Chapter 16 #2
We are quiet for a moment. The senator’s laugh breaks the silence. Our gaze lands on him. He’s having a rather lively conversation with Mav and Duke.
“Strange bedfellows, wouldn’t you say?” Kaz coaxes.
I ease forward, elbows braced against the railing. “I thought Mav and Duke had better…judgment.”
“They do.” Kaz imitates my stance, brushing his shoulder against mine. “This is how they keep Wildflower Canyon a ranching community, how they make sure it doesn’t turn into Jackson Hole or Bozeman.”
I’m not convinced, though I can’t deny he makes sense.
I know Duke turned down millions to keep Wilder Ranch out of developers’ hands and lost a fortune by refusing to carve it up into vacation lots. Truth is that the land itself is worth more to outsiders than the cattle or horses on it. That’s the sad part.
Putting steak on a plate takes sweat and sacrifice, and I’ve got nothing but respect for the men and women who do that.
Ranchers don’t just raise beef: they guard the land, protect the water, and keep the environmental and moral balance. In their own way, they’re stewards of the planet.
I straighten, wanting to go home now. I’ve been here for almost an hour.
“You know the problem with the truth, Dr. K?” He unfolds his body, towers over me.
“What?” I meet the challenge in his tone.
“Truths are time bombs.” His smile fades into a serious expression. “You gonna sit on yours and wait for it to explode, or are you going to detonate it?”
The sounds of the party blur around me until all I hear is my heart pounding.
“What do you know?” I whisper.
“As much as you do.”
I lick my lips. “Kaz?”
“I know there’s an investigation.”
I suck in a breath. “By journalists?”
“Yes.” He pauses. “And others.”
“Law enforcement?”
He just looks at me, neither confirming nor denying my assumption.
“How are you involved in—”
He raises a hand to silence me. “I’m just a bystander, Sarah. You need to figure out what you want to do. Like I said, you can let this truth break on you, or you can break it.”
“I don’t know what I want to do…yet,” I admit, voice low.
Kaz nods like he expected that answer. “I know, but time’s running out.”
“Time?” I give him a perplexed look.
“Yes. If you want this done right, it needs to start with you. His first victim.”
I put a hand on my stomach because it’s churning now. “First?”
“As far as we know. But not his last.”
I grab his arm. “Kaz, what do you know?” I demand with urgency.
He covers my hand with his. “Darlin’, I’ve already said too much.”
“Say more,” I plead.
“I can’t.” He takes my hand into his and brings it close to his mouth. He kisses my knuckles softly. “You’re brave. You’re full of courage. Remember that.” He smiles indulgently at me. “I know you’ll do the right thing.”
“And what’s that?” I ask huskily.
“You’ll know that, too,” he assures me.
After he leaves me with my questions, I wander aimlessly for a bit.
As the sun dips low, painting the sky in gold and rose, I find my way into the greenhouse.
This sanctuary had offered me comfort the other night when I told Joy and Aria my truth. It does the same now.
Glass panes glow soft in the late light, and the air inside wraps around me warm and damp, like stepping into a different world.
Rows of herbs and flowers stretch out in tidy beds—lavender, rosemary, sage—all releasing their sharp, soothing scents.
The soil smells alive, rich and dark, and water still beads on the leaves from Mav’s careful misting.
The strings of soft bulbs overhead make the place feel more like a chapel than a greenhouse.
I sit on a wicker chair and think about what Kaz revealed.
I was Landon’s first rape victim. I hate that word. I’m a survivor and not anyone’s victim. I refuse to be. But there are others.
How many?
And is it my fault that they fell prey to a predator? If I’d fought harder to unmask Landon then, would they have been saved?
I drop my face in my hands, feeling the old feelings of shame and helplessness suffuse me.
Tears prick the back of my eyes, but I don’t permit them to fall.
I won’t cry. I won’t feel sorry for myself.
“Truths are time bombs. You gonna sit on yours and wait for it to explode, or are you going to detonate it?”
But would anyone believe me now? What is my truth worth?
I hear footsteps. I raise my head. My eyes clash with blue ones—like my rapist’s and the man I love.
They both have the same eyes. Same tenor. Physically, they used to be alike, but I’ve now seen pictures of Congressman Mercer, and he looks nothing like Cade anymore.
While Landon has a potbelly and his hair is thinning, Cade looks like he’s in his prime—all raw muscle and health.
I turn away because memories assail.
“You want this. You think I don’t know how you look at me?”
“Landon, stop.”
I beg. I plead. I try to close my legs. He slaps me. He overpowers me. He enters me.
My therapist warned me that I’d experience this—memories like they just happened a day ago and not a decade ago—when I’m surrounded by all that is familiar from my past.
“Are you seeing Kaz Chase?”
That makes me look at him in puzzlement. “Huh?”
“Are you fuckin’ him?”
Fury crashes over me. He was supposed to protect me. He was my best friend. My lover. My future, and he threw me away so his brother could do to others what he did to me. And now he’s asking me….
“Are you?” There’s rage in his eyes, like he has any right to it.
I cock an eyebrow. “And how is that any of your business?”
He sighs, removes his hat, and runs a hand through his hair. I brace myself for the sharp edge of his tone, but…his eyes go quiet, the storm in them softens.
“It’s not.” He comes closer, drops his hat on the coffee table, and sits across from me in a wicker chair. He leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees.
