“Savannah, you don’t—”
“Yes or no?” she snapped.
Beau rocked back, his hand digging into his chest as he cut a glare my way before looking pleadingly at Savannah. Jaw tight with his anