Chapter 25 Lara
Lara
“I remember your sister,” Colby blurted out as soon as we were alone.
My hands, filled with bowls, paused halfway in the giant farmhouse sink. I’d honestly assumed Colby knew who I was—who I was to Calder, and why I’d come here in the first place. But then again, it was equally plausible she didn’t. This was business for him, after all.
“Oh?” I tried to sound nonchalant. “I didn’t realize you met Rachel when she was here.” She would’ve had to have been, what? Eleven? Twelve?
“No. Not officially.” She bit her bottom lip, scrubbing the dishes roughly, water splashing onto the counter like she wasn’t really paying attention. “I saw them walking at a distance.”
My heartbeat steadily climbed into my throat, giving a tremor to my voice. “They dated in college.”
Her wild scrubbing screeched—or sloshed—to a halt, and she turned to me, gaping. “Wait, they were dating?”
Had that not been mentioned? Judging by the look on her face, I guessed not.
“Yes . . .” I grabbed a towel to help her dry.
“Calder and your sister?” she repeated.
Taking the first clean plate from her, I said with emphasis, “Yes.” And then managed to feign a weak laugh. “Calder brought her here to . . . end things. It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now.”
“Lara.” Colby shook her head slowly. The kind of horror-movie slow, like I’d just unknowingly made out with the murderer. “No.”
“No? What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’ve been here—are here. You know we don’t really do well with strangers. Calder wouldn’t bring someone here to end their relationship.”
My mouth opened, lined with a million explanations for why Calder would do that, knowing my sister, but then I shelved them all for the simpler “Well, he did.”
“No, Lara, he didn’t,” she insisted, and my head spun, confused as to why she was being so persistent about this.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t just see them walking.
I mean, I did see them walking, because they walked right by the tree house we passed earlier, and I happened to be inside it, so I heard them talking, completely unintentionally, which I’ll admit is not the norm for me. ”
“You . . . heard them?” I choked, my heart thrashing against my chest.
“Your sister was sobbing about some other guy. Ethan—no, Aaron, maybe?”
Thank God I wasn’t holding a dish right then, because I would’ve dropped it.
“Allen?”
“Yes! That’s it. Allen.”
The ground started to feel like a balance board, tipping and rocking underneath me in every direction. Breathe, Lara. Focus.
“I couldn’t make out much because I was up pretty high and she was crying pretty hard, but she was definitely upset at Allen, not Calder. I had no idea . . . I guess maybe I wouldn’t have had any idea if they were dating, but my brother definitely wasn’t breaking up with her.”
My brain felt like a spilled jar of marbles, thoughts rolling in every direction, faster than I could catch them.
Whatever had happened between Rachel and Allen had to do with the night she’d come here.
Calder had known about it this entire time, and not only had he not told me, he also hadn’t defended himself when I’d accused him.
And Rachel . . . had lied to me.
Air whooshed at the fresh burst of pain in my chest, anger and guilt melding into double-sided torture.
“Calder tends to accept responsibility for things that aren’t his fault.” I reeled when Cassius’s words slammed to the front of my mind.
Did he know the truth, too?
Did everyone know the truth except me?
“Did you hear why she was upset? What Allen did?” I asked. At this point, Colby was pretty much the only person I trusted to tell me the truth.
“It just sounded like she was in trouble and that was why Calder brought her here. It’s really the only reason Calder would bring anyone here,” she answered honestly.
“Yeah,” I croaked bitterly. “It’s why I’m here.” I dropped the towel on the counter, fresh anger clawing over my skin.
“Oh, no.” Her head whipped wildly. “You’re not here because you’re in trouble, Lara. You’re here because you are trouble . . . for him.”
Trouble . . . for Calder.
“I have to go. I’m sorry,” I said, bolting for the door.
Calder had no idea what kind of trouble was headed his way.
The storm that coalesced over the sequestered ranch was fresh with fury.
The hollow winds sharpened through the mountain peaks, cutting my cheeks with cold.
Peals of thunder erased the sound of my footsteps on the gravel while a gossamer of lightning seemed to rend open the whole sphere of the sky.
It was as though Mother Nature, like the rest of us, had lost her shit at the end of a hard day.
The disquiet spurred my walk to the Airstream, my tears masked by the torrent of rain.
What happened that night?
And why had Rachel lied to me about it?
Like something that’s too hot to the touch to tell whether it’s hot or cold, anger and pain churned inside me to the point where it was impossible to know where one emotion stopped and the other began.
