FORTY-ONE
COLT
Maddie’s already coming outside when I pull up in front of his cabin the next morning. It’s early, but not really by our standards. Blair’s still asleep though, and I’d be willing to bet Austin still is too.
“Want to get our horses?” he asks, but I shake my head. We need to be still for this one.
“Nah, let’s just sit on the tailgate,” I offer instead, walking around to the back of the truck and letting it down.
Our legs swing awkwardly as we sit there, watching the sun rise in silence for a few minutes.
“I’m sorry about last night,” he says again. “I really didn’t mean it how it came out, and I apologized to Blair too, but Austin says I’ll probably have to say it again when she’s feeling better.”
I nod, both because Blair had already told me he’d apologized and because I agreed that he needed to do it again.
“Blair’s willing to take a DNA test. She has been from the start. But that kid is mine, Maddox. Regardless of what that test ends up saying, that baby is a Whittaker and I’ll be damned if you try to say she’s lesser even if she doesn’t have Whittaker blood in her veins. ”
Maddox sighs. “Colt?—”
“No,” I stop him, turning to look at him for the first time since we sat down. “We’re not going to keep talking about this. In a few weeks, we’ll be able to run the test and you’ll get your answer, but until then, continuing to hash it out will only piss me off more.”
I turn to look at the horizon again. This was probably one of the only parts I’d missed about this ranch—how beautiful the sunrise was. One day, I’d wake Blair up just to make sure she could watch it with me, but right now, I figured she needed all of the rest she could get.
“I need you to know how important Blair is to me,” I tell him, leaning over so I can pull a folded-up envelope from my back pocket.
I don’t give it to him right away. There won’t be any taking back what this letter says once he gets it, and while I’m sure he needs to know this, I’m also terrified of how he’ll look at me afterward.
I try to channel Blair’s bravery from last night.
“In a roundabout way, even if you don’t particularly care for her, she’s incredibly important to this family as well.”
“I never said I didn’t care, Colt,” he says, voice gruff.
“No, but I know how you are, Maddie. There’s nothing wrong with it, but you don’t grow attached to anyone without a reason. I know you care about Blair—and about the baby, in your own way—but only because you know they’re important to me. I think this might change things.”
I pass him the letter, but don’t let go of it yet.
“The first thing I need you to look at when you open this is the date in the upper right-hand corner. It’s an old note. It doesn’t… this isn’t how I feel anymore. This isn’t me anymore. But it’s the person I used to be before Blair.”
His brows furrow as I let go, but I can’t watch him read it. I look off at the mountains as the sound of the letter being pulled from the envelope seems to echo. His breath hitches just a few seconds in.
I don’t need to read over his shoulder to remember what it says. I’d written and re-written it several times before the night I left the stack of letters in the truck, the same as every one of my family members’ letters.
Dear Maddie,
By the time you find this, I’ll be gone.
I know it’s unfair of me to saddle you with this, but I also know you’re the only one in the family who will be able to take care of it all.
I wrote my banking information in a journal I stashed in the nightstand of my old bedroom the last time I was home.
Don’t let the costs of my funeral touch the ranch’s accounts. Any money left over goes to Mama.
I know we’ve never seen eye to eye, but with the last words I’ll ever say to you, I want you to know I love you.
I’ve always looked up to you, and I’m sorry that I’m so goddamn pig-headed, and that I’ve made your life hell.
It was never about you. Every fight I picked was just me trying to find an outlet, a way to make someone else hurt so that I could be free of the pain for a few minutes.
Your only mistake was being the one that took it the best, but I think that says a lot about who you are as a big brother.
Please make sure Mama doesn’t hold onto this too long.
I think it’ll be a relief to her, not having to watch my rides every night, not knowing if I’m going to get hurt on a bull or speeding or overdosing or any of the other ways I often fuck up.
Get Bailey to Chase as soon as you can. They may not be together anymore, but he’s her person and he’ll be able to be there for her in a way no one else will be.
I love you, Maddox.
I’m sorry.
I hope you can forgive me.
Love, Colt.
