Chapter 36
The next morning, the house is quiet. Too quiet.
Sunlight cuts through the kitchen windows in narrow, accusing bands, dust floating in the air like something unsettled. Sutton hums softly as she moves around the table, helping Shiloh set up breakfast. John sits at the head of the table, reading the paper, his coffee steaming beside him.
Everything is normal. But it all feels wrong.
All I can see is that man’s face from the festival. The hard squint of his eyes, the curl of his lips when he accused me of being Sadie. His words have been replaying in my head all night, stitching themselves into every thought until I can’t breathe around them.
Everyone ignored the incident when we got home. John kept his silence. Sutton tried to make small talk on the drive, asking about the vendors and the food like I hadn’t been accused by a stranger with a grudge of doing something horrible that no one will name.
I hardly slept.
Now, as Sutton pours coffee and the semll of syrup fills the air, I decide I can’t sit here another second pretending I don’t care. That needing to know the truth doesn’t cause my skin to itch.
“I’m going for a drive,” I say. “Do you mind if I take one of the trucks?”
John doesn’t look up. “Where?”
“Just out,” I tell him. “Mostly want to get some air and off the ranch.”
“Don’t go past town and keep your phone on,” he mutters. “Ask Bowen for the keys.”
I nod, graciously accepting the plate Sutton hands me.
I don’t plan on going anywhere near town and I sure as hell don’t plan on keeping my phone on so that he can track me.
Not that I use it much since I came here.
John had Sutton give it to me when I first arrived, but I’ve barely taken it anywhere.
I’m not used to having one and it feels weird to constantly keep it with me.
Once we’re done with breakfast, I head out to the garage to find Bowen already waiting for me with a set of keys in his hand.
“Take the Toyota. It’s the smallest one in the fleet and should be easier for you to handle.”
I give him a small smile and a nod, gratefully taking the keys from him before striding toward the smaller truck and getting myself situated.
It’s been a while since I’ve driven. There isn’t much use for a place like L.A.
Not when there are subway and bus systems that run the near length of the city.
The sky is a clear, brittle blue. It’s morning that looks gentle but cuts sharp with every gust of wind.
The road out of Broken Ridge winds through dirt roads and dry summer pastures.
Yellow grass bends under the wind. Old barns lean in slow decay against the horizon.
Every few miles, another ranch sign appears—names burned into the weathered boards, bloodlines that have lived and died on this soil for generations.
I follow the dirt road that splits off toward Blue Skye Ranch, the names burned into my memory like something half-remembered from a dream. My mother used to say that growing up here was like growing up with “skies so wide they made you believe in God.”
I don’t know if she believed that but seeing the open sky before me makes me want to.
By the time the truck rattles over the cattle guard of my grandparent’s ranch, my stomach is in knots.
The ranch sprawls out over rolling pastures, the fences bowed and mended in too many places to count. A windmill groans in the distance, slow and uneven, the blades flashing dull silver in the sun. Cattle graze near the fence line, their low bellows echoing across the flat land.
The main house sits on a small rise. The white paint has long turned gray, porch sagging in the middle, rocking chairs bleached by years of weather.
Does Hudson know how much this ranch is in disrepair?
This isn’t the mansion type ranch houses that graces Broken Ridge and Black Diamond.
Hell, even some of the smaller ranches owned by Black Diamond have better homes than this one.
A ghost of a memory flickers. Me, five or six, listening to my mother tell a story about the endless blue sky as she braided my hair. There was soft laughter and gentle warmth in her eyes.
Until there wasn’t.
That was the day my mother changed into someone I barely recognized.
I park in the dirt drive and step out. Gravel crunches beneath my boots. The air smells like dust and feed, heavy with the faint sweetness of molasses.
Two figures sit on the porch.
My grandparents.
Richard Masterson leans against the rail, cigarette between two fingers, his body a line of bone and sinew under a faded flannel shirt. Laurel sits in the chair beside him, a bowl of peas balanced on her knees, the rhythmic click of shells breaking the only sound for. Long moment.
They look up when I start walking. Neither smiles.
“Morning,” I say, forcing the word out.
Laurel’s eyes narrow slightly. “You ain’t supposed to be here and you know it. That was the rules.” Her voice is dry as the dirt beneath my boots. Richard flicks ash into the wind and says nothing, his gaze looking right through me.
“I just want to talk.” My palms are slick, heartbeat loud in my ears. “About my mom.”