“What do you want?” I demand. I don’t want him here, especially while I’m feeling vulnerable, when hurtful memories flood my veins.
“You don’t drink.”
I raise both eyebrows.
“You don’t drink. Alcohol, I mean,” he explains.
I lock my jaw tight for a moment and then speak slowly. “Sure, I do, just not out in public.”
“Why?”
A brittle laugh escapes me. “Why do you think, Cade?”
His gaze snags on mine. “Maybe because you made a mistake once when you were drunk?”
I shoot him a glare brimming with disgust. “Is that what you think?”
He rubs his temple and shakes his head. “I didn’t come here to talk about that.”
I curl my palms into fists. “Since I don’t want to talk to you about anything, maybe you should get gone, cowboy.”
His expression folds in on itself. “There are things that need to be said. My daughter…Evie has taken a liking to you. And…you live here now. We can’t keep—”
“We can keep out of each other’s way,” I snap. “You think you hate me? Hate doesn’t even touch what I feel for you. What I feel is bigger, uglier—revulsion so deep there aren’t words strong enough to name it.”
Cade flinches. “How dare you?” he hisses, his voice hot as a branding iron against flesh.
I ease back into the chair, not letting him see how much he affects me. I won’t give him that satisfaction. “You’re the one who came looking for me. You don’t like what I say, you can fuck off.”
“You ruined us,” he snarls. “And you find me repulsive? When you left, I broke. I’ve never been the same since.”
The sanctimonious, self-righteous son of a bitch.
“You broke?” My voice cracks; anger and grief tangle together. “You destroyed me. I begged you to believe me, and you looked at me like I was filth. Do you have any idea what that did to me?” And to all the other women your brother hurt?
Oh, Cade, how am I supposed to ever forgive you? How do I forgive myself for not being stronger? For letting Landon keep hurting women?
God.
Does he hurt young girls? Is that his pattern? His sickness?
Landon is a serial rapist. And I could’ve stopped him. If only I’d had more fight in me.
“You think you’ve been through hell?” I spit the words, sharp as shards of glass. “Try walking two steps in my boots. Compared to my life, yours has been a ride on fresh spring grass.”
His jaw tightens, anger shadowing his face. The moment of softness between us is gone.
So I push harder.
“I almost killed myself.” The scalding confession rips out of me. I rise. Stand. Stiff as a board. “Twice. That’s what it cost me—for you to take his word over mine.”
Cade looks like I struck him. His breath is ragged, broken.
He rises slowly, like the weight of ten years is crushing him.
We study each other. Haunted by who we were. And ghosts crowd the air between us.
Then his hand lifts. He’s hesitant, like he wants to bridge the impossible gap in one motion.
“No,” he whispers, ragged.
“Oh yes.” I step closer, thrusting out my wrists. “You want proof, cowboy? Look.”
The scars are faint, pale lines against my skin—but they’re visible. I see them every day and remind myself that life is worth living, even if my father and the man I loved made me feel worthless.
His hands close around my wrists. His face shatters. And then—before I can breathe—he bends and presses his lips to the scars.
I freeze. Too shocked to stop him.
He does it again.
His mouth brushes soft against my skin, reverent, desperate.
Ten years fall away in a rush.
I smell him, the clean spice of his cologne undercut with Cade—earth and leather and the boy who was mine.
My Cade.
“What did you do the second time?” I can barely hear him, he’s so hoarse.
“I took pills.”
His eyes squeeze shut. “You can’t die, Dove.”
Dove.
The endearment wrecks me. Tears sting hot in my eyes.
“I’m already dead.” I tremble with the effort to exist in this space with him. “You killed me, Cade.”
His lips lift from my wrists to my palm, to my knuckles. His forehead presses to mine, the heat of him searing.
And then—slow, hesitant, inevitable—his mouth finds mine.
The kiss is soft.
Devastating.
It’s a kiss that evokes everything.
The first rush of teenage love.
The shattering of betrayal.
The ache of years lost.
It’s erotic in the gentlest way, like the body remembering what the mind can’t forgive.
Yesterday and today collide. Past and present bleed together.
I kiss him back.
Just for a heartbeat. A millisecond.
Then horror grips me, sharp and sudden.
I tear myself away, stumbling back like I’ve touched fire. My fingers press to my lips, burning from his touch, the intimacy of the kiss.
His betrayal scarred me. Yes.
But if I betray myself? If I let him past my defenses again? It won’t just mark me. It will destroy me. I won’t be able to put myself back together.
“No,” I cry out softly. “You don’t get to touch me. Not after what you did.”
His face twists, anguish stark in every line. “After what I did?”
“Yes. You.”
“Dove, I forgive you. I…you were a kid and—”
A laugh breaks out of me. At first, it’s just a sharp breath, then it swells, spilling into something jagged, nearly hysterical.
What did my therapist say? Hysterical is historical.
“You forgive me?” The laughter vanishes as fast as it flared.
“Well, good for you. But I don’t forgive.
I will never forgive you. And you know what?
The universe won’t forgive you for what you did.
” I turn to walk to the door of the greenhouse and stop for a moment, and over my shoulder, I hold his gaze.
“When you find out the truth, Cade, and your heart tears you apart, I will watch with satisfaction. I will give you no comfort…and we will still not be even.”
With that, I return toward the glow of the party, back into the crowd, leaving Cade alone in the lush greenhouse with my truth, which he doesn’t believe.