Ryker sighs after a long stretch of silence. “I fucking hate this place.”
“Me too,” I admit. Then, comforted and emboldened by our shared animosity for the town we grew up in, I add one more thought. “Sometimes it feels like the ghosts in Deadwood have more power than the living. I can’t even remember my mother or what happened to me, yet here I am, haunted every single day by what she did.”
“You really don’t remember any of it?” His voice is thick with an emotion I can’t quite pin down—curious and somehow probing.
“Not really. I was four and only know what I’ve been told, which is that Dad was at work and Mom ordered Noah to go to his room and not come out for any reason. I guess she and I walked up to Divine Mercy using the path behind our house—like we had a hundred times before—but when we got there…” My voice trails off.
“You don’t have to keep going.”
I shake my head. “I’ve just never said this out loud before. No one’s asked…”
Ryker leans back in his seat, patiently giving me the time to figure out how to continue .
A wall of candle flame flashes through my memory, but I swallow down the lump in my throat and blink them away. “My mom was really sick during her pregnancy, and my birth was even worse. According to Noah, it didn’t get any easier for her when they brought me home either—I had colic as a baby and frequent ear infections as a toddler that made me cry through the night,” I clarify at his confused expression.
“I guess my mom got it into her head that all those complications meant I was possessed. Once we were at Divine Mercy, she tried to perform an exorcism by carving a cross into my back and anointing me with holy oil as I bled on the church floor.” I touch my back and then the white streaks at the top of my forehead to show him where.
“No one really knows what happened after that, but it’s safe to assume she realized the exorcism didn’t work when I continued wailing like a banshee. After that, she must’ve decided the only solution was to burn the whole place down with us in it.” I allow myself one shuddering breath before continuing. “I get flashes of the fire and a wall of candles every now and then, but otherwise, I don’t remember any of it.”
“I guess that’s for the best,” he says with a slow shake of his head. “A memory like that would leave scars time could never heal.”
“Really, Ryker?” I deadpan, trying to lighten the mood by gesturing to my hair and shoulder. “You had to use that phrase?”
A small smile curves his lips, but then a light shutting off across the street has our heads whipping toward Beau’s house.
“It’s just Dorothy locking up,” he says with a sigh of relief when the kitchen light goes dark next. Thankfully, the flickering blue and white of the television allows us to see Beau snoozing on the sofa.
“Hey, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I say as Dorothy settles into a recliner next to her son.
“Shoot.”
“If Beau’s a felon now, how can he file for custody of Charlie?”
Ryker scoffs. “Beau’s Uncle Abbott has been using every connection he has as a judge to smooth over Beau’s history with the law. On paper, the accident that killed my mom looks like a momentary lapse in judgment on his part. Not that the courts care. They just see it as one more kid reunited with their family.”
My stomach roils with indignation. “But aren’t there records of what happened to you and Kane? Why would they consider placing your sister in an abusive household in the first place?”
“There are no official records. It’s one of those things everyone knows about but turns a blind eye to. Everyone except your dad.” He glances over at me, but it’s too dark to see his expression.
“He tried for years to get my mom to file a report. She refused and guilted me into staying quiet by claiming that she wanted to keep our family together. She said the state would take us away from her or some bullshit like that. Now that I’m older, I realize she was just as scared as we were.” There’s so much bitterness dripping from his voice that I’m drowning in it.
“What about Kane? He was older, he should’ve?—”
Ryker holds up his hand. “You don’t understand. What Beau did to my brother was… It was worse than what he did to me. More frequent, too. He?—”
Bile rises in my throat as Ryker struggles with his words.
“The day Kane turned eighteen, he finally agreed to let your dad help us. He took my brother to the hospital and—” He shakes his head. “I guess they wanted to do an assault examination or collect evidence? Whatever it was, the second Kane saw the rape kit and the camera, he recanted his statement and accused your dad of making the whole thing up.”
A heavy weight settles on my lungs, but before I can fully process that gut-wrenching information, he’s speaking again.
“A Blackthorne in the room across the hall overheard the commotion and immediately called Beau to warn him what was going on.” Ryker goes rigid. “I tried to keep Beau and Mom at home…but he was so fucking drunk. And Mom was so fucking pissed when she realized not only was Kane going to the cops and breaking up our happy family, but I knew about it. She wouldn’t let me explain… ”
He drops his head and lets go of a bitter laugh. “Beau crashed on the way to the hospital to confront your dad, and none of it mattered in the end because my mom was dead and we were all separated anyway. I should have just filed the report myself while I still had the fresh marks to prove it. But Beau was gone. I thought we were all safe…”
Jesus. “Couldn’t you do it now?”
