Page 72 of The Last Dance You Saved
I spun around, heading back toward the hallway, and came face-to-face with a breathless, wild-eyed Sadie. My shirt hung down past her thighs, baring long legs I loved, and I immediately despised the idea of anyone, especially Adam, seeing her like this. But even that torturous thought didn’t stop me. I was determined to find him and take him apart limb by limb, both physically and financially. There wouldn’t be anything left of him.
As I brushed past her, she latched on to my arm and spun me to face her with a strength that caught me off guard.
“Rafe. You need to calm down before you do something you regret.”
I gripped her shoulders and shook. “He killed Spence. He killed my brother because he found out Adam was stealing. He killed my brother for goddamn money.”
She squeezed my arms with the same desperation. “You don’t know that for sure, and if you go flying at him now, with only the handful of items we’ve found, before we have all the proof stacked up against him, he’ll be able to pass it off as a mistake.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” The sharply snapped question had us turning down the hall. Lauren was dressed for the day in jeans, a plaid shirt, and work boots, looking more like the woman I’d grown up with than ever before. But the shock on her face was new.
“Did you know he was stealing from us?” I demanded, letting Sadie go and heading for Lauren. She took two steps back. “Did you suspect Adam killed Spencer? Is that why you’ve been losing yourself in sleeping pills and painkillers?”
“What? What are you saying?” She shook her head violently. “No. He wouldn’t!”
“We’ve only found twenty thousand right now, Lauren. That’s in just a handful of lines Sadie was able to explore. How much you want to bet I find more? Hundreds of thousands more. How much does he owe Puzo?”
Lauren turned a violent shade of red and moved toward me instead of away this time, slamming her hand into my chest. “Nothing. He doesn’t gamble like that. Not after everything the Hurlys have lost because of it. He wouldn’t steal from family. And he’dneverhurt Spence! He couldn’t.”
But I knew he had. A thousand memories shifted through me like a kaleidoscope turning. Adam’s anger whenever Spence or I got something he wanted and couldn’t afford. His rage when his daddy and his granddaddy died in a crash while driving our cattle to auction. The way he’d pummeled me when he’d found out Lauren was carrying my child.
Instead of doing anything about Adam’s rage, instead of addressing it head-on, I’d walked away from the ranch. I’d left the door open, practically inviting all the monsters in at the gate, and hadn’t cared what had happened. I’d abandoned my family.
The violent fury turned inward, accompanied by a clawing, desperate anguish, a brutal sorrow that wove through every fiber of my being.
Everything my father had ever called me rang through my ears.
Selfish. Closed-minded. Arrogant.
A piece of my soul I’d thought long buried screamed in protest. Fought to toss off the blame. And instead, it landed with a bitter, unforgiving truth in the pit of my stomach.
I’d played right into the wedge my father had driven between me and my brother. I’d hammered it permanently into place by taking what I thought I was entitled to and brought the ranch to its knees. I’d left my family to suffer the consequences because that was what I had been trained to do. I’d been taught that only one person could win, and I’d been determined it would be me.
Chapter Twenty-four
Sadie
LOVE IS A COWBOY
Performed by Kelsea Ballerini
Something in Rafe’s expression changed. Secondsago, he’d been ready to murder Adam when he found him. Ready to pay back the crime he believed Adam had committed against his brother, and I’d been terrified that he would. Now, all that anger, all the hatred seemed to have been tossed inward, as if somehow everything that had happened was entirely his fault.
When I tried to grab his hand, when I tried to pull him to me, he shook it off.
Lauren missed none of it. Her eyes were clear and unmedicated this morning but also tormented.
“Where is he?” Rafe demanded, but his tone didn’t have the wildness it had moments before. It was composed and all the scarier for it.
“He probably stayed with his girlfriend in town,” Lauren said, lifting her chin. “Whatever you think you’ve found, Rafe, he’ll be able to explain. Adam wouldn’t steal from us. And he would never kill Spencer! He knew how much I loved him.”
“He hated that you did,” Rafe said, and if those words hit me in the chest, I couldn’t imagine what they did to Lauren.
He turned on his heel, and Lauren and I hurried after him, shooting each other concerned glances. He flung open the front door of the house with the same ferocity he’d used on every other door since leaving his room.
He waved a hand at an empty slot next to the Jaguar. “He’s driving the Mercedes I saw parked here this week?”
“Yes,” Lauren responded.
