35. Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty
Colt
Sitting in the kitchen, taking up the full length of the dining room table, Wade and I are in focus mode getting the last plans for the equestrian school sorted before construction begins in two months.
It’s coming around quicker than I ever expected, and I’m so damn excited for this.
Both hands are braced on the flimsy sheet in front of me, my thumb rubbing over the edge of the paper without me realising as I study the pencilled lines of the extended paddock.
There’ll be a decently sized indoor arena built behind the barn, which we both agreed should stay.
Keeping some of the original features makes it feel like Gramps still has his stamp on all this too.
There’ll be a viewing gallery added too, an idea that was only added this morning, but a damn good one.
I will be training the best out there, bringing in racehorses, entering competitions.
Meadow Bell Ranch will be put on the map, and to do so, for people to scout my future riders, I need a place to showcase them.
“If we move this fence line out a few more feet—” I drag my finger across the plans, tracing where I picture the extension going, “—we can run two lesson groups at the same time. Get more out of the day.”
Wade leans over the table, taking his time looking over it all.
I already catch myself waiting for him to find the problem, point out why it won’t work, but he doesn’t.
Hasn’t really done so during this whole process.
Instead, he nods slowly. “We’dlikely need more staff when it opens.
Make sure lessons are properly covered.” His eyes move over the page. “Other than that, that works, Son.”
Something eases in my chest. The word has a totally different effect on me lately, and I’m not fighting it.
I look back down at the plan. A month ago, this was pencil marks and wishful thinking. Now there are dates, contractors, measurements. For the first time in a long while, it feels like I belong here for more than just the family name.
And I can’t wait to tell Maeve the updates. I can see her face already, the way she smiles while asking more questions, wanting to know every detail. I want her to see the good in me, be proud of me.
Across the table, Wade rustles papers around again. He’s been restless all morning. Had me repeating things twice, not fully sitting still, fading somewhere in his mind.
“Everything alright?” I ask.
“Mm.” He looks up but doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
But his hands keep moving, restacking papers, lining them up bone straight against the edge of the table.
He clears his throat, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck.
. “Actually…” He shifts in his chair, and my stomach tightens from his tone. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”
I sit back slightly, keeping my face dead straight. “Alright.”
“I’ve been looking for your mother.”
My heart drops to my stomach as everything in the room changes after one simple sentence.
” What?” I say.
Wade inhales, his chest rising, before exhaling through his nose forcefully. Like one deep breath was going to make what’s coming next easier.
“I hired someone. A private investigator to find her.”
Why? She’s been gone for years. Practically a distant memory to most people in this town.
Except me. I’m the only person who still thinks about her. Still wonders where she is. Still catching myself hoping she might come back one day.
“I don't understand. Why would you—”
“Because I'm filing for divorce. Finally.”
I stare at him. The pressure behind my eyes builds so quickly it makes my head spin.
“No.”
No. No. No. No. No.
Just when I think he can’t ruin anything, he goes and says this. Says that he is abandoning her fully. Like pushing her away all those years ago wasn’t enough. Now he’s tracked her down just to put the final nail in the coffin.
It’ll destroy her. She doesn’t deserve that.
“Colt—”
“No.” I shake my head. It does nothing to make my head feel better. “You can’t.”
The words sound pathetic the moment they leave my mouth. I know that. Because really, what am I exactly asking for?
Them to get back together?
For her to suddenly walk through the door after eighteen years and return to being a family again?
I don’t know. But hearing him say it feels wrong.
Wade’s brow furrows. “Son—”
“Don’t call me that.” I push back from the table slightly, chair screeching across the floor. “Why now? After all this time?”
“I think it’s time to move forward, So—Colt.”
The edges of my vision blur slightly, the world tilting a fraction before I pull myself back.
“She’s in Chicago.” Despite his quiet tone, the words echo in my head so fucking loudly. My grip slips from the edge of the table, I hadn’t noticed I was clinging to it. My fingers are red raw from the pressure.
Chicago. A real place.
She’s been living her life only a short plane journey away all this time, while I’d spent years wondering where she was.
“I just wanted you to know that.” Wade continues. “And if you want her details, contact information, you can have them. It’s completely your choice.”
The kitchen suddenly feels way too warm.
I’ve wanted this for so long, to have the opportunity to have her in front of me again. To ask the questions that have followed me around for most of my life. Why she left. Why she never came back.
For years, I clung to that possibility like a lifeline. Convinced that if I could just get answers, everything would finally make sense.
“Before you decide anything…” Wade’s says carefully, “There are things I should’ve told you a long time ago.” There’s a slight shift in his voice, the one that makes everything feel serious. It causes me to look at him, worry clear across his face.
