Page 59 of The Promises We Broke
The parallel to my own situation wasn't lost on me. How many years had I spent thinking Gage had simply moved on, when maybe he'd been protecting himself the same way I was now?
"I hate that you involved me in this," I said finally. "I have enough moral dilemmas in my life without adding Farrington family secrets."
"Sorry," Emma said, though she didn't look particularly sorry. "But you're part of this family now, whether you admit it or not. And sometimes being part of a family means helping them navigate the impossible decisions."
"I'm not part of their family," I protested. "I'm just... I'm just an old friend who happens to be trying to be friends with Gage again."
"Honey," Blake said with a gentle smile, "you can keep telling yourself that, but we all see how you look at him. And more importantly, we all see how he looks at you. You're going tobe part of this family eventually. The only question is whether you're brave enough to admit it."
I stared around at these women who'd somehow become my confidantes, my support system, my chosen sisters. They were asking me to help make a decision that could change everything for the people I cared about most.
"What if we're wrong about Caroline's daughter?" I asked one more time.
"Then we apologize for the intrusion and we never speak of it again," Reece said simply.
"And if we're right?"
"Then we help a family find a missing piece they never knew they'd lost," Delaney said softly.
I closed my eyes, thinking about Gage buying the swimming hole house, about Jasper finally free from Regina's manipulation, about Trace and the boys building their lives without knowing they might have a sister out there.
"We need to be absolutely certain before we say anything," I said finally. "And we need a plan that protects everyone involved—Caroline, her daughter, and the Farrington men."
"So you're in?" Blake asked.
I opened my eyes and looked at each of them. "I'm in. God help us all, I'm in."
Chapter 20
Gage
"So here's the thing about women, Bullet," I said, leaning against the fence post in the pre-dawn darkness. The horse stood a few feet away, close enough now that I could have reached out and touched his neck if I'd wanted to. "They're complicated as hell."
Bullet's ears flicked forward, like he was actually listening to my rambling. Maybe he was. God knew he was a better audience than most humans I'd encountered.
"Take Billie, for instance." Her name still did things to my chest that I wasn't entirely comfortable with. "She's been watching my therapy sessions from the observation window every morning for three weeks. Laura mentioned it last week, like it was no big deal. 'Oh, by the way, your former therapist has been checking up on your progress.'"
I pulled an apple from my pocket, one of the Honeycrisps from Delaney's orchard that Bullet had developed a fondness for. Hestepped closer, accepting the treat with the kind of careful trust that had taken weeks to build.
"But then yesterday, I saw her at the grocery store," I continued, scratching behind his ears the way he'd started to like. "And the second she spotted me in the produce section, she turned around and left. Didn't even finish her shopping."
The horse made a soft nickering sound that could have been sympathy or could have been a request for another apple. I chose to interpret it as sympathy.
"I don't get it," I admitted. "If she cares enough to check on my progress, why won't she just talk to me? I mean, I know why. I'm the asshole who left her with nothing but a letter when she was seventeen. But still. I thought we were going to try to be friends."
The eastern sky was starting to lighten, painting the edges of the clouds with soft pink and gold. I'd been coming out here every morning for two weeks now, talking to Bullet about things I couldn't say to anyone else. It was becoming a routine, this dawn confession to a horse who couldn't judge me for my mistakes.
"Xander confirmed he's ready to take my cast off next week," I said, settling in the grass. My leg barely protested now, a small miracle that still caught me off guard. "A month ago, I could barely walk across a room without crutches. Now I'm thinking about asking Booker if I can help with the house renovation. It's my house after all, and I'm bored with being the guy that's just writing it all down and sketching plans."
Bullet moved closer, until he was standing directly in front of me. Close enough that I could see the faint scars on his legs, the evidence of how he'd saved my brother's life.
"You know what the crazy part is?" I asked, looking up into his dark, intelligent eyes. "I bought that house for her. Not consciously, maybe, but... every choice I make, every room I imagine fixing up, I was picturing her in it. Her coffee cup on thekitchen counter. Her books on the shelves. Her laughter echoing through rooms that have been empty too long."
The admission hit me harder than I'd expected. I'd been telling myself the house was about putting down roots, about proving to my family that I was here to stay. But the truth was simpler and more complicated than that.
I'd bought the house where we used to dream about our future because some part of me had never stopped hoping we might still have one.
"Pathetic, right?" I said with a laugh that came out more bitter than I'd intended. "Twenty-nine years old and still pining after the girl I loved for my entire childhood. Still believing in fairy tales and second chances."