Maddox is quiet for so long, I almost risk looking back over at him, but I’m terrified of what I’ll see.
For the second day in a row, my lower lip is doing that pathetic thing it likes to do when I’m trying to hold back tears, and I fucking hate it.
The longer he goes without talking, the more I feel like I’ve fucked up.
Finally, his hand finds my neck and squeezes.
“Look at me,” he says with a tone that makes me feel like a kid again. I do, but I immediately wish I hadn’t.
I’ve only seen Maddox cry one other time—at Dad’s funeral. Never before then, and never since. Never, until now. His fingers grip the hair at the base of my neck as my face crumbles, and he pulls me forward, pressing his forehead against mine.
“ Never , do you hear me?” he grits out, stern.
“I won’t, Maddie,” I swear, my voice barely a whisper.
“I won’t, but it was so close.” He swallows and pulls away, putting the letter back in the envelope.
He doesn’t pass it back to me, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about him keeping it.
“Don’t show that to Mama. Or Jamie or Bailey or anyone else,” I warn him.
He grunts in acknowledgment and I guess I’ll have to take it as a promise.
“What stopped you?”
“Blair,” I tell him with a sideways smile, though the way he nods tells me he already knew.
“I was on a roof in Fort Worth.” His eyes squeeze shut and I realize he doesn’t want the details.
Doesn’t want to be able to picture it. “She messaged me, asked if I wanted to meet up again, and I figured what’s a couple more days?
Needless to say, that’s when she told me she was pregnant. ”
Maddox swallows and hangs his head, white-knuckling the edges of the tailgate.
“I didn’t know you were…” he trails off.
“Depressed,” I fill in for him. “Yeah, that was sort of the point. I didn’t want anyone to know. Bailey knew, but I think that’s more of a twin thing.”
He huffs a laugh, but it’s completely humorless. We sit in silence again for a few minutes and I have no clue how to fill it. Is he angry? Just hurt? The sick part of my brain wonders if he wished I’d followed through with it, but I shut it down quickly like Melissa’s been teaching me.
“Austin’s been trying to tell me that I can’t take the blame for everything, but I’m having a hard time not taking the blame for this.”
I snort. “Then go inside and clue her in so she can lecture you again, because it had nothing to do with you.”
“I know,” he says quietly, though I’m not sure he does. “You’re better now?”
It takes me a few seconds to answer, because it’s not like there’s a light switch I can just flip on and off. Depressed versus happy. That’s not what Blair did for me. She just jolted me out of my apathy enough that I started to want to get help again.
“I’m taking medication and attending virtual therapy sessions during my lunch break twice a month,” I answer instead. “For the most part, I’m feeling a lot better. I have days, moments, where my brain tries to do funky shit, but…” I trail off with a shrug. “I’ve got a lot to live for.”
“You had a lot to live for before her too,” Maddox argues immediately and I realize he’s hurt, not angry.
I turn to him with another soft smile.
“I know that. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve been through it—and God, Maddie, I hope you never go through it—but my brain just made me…
forget all of that. I had all of these wonderful reasons to stay alive, but after years of living with that…
emptiness, my mind just decided they weren’t…
reason enough, I guess. That’s not to say Blair and the baby are more worth sticking around for than you all were, she just… ”
I sigh, realizing I’m not explaining it right.
“It was like a defibrillator for my brain, I think. Her message made me curious, made me decide to wait it out and see where things went, but when she told me she was pregnant… Everything shifted, Maddie.”
He nods like he gets it, and I hope I’ve at least explained it well enough that he doesn’t resent Blair for doing something for me that he couldn’t. Surely, this couldn’t backfire that spectacularly.
“I’d imagine she’s probably sleeping, but let me know when she’s awake so I can come by and apologize again.
And thank her,” he says, turning to look at me again.
His lashes are clumped together, eyes bloodshot and watery, but at least the tears have stopped.
I think I’d be a fucking mess if they hadn’t.
“Alright,” I agree. “But if you ever upset her again, I’m putting my fist through your face, Maddie.”
He snorts, but nods.
“I think that’s probably fair.”