28. Not the Only Adult in the Room
NOT THE ONLY ADULT IN THE ROOM
Dean
Nobody warns you that the moment you blow up your family’s entire financial legacy, you’ll be doing it in a room that smells like lavender candles and passive aggression.
I’d called the meeting, made the copies, and rehearsed what I would say—and still, the second I looked around my parents’ living room, my stomach dropped straight to the floor.
Mom was on the couch, knitting needles clicking like a tiny, polite countdown clock.
Dylan was draped across the armrest like a sulking golden retriever, phone in hand, scrolling completely unbothered.
Damon had his back to us all, on a call, as if whatever deal he was closing was more important than the reason I’d called everyone together.
And Dawson—arms crossed, jaw tight, recliner pulled back like a throne—was looking at me like he knew something already.
Dad was out of town, but I couldn’t wait any longer to bring everyone up to speed.
To prepare, I made copies of the deal Grandad had made with Walter, and all the pertinent information I’d learned over the past week since discovering the envelope in the archives. I held them in my hand.
When Damon got off the phone, he put it back in his pocket and turned around. “I hope this meeting is going to explain why you’ve been in such a foul-ass mood the past week. You are even more miserable than usual.”
I took a slow breath, the one that always preceded bad news—your loan was denied, your house was underwater, the cancer was back. I started at the top, laying out the story like evidence in a criminal case, which, given the reactions, wasn’t far off, but first I made a request.
“I’m going to tell you everything that is going on, please don’t interrupt me until I’m done.”
My younger brothers tended to talk over people and ask questions as soon as they popped into their heads. I just needed to get everything out. All three of my brothers nodded, and Mom looked up from her knitting. Once I had a captive audience, I began.
“About a month ago, I got a call from Raymond Blackburn. He’s handling Walter Foster’s estate.
” I looked at my mom, then Damon, to see if they’d heard anything about this, since they were the two people closest to Felicity.
They either had no clue or had much better poker faces than I did.
I continued, “It turns out Walter bought a portion of acreage from Granddad in the seventies. The agreement was—” I handed everyone the copies I’d made of the original deal.
Dawson frowned as his eyes skimmed the lines.
“It was drawn up on a cocktail napkin, then notarized the next day. It’s a mess, but it’s legal. ”
No one said anything, so I kept going.
“I spoke to Felicity about it, and she said that she wanted to just leave things the way they are. Her only ask was access to the repair barn for projects around the house and use of the scrap lumber. Then I got a call from Blackburn a couple of weeks ago. He told me that there was another loan, one that had been bought by a third party and it was far more significant than the first. He didn’t have all the information, including who the third party was, but he said he would look into it.
” I could feel my family’s eyes on me, each waiting for the bombshell.
“You know me, I couldn’t just wait around, so I started going through all of Grandad’s archived files.
Turns out, ten years after the original cocktail napkin deal, Walter bailed Grandad out of another bind—this time he bought out a high-interest lien, which gave him more collateral on the property.
In total, Walter Foster owned more than half the land.
” I watched my brothers process it. Mom’s knitting fell into her lap.
“The only part of the land he doesn’t own are the three acres the vineyard is on. ”
Dylan’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s… not good.”
“Unfortunately, the same day that I found out, Felicity was also made aware of the situation. Apparently, Walter wrote her a letter over a year ago that her ex had kept from her.” I felt my anger rising at Tanner being such a prick, but I pushed it down.
“When she came to see me, she was confused and concerned that we knew about the loan and that had contributed to her hiring and also our relationship.”
“I knew it!” Damon pointed at me. “I knew you two had something going on.”
“Damon, it’s not the time,” Dawson’s tone left no room for argument.
“That was a week ago—”
“A week?!” Dylan cut me off.
“And since then I’ve been working to figure out how to buy her out,” I continued, ignoring my little brother’s interruption.
“The land is now worth millions, and it took me time to figure out how to pay her and save the ranch. I have a plan now. I’ve secured a bridge loan, that I will need to pay back within eighteen months, if not, I will sell my shares to investors, but—”
“Stop,” Dawson barked, as he glared at me.
His large hands splayed over his knees, as if he wanted to throttle someone but couldn’t decide who.
Dylan stood and started pacing. Mom’s knitting needles clattered to the floor and rolled under the coffee table, and she didn’t even notice.
Damon was staring at me in disbelief, his face red, his ears practically steaming.
I braced myself for the fallout. I’d expected it would be bad. I hadn’t expected it would be this personal.
Dawson broke the silence. “You think you’re the only one who cares about this place? Or that we’d just sit back and watch you mortgage your future for the rest of us?”
I opened my mouth to explain that it wasn’t about being a martyr or not trusting them, it was about not wanting to lay my burden at their feet. I’d always handled things. Even as a kid, if there was a mess, I cleaned it up before anyone else noticed. I tried to say that, but Damon cut me off.
“You should’ve told us, Dean. All of us,” he said, his jaw still tight. “You always act like you’re the only adult in the room, but that’s bullshit. We are all just as responsible as you for this land, this ranch, the Lockhart legacy.”
