Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ace
Song- Freakin’ Out, Dexter and The Moonrocks
I pull up to Jett's ranch and park beside his truck, and my cousin waltzes out of his mansion with a coffee in his hand.
With a straw in it.
He stops when he sees me.
"Did the reporter crack you in the jaw hard enough to need a straw?" I ask, climbing out of my truck.
"Nah." He holds up the coffee. "She wanted one. This was the only way I could make that happen. You know, it's tricky when their hands are tied."
She.
The word hits my ear wrong.
"Jett." I close the distance between us. "Please tell me there isn't a woman tied up in your barn."
I run my hand over my face.
"Look. I didn't hurt her. She came willingly. She's actually very nice and understanding about this situation." He takes a sip through the straw. "She knew my name, too."
I blink at him. Then I slap him around the head hard enough that the coffee drops from his hand and splashes across the dirt.
"You're out of your fuckin' mind, Jett. Why didn’t you call me?"
"Hey! That was her coffee!"
I'm already pulling out my phone. Dialing Hunter. My jaw is tight enough to crack teeth.
"Hunter, we got a problem," I say the second he answers.
"What is it?"
"Well, you know you told Jett to grab the reporter for you?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, he has a woman now tied up in his fuckin' barn, Hunter. Why didn't you specifically tell him it was a woman and under no circumstances kidnap her? Because I egged this plan on. I told him to do this. He made a convincing argument about making sure no one leaks a story."
"You did what!” he shouts.
And Hunter doesn’t really need to ever raise his voice.
"What? You know you gotta be clear on instructions with Jett. He's been kicked in the head too many times. Fuck." I pace beside the truck, running my hand through my hair.
I glance at Jett. He's crouched on the ground, mourning the spilled coffee. But he takes absolutely no offense at what I just said. Which proves my point.
"Ace," Hunter says.
And the way his voice changes makes the hairs on my arms stand straight.
"Hunter, spit it the fuck out. I gotta go untie a woman from a barn and apologize on behalf of our family's name."
We were brought up to respect women. Not pull stunts like this, our mom would go batshit if she could see this.
A pause. And it’s too long. This is bad.
"Ace. This was meant to be a surprise. When I heard who it was, I guess I kinda thought you needed a push towards her. Settle old wars."
I stop pacing. "What do you fucking mean?"
"The reporter ain't just anyone." Another pause. "It's Harper."
The ground tilts.
My hand shoots out and grabs the side of Jett's truck because my legs just forgot how to work. My heart slams so hard against my ribs I can feel it in my throat, in my skull, in my fucking fingertips. The air leaves my lungs in one punch and doesn't come back.
Harper.
Harper is in that barn. Thirty feet from where I'm standing. Tied to a chair. Harper is the reporter.
"You let our cousin kidnap my ex-girlfriend as a surprise?" My voice doesn't sound like mine.
Am I entering into another universe?
"No. He was meant to bring her to Sterling Ranch later, for a family meeting. I did this in the name of romance, Ace. I wasn’t thinking Jett would kidnap her for you to save her. Although when I say it out loud, that kind of is romantic."
I press my forehead against the truck. The metal is hot from the sun. I don't care.
"Romance? Hunter. You have your own romance with Lola. Don't fuck with mine."
"I'm sorry, bro. I thought you'd be happy to see her."
I don’t know what I feel, other than sick. All I wanted was Harper back, but I didn’t want her to come back to me against her fuckin’ will, tied up in a barn, and be forced to come face to face with me. That isn’t how my fantasy plays out. She comes to me because she still loves me.
"Happy?" I hiss.
Happy. He thought I'd be happy. I tell him that I’ve been celibate for six years, and he thinks this makes me happy?
As if the woman I've been in love with for a decade, the woman who ripped my heart out and drove it to California and hasn't answered a single text in years, being tied up in a barn by our cousin in a flamingo shirt is a romantic gesture.
"I do need her back at the ranch, Ace. She has information we need, and she's been investigating me for weeks.
After Ashley's murder and the stories that almost leaked about that. I need this handled, romance or not. She knows about the Greeks. She knows what’s happening in LA.
We need her. And I think for some reason, she needs us too. "
I let his words settle. Each one heavier than the last.
Harper has been investigating my family. She left me. Built a career. And that career led her right back to us, to our dirt, our secrets, our blood. She's been digging into Ashley's murder. Into Hunter. Into the Sterlings.
"Is she trying to destroy us? Or helping us?" I ask.
I don't know if I want the answer.
"No. I don't believe so. The latter, actually."
The latter. She's protecting us. Even now. Even from hundreds of miles away, even while ignoring every message I send, she's still trying to keep my family safe.
And she didn't call me. Didn't ask for help. Didn't let me in. She went around me, through me, behind my back. Anything, everything, rather than pick up the phone and talk to me.
"What the hell do I do? Untie her and say sorry, but I need to kidnap you again so Hunter can speak to you?"
"Yeah. Worth a shot? You know her better than we do."
I scoff. The sound is bitter, and I don't try to hide it. "Not anymore, Hunter. I don't know her at all."
Because the woman I loved would have come to me. Would have knocked on my door, sat on my porch, and looked me in the eye and told me she needed help. The Harper I knew wasn't afraid of anything. She would have called. She would have fought to be let in, the way she fought for everything.
But that Harper was twenty years old. And six years is a very long time.
This Harper investigated me behind my back.
Ignored every message. Every birthday. Every Christmas.
Let me text into the void year after year while she was quietly working angles and making deals and building a life that didn’t include me.
And today, of all the ways she could have come back to me, she got herself kidnapped by my cousin in a flamingo shirt rather than pick up the damn phone and call.
She wants nothing to do with me.
And the fantasy I've been carrying. The one I built with bare hands and protected with everything I had, the one where she comes back, where the stars align, where we get our second chance, it crumbles into a million pieces.
One year, I told Hunter. One more year of waiting for my soulmate to change her mind.
I didn't need it anymore. I got my answer today. Harper isn’t coming back to me.
"I'll fix it," I tell him, and cut the call.
I pocket the phone and stare at the barn. Inside is the woman who crushed my heart.
Who's been protecting my family in secret while pretending I don't exist.
Who I still love so goddamn much it's eating me alive, even now, even furious, even with every reason in the world to walk the other way.
I turn to Jett. My voice comes out flat. "You were meant to take her to Sterling Ranch. Not here."
"Well, I wasn't sure if you wanted a kidnapped woman on your ranch, what with all the heat. I made the call to bring her here. Safer."
I half smile. Because his heart is in the right place. Underneath the flamingos and the spilled coffee and the criminal incompetence, Jett is trying to protect us. That's all any of us are ever doing.
"Look. You go do what you need to on your ranch. I'll deal with the reporter and bring her to Hunter. Alright?"
"Sure." He pauses. "Is Hunter pissed?"
I laugh. Not half as pissed as I am.
"No. He's fine. His fault for not making it clear and trying to play cowboy cupid."
Jett frowns. "Cupid? You wanna bang the reporter? She is fuckin’ beautiful.”
"Fuck off," I snap, clenching my fists.
He holds up his hands, grinning, and backs toward the house. He knows when to leave. That's the one smart instinct Jett Lawson has.
I face the barn.
I can hear her breathing. The sound I used to fall asleep to. The sound I haven't heard in six years. A sound I’d be able to pinpoint anywhere.
I take off my hat. Run my hand through my hair. Put it back on. Take it off again.
Get it together.
I hold the hat in my hand, gripping it tight—It’s her hat, it always is her hat—and walk toward the barn door.