Chapter 26
Shylo wrapped both hands around the glass, more for something to hold than because she wanted the drink. The amber liquid shimmered beneath the dining room light as her fingers trembled against the thick crystal. Hoping it might calm her nerves, she lifted the glass and took a tentative sip.
The bourbon scorched its way down her throat.
She coughed into her fist, blinking against the burn as tears sprang to her eyes.
“Easy,” Shane said, his voice gentle despite everything that had happened. “It'll sneak up on you if you're not used to it.”
Embarrassment crept into her cheeks as the alcohol churned in her stomach. “I've never had bourbon before.”
“I’m not a big fan either, but it helps calm me down if I’m upset about something,” Paige said with a small, encouraging smile.
Shylo managed a small nod. She'd expected anger. Instead, Shane and Paige were showing her a kindness she wasn't sure she deserved. Tucker, on the other hand, remained silent, his expression unreadable. His kindness wouldn't come nearly as easily.
The thought made it even harder to meet any of their eyes.
She set the glass back on the table and stared at the ripples she'd created. They disappeared far more quickly than the turmoil churning inside her.
“I owe all of you an apology,” she began, her voice barely above a whisper. “Especially you, Shane... and Seth.” Saying his name hurt. She closed her eyes for a moment before forcing herself to continue. “I should've told you who I was sooner.”
She drew a shuddering breath. “The truth is... I didn't come here planning to tell you right away. I didn't know what kind of reception I'd get or if you'd even believe me. I wanted to figure out who you were first.”
Her gaze drifted from Shane to Paige, then Tucker, before dropping back to the tabletop. “But then I got to know all of you, and every day that passed made it harder to say anything. I kept convincing myself I'd tell you tomorrow.”
She shook her head. “Tomorrow just never came.”
No one interrupted. The quiet gave her room to continue.
“My mom's name was Heidi Kellerman. She was a school secretary.” A sad smile came and went. “She was the strongest person I've ever known.”
Her fingers curled around the bourbon glass again. “She'd already been through one relationship that ended badly. My half-brother, Troy, has a different father. He walked away before Troy was born and never looked back. Mom didn't expect much from men after that.”
She met Shane's eyes. “She met your father while she was out with a couple of friends one night. He was in town on business, and they only spent one evening together.” She managed the faintest shrug. “She figured that was the last time she'd ever see him.”
The words grew harder after that. “Several months later, he was back in the area on business again. He looked her up and found out she was pregnant. Mom told him she didn’t want anything from him. She'd already raised Troy by herself and figured she'd do the same with me.”
She drew a shuddering breath. “But your dad wouldn't hear of it. He insisted on helping financially.”
Shane studied the bourbon in his glass for a moment, turning it once before meeting her gaze again.
“That...” He paused, his voice rough with emotion. “That sounds like him. I just wish he'd told me about you... At the very least, after my mom passed. There was time before he died when he could've...” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw and shook his head. “Damn it, Dad.”
The words caught Shylo off guard, and a lone tear slipped down her cheek.
“Until recently, I never knew his last name. Mom only told me his name was Peter. When I was younger, she said that the money she received every month came from an inheritance left by a distant relative, and I believed her.” She swallowed.
“It wasn't until she got sick that she finally told me the truth.
The money wasn't an inheritance. It was child support from my father.”
She paused to gather her thoughts. “Your dad died when I was seventeen, and the money stopped coming. I didn't notice because I didn't even know it existed. Mom had saved as much of it as she could over the years and quietly used those savings to help us get by.”
Her voice softened. “Five years later, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Insurance covered a lot, but not everything. Between the treatments, the bills, and the time she had to miss from work, the savings finally ran out.”
Grabbing another tissue from the box, she wiped her eyes and nose.
“That was when she finally told me the truth about the money.
She still wouldn't tell me Peter's last name when I wanted to contact him for help with the bills.
She said he'd built a life for himself and had a family who didn't deserve to have everything turned upside down because of the choices she and your father had made years ago.”
Grief rose without warning. “She went into remission for a while, and we hoped the worst was behind us. Then the cancer came back two years ago.” Shylo stared at the bourbon glass cradled between her hands. “She died four months ago.”
The words seemed to hang in the room.
“Troy couldn't be bothered to visit her before she passed away. He didn't even come to the funeral.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “There wasn't any money in it for him.”
She closed her eyes for a moment before continuing.
“After the funeral, I needed answers Mom could no longer give me.
I hired a private investigator to find my father.
He's the one who discovered Peter Wilson was my dad.
He traced the financial records, found that your father had been depositing the child support, and learned he'd died thirteen years ago.”
She looked at Shane. “That was when I found out he had a son... and that you lived here in Hazard Falls. The report included everything the P.I. could find about you and the ranch. And that you'd inherited everything after your father died. I couldn’t afford to pay him for any more information than that.”
She took another sip of the bourbon, welcoming the burn as it slid down her throat. Somehow, it was easier than saying the next words.
“At first... I was angry.”
The admission left her stomach in knots.
“You grew up with a father. I didn't. You had someone who raised you, taught you things, and loved you.” She looked at Shane. “When he died, he left everything to you. All I had were questions my mother never could or would answer.”
She drew a slow breath. “So yes... when I first came to Hazard Falls, a big part of me thought maybe I deserved something.”