“I didn’t want to come to you guys with this until I had a solution.” It was the same reason I hadn’t spoken to Felicity all week. I wasn’t about to show up on her doorstep emptyhanded. I had to have a concrete plan in place.
Dylan shook his head and finally looked up from his phone. “You know what makes us family? Dealing with crap together. Not just the easy stuff. The hard stuff, too.”
My mom, still in shock, managed to interject quietly, “We love you, honey. But you don’t get to decide what we can handle.”
I took a shallow breath, the kind that floated at the top of your lungs and never made it all the way in. If I were honest, I’d never figured out how to let people help me. The more I tried to protect everyone, the less I shared. It was a closed loop.
Damon came and stood in front of me. “If you pull this shit again, I swear on everything I love, I will drag your ass to a family therapist.”
It was a strange threat. Not kick my ass. Drag me to a family therapist?
Dawson exhaled a sigh of frustration. “We figure it out together as a family. We carry the burdens together, as a family. We succeed or fail together as a family. Understood?”
I nodded because I didn’t think I had a leg to stand on, and even if I did, my brother wasn’t asking, he was telling.
I tried to put myself in their shoes, to understand why they were all so upset. Yes, I’d kept them in the dark, but it was only to save them from unnecessary worry.
Was it? A little voice sounded in the back of my head. Or was it because you believe you are the only one who can fix issues of this magnitude, and you didn’t trust them to handle it the right way, aka, your way?
Fuck.
My internal voice—that sounded a hell of a lot like Felicity—could be onto something. Maybe I did only trust myself and I didn’t want to fix other people’s mistakes.
Then, as if summoned by the universe’s twisted sense of timing, there was a light knock at the door.
The voices in the room stilled. Felicity peeked her head in, and I knew instantly something was off.
She was holding her tote like a shield, and her smile was the tense kind, practiced in bad mirrors.
“Sorry, I hope I’m not interrupting,” she apologized, eyes darting over the crowd like she was checking for exits. It was obvious that she hadn’t expected to see all of us.
“No, not at all.” My mom stood up and assured her, her voice warm but strained. “Come on in, honey.”
Felicity stepped inside, her gaze landing on me, then immediately looked away. She drew in a breath and squared her shoulders. She turned to my mom. “I was hoping to talk to you in private, if you have a second?”
The way she asked—gentle, deferential—sent a cold pulse through my spine. I’d heard that tone before, when she was about to drop news she didn’t want to share.
“Of course, mija.” My mom gestured for Felicity to go into her home office.
Damon and Dylan exchanged a glance and, with a subtle nod from Dawson, indicating that this meeting was now adjourned, headed toward the kitchen, stopping just long enough to sweep up the fallen knitting supplies and deposit them on the coffee table.
Without even thinking about it, I found myself heading down the hallway, trailing after my mom and Felicity, my instincts screaming that whatever was coming would affect my life immensely.
My mom’s in-home office was at the end of the hallway, a cozy little alcove jammed with houseplants, family photos, and about three decades of correspondence in neat rainbow-colored folders.
She ushered Felicity in, and I hung back, hovering in the hallway, not even pretending I was going to respect their privacy.
Inside, I could hear the gentle creak of the old office chair as they sat. Then, a pause, as if they were both waiting for the other to speak first.
I heard my mom’s voice, low and kind. “What can I help you with, mija?”
Another pause. Then Felicity’s voice, barely above a whisper. “I’m putting in my notice, effective at the end of the week.”
My gut twisted. I pressed closer to the door, but not close enough to give myself away. She was quitting. I felt lightheaded and a little sick.
My mom didn’t answer right away, which meant she was trying to read between the lines. “Is this about the land situation? Or my son?” she questioned.
Felicity’s answer was soft, but clear enough. “Neither. No, not exactly.”
I leaned my head back against the wall, let my eyes close.
Of all the potential disasters, this was the one I hadn’t foreseen.
I’d been so ready to present the solutions I’d come up with, it never even crossed my mind that she’d just leave.
Maybe take us to court, have a judge decide ownership, all the ugly shit people did when that amount of money was on the line. But Felicity? She just wanted out.
For a moment, I imagined running in there, begging her to stay—but that was the kind of dramatic gesture I just wasn’t capable of. I’d never known how to say what I wanted, not without making it sound like an ultimatum. I’d always hoped people I loved just… knew.
Inside, Felicity kept talking, voice growing stronger. “I got a job offer in Colorado from my old employer. It’s basically my dream job.”
My mom made a sound—part sigh, part hum. “If it’s about the money, we can work something out. We don’t want to lose you.”
“Thanks, but I think I just need to take this fresh start. The job is everything I’ve ever wanted. It’s just too good to pass up.”
I stared at the wall across from me. My mind was racing through spreadsheets and timelines, recalculating a future that didn’t include her or Maverick. I hated it. I hated myself for not having an answer to fix it.