Chapter 7 Locked Doors and Family Secrets
Chapter seven
Locked Doors and Family Secrets
Cash
We’re in the west barn, the older one tucked behind the paddock and barely touched since Avery's dad passed. It’s not the main barn we use, or the feed barn where the hands rotate shifts. This one sits a little removed from the rest of Painted Sky, quiet, brooding.
The kind of place built to hold old ghosts, old tractors and lockboxes. The barn smells like secrets.
Not the fresh kind that stir in the hay or cling to Avery’s skin after she’s been working the fences. No, this is the kind of secret that seeps through old wood, curls into corners, and waits. It’s quiet out here, too quiet, which should feel like peace after the chaos of the last few days.
But peace and I don’t have the best track record. The last time I thought I had a moment of calm, it was the morning before my old man skipped town. Since then, quiet feels more like a warning than a blessing, like something’s about to break.
Avery trails a few steps behind me, boots crunching over packed dirt, her fingers brushing along the dusty edge of the stalls. I don’t know why I brought her out here. Hell, maybe I just needed an excuse to keep her close after what happened in the hayloft.
That moment, that heat, is still clinging to me like sweat, and the last thing I need is another distraction.
And yet, here she is.
"You sure we’re allowed back here?" she chuckles, nodding toward the back of the barn.
“I’ve been working this ranch longer than anyone else. I thought I'd seen every corner of it, top to bottom. I stay just down the hill in the bunkhouse with the rest of the hands, nothing fancy, but it’s always been home. And yet somehow, there is corners, I've never looked in.” I mutter.
Her eyes flick to mine, all fire and curiosity. “You sound like you’ve been curious.”
I grunt but don’t answer.
The door is tucked behind a broken feed trough and an old tack cabinet no one’s opened in years. I’d noticed the warped frame before but never had the time, or the interest, to force it open.
Jack used to keep things off-limits with nothing more than a look. That look kept everyone at arm’s length, even me. Especially me.
But he’s not here anymore.
I give the handle a tug. It doesn’t budge.
“Step back,” I say, already bracing my shoulder.
“Cash—”
Too late. The door groans, gives, then splinters at the frame as it flies inward with me tumbling in behind it. Dust clouds the air. A streak of sunlight cuts across the floor.
We both freeze.
Inside, the room is small and shadowed, lined with narrow shelves and an old desk shoved against the back wall. Paper. Ledgers. A busted lamp. And a heavy lockbox resting under a folded tarp.
“Holy crap,” Avery breathes beside me, her voice tight with awe and something that sounds suspiciously like nerves.
Her eyes are wide, flicking over every inch of the room as if it might vanish if she blinks too fast. She takes a step forward, hand hovering near my arm like she needs to steady herself.
“It’s like a cowboy panic room, or the place secrets go to die. ”
I step in, flipping the light switch out of habit, and to my surprise, the bulb overhead flickers and hums to life.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Avery sidesteps past me and runs her hand along the desk, leaving a trail through the dust. She picks up a yellowed ledger, thumbing through the pages. Her forehead creases.
“This is...these dates go back thirty years,” she says. “That’s before I was even born.”
My fingers find the lockbox. It’s heavy. The kind of heavy that means it holds more than cash or receipts. I glance at her, and without needing to ask, she nods.
I pop the latch.
Inside is a stack of envelopes, a few bound documents, and a photograph that makes my heart stutter.
Dad and Wade, young, barely older than I am now, standing in front of Painted Sky with a third man I don’t recognize, They’re grinning.
Proud. But it’s what’s scrawled on the back that catches my eye:
“The beginning. 1987. – J.B.”
Avery leans over my shoulder. “I know Dad's brother, Uncle Wade, but who’s the third guy?”
“No idea.”
We go quiet again. I pull out the documents. Legal stuff, some of it oil contracts, a few letters with a bank logo at the top. I skim one and feel my jaw tighten.
“This is... these are deeds. Mineral rights.”
Her eyes widen. “You’re kidding.”
“He never said anything about oil leases.” The words feel foreign in my mouth, like I’m saying them about someone else. A knot twists in my gut, part disbelief, part betrayal. He wasn’t just a rancher; he was the moral compass of this place, or at least I thought he was. But this?
This makes me wonder how much of what I believed about him was a carefully crafted illusion.
“No. He didn’t.” Her voice drops. “Why would he hide this?”
I don’t have an answer. But I can feel it, the pull of something bigger than us winding through this dusty room. Something he buried.
Avery picks up another envelope, this one sealed with wax. She turns it in her hands. “It’s addressed to me.”
My chest tightens. “You gonna open it?”
“I should.” She hesitates. “But not here.”
I nod. That’s her call. This letter could change everything, or nothing. Either way, she needs space to deal with it.
I set the papers back in the box, then press the lid closed with a soft snap. “We need to go through all of this. Slowly.”
“Yeah,” she says, barely above a whisper. “I just... I don’t know what I was expecting to find. But this? This feels like a door we can’t shut again.”
She looks up at me, and in her eyes I see the storm starting. Not the wild, untamed kind that burns through the prairie. No, this one’s quieter. More dangerous. The kind that floods everything in its path.
