Chapter 21
ISLA
A deep crease etches into Luke’s forehead, his eyebrows knitting as he absorbs the weight of my words.
“Is there any way they made a mistake?” he asks, voice rough.
I glance back at the stack of paperwork spread across the table, even though I already know the answer. I went through these results three times before I opened my mouth. Every value, every notation, every signature. There’s no room left for wishful thinking.
“It’s…improbable,” I say.
The words taste bitter. I hate being the one to tell him this, especially now, when he’s already hanging on by a thread—and when he was finally, finally starting to find some kind of uneasy truce with Nathaniel.
Luke stares at the floor, jaw ticking. “Why would no one have ever told me?”
“Maybe they didn’t know?” Gabe suggests from the other side of the table, though even he doesn’t sound convinced.
The three of us sit in a charged silence. It’s not just grief or shock; it’s something darker. We’re all circling the same suspicion, and none of us wants to say it out loud: Luke’s parents knew the truth. And they chose not to tell him.
“It explains a lot,” Luke says at last, his tone flat, almost clinical. “If my dad knew, it would explain his coldness toward me.”
“Your dad’s a dick to everybody,” Gabe says.
A short, humorless laugh slips out of Luke. “You’re right, but he’s always treated me differently. I thought it was because I was the oldest boy, so he piled the responsibility on me. Heir. Oldest child with a short leash.”
His gaze drifts to a spot on the wall, unfocused, chasing memories I can’t see. “He had expectations for me that were nothing like the ones he had for my siblings. Now I can’t stop wondering if it’s because he’s known I’m not actually his.”
“But you are his,” I say quickly. “He’s the one who raised you.”
Luke’s eyes meet mine, sharp and tired. “You don’t understand how Nathaniel Wild’s mind works. He might have raised me, but if I’m not his biological son, then to him I’m nothing more than an outsider. A bastard.”
The word lands like a slap.
He pushes to his feet and starts pacing the length of the room, like the floor might splinter if he stands in one place too long.
“Do you know what it feels like,” he says, voice low, “to spend your whole life trying to measure up to a man who never once looked at you with pride? To wonder if every failure, every lecture, every cold shoulder was because you weren’t enough?”
His good arm braces against the window frame. His shoulders hunch, the lines of his back curving like he’s holding something too heavy for his body. For a moment, it looks like he might break.
Then it’s like I watch him slam a door inside himself. His shoulders lift, then settle. Face blank. Voice flat.
“Possession and ownership are everything to him,” Luke says. A bitter laugh scrapes out of him. “I never had a chance.”
Anger rises hot from my chest, rattling my ribs. After everything he’s been through in the last week—me almost getting run down, the truth about the fire, my own mess crashing back into his life—this is the last thing he needs.
“What are you going to do?” I ask quietly.
“I don’t know.” He exhales, the sound frayed at the edges. “Nothing I do changes anything. Nathaniel Wild is who he is. If I’m not his son, then I was always destined to lose.”
Gabe studies him, arms folded, brow lined. “What about the man your mother was with? Are you curious about him?”
Luke drags a hand over his jaw, fingers rasping against stubble. He trudges back to the couch and sinks, elbows on his knees.
“Fuck if I know,” he mutters. “It’s too much to worry about right now.”
I kneel in front of him and rest my hands on his knees, feeling the heat of him through denim. His breath stutters, almost imperceptibly, and his eyes flick to my hands before lifting to my face.
“You don’t have to do anything about this now,” I say. “Just focus on healing.”
For a moment, he lets me stay there. Then he gently wraps his fingers around my wrists, lifts my hands away, and sets them back in my lap. The touch is soft, almost apologetic—and still, it stings.
“I think I’m gonna go take a nap,” he says.
“Luke—”
He’s already standing, rubbing the back of his neck like his skin doesn’t fit right. I reach out on instinct, fingertips brushing the hem of his sleeve, searching for some way to tether him.
He takes a half-step out of range. Small. Subtle. But I notice.
“I just need to lie down,” he says, not looking at me.
He walks down the hall. The bedroom door closes—not a slam, not annoyed—just a soft, ordinary click that somehow feels worse. Final. Like a wall sliding into place, brick by quiet brick.
I stay where I am for a long moment, my palms still warm where he moved them. Gabe watches me with a wince that’s equal parts sympathy and helplessness.
“I can’t believe this,” I say finally, pushing to my feet. My voice wobbles. “As if he hasn’t been through enough this week.”
Gabe leans back in his chair, expression thoughtful and grim. “He’s right, though. It does explain a lot.”
“So, you think he’s right about Nathaniel and Elizabeth knowing?”
“I guarantee Elizabeth knows,” Gabe says without hesitation.
“She’s the one who had the affair. As for Nathaniel—yeah, I think he found out at some point.
Maybe not right away. But now? He knows.
