Chapter 39
I hear the raised voices before I even get around the corner of the barn.
Not words—not at first.
Just tone.
Sharp. Heated.
And one of them is Peyton’s.
My stomach tightens, spiking into something ugly and combustible. I pick up my pace. Ace had texted me twenty minutes ago.
Ace
Masterson called John. Peyton is there.
I dropped everything I needed to be getting done, kicking up gravel as I sped away from the warehouse. Halway to Blue Skye another message came through.
Ace
She’s back.
Two words that lifted a rock inside my chest. I changed course, making my way to Broken Ridge, anger replacing the panic. Whoever let Peyton go to Blue Skye alone is going to get torn apart.
I round the porch steps just in time to see Peyton push past John and Pace, her shoulders tight, her jaw clamped like it’s the only thing keeping her from shaking apart. John’s face is granite and Pace looks like he’s ready to explode again at the slightest provocation.
John exhales, long and hard, then jerks his chin toward the house. “Inside. Now. We’re not doin’ this out here.”
Peyton’s eyes flick toward the yard, searching. A wild, defensive look flashes across her face. One that tells me she is looking for a way to run. Then her gaze catches mine and she freezes.
Heat hits the back of my neck. The familiar punch of something I don’t want to name slams into me hard enough to leave my unsteady for half a second. I don’t show it, I can’t, but fuck if I don’t feel it.
She stops dead on the porch steps, curls of dust settling around her boots, face pale and flushed at the same time.
She’s scared.
She’s furious.
She is hurting.
And she went into the lion’s den without telling a damn soul.
“Where were you?” I ask, my voice low, too calm.
Pace snaps his head toward me. “We already went over that—”
“I’m not asking you.” I don’t take my eyes off her.
Peyton swallows hard. “Out.”
“Not good enough,” I say.
Something flickers in her eyes. Resentment, fear, defiance. They all swirl together in her gaze as she stares me down. “I don’t have to check in with you. I’m a grown ass woman and just because we’ve fucked, doesn’t mean you own me.”
Oh, she thinks she’s walking away from this.
She thinks I will let her.
John clears his throat awkwardly between us when he sees where this is going. “Colter…” he warns. “Maybe now isn’t…”
My jaw twitches. “When, then? After she walked onto another piece of land where she has no business being? After someone sees her and decides to take out their anger for what her mother did on her?’
Peyton’s head jerks up. “What did she do?”
Johns hoots me a look—a warning. Don’t say it.
I ignore him.
“Blue Skye isn’t safe for you,” I say stepping forward. “And you damn well know it.”
Her shoulders square. “I didn’t know anything because no one tells me anything.”
“Because it isn’t your business,” I snap, then correct myself, voice dropping even lower. “It isn’t your business to go digging up someone else’s past.”
She flinches like I hit her.
John’s jaw tightens. “I handled it.”
“You didn’t handle shit,” I tell him, eyes still locked on her. “She walked into place where half the county has an opinion about Sadie Masterson, and most of them are ready to spill it in ways that could get her hurt—or worse. They’ve already proven that.”
Peyton’s breath stutters. She looks away fast, blinking hard.
Pace breaks in, voice tight while still trying to be respectful. “Ease up, Colter. John and I dealt with it.”
No,” I say quietly. “You reacted. You didn’t deal with anything.”
John’s nostrils flare. Pace shifts like he is seconds away from throwing a punch, but Peyton—Peyton is the one who breaks. Not outwardly. Not with tears or crack in her voice.
She straightens her spine and turns toward the door, like she’s decided she’s done with all of us. Like she can outrun whatever the hell she dug up at Blue Skye.
Not a chance.
John beams me to her, stepping around and blocking her path a firm hand on the frame.
“Inside,” he repeats, voice flat as iron. “Now.”
Peyton hesitates for a breath, but her eyes flick toward the open yard again.
Her instinct to run isn’t subtle She’s been doing it her whole life.
It is what she is used to. No one has ever taken care of her.
No one has ever treated her like family or given her a safe space to land. To break down. To heal.
That thought hits me in the chest like a hammer.
Before she can bolt, I step in behind her and place my hand on the back of her neck. Not tight or painful, but claiming enough that she goes rigid under my touch.