“Then I guess we’d better figure out what he was hiding,” I say.
And I know, deep in my gut, that this won’t be the last secret this ranch coughs up.
Avery keeps staring at the desk like it might whisper back if she squints hard enough. I watch her fingers hover over an old tin box tucked behind a stack of ledgers. She opens it, slow and deliberate.
Inside are photographs, some faded to sepia, others curled at the edges. One shows her dad in a tailored suit, standing in front of a high-rise building I don’t recognize. Another has him shaking hands with a man in a sheriff’s uniform. Avery pulls that one closer.
“My dad hated politics,” she murmurs. “He used to groan every time the news came on.”
“Doesn’t look like he stayed out of it,” I say, studying the patch on the man’s arm. County Sheriff, late ‘90s. “They weren’t just friendly. This looks official.”
She flips the photo over. On the back, in her dad's messy scrawl, it reads: "Favor repaid. Keep this quiet."
Avery swallows. “What the hell, Dad?”
There’s more, a receipt for a private jet, a receipt for jewelry from a store in Austin, and a letter from someone named Marcus thanking my dad for his "continued discretion" and "upholding the arrangement." I don’t like the sound of that.
“This isn’t ranch business,” I say quietly. “This is something else.”
Avery folds the letter, her hands shaking now. “I thought I knew who he was.”
I shift closer, not touching her, but close enough that she can lean if she wants to. “You did. At least, the version he let everyone see. Doesn’t mean the rest of it wasn’t him too.”
She looks at me then, eyes red-rimmed but dry. “Do you think this changes how I should feel about him?”
I don’t answer right away. Because yeah, it might. But it also might explain everything.
“I think it changes how much you still have left to learn,” I say.
And she nods, because she knows I’m right.
"Sounds to me like my dad's friends meant a lot to him and he helped them no matter what kind of trouble it could get him into."
Avery stays crouched beside the desk, but she isn’t really looking at anything now. Her gaze is glassy, fixed on the scuffed floorboards like they hold all the answers she’s no longer sure she wants.
I crouch beside her, close enough that our shoulders touch. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. Just breathes in quiet, shallow pulls like she’s trying to keep it together.
"You okay?" I ask softly.
She huffs out a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “That’s a loaded question, don’t you think?”
I nod. “Yeah. Guess it is.”
For a minute, we sit in the quiet. I’m not good with words, not the kind that matter. But I remember how he talked about her, how proud he was even when she wasn’t looking. And I remember the times I saw her as a kid, tearing through the pastures like she owned the world, daring anyone to stop her.
“You know,” I say, my voice low, “he once told me you were the wildest thing to ever hit this ranch. Said the first time he saw you sneak out to ride your pony barefoot at sunrise, hair in tangles and face streaked with jam, he knew you’d never be tamed.
That's when we were kids, racing across the pasture like the wind owed you something. You were ten, I think. And fearless. Said you had more fire in you than a sparkler.”
Her lips twitch, but it’s faint.
“He said you’d leave here, chase dreams he never had the guts to. And if you ever came back, it’d be because you chose to, not because anyone told you to.”
Avery turns her head slightly, her eyes meeting mine. “Then why’d he trap me in his will like this? If he trusted me that much, why force me to stay?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to protect you from whatever this,” I nod toward the documents, “was. Or maybe he knew you’d never slow down long enough to look back unless he gave you a damn good reason.”
She leans into me then. Not much. Just enough to press her shoulder into mine, her forehead brushing my cheek.
“I miss him,” she says quietly. “Even when I’m mad at him. Even now.”
“I know.” I let my arm slide around her back, holding her there. “And whatever this is, you don’t have to figure it out alone.”
She’s quiet a beat longer, then she whispers, “Thanks, Cash.”
And something about the way she says my name, soft, broken, real, makes me want to pull her closer and never let go.
But for now, I just hold her. Because sometimes that’s all someone needs.
But when she pulls back to look at me, her face inches from mine, something shifts.
The air between us crackles, not like before, not like lust lighting up like dry kindling, but slower, heavier. Her lips are parted, her breath catching just a little, and I can’t stop staring at her mouth.
She tilts her head the slightest bit. A question. An opening. My hand’s still on her back, my thumb brushing the edge of her spine. Her fingers graze my chest, featherlight.
I lean in, just enough to feel her exhale against my lips.
Then a sound outside, boots on gravel, maybe a door creaking, jerks us both back to reality. My body stiffens, heart slamming once in my chest like it’s been caught doing something it shouldn’t.
Avery pulls back slightly, blinking like she’s just come up for air, her lips still parted, her breath still brushing mine.
My hand falls away from her back, fingers curling into a fist at my side, like maybe that’ll keep me from reaching for her again.
. We don’t move, but we don’t close the distance either.
The kiss that almost was hangs between us, heavy and humming.
Avery swallows. “We should probably—”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice rougher than I mean it to be. “We should go and see who was out here. Probably one of the ranch hands looking for me.”
But neither of us moves for another long heartbeat.
And when we do, the space between us feels different. Charged. Like something we can’t ignore for much longer.