“I want you to hear the truth about your mom. Ain’t doing it to hurt you. You got a right to know.”
My fingers dig into my thigh beneath the table. Anticipating the answers I’ve been waiting for all this time.
“There ain’t a good way to say this, Son, but your mom had a drug problem.”
“No. No, she didn’t.”
Wade’s eyes drop close briefly. Not in an angry way. No, I don’t think so.
More like he knew this would be the hardest part for me to hear.
And he is right.
“At first, it was weed. Mushrooms. Things she said helped her creativity. I didn't like it, but I left it alone. Then it got worse.”
All I can do is blankly stare at him. Waiting for the punchline.
For him to tell me this is some sick joke.
Anything.
“’Round the time you were a toddler, she moved onto hard things.”
“No,” I repeat. It’s all my brain can bring me to say.
That’s not Mom. Not the woman who painted landscapes while playing music too loudly and singing into paint brushes.
Not the woman who had been there for me when he wasn’t. Only leaving me for her gallery trips for a few weekends, not months, like he did. She came back, and she was—
She was good. Happy. Bubbly. Until she wasn’t. Until I was tugging on her hand for attention. When she slept most of the day. When she looked like a ghost of herself. She was slow, not fully there.
Common signs of drug withdrawals…
The possibility crashes into me so hard it makes my body feel like a tonne of bricks have just landed on top of it.
“The night she left…” Wade exhales slowly. “I came home expecting to find you both inside.”
The mention of that night has my chest tightening and my throat closing, making every breath painful.
“The night she left…” I whisper, eyes fixed on a tiny chip in the table. Fingers digging into my thighs even harder.
“She was in the barn.”
He stops, longer than the times before. My eyes quickly shoot up again, and for the first time since this conversation started, he looks genuinely hurt. His jaw is working like he’s trying to force the words out.
“She wasn’t alone. There was a man with her.” Wade swallows, “They were using.”
I can’t breathe.
“You’d been left in the house by yourself. Asleep on the couch, cartoons still playing.”
This can’t be the truth, but deep down, when I really try to think about it, I remember being carried to my room, actually happy that he was back. He put me to bed not long before I heard the shouting.
“I knew right then it had to stop. Wasn’t having you grow up around that. No child should, so I gave her a choice. Rehab and she could come home when she got well. Or she could leave.”
He moves his chair into the table, like he needed to be closer to me for the next bit.
“I wasn’t punishing her, Colt.”
For the first time in the conversation, his voice cracks.
“I was trying to keep you safe.”
Heat creeps up my neck as the truth settles in, heavy and unmoving, because I no longer hear a man who is closed off. I hear a scared parent.
All these years I carried so much anger; all directed at him.
Every argument. Every intense silence. Every blunt comment.
All these years, he let me believe it was him. Never once telling me the ugly version of my mother’s past.
Fuck. My head can barely keep up with it.
“Reason I’m tellin’ you this now,” Wade says, voice quieter than before, “is because I don’t reckon things changed much.
” His jaw shifts, teeth catching the inside of his cheek before he speaks again.
“The investigator found her through conviction records. Drug offences with the same guy I found her with.”
There’s that hurt look on his face again, which makes me realise that if this is all true, she not only left me but him too. For the drugs, and for another man…
“Why didn't you tell me sooner?” I ask.
The question comes out rough.
“Because she was your mom.”
Simple as that. No grand speech. No defence.
“She'd already left, Son. Didn't seem right taking what was left of her away from you too. But I’ve realised that it might not have been the best decision. Spent a long time questioning if I did the right thing. And truth is, Son, I don’t know, but I’msorry. For all of it.”
That breaks something in me.
I look back down at the papers spread between us. At everything we’re building here.
Not just the school either—us.
Father and son finally figuring out how to stand in the same space without all the old distance between them.
“I…” My throat tightens, failing to produce any words. “Just… give me a minute.”
Wade nods immediately. I don’t know how many minutes go by before I finally look back up.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say, and I mean it in more ways than I know how to put into words, so I leave it there.
It all hurts still, but for the first time in my life, I have the whole story.
I am not naive to think the heaviness of the revelation is going to disappear anytime soon. But somewhere in the middle of all this, I realise I don’t want her number. Not right now. Maybe not for a while.
I’m the child in this story. She was the parent. For once, I ain’t chasing after love that should’ve come looking for me first.
Instead, I look at a man who let me hate him and blame him for everything, because carrying that was easier than letting me carry the truth.
And God, I don't know what to do with that.
But for the first time in my adult life, I’m thankful for him.
Thankful for my dad.