Chapter 27 #2
"We were just finishing up," Vivi said, and then—with the subtlety of a woman who had learned from the best—nudged Jo. "Actually, I think you left your jacket in my car."
"No I didn't," Jo said.
"Jo."
"Fine, I left my jacket in the car." Jo stood, narrowing her eyes at Rea in a way that was thirty percent suspicious and seventy percent respect. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
"Darling," Rea said pleasantly, "that leaves an enormous amount of latitude."
They disappeared, and just like that, it was only the two of them. Sutton wrapped her hands around her mug and waited for whatever was coming. With Rea, something was always coming.
But Rea didn't launch into anything. She just looked at Sutton for a moment—not the assessing look she gave rooms, or the gleaming mischief look she gave grandsons—it was something quieter that felt uncomfortably like recognition.
"You know what I've noticed about you?" she said finally.
"I'm sure you'll tell me."
"You are very good at making yourself smaller than you are. Not in an obvious way. You're not mousy—God, no. You show up, you do the work, you make people laugh, but you hold the good things at arm's length." She paused. "Like you're waiting for permission to want them."
Sutton's throat tightened but she kept her expression neutral. "I don't know what you mean."
"Yes, you do." Rea said it without heat, without pressure.
Just the calm certainty of someone who had been alive long enough to recognize a pattern when she saw one.
"I grew up with money and title and every door in England open to me.
I had my pick of men who matched all of it—the estate, the pedigree, the social column.
" She smoothed an invisible wrinkle from her sleeve, something fond moving across her face.
"And then I came to visit a friend in Montana for two weeks and met a rancher at a county fair, who smelled like horses and had dirt under his fingernails and absolutely no idea who I was. "
The fond look deepened into something quieter, something that had clearly been carried a long time and didn't mind the weight.
"I went home and told myself it was impossible, impractical even, that a woman in my position did not upend her entire life for a man she'd known a fortnight.
Then I left everything behind to come back and never once regretted it.
" She looked at Sutton steadily. "The difference between practical and frightened can be very hard to see when you're the one doing the looking. "
Sutton didn't say anything.
"My grandson has the same habit," Rea continued, as if they were simply having a nice chat, "He holds everything at the edges.
Always has. I used to think it was confidence.
Then his parents died and I understood it for what it was.
" She looked up then, eyes sharp and kind in equal measure. "Fear dressed up in capable clothing."
The words landed somewhere Sutton hadn't been expecting.
"I'm not—" she started.
"I'm not saying you are," Rea said gently.
"I'm saying that you have spent every day since you arrived in this town asking whether he is worthy of that little girl.
" She tilted her head, just slightly. "But darling, you have never once stopped to ask whether you are worthy of being loved.
Not evaluated. Not useful. Not needed." A pause, soft and precise as a scalpel.
"Loved. The kind that didn't come with a probationary period.”
Sutton's throat closed completely.
"That," Rea said, "is the question you've been running from."
She picked up her handbag and stood without fanfare, like she hadn't just taken Sutton apart at the seams.
"That little girl of yours calls every adult she loves by Mr. and Mrs." She paused. "Except him. She calls him Colter. Did you know that?"
Sutton had known. She'd been too afraid to examine what it meant.
Without another word, Rea gave Sutton's shoulder one brief, firm squeeze—the kind that meant I said what I came to say and I trust you to do something with it—and then she was gone, the door swinging gently behind her.
Sutton sat with her mug going cold and the words settling around her like dust after a fall.
Vivi reappeared in the doorway. "All clear?"
"All clear," Sutton said.
“Is everything okay?” Jo asked.
“I think so,” she said.
But she still couldn’t let it go that what happened between her and Colter had still been a mistake—a mutual one.
Private and entirely her and Colter’s business and absolutely nobody else’s.
She had rehearsed that truth in her head all week, stacked it neatly, locked it away, and told herself it was enough.
Apparently, it was not.
Because the silence stretched. Vivi’s eyes narrowed just a touch. Jo’s mouth twitched like she was one second away from saying something—that most likely started and ended with a four-letter word.
Before Sutton could stop herself—before she could redirect, deflect, or lie—the words tumbled out of her mouth like they had been waiting for air. “Colter kissed me.”
The table went still.
Sutton squeezed her eyes shut for half a beat, already bracing for impact, because once the words were out, there was no shoving them back in.
No pretending it had not happened. No pretending her pulse had not spiked, that her brain had not short-circuited, that she had not kissed him like it meant something she wasn’t prepared for.
She opened her eyes to find Vivi frozen mid-sip and Jo staring at her like she had just announced she’d joined a cult.
“And,” Sutton added weakly because, apparently, she was incapable of stopping while she was ahead. “I kissed him back.”
Immediate regret hit like a bucket of cold water.
“Shit. That was a mistake,” she added quickly, yanking the words back like they were her own misbehaving children.
Vivi and Jo sat silent, staring at her like she’d just confessed to stealing the moon. Then, like a synchronized signal, they pounced.
“You what?” Vivi pressed, tilting her head, suspicious and delighted all at once.
“You kissed him?!” Jo demanded, her eyes narrowed.
Sutton held up her hands, palms out. “It was a mistake! And for the record—totally inappropriate. We decided to go back to normal.”
Jo snorted. “Well, it sounds like normal is sticking your tongue down his throat.”
“Nope. We work together. Nothing more can happen.”
Jo made a sound that had Sutton wanting to crawl under the table. She knew that sound—she’d heard it a hundred times before: she’s lying, and she knows it.
Which brought her to lie number seven.
Her chest tightened. The words tasted bitter, because the truth simmering inside her wasn’t just about a fleeting attraction. Lynlee. His daughter. One wrong move and her carefully constructed world would collapse in an instant. She couldn’t even whisper the real reasons—not to them, not to anyone.
Vivi’s grin turned mischievous. “Is it the age gap? Because, who the hell cares. Daddies are the new bad boys.”
“It’s true,” Jo said, not even hesitating. “Older men know the difference between a G-6 and a G-spot, don’t need instructions, and have the confidence to actually listen. That’s not an age gap—that’s an upgrade.”
Sutton snorted, half-laughing, half-grimacing. “Age gap? That’s the least of my worries. There are, oh, about a hundred very legitimate, life-altering reasons why kissing him was a terrible idea.”
Vivi smirked, daring her to spill. “A hundred, huh? How about we skip to the good stuff. What are the top five?”
“Nope,” Sutton said firmly, wiggling away from their combined force of curiosity. “Not disclosing a single one, because if I did, your brains would explode. And trust me … some things are better left unexploded.”
Jo gave a short, humorless laugh. “Fine. But we’ll be watching. And judging. And waiting for the inevitable disaster.”
Sutton buried her face in her hands, muttering, “Disaster seems inevitable enough without your commentary.”
But as she peeked through her fingers, she realized she didn’t even care that they were teasing her. Not really. Because the part of her that wanted Colter, that part was already in too deep.