Chapter 25
cade
Idon’t put Evie to bed. I let Tillie handle it.
I can’t look at my daughter, not when I have blood on my hands, figuratively and literally. My knuckles are torn up, and I don’t have the wherewithal to take care of them.
When I tell Dodge he needs to take Evie to Tillie, he doesn’t ask questions.
He saw Sarah’s reaction to Landon, saw how she protected Evie—he has no doubts at all about who lied that night ten years ago.
The night on her porch keeps playing in my head again and again. The things she said, those I did.
I remember Sam coming over the next day, his hat in hand, apologizing for his daughter.
Even he didn’t believe her because we trusted Landon.
The Golden Boy. The Mercer, who was destined for great things.
The one who got into Harvard, while I earned an associate’s degree in Farming and Ranch Management at Fort Collins.
Dad insisted, and I didn’t mind—I worked at a ranch there while I studied, honing myself to run Blue Rock someday.
“Walt, I talked to her and settled her down, okay,” Sam apologizes to my father.
They’re friends. Have been for years.
“What was she thinkin’, Sam?” Dad is furious. “I…you know I didn’t like her bein’ with Cade, you know that?”
He didn’t? I didn’t know that.
Sam looks at me and sighs. “You both are so young and…you were getting too attached.”
No shit, we were. I love…loved her. Now I don’t know how to feel.
“It’s my fault,” Landon chimes.
He has a black eye thanks to the punch I threw. But his nose isn’t broken, though he did bleed like a stuck hog.
“We were both drinkin’ and….” He looks at me. “Cade, I—”
“Save it.” I’m still pissed with him.
So what if Sarah threw herself at him? He should’ve done the right thing and kept his dick zipped up.
“She always said she liked you, Landon. Respects you. I don’t know why she’d do this.” Sam keeps shaking his head. “I’m so ashamed of her.”
“As you should be,” Dad thunders. “She went to the sheriff’s, Sam. Good thing Hugh is out of town ‘cause you know him, he’d have done it by the book. Investigated and…Landon would’ve gotten kicked out of Harvard.”
“I talked to Porter, too,” Sam says, his tone low, subservient.
Deputy Porter Montgomery is a good friend of my father, and he’s the one who talked to Sarah, called Sam, Landon, and Dad to sort this out.
“He made sure she went straight home and didn’t go to the clinic,” Dad continues. “They had sex, and if someone ran a rape kit…then what?”
“I know. I know. Trust me, I know.” Sam runs his hands over his face. “Since her mother died…I checked out. No one raisin’ her, so…here we are.”
“If she doesn’t shut up about this, Sam, she’ll need to leave town. I won’t have the Mercer name dragged through the mud.”
“She won’t talk about it. I’ve made sure of it,” he assures us.
After Sam leaves, Dad looks at me.
“You brought that bitch home, you make sure she’s going to get convinced to leave Wildflower Canyon.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Landon, you need to get back to Boston or stay with a friend. If she makes noises, we’ll just say you weren’t even here. Stupid girl. Can’t admit she spread her legs for you and is tryin’ to get attention for it.”
I throw up by the barn when I remember that conversation, how Dad talked about Sarah, how Landon did.
Now I wonder if Dad suspected that Sarah was telling the truth; otherwise, why would he have been so aggressive about covering it up? I didn’t even ask questions. Not even the most important one.
I just followed like a dumb fool.
If the great Walter Mercer says it’s so, then it must be.
Fuckin’ hell.
I need to clear my head, so I saddle up Rooster, my bay gelding who’s got more fire than sense. The leather creaks as I cinch the girth tight, my hands moving fast, rough, like I’m angry at the tack instead of myself.
“You ready for a hard ride, boy?”
Rooster tosses his head, ears flicking back, reading me too damn well.
The moment I swing into the saddle, I don’t give either of us a chance to breathe. I dig in my heels, and he surges forward, hooves striking sparks on the packed dirt as we tear out of the yard.
The wind is sharp against my face, and the pounding of his stride drums through my bones. We eat up the pasture, the fence line blurring past. I push him, needing speed, needing the burn in my thighs and the rasp of air in my lungs to match the chaos in my head.
We crest the ridge. The Elk Mountains loom in the distance, blue-grey and unmoved, watching like sentinels. Below, the spread of Kincaid Farms rolls wide—green pastures dotted with glossy cattle, barns standing straight and proud, his large greenhouse where I kissed Sarah….