And he’s the kind of prideful son of a bitch who would rather choke on the truth than let anyone see him bleed. ”
I chew the inside of my cheek, head tilted.
“What?” Gabe asks.
“It’s just…Nathaniel was so strange about giving blood.
And he was weirdly insistent on getting Luke out of the hospital as fast as possible.
” I bite my thumbnail, replaying the moments in my mind.
“At first, I thought it was because he was worried as a father. But now? It feels like he was worried the secret might come out.”
“Probably,” Gabe says, tossing a pen onto the table with a sharp clack. “He cares more about how the town sees him than about the actual damage he does. And if Luke finds out he’s not his biological father from some lab result rather than from him…”
He shakes his head. “That’s a hit to his ego he’d never risk.”
“What do you think Luke should do?” I ask.
Gabe’s voice goes steady, almost cold. “I only know what I’d do.”
“And what’s that?”
“I’d find out why they lied to me for twenty-nine years.”
He pushes away from the table and strides outside, letting the front door slam behind him.
The cabin falls quiet.
I rinse out a mug and make tea I know Luke probably won’t drink, but I need to do something with my hands. Chamomile, because it’s all I can find, and because somehow it feels gentler than coffee.
Steam curls into my face as I walk down the hall. I pause outside his door, heart pounding.
I knock softly. “Luke? I brought you something.”
There’s the faintest rustle inside—fabric shifting, a held breath—but no answer. He’s awake. He’s choosing silence.
The tea cools against my palms. I stand there for another few seconds, feeling stupid and intrusive and helpless, then finally set the mug on the floor with a quiet clink and retreat.
By the time he comes out, the light has shifted to late afternoon gray. His hair is mussed like he’s dragged his fingers through it a hundred times. He moves through the kitchen carefully, like he doesn’t want to disturb anything, including me.
He fills a glass with water, shoulders slightly hunched.
“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice soft.
He nods once, eyes on the sink. “Thanks for earlier.”
Thanks. Like I helped him carry groceries.
I step closer, slow and cautious, like he’s a skittish animal that might bolt if I move too fast. “Luke, talk to me.”
He pauses mid-swallow. “I’m fine.”
The words are too quick, too sharp. His jaw tightens like he hears it too and hates it, but still doesn’t look at me.
“You don’t seem fine,” I whisper.
“I just need to think.” He sets the glass down, fingers tapping once against the counter before retreating. “It’s not something you can fix, Isla.”
His honesty lands like a stone. Not cruel. Just true.
I reach for his arm; he sidesteps smoothly, reaching for his jacket instead. The avoidance is subtle, but unmistakable.
“Where are you going? You can’t drive yet.”
“For a walk.” He shrugs the jacket on, still not meeting my eyes.
“For how long?”
“Don’t know.” He pauses at the door, hand on the knob, back still to me. “I just need some air.”
The latch clicks as he steps outside.
The cabin deflates around me. Too quiet. Too still. Like the air left with him.
I sink onto the couch he abandoned earlier, the cushions still faintly indented in the shape of his body. It feels like sitting in the outline of a missing person.
I pull my knees to my chest and listen—to the hum of the refrigerator, to the echo of his footsteps replaying in my head. He wasn’t cold. He wasn’t angry.
He was hurt.
And I don’t know how to fix that kind of wound.
Eventually, I stand and retrieve the now-cold mug of tea from outside his door, dumping it in the sink. My hands shake as I set the mug down, ceramic clinking against stainless steel.
I press my palms over my eyes until sparks bloom in the dark. A quiet fear threads through the grief: What if this changes how he sees me? What if I handed him something so heavy he thinks he has to carry it alone?
By the time the sun sinks behind the trees, there’s still no sign of him. No text. No call. The worry sharpens into something claustrophobic, coiling tight in my gut.
I stand by the window, watching the tree line, waiting to see him emerge from the woods like he always does. He’s still healing. His shoulder is barely functional. He shouldn’t be out there this long.
I give him twenty more minutes in my head. If he’s not back by then, I’m going out after him, whether he wants me to or not.
I tug one of his hoodies off the back of a chair—a dark gray one, soft from wear, smelling faintly of cedar and his cologne.
I slip it on. The sleeves hang past my hands; the hem hits mid-thigh.
It’s ridiculous and a little pathetic, but having him wrapped around me, even in fabric, steadies my breathing.
I curl into the corner of the couch and wait. For the sound of his key in the lock. For the heavy, familiar footsteps. For anything.
But the night keeps unfolding, quiet and merciless.
And Luke stays gone.
Finally, I grab a flashlight and shove my feet into my shoes, heart pounding. If he thinks I’m just going to sit here while he disappears into the dark with fresh trauma and a half-healed shoulder, he doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does.
My hand closes around the doorknob.
Underneath all the fear and frustration, deeper even than the ache, one thought echoes:
This news has changed him.
When he comes back, he won’t be the same.
And possibly, neither will we.