Even the burn of my legs up the last hill didn’t make a dent in the band of hurt ratcheting through my chest.
The cracks of lightning reflected off the Airstream’s polished silver exterior as I approached the door, looking like some kind of alchemy had occurred within. Wiping the coating of rain from my face with the end of my equally wet sleeve, I banged loudly on the door.
There was a shuffle, and a second later it swung open, Calder looking far too large for the frame and glaring out like a reincarnation of Zeus, wondering who dared to bother him on Mount Olympus.
It was a poor consolation that he was still dressed from dinner, in dark jeans that fit snug on his hips and a tee hanging like a stage 5 clinger to the topography of his shoulders and chest as his arms stretched across the doorframe.
“Lara? What the hell are you doing?” He went to pull me inside, but I stepped out of his reach.
“I want answers.” I backed into the familiar madness of the rain.
“So do I,” he growled, stepping outside like the survivalist he was: one utterly unaffected by a little water. “And as soon as Cal—”
“I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about what happened the night you brought her here.”
“Lara, that was twelve—”
“I know about Allen,” I blurted out, and the look on his face screamed Ding, ding, ding! You hit a nerve.
“How?”
“I saw the name in Dr. Julia’s notes from her sessions with Rachel.” When his brows rose, I offered, “I took them from her RV that night because I didn’t think . . . She never deserved my sister’s trust.”
“What did they say?”
I scowled. “Why? So you can decide what lie to tell me?”
His jaw locked. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“You’re right. You just carefully decide how much of the truth to reveal so you can direct the situation.” I hated the bitterness that soaked into my voice, but I couldn’t stop it any more than I could stop the rain from soaking my clothes.
“Dammit, Lara—”
“And don’t tell me you don’t know, Calder. Even Colby knew about Allen.”
Rain shivered off his skin as he winced. “What?”
“Colby heard you that night. She was in the tree house when you and Rachel walked by,” I said, his eyes rounding as the words tumbled out.
“She told me Rachel was upset about Allen, not with you. Colby looked at me like I had three eyes when I told her you two were dating.” I sucked in a breath, not needing air when there was so much agony oxygenating my blood. “I don’t understand, Calder.”
“Lara, it’s not my place—”
“Not your place?” I was shaking now, furious because all I wanted to do was reach out and rip the truth from his perfectly formed lips.
And afraid that if I touched him, instead of shaking him, I wouldn’t be able to resist pulling him close and sinking myself into his heat.
“It wasn’t just her relationship, Calder.
It was yours, too. She came to you. You have the right to share what happened; that doesn’t just belong to my sister. ”
He dropped his head back, closing his eyes and letting the rain soak his face. When his face lowered again, rain had slicked every taut line of muscle. “Rachel and I had broken up the week before. Things weren’t working out and we both knew it.”
“So why did you bring her here?”
Air pushed through the tight line of his lips, and for a second, I thought I was never going to win this fight. Before I could think better of it, I stepped forward and grabbed his shirt, clutching him to me as I whispered, “Please, Calder. What happened to my sister?”
His jaw popped and I felt the tension start to seep from him, his deep rasp reaching my ears.
“I brought her here because she was pregnant with Allen’s baby.”
A tornado could’ve swept me off to Oz and it would’ve been less shocking.
Rachel.
Pregnant.
“Lara.” His hands reached me even before his rumbling growl, holding me steady as I started to sway, overloaded by every single aspect of the revelation.
Pregnant.
My sister had been pregnant. With someone’s baby, who wasn’t Calder’s.
And she hadn’t told me.
My mind was scorched, thoughts flying like flaming batons, and every one I caught burned worse than the last.
I knew Rachel had gone out with friends plenty of times without Calder. Bars. Frat parties. Everything that wasn’t his scene. Had they all been to see Allen? Was it one time? Had Allen—I shuddered.
I’d thought I was prepared for anything. For God’s sake, I knew how to bring a trauma victim back to life. But I wasn’t prepared for the moment when I was the one crashing out.
Why hadn’t she told me?
“Lara.”
Calder’s hands framed my face, the bracket of warmth a shock to my system.
I blinked slowly, my eyes wading in and out of focus on his face.
On the worry in his glinting gaze. And then I felt it—the calm he created.
Like he’d drawn me into the eye of my own storm, destruction and calamity whipping around but unable to touch me.
Slowly, I let out every molecule of oxygen in my lungs and said, “Tell me what happened, Calder.”