“I tried the first time he was up for a parole hearing, but Abbott Blackthorne shut that shit down before the ink dried on the paperwork. Kane might have a solid case, if he ever decided to pursue charges, but I can’t ask him to go through that. He’s not ready to.”
A raging storm of emotions battle for dominance inside my chest. My heart aches for Kane and Ryker, but the murderous rage pumping through my veins demands I march across the street and smother Beau in his sleep. On top of it all, there’s also guilt and confusion for not knowing any of this was happening.
I have vague memories of the night Ryker showed up at our house with Charlotte on his hip and a duffle bag on his shoulder after his mom died. But at the time, I’d been such a mess over the whole Cooper Blackthorne incinerator fiasco, I barely acknowledged his existence.
Further back, I have fuzzy memories of Ryker sitting at the dinner table with bruises on his arms and cheeks, but he was always picking fights with the older kids at school and constantly finding new trouble to get into on the ranch. That’s not an excuse, though. Maybe I just didn’t want to see that someone was struggling more than I was…
I shift in my seat, reaching for the hem of the blanket to fidget with and ignoring the slicing pain down my middle when Ryker flinches—like he thought I was reaching for him . “I should have done more to help you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says, gripping the wheel with both hands. “You were dealing with your own shit. ”
“More like not dealing with it at all,” I snort, once again grateful for the darkness hiding my embarrassed flush.
“It’s fine, Princess.”
Ouch . Even without malice behind it, the nickname stings more than it usually does.
Ryker and I have both experienced unexpected bumps in our lives, but when things got difficult for him, he stepped up and took care of his sister. What did I do? Let half the town baby me while tolerating the other half’s bullying. I never even tried standing up for myself. How could Dad and Noah not think I’m fragile?
Even so, at least I had them and the Crowes to lean on. Ryker only had my family. Well, part of it. I never extended a hand. Not once.
That realization weighs so heavy on my chest I’m having trouble drawing in a full breath. “I was jealous when you left,” I confess in a rush, a single crazed snort bubbling up from my throat. “I guess you were right. I really am a spoiled little princess.”
Ryker tilts his head in my direction, his expression unreadable in the shadows. Then he slowly reaches over and takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You’ll get out, too. Whenever you’re ready, you’ll leave this place in the dust.”
My lower lip quivers when I nod.
Ryker swipes his thumb back and forth across my chin, the tip of it grazing against my bottom lip until the trembling stills. When he lets go, silence floods in through the open windows, taking the heaviness of the moment with it.
After a minute, he angles his body toward me. “If you could live anywhere, where would it be?”
Grateful for the change of subject, I drum my fingers across my thigh, thinking over my answer. “I’ve never been anywhere outside of Texas,” I admit. “But I think I’d be happy anywhere with trees and water. Bonus points if it’s not humid and I can watch the leaves change color in the fall.” I turn, pulling my knees up to my chest and resting my back against the door. “What about you? Do you like Denton?”
“Not particularly. I—” He stops speaking abruptly and leans over the steering wheel to stare intently at Beau changing positions on the couch. “What was I saying? Yeah, Denton is fine, but I only went to UNT to be close to Charlie. I want to work in law enforcement so I can help kids the same way your dad tried to help me. After that, I’ll retire young and buy some land. A ranch or a farm, maybe.” He holds an arm out, moving it from left to right with an outstretched palm. “I want lots of open space—far enough away from town that I don’t have to worry about neighbors. You don’t get that in a big city.”
“Something like Crowe Ranch, then?”
He nods. “Exactly. Just not in Deadwood.”
“Of course not. Never in Deadwood.” I grin to myself, remembering how often Ryker walked past our house to see if Old Man Dan had any odd jobs for him when we were kids. When there wasn’t any work, he’d challenge ranch hands twice his age to a race on horseback. He’d win occasionally, too. Usually wearing the same jean jacket he has on now, the fabric billowing in the wind behind him and a smile plastered on his wind-chapped cheeks.
There’s a sudden pressure on my lungs as I realize those were some of the only times I saw him smile. Then again, after seeing the picture on his phone, maybe I wasn’t looking…
“You should do it—run a farm,” I clarify. “I think you’d be good at it.”
“Yeah?”
“ Mm-hmm .” I bite my lower lip to keep from laughing at how pleased he sounds with my assessment. Exactly like Charlie did when I mentioned how observant she was.
“Maybe that’s what I’ll do, then.” Ryker’s teeth flash pearly white in the darkness, and something tight uncoils from around my chest at the sight.