I draw Rooster up short, his sides lathered, foam streaking the reins. I point him down the slope to Mav’s place.
“The hell happened to your hands?” Mav asks as he walks up to me while I swing down from Rooster.
He must’ve seen me riding down and came out to meet me.
I loop the reins once around the hitching rail by his house, giving Rooster’s sweaty neck a quick rub.
He’s blowing hard, sides heaving, ears flicking back at every sound.
I tug the reins loose enough that he can reach the trough nearby, the water dark and cool. “Settle down, boy. Drink your fill. Won’t be long,” I murmur before turning to face Mav.
He eyes the raw skin across my knuckles, brows pulling tight. “Looks like you picked a fight with a fence post.”
“Something like that,” I grunt.
We walk up to his wraparound porch. I don’t want to go inside. I need to be out because I feel suffocated.
“Okay to sit here?” I wave a hand at the seating area.
He gives me a measured look. “Sure. You want to tell me what’s goin’ on?”
“I need….” The air wheezes out of me, and I draw in quick breaths. I sit on a wicker chair and rest my elbows on my knees.
“Bourbon?”
I nod, not looking up.
“And?” he coaxes.
“First aid, maybe?” Joy suggests.
I raise my eyes to her. “Joy,” I greet softly.
She’s in a long dress, but I can see she’s barefoot. Her blonde hair is tied in a loose bun. She’s a classy lady ‘cause even rumpled up, she looks elegant.
Like Sarah.
“How are you doing, Cade?” Her tone is gentle; she knows something’s up.
“Barely holdin’ on, darlin’,” I admit.
Her gaze softens with understanding.
“Sweetheart, bring some bourbon, will you?” Mav asks his sister.
I stare down at my hands and see the crusted blood.
I flex my fingers, and some wounds open. Blood trickles out of them. The pain is good for me. I should feel pain. I should feel so much of it. But I know that it’ll never compare to what I put Sarah through, and more importantly, it won’t change a thing for her.
The screen door creaks open, and Joy walks into the house.
Mav leans against a post, arms folded, hat low. Waiting.
I press my palms against my knees. “I never asked my brother if he”—my throat closes around the word, but if she had to go through it, I can damn well say it—“raped Sarah.”
I snort a laugh, sharp and ugly. “I didn’t ask him. Not once. I just…believed him.”
A flicker of compassion crosses Mav’s face. “He’s your big brother. Blood is thicker than water and all that manure.”
I let the nausea roll through me, hoping it will fade.
Mav waits, letting silence do the work.
“A part of me hated that she had sex with him. I…didn’t care if she was telling the truth or not, all I could see was her with Landon, and it was like drinking acid.” I can still remember my fury, raw and unbearably huge. “She was my first…we were each other’s first. I wanted her to be my last.”
Tears fill my eyes, and I suck them back in. “Today…Sarah was at the ranch, and Landon came. She grabbed Evie, wouldn’t let her close to him. I saw it on her face, Mav. I saw it.”
The compassion is plain on his face, no hiding it. “She was protecting Evie,” he remarks.
The door creaks open again. Joy comes out with a bottle and three glasses. The good stuff—Blanton’s, with that little horse stopper. She sets the glasses down on the wicker table and disappears once more, only to return with a first-aid box.
“I asked Landon…finally, I asked him.”
Joy looks from me to Mav and then back to me. “Asked what?”
“Did you rape my girlfriend?” The words scrape out raw.
Joy gasps softly.
“He said, ‘Of course not.’” I crack out a jagged sound. “He had that same look on his face when he lied to Dad that he didn’t scratch his new truck, when he almost got caught smoking…it’s his….”
“Hand-in-the-cookie-jar face?” Joy offers as she takes my hands, lowering herself onto the chair next to mine.
She cleans the blood and dirt from my knuckles. The alcohol stings, and I hiss.
Mav pours bourbon into the glasses, amber catching the light, then holds it out close to my free hand. “Drink. Then talk.”
I down it in a single burn. He refills without comment.
“He did it.” My voice shakes. “All these years, Sarah told the truth. He raped her. And I….” My throat locks. “I called her a liar. I left her. She said I killed her.” Tears flow down my cheeks. “I did, didn’t I?”
The horror of the situation sears me. I didn’t listen to my Dove. I handed her to the wolves, and even after she came back, I continued to kill her, again and again. I was supposed to be her safe space, but I became the biggest villain in her story.