She sucks in a breath.
Soon, Peyton will come to realize that she no longer has to run. I will always be here to capture her. To keep her safe. Even from herself.
“Go one,” I murmur. “Move.”
She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t fight. She wouldn’t dare.
John’s face twists into something hard when he looks at me and Pace is downright glowering, but neither of them stops me when I steer her through the doorway and into the house.
She’s shaking, barely, but I feel it through my hand. And it lights something inside of me. I guide her down the hall like I’m walking a skittish colt, careful but unyielding, until John opens the door to his office and stands aside.
The air inside is cooler, shaded. Dark wood shelves, old leather chairs, the faint smell of dust and pipe tobacco. A room built for secrets and hard truths. Peyton steps I first, eyes darting everywhere, taking it all in.
It’s interesting that she hasn’t been in here yet.
Pace shuts the door behind us with a click that lands like a gunshot.
Peyton startles.
I step closer so she can’t back away. John moves behind the desk. Pace stations himself by the door, arms crossed, a guard or jailer depending on how you squint.
John gestures to the chair opposite him. “Sit.”
She stand there frozen. I put a hand on her shoulder and gently push her down. She sits.
Her breathing is too fast, her pulse visible at the base of her throat. I should step away now. Give her space. Give myself space from the things that want to claw their way out of me around her.
I don’t. As much as I want to reassure her, I need to protect her from anyone that would hurt her. Including herself, even if it is unknowingly.
John rests both hands on the desk. “Tell me everything.”
Peyton’s voice comes out thin. “I didn’t go there to upset anyone.”
Pace snorts. “Could’ve fooled them.”
“They are the ones who let me talk,” she snaps back. “They could’ve told me to leave, but they didn’t.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I bite out. “You trespassed into people’s grief. Into their anger. Into the place where everything about Sadie sits like a damn landmine.”
Her eyes flash up to mine. “I didn’t trespass. The gate to the ranch was open.”
“Because they were expecting the ranch hands,” Pace mutters. “Not Sadie’s daughter.”
Her face twists. He didn’t call her their granddaughter. Just Sadie’s daughter. Because to them, that is what she is and nothing more. To them, she isn’t kin. She’s the proof of what Sadie did. Proof of the betrayal.
I step in closer, lowering my voice, letting her feel the full weight of what she walked into. “You went somewhere dangerous. Not because of the land, Peyton, but because of the people. Because of what they think your mother did.”
Her breath hitches. “What did she do?”
John looks like he might crack a tooth from clenching so hard.
Pace glances at him but John keeps quiet.
Peyton turns back to me looking desperate, angry and lost. “Someone please tell me.”
I crouch down in front of her seat so she can’t look away. So she has no choice but to face me.
“Are you sure?” I ask softly knowing that the truth, the real truth could shatter everything she has built up about her mother. Sadie may not have won any mother of the year awards, but she was still Peyton’s mother. The one who raised her.
Her eyes glisten. “Yes.”
“Then stop running headfirst into the past like it won’t bite back.”
She opens her mouth to argue, but I am already shaking my head.
“You think we are trying to control you.” I lean in close enough that she feels the heat off my skin. “But we are trying to keep you safe.”
He breath catches and she looks away, jaw tight.
I hook two fingers under her chin and guide her gaze back to mine.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, she lifts her eyes to mine.
Her pupils dilate, lip trembling. And for a split second, the air between us crackles with the same reckless and electric energy we’ve had together since first meeting.
John clears his throat sharply. Knowing that I have claimed his daughter and seeing are two different things. As the soon to be head of the family, he has no say in my claiming her, but it doesn’t mean he has to be fully on board with it.
“Colter.”
I rise smoothly, but I don’t step back, staying close enough that she knows I’m not done with her but also so that, if she chooses to, she can lean on me for support.
“We’re going to have this conversation like adults. No accusations or assumptions.”
Too late for that.
Peyton wipes her palms on her jeans. “Fine. I…went there because of the guy at the festival. The mean one who called me by my mother’s name. He said…something about her that didn’t make any sense, and no one has been willing to tell me anything about her.”
“What did he say before I got there?” John asks quietly.
Peyton swallows. “That everyone else knows who she really was. Except me.”
Silence descends, dense and suffocating. I’m going to be having a talk with John about what he’s been keeping from me. I should have been immediately notified when this happened and not hearing it second hand.
John nods, grimacing before he stands. He rubs a hand across his mouth, like he’s trying to scrub years off his face.
Pace shifts uncomfortably. I stare at the woman, who looks as if she is shrinking in her chair.
There is hurt behind her eyes, but she still has that stubborn tilt to her chin.
My chest aches at the sight of seeing her so small but trying to be strong.
She shouldn’t have to be. I’ve dug into every facet of her life.
The hell her life has been, struggling for basic necessities. Constantly moving from one crappy apartment to the next. In and out of homeless shelters when her mother couldn’t afford to pay the rent. Barely able to afford groceries or clothes.
“You’re not ready for the full story,” John finally says, sadness in his eyes.
Peyton’s expressions breaks. “Then when? When do I get answers? When do I get to know who she was and what made the town hate her so much?”
“When I think you can handle it,” he says.
She shakes her head. “I handled going out there. I handled them telling me that my mother was good for nothing. A whore. An embarrassment.”
“No,” I cut in. “They should never have said that to you.”
Her eyes narrow. “Stop treating me like I am fragile.”
“You’re not fragile,” I say, voice rough. “You’re reckless. And if you keeping moving like this, keep pushing, you are going to regret it. The truth is bloody and dangerous. It will shatter you.”
Silence falls at my words. Peytons’ breath leaves her body in a shaky exhale.
John looks ready to throw me out of the room.
Pace mutters, “Jesus, Colter.”
But I don’t take it back.
I don’t soften it.
She needs to hear it.
“You think people hate your mother because she made some bad choices?” I keep going. “You think this is about a teenage crush or some small-town gossip?”
She blinks rapidly—confused.
“There’s more,” I say. “A hell of a lot more that you don’t know. That a lot of people don’t know. That we kept hidden.”
Peyton’s voice is a whisper when she speaks. “Then tell me.”
John steps in. “Not like this. Not when you’re this…riled.”
My fingers curl into fists. “Did you once think about someone else other than yourself when you went looking for the truth?” I hiss. “Did you think about how John would feel about you digging up old bones? Or the Mastersons? Or did you only think about your own feelings?”
“Enough, Colter!” John snaps at seeing the tears in his daughter’s eyes.
The room goes still.
Pace moves toward the door. “We’re done. You may be the boss’s son, but I’m calling it, Colter. No more tonight.”
John runs a hand down his face. “Peyton, go to your room. We’ll talk later.”
“No,” I snap. “Go pack a bag, Peyton. You’re staying with me.”
Peyton hesitates. Looks at me. Back at John. Then slowly stands.
She brushes past me, leaving heat streaking up my arm. Without another word, she walks out, the door shutting behind her with a soft thud.
The second she’s gone, John rounds on me. But whatever he’s about to say, I don’t give him a chance.
“Someone needs to start telling her the damn truth,” I say quietly.
“Before she digs too deep and ends up resenting you. I know it’s hard.
I really do, what Sadie did was…inexcusable, but she is going to find out if she keeps digging and the more you keep the truth from her, prevent her from finding out, the further she is going to pull away from you. Is that what you want?”
“You don’t get to—” John starts to snarl, but his own son cuts him off.
“He’s right, dad.” Pace shakes his head, his head lolling back to knock against the office wall.
“I know you don’t want to talk about it.
Fuck, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want you to have to relive all of that shit.
Thinking about what Sadie did…it kills me.
” He lets out a long sigh before running a hand down his face. “
It pains me to see one of my best friends broken down like this.
We were both very young when everything went down with Sadie, but Pace suffered the aftermath of her treachery.
John became distant and neglectful, relying on the bottom of a bottle to get him through the day.
He became despondent, barely able to take care of his kids.
Pace had to be the one to step up. I know he doesn’t resent his father, but John’s neglect still shaped who he is today.
“I’m not ready,” John sighs, pain searing his words like a hot brand. “I just…”
“I’d come to terms with it soon, John,” I tell him. “Because if you don’t, you might lose your only daughter before you get the chance to know her.”