Chapter 25
Dinner should have tasted better than it did.
The brisket practically fell apart beneath Shylo's fork.
The mashed potatoes were every bit as good as Seth had promised.
And the fresh rolls disappeared almost as fast as Paige set the basket on the table.
Conversation flowed easily around her, jumping from ranch work to the upcoming Rodeo Bonanza, then to Ashley's first ride on one of the ranch's oldest, gentlest ponies. From Shane’s point of view, she'd been fearless from the moment Tucker took hold of the lead rope.
But according to Paige, the only one showing any nerves was Shane, who'd kept one arm around Ashley's waist the entire time.
Seth agreed, earning himself a playful glare from Shane.
Shylo joined in when it felt expected.
She smiled.
She laughed.
She answered questions.
Every bit felt rehearsed.
All the while, Troy hovered at the edge of her thoughts like a storm cloud refusing to move on.
Five days.
That was the deadline he'd given her to march into Shane's life and demand half of an inheritance she wasn't even sure she wanted anymore.
Four days had already slipped away.
She had to tell Shane who she was, but it could wait until tomorrow morning because she wanted one more pleasant evening with his family. But after that, she was out of excuses. Once he learned the truth, he'd probably boot her off the ranch. Seth would stand beside him—hating her.
She wouldn't be able to blame him. While so much of their time together had been real, it had all started with a lie of omission.
Taking another bite of brisket, she forced herself to chew and swallow.
How had everything become so complicated so quickly?
Less than three weeks ago, Hazard Falls had simply been the place she'd come to confront the man who didn’t know she existed.
Now, she looked forward to Sunday dinners and laughing with people who'd welcomed her without hesitation.
Somewhere along the way, she'd stopped seeing the Wilsons as strangers and started imagining what it would be like to belong.
If Shane truly were her loving brother.
If Paige became family.
If Tucker ever looked at her with something other than quiet reserve.
Her gaze drifted toward him.
He sat at one end of the table, listening while Shane insisted the Royals would take two out of three from the Mariners that week. Seth disagreed just as confidently, and before long, the two of them were negotiating the terms of a wager.
Unlike Shane, who punctuated every story with animated gestures, Tucker rarely spoke unless he had something worth saying. More often than not, he listened while everyone else talked.
Tonight... something was different about him.
More than once, she'd caught him watching her.
Not openly. Never long enough for anyone else to notice. But enough to leave her wondering if she'd imagined it.
When their eyes met again, he held her gaze for a long moment before reaching for his iced tea. The movement seemed deliberate, but she told herself she was reading too much into it.
After all, she'd spent the last four days jumping at shadows, ever since Troy had knocked on her door.
Still...
Now and then, she'd catch him studying her again. His calm expression never changed, but something about it felt... wrong.
As if he were waiting.
Or deciding.
Conversation drifted on until the last of the dinner dishes sat empty.
Everyone rose almost automatically, falling into a familiar routine.
Seth gathered plates while Shane and Tucker carried serving bowls into the kitchen.
Shylo stood to follow with the remaining dishes, but Paige smiled and relieved her of the stack.
“Guest privilege,” she said. “You can help another time.”
A few minutes later, with the table cleared and coffee brewing, Paige shooed everyone back to their seats. “Sit. I've got dessert.”
She returned carrying a homemade apple pie with a bowl of vanilla ice cream.
Paige set a slice of pie in front of everyone before taking her own seat. Conversation drifted back to the friendly wager Shane and Seth were making over the upcoming Royals-Mariners series, while Paige accused them of caring far too much about a game they had no control over.
Shylo picked at her pie, her appetite long gone.
Then Tucker laid his fork across his plate.
The faint scrape of metal against ceramic seemed to hush the conversation.
“So, Shylo,” he said, looking directly at her, “do you want to tell Shane why you're really in Hazard Falls... or should I?”
The words seemed to suck the air and every sound from the room.
Shylo forgot how to breathe, and her stomach lurched so violently that she thought she might be sick right there at the table. The pie in front of her blurred as a rush of panic swept through her, leaving her fingertips numb against the edge of her plate.
No.
No, no, no...
Not like this.
She'd spent four days trying to find the right moment to tell Shane herself. She'd promised herself it would be tomorrow, after breakfast, when there weren't so many people around, and she could explain everything instead of dropping it into the middle of a family dinner.
Now tomorrow was gone.
Three pairs of eyes landed on Tucker.
Then, almost as one, they turned toward her.
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
“What are you talking about?” Shane asked, the smile disappearing from his face.
Tucker's gaze stayed locked on Shylo, sending a shiver down her spine. “You don't see it, do you, Shane?”
“See what?”
“The resemblance.”
Frowning, Shane shifted his gaze from Tucker to Shylo, then back again. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I've been watching you smile for years, babe.” His voice remained calm, but an unmistakable edge cut through every word as he finally looked at his husband. “I’ve studied it. I know every nuance of it. She's got it.”
“Got what? My smile.”
“Yeah.” Tucker's gaze shifted back to Shylo. “She’s your half-sister.”
The last thread of hope snapped.
She stared at Tucker, unable to believe he'd actually said the words aloud.
Silence swallowed the room.
A grandfather clock in the corner ticked off the seconds. Somewhere in the kitchen, the refrigerator hummed to life. Ordinary sounds that had no business existing when her entire world had just come apart.
Then the silence shattered.