Laurel’s hands still. The peas stop clicking. “Ain’t nothing to talk about. We got no daughter.”
“Please. I need to understand.” I climb the porch steps, careful not to get to close. “Someone in town said some things yesterday. About what she did to John. That she was practically run out of town.”
Richard exhales a long stream of smoke. “You’d be better off lettin’ the dead rest.”
“I can’t.”
June glances toward him, then back at me. There’s something unreadable in her face, something brittle and old. “That woman left nothing but trouble behind. You did in that dirt, you’ll find more than you want.”
I stare at her and really take her in.
Laural Masterson has a grace to her that doesn’t fit with the cracked, lined skin of her face. The dress she is wearing is faded and worn but I recognize the branding. You don’t grow up in a place like Los Angeles and not recognize designer labels.
There’s more here than I realize.
“Maybe,” I say. “But I still want to know. She was my mother.”
“And she was our daughter.”
Silence stretches. A cow lows somewhere beyond the barn, the sound deep and lonely.
Another puzzle piece I don’t understand.
Where are the ranch hands working the cattle? Hell, where are most of the cattle? I’ve only seen a handful of cows and from my understanding, there are supposed to be a lot more.
Laurel sighs. “Your mama was always hungry for more. Never satisfied with what she had. From the time she could walk, she wanted to be seen, wanted the world to bend around her.
Richard grunts. Grinding out the cigarette on the porch rail. “She had John twisted around her finger since they were in diapers. They did everything together. Were best friends. Inseparable.”
The words land like slap. “What?”
“She followed him everywhere,” Laurel says, her tone flat and cold. “He was older, wild, already runnin’ with the Shaws. Everyone thought they’d end up together. That girl was obsessed. Convinced she’d marry him some day. We all were convinced.”
My stomach flips. “She was a kid.”
“Old enough to know what she was doin’.” Laurel’s eyes cut to mine, sharp and accusing. “She played sweet when she wanted something. Played helpless when she didn’t get it. And when John finally looked her way, she thought she’d won.”
Richard lets out a humorless chuckle. “Didn’t take long for that dream to turn to ash.”
I grip the railing to keep my hands from shaking. “What are you saying?”
Laurel shrugs, but it’s the kind that says you already know the answer. “Sadie was good twisting hearts. She made men believe things they shouldn’t. Only thing is, John didn’t want her. Not like she wanted him.”
Richard grunts in agreement. “Boy went and fell in love with Lydia. Sweet girl from a few towns over. He met her at some festival or some shit. She didn’t take kindly to it.”
“What did she do?” I whisper.
Laurel’s gaze slides away. “Some things you don’t speak aloud.”
I take a step closer. “She’s dead and all I hear from people is how horrible she was. That she did something so horrible that no one will speak about it. She may not have been the best mother, but she was the only one I had. Please. Just tell me the truth.”
Laurel stands, slow and stiff, setting the bowl on the porch rail.
The sound of metal against wood is louder than it should be.
“The truth is, Sadie was born wanting something she couldn’t have.
Wanting love. Wanting power. Wanting to be somebody she wasn’t.
Our life wasn’t good enough for her. And she used every person who ever cared about her to try and get it. ”
Richard spits into the dirt. “Your mama was poison, girl. And the sooner you stop drinkin’ from that well, the better of you’ll be.”
The words hit so hard I almost stumble.
“She wasn’t—” I start, but it breaks halfway out.
The memories I have of her, the half smiles, late night lullabies, the way she’d hold me when storms came…
I was young then, but that woman, the one they say who was driven out doesn’t fit with the version everyone is giving me.
She didn’t change until much later. Right before our move to Los Angeles.
For a long moment, neither of them moves. Then Richard sighs through his nose, tired more than angry. “If you’re hell-bent on pickin’ at bones, might as well see what’s left of her junk.”
He nods toward the barn at the edge of the property. “We boxed her things up years ago. Couldn’t bring ourselves to burn ’em, but we should’ve.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, wringing my hands. When they don’t say anything, I dip my head and get back in my truck. With a sigh, I turn the key, the engine roaring to life beneath me, and sit silently for several minutes as I take in everything my grandparents have given me about my mother.
Which is not much at all.
I know that defending her is useless, even to myself.
She was a shit mother in the end. Someone who chased one addiction after another.
But she wasn’t always like that. There was a time I remember her laughing as we watched movies and danced around the house like we were starring in our own Broadway musical.
Something changed and I’m not sure what it was.
But I know I am going to find out.