Joy’s eyes gloss with tears, but she keeps bandaging, wrapping gauze around my hands like she’s holding me together.
“I chose him,” I rasp. “Over her. Over the woman I loved…still love. And now—I see it. In his face. In hers. There’s no denying it.”
Mav finally sits, the porch swing creaking under his weight.
He levels me with a thoughtful stare. “You fucked up, Cade. Bad. Ain’t no use dressin’ it up pretty.
But a man’s not measured by the shit he falls into; he’s measured by how he climbs out.
You get up, dust off, and set it right, best you can.
That’s the only trail worth ridin’ now.”
“How am I supposed to set this right?” I sputter.
“You can’t change the past,” he says slowly, as if weighing his words. “But you can damn sure face it. Own your mistake.”
Joy ties the last knot in the bandage and lays a hand over mine. “It’ll be okay, Cade.” Her voice trembles as tears spill over. “It’s not okay now. But it will be.”
Something inside me cracks. I drop my head into my hands, shoulders heaving, sobs tearing out of me like I haven’t cried since I was a boy.
Joy pulls me into her arms, and I let her. I bury my face against her shoulder, her dress soft, smelling faintly of some fancy perfume.
She rocks me like I do Evie when she skins her knee.
“Let it out, darling,” she murmurs. “Then tomorrow, you can stand back up.”
After a while, when the tears have dried, we settle back in our chairs.
Joy bandages my other hand. “You’re good at patchin’ people up,” I say in gratitude.
“I get a lot of practice with the ranch hands and this one.” She jerks her head toward her brother.
“So, what’s our move to make that son of a bitch pay?” Mav’s eyes have gone storm-dark. “‘Cause a rattlesnake that close to home—you don’t leave it coiled. You deal with it.”
A broken inhale slips past my lips. “And this is where it gets worse.”
“Worse?” Joy narrows her eyes. “How?” And then, as if it dawns on her, she shakes her head. “Please tell me he didn’t do this to someone else.”
Defeated, I nod. “I don’t know how Sarah knows, but…she said there are others, several others, and one”— my chest locks up like I’ve been branded hot—“one girl killed herself.”
Joy claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God!”
“If I’d listened to Sarah then, if I’d stood by her….” I feel lost and confused. “He’s my brother. How…how can this be happening?”
“People live with murderers and rapists and don’t know who they are.” Mav lets out a long breath, shaking his head slowly. “If there are others…then….” He lets out a brittle laugh suddenly. “Now it makes sense.”
“What does?” Joy asks before I can.
He pulls out his phone from his pocket and browses through it.
“Yeah. Here it is. I received an email from Marnie Evans, a journalist at The Washington Herald. She said she wanted to talk about ranching. I looked her up. She’s cracked open her share of sexual assault cases, gotten law enforcement to go back and deal with some they swept under the rug.
I didn’t get back to her, ‘cause I saw nothing about ranching in her portfolio.”
“You think this…Marnie person talked to Sarah?” She had mentioned a journalist.
Mav moves his head in a slow, solemn nod. “I think so.”
Joy picks up her glass of whiskey and downs it. “I’m going to go check on Sarah.”
“You can’t drive,” Mav protests.
“I had one drink,” she counters.
“Let me ask Zane to take you.”
“At this hour, your foreman is deeper into his cups than I am.” She leans down and kisses my forehead. “Cade, baby, we’re going to take your fucking brother down.”
That makes me smile despite myself. “Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah,” she assures me with a confidence I wish I had.
After Joy leaves, Mav and I sit quietly for a while. Drink.
The night settles around us. The porch light hums, moths flickering in its glow. Beyond the rail, the pasture stretches quietly under the Elk Mountains.
Then, Mav leans forward, his arms tense, jaw set. “You need to stand by her when she tells the world what he did.”
I don’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“You sure? You’ll be goin’ against your brother.”
“He raped her, Mav. He hurt other women. A man like that is no one’s brother.”
He bobs his head as if what I said pleases him. “You eat dinner?”
I shake my head. “Not hungry.”
“Aria made some orange cake—and you know, with dessert it ain’t about being hungry.”
I give him a small smile.
“You want a slice?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go into the kitchen. And while we eat, we can come up with the next steps.”
“Next steps for what?” I ask as I follow him into the house.
“To putting your asshole brother behind bars and getting your woman back—and not necessarily in that order.”