Paige gasped. Seth swore under his breath. Chairs scraped across the hardwood floor. Shane stared from Tucker to Shylo and back again as confused voices erupted from every direction, piling over one another until none of them made sense.
She caught fragments.
“…what are you talking about?”
“…that’s impossible…”
“…Tucker…”
“...Shylo?”
She couldn't have answered if she'd wanted to.
Her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth, and every heartbeat pounded harder than the last. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen.
She'd rehearsed a hundred different conversations during sleepless nights at the motel.
None of them ended with Tucker saying the words for her while she sat frozen over a piece of apple pie.
A piercing whistle cut through the chaos, silencing everyone.
Shane lowered his hand from his mouth and looked at her. Not Tucker. Not anyone else.
Her.
His expression held no anger. Only bewilderment. “Is it true?”
Every instinct screamed at her to deny it.
To run.
To somehow shove the truth back into the box it had lived in for thirty years.
She couldn't.
Her chin dipped in a slow nod. “Yes.”
The single word barely made it past the knot in her throat, and she swallowed hard.
“Your father and my mother...” She stopped, fighting for enough air to finish. “They...”
Shane lifted a hand. “You don't have to explain that part.” He drew a slow breath.
“I know my father wasn't exactly faithful to my mother, especially when he was out of town on business. My mother knew it too. She also knew he loved her, in his own way. I learned a long time ago to follow her lead and leave his indiscretions where she did—in the past.”
His gaze searched her face for several moments. “I have a sister?”
Tears burned behind her eyes, and she nodded again. “Yes.”
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Seth pushed back from his chair so abruptly it scraped across the hardwood floor, and Shylo flinched.
He stood there for a moment, one hand braced against the back of the chair, his jaw clenched as though he were holding back a hundred questions or accusations.
“This is Wilson family business.” His voice sounded rough. He glanced at Paige. “Thanks for dinner.”
Then he turned and walked out.
“Seth—” His name slipped out before Shylo could stop it.
He didn't slow down, his boots hitting the kitchen tile hard and with purpose.
The back door opened, then slammed shut, the sound echoing through the house.
Every instinct urged her to go after him. But she couldn't. Not while Shane sat across the table waiting for answers she'd owed him from the day she'd arrived in Hazard Falls.
Silence fell over the room once more.
The tears she'd been fighting finally spilled over. She swiped at them with the back of her hand, only to have another follow, then another. She wished they would stop. Crying wouldn't change anything. It certainly wouldn't make any of this easier for Shane.
A tissue box appeared beside her plate, and she glanced up.
Paige offered her a small, sympathetic smile before taking her seat again.
“Thank you,” Shylo whispered, pulling out two tissues and dabbing at her eyes, unable to bring herself to look directly at anyone.
Finally, Shane asked, “How did you figure it out, Tuck?”
Shylo's grip tightened around the crumpled tissues in her lap.
“I noticed the resemblance,” Tucker said.
“After that, I started paying closer attention. She asked a lot of questions about our family and the ranch, but whenever the conversation turned to her, her answers were kind of vague. So I called the PI who tracked down that video of Bridget in the strip club.”
The confession hung in the air only a second before Paige slapped the table hard enough to rattle the plates, forks, and glasses. “I knew it!”
Shylo blinked, startled enough that her tears paused.
Every head turned toward Paige, and she pointed between the two men. “I knew you both were behind that.”
Tucker gave her a flat look. “Seriously? That's what you're focusing on right now?”
Color rose in Paige's cheeks. “Sorry. But neither of you would ever admit it.”
To Shylo's surprise, the corners of Shane's mouth twitched upward before the smile disappeared as quickly as it had come.
Tucker's attention shifted back to Shane. “Anyway, Peter had a secret bank account he'd used to pay child support. The deposits were always made in cash. When he died, they stopped.”
The pieces seemed to fall into place behind Shane's eyes, and Shylo's stomach dropped.
Tucker fixed his gaze on her.
“That's why you're here, isn't it?” His voice remained low, every word edged with suspicion. “For part of Shane's inheritance.”
The accusation hung between them.
She lowered her eyes to the table while twisting the tissues between trembling fingers.
She wanted to answer. Wanted to tell them everything—from the monthly checks she'd grown up believing came from a distant relative to the day her mother finally admitted they had been child support, to Troy showing up at her motel room demanding she claim what he insisted was hers.
Instead, all she could hear was Seth's truck roaring down the driveway toward the road.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat.
Nothing came out.
“Well?” Tucker pressed. “Answer me.”
“Hold on.” Shane's quiet interruption stopped him.
The chair legs rumbled softly across the hardwood as Shane stood. He rested both hands on the table for a moment, his head bowed as though gathering his thoughts. When he finally looked up, his eyes found Shylo's. The hurt was unmistakable. But so was his patience.
“Give her a minute.” Without another word, he walked into the den.
No one spoke while he was gone. Shylo heard the metallic click of a key turning in a lock, followed by the muted clink of glass.
A few moments later, Shane returned carrying a bottle of bourbon and three heavy glasses. He set them on the table without comment, poured a generous measure into each one, then handed a glass to Tucker and another to Shylo. She assumed Paige didn’t get one because of her pregnancy.
After taking the last glass for himself, Shane sat back down. He stared into the amber liquid for a long moment, then took a healthy swallow before lifting his gaze to hers again.
“Start at the beginning. Tell us everything.”