She didn’t respond. She simply got into the Tesla and backed out of the long dirt drive. Kody and I watched the car in silence until it disappeared. Once it was gone and the dust had literally settled, I asked, “Are you okay?”
Finding out you have a long-lost sibling who looks eerily like you has to be a shock, and it couldn’t have happened on a worse day.
Kody let out a string of really dirty words and kicked at the ground in front of her. She looked like a toddler throwing a fit. The comparison almost made me smile. Maybe I would’ve if I hadn’t been so tired that staying on my feet actually took a fair amount of concentration.
“My goddamn dad. Just when I think there’s an end to his jerking us around and messing with our lives, this happens.” She raked her hands through her hair, pausing to tug on the wild strands. “Am I surprised he cheated on my mother? No. I am shocked he didn’t use the affair to torture her and embarrass her, though. He really was the worst, wasn’t he?”
It wasn’t a question she needed an answer to, so I kept quiet and watched her as she started to pace with short, sharp strides in front of me.
“Only Conrad could make his funeral even more awful than it already was. Do you think she had something to do with his murder?” Kody’s head whipped around as she pinned me with a hard look.
I shrugged and lifted a hand to cover a massive yawn. “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” There was definitely something off with the other woman, and my natural curiosity would not let up until I figured out what it was. “Want to fill your family in now, or later? I’m sure they’re all huddled around the front window wondering what in the hell is going on.”
Kody looked toward the old house with the faded paint and dead rosebushes. Sure enough the curtains flicked. “I’ll go in and tell them. You go find the closest bed and get some sleep. You looked exhausted earlier, now you look like you’re dead on your feet.”
Maybe not the best turn of phrase at the moment, but she was correct. I was at my limit for being able to function properly. I needed an hour or two to recharge, but still, if she needed someone to lean on while filling her family in on Conrad’s latest transgression, I would muscle through and be there for her.
“If you need me, I’m here.” And even if she didn’t need me. I’d always been there.
Kody shook her head and reached out to give my shoulder a little shove. “Go to bed, Hill. I’m serious.”
I grunted in agreement and turned to start walking toward my truck. I was brought up short by her hand landing so lightly on my forearm I had to double check to make sure it was there.
“Thank you.” Her words were so soft I strained to hear them.
“For what?”
She shrugged. “For everything, I guess. For letting me cry all over you. For showing up in the first place when you are obviously exhausted. For being my punching bag…in more ways than one. You’re far better to me than I deserve.”
I was so tired I started to wonder if I was dreaming. Kody Lawton did not speak to me this way. She never acknowledged that I let her get away with things I would destroy anyone else for. Not once since I’d known her had she ever acknowledged she might know just how special she was to me.
Convinced my foggy, exhausted mind was playing tricks on me, I gave her a crooked grin and tipped the brim of my hat down in her direction.
“Half the time I don’t know if I’m helping or hurting things where you’re concerned. I’m always trying my best to do right by you, Kody, trying to be all the different things you need me to be. I failed at that task once before. I don’t want to let you down again.” I cleared my throat when her eyes widened in shock at my unfiltered honesty. It was the first time I’d let even a sliver of the truth out. Pulling my gaze away from her shocked expression, I looked toward where the Tesla had disappeared. “Things sure are never boring around you Lawtons.”
And my heart was never going to beat normally when I was around this particular Lawton.
Chapter 7
Kody
I can’t believe someone put one over on the old man. I never thought anyone would beat him at his own game.”
Case mumbled the words into the nearly empty rocks glass he was drinking from. We’d left the farmhouse not long after I sent Hill on his way. My brothers had demanded to know who the stranger was, which was a conversation I knew was going to require hard liquor and infinite patience. I had plenty of the first at the bar, and not much of the second. I called Lorenzo and asked him to kick the regulars out and shut down the bar early so my family had a quiet, safe place to digest the news that our father had been so much worse than we’d thought.
“Do you think Mom knew?” Crew asked the question quietly. He was sticking to beer and didn’t seem nearly as far gone as Case was, but he was twice as pissed. Neither had taken the news that we had a half sister very well.
I handed him another bottle of Corona with a shrug. “I don’t know. If she did, she never let on. She was great at hiding what was going on at home from everyone, even us sometimes.”
Case finished his drink and set the glass on the bar with a thump. He was lucky it didn’t shatter under the careless force. “Blackmail.” He shook his dark head and rubbed a hand across his mouth. “Part of me wants to believe the reason he ended up on the take in the first place was to cover the cost of that woman demanding money.” He huffed out an exaggerated sigh and reached out to clap Crew on the shoulder, nearly knocking him off the bar stool. “But Dad was an asshole from the minute he came into this world until the minute he left it.”
Crew grunted in agreement. “Why would he pay to keep things quiet for so long? It’s not like he cared what anyone thought about him, especially his own family.” The bitterness was thick in his slightly slurred words.
I pushed back my hair and leaned my forearms on the bar. “Because the position of sheriff is still an elected one, and Loveless still likes to pretend it’s based on family values. If news of an affair and a child out of wedlock made the rounds, the chances he would keep his position—and retain the fear and respect he spent his whole life cultivating—would be slim. There’s no chance Conrad Lawton would risk letting some woman, any woman, take his power away.” He was far too misogynistic and hardheaded for that.
“So he paid to keep her quiet.” Case tapped the glass and I reluctantly refilled it. I wasn’t reluctant because I was worried about him drinking too much, but because he was so big, it was going to be a pain in the ass to haul him to the car when Aspen showed up to take him home. “Or she had more on him than the affair and the baby, and he had no choice but to pay up.”
“More?” Crew leaped to his feet, sending the stool flying to the floor. “What else could there be?”
Not realizing Crew was at the brink of being pushed too far, Case lifted the glass and muttered, “Who knows? Maybe he coerced the woman into having sex with him? Maybe he forced her? Maybe she threatened to tell Mom about the affair and the old man knew his house of cards was about to come tumbling down? There doesn’t seem to be an end to Conrad’s misdeeds.”