Page 103 of Panty Dropper

Her blue eyes widened. “Me?”

“You,” I confirmed.

“Are you sure you don’t want one of your brothers, or Cheyenne—”

“They’re too close to the situation.” I lied. It wasn’t at all the reason I hadn’t brought it to them. “I need someone without any emotional attachment to do it.”

I handed her the leatherbound book.

She took it and opened it up, with extreme care. She handled it the same way one would William Shakespeare first edition. She began gently flipping through the pages, scanning each as she went.

“Can you read the last one?” My throat was tight as I asked the question.

“Oh.” She looked up at me. “Okay.”

She turned to the final entry and I watched as her eyes moved across the pages.

“Out loud. Can you read it out loud?”

“Are you sure?” Her eyes lifted to meet mine and I could see concern brimming in them. “This is very… personal.”

“I need to know. And I think the only way I can is if I hear it from you.” There it was. The truth. The only way I’d be able to take in this information was if I heard it from Reagan.

There was a moment of hesitation before she took a deep breath and tilted her chin down toward the book. “I’m at the end of my rope. This is a living hell. He’s a loose cannon, I have no earthly idea what he might do. I can’t live like this.” A pause hung in the air before her blue stare once again lifted up through her dark lashes. “Are you sure you want me to keep going?”

I nodded.

She continued, “I can only think of one way out. I have to tell the truth. Tell him everything. It makes me sick to think about doing it. It’s going to destroy everything that we’ve built together. I’ve accepted that, as much as it breaks my heart. No. My heart isn’t broken. It’s shattered.”

When she didn’t continue, I asked, “Is that it?”

“No…” She shook her head. “But…”

“Please.” It was a simple plea, but it did the trick.

She took a deep breath. “But I don’t care what happens to me. Just the babies, they’re all that matter. I don’t know what to do. Hank. My strong, silent boy. He will handle anything the world throws at him. But what will it do to him on the inside? Jimmy. My fun-loving little guy. He’s always laughing. Will this take away his smile? Billy. My little charmer. He never met a situation he couldn’t talk his way out of. Will this give him the idea that the world is too harsh to even try? And, then there’s Cheyenne. My sweet little angel. This will hurt her most of all. But I don’t know what else to do. I have to tell the truth. I can’t live under threat of being exposed. Under his threats. At least now this mistake won’t control me anymore. I can’t go on like this.”

She closed the book and lifted her head. “That’s it.”

I stared at her, trying to process what any of that could mean when a folded piece of paper slid from the back of the book onto the floor. I picked it up and when I unfolded it I saw it wasn’t just one paper, it was several. There was a lot of paragraphs but the headers were bolded and stood out.

Trustee.

Beneficiaries.

Dispensation of Residuary Trust Assets Upon Trustee’s Death.

Amendments I, II, and III.

“I think this is it. I think this is the trust.” I handed it to Reagan.

She started reading it with an entirely different intensity than she had the journal. Her eyes flew over the pages as she flipped from one to the next. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

“What? What doesn’t?” I scooted forward and stared at the paper upside down.

She pointed. “It says here that a trust was established in your mother’s name that she would have had access to at age thirty.”

“My mom was twenty-nine when she died. Was that why the trust was never accessed?”

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