No one interrupted.
“I planned to meet first. I wanted to know what kind of man you were before I decided what to do. If you turned me away or acted like I didn't matter...” She hesitated. “Then I probably would've talked to a lawyer.”
A faint smile touched her lips before fading. “But that isn't what happened.”
Shane lifted his brow but said nothing.
“You weren’t what I expected—you were kind.
The complete opposite of the brother I grew up with.
” A faint smile flickered across her face.
“And then I met Seth. He respected you. Looked up to you.
And the more he talked about you, the harder it became to picture the man I'd convinced myself you were... someone who'd turn his back on me.”
She glanced around the table. “Then I met Paige... and Tucker... and everyone else. I watched how all of you treated each other. I watched how this family cared not just about one another, but about your friends, the people who work for you, and this whole town.”
Her gaze returned to Shane. “The more time I spent here, the less important the inheritance became.” Her voice grew quieter.
“I spent my whole life wishing I'd had a brother who loved me and gave a damn whether I existed.
Instead, I grew up with Troy, an entitled jerk who blames everyone else for anything that goes wrong in his life.
Growing up, he demanded new clothes, new shoes, and money Mom could barely afford.
When she said no, he'd scream at her and break things until she gave in.
More than once, he took his anger out on both of us.
“When Mom got sick, I took a second job to help pay the bills, and Troy started demanding money from me too. It didn't matter that I was working myself to exhaustion, or that Mom was fighting cancer. If he wanted something, he expected us to hand it over.”
The memories came back with painful clarity—the shouting, the slammed doors, her mother's exhausted attempts to keep the peace, and the knot of dread that formed in Shylo's stomach whenever Troy showed up.
“Whenever he got arrested, somehow it was always somebody else's fault.”
For years, she'd believed that was simply what having a brother meant. Someone bigger, louder, and crueler. Someone who made home feel anything but safe.
“All my life, I wondered what it would be like to have a brother who wasn't like that.” Her gaze found Shane's once more. “Then I met you, and I realized I'd rather have you as my brother than anything our father could've left me.”
When Shylo's voice faded, no one rushed to fill the void she'd left behind. The grandfather clock’s steady ticking did that. She'd laid bare thirty years of hurt, and for a few precious moments, everyone let her words sink in.
Emotionally drained, she picked up the half-full glass of sweet tea that had sat untouched since she'd finished dinner.
Condensation coated the outside, dampening her fingers as she lifted it.
The ice had long since melted, but the cool sweetness soothed the rawness in her throat far better than the bourbon ever could.
Paige reached for the tissue box, pulling one free before dabbing at the tears gathering in her eyes. She offered Shylo a watery smile, as though wishing there were something she could say to make any of this easier. The simple gesture made Shylo's chest ache.
Meanwhile, Shane scrubbed a hand over his face and quickly brushed the moisture from beneath his eyes before anyone could pretend not to notice. He stared at the table for several long moments, his jaw tight, as though searching for words that refused to come.
Tucker was stoic. Some of the hardness was gone, but not all of it. The anger she'd seen earlier had dulled, replaced by something more conflicted. Protective. Wary. He looked like a man determined to believe the worst until she gave him a reason not to.
He drummed his fingers against the tabletop for several long seconds before finally asking, “What about Seth?”
The question hit her in the heart.
“You latched onto him almost from the day you got here. Was that part of the plan? Use him to get on the ranch and close to us?”
Of course he would think that. If their positions had been reversed, she wasn't sure she'd have trusted someone who'd walked into her family's life under false pretenses either.
She owed him the truth. All of it.
“When I realized he worked here, I won't pretend the thought never crossed my mind that getting to know him might help me learn more about Shane.”
The admission tasted bitter.
“But Seth made it impossible to keep thinking of him that way.” A humorless smile came and went.
“I tried to keep my distance, but he wouldn't let me.
We kept running into each other, and every time I thought I'd seen the last of him, there he was again.
Before I knew it, he'd invited me to the barbecue at the ranch. Then he talked me into going horseback riding.”
The memory warmed her despite everything.
“The more time we spent together, the less I could deny my attraction to him. He’s kind. Funny. Patient. I should've told him who I really was before he heard it from anyone else.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “And I should've told him I was falling in love with him.”
The regret was almost unbearable. “Now it's too late. If I tried to tell him that now, he'd probably think I was lying... or laugh in my face.”
The thought cut deep.
“Once I realized how much he meant to me, telling him the truth became even harder.
Every day I waited made it worse because I knew that if you couldn't accept me, Shane...” She paused, forcing herself to finish.
“I'd leave Hazard Falls, and either way, I'd probably lose Seth when he learned who I really was.”
She glanced at Tucker. “I know why you don't trust me. I probably wouldn't trust me either.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “But I never pretended to care about him. That part was real.”
Her tears flowed freely again as her gaze moved from one person to the next before settling on Shane. She shook her head and stood. “I'm sorry. I never should've come here. It’s not your fault Peter didn't want to be my father.”
Without another word, she hurried toward the back door, desperate to put as much distance as possible between herself and the people she'd come to care for. But the moment she stepped onto the porch, she stopped short.
Her truck sat in the motel parking lot. Seth was gone. And she was alone.
The future she'd been too afraid to hope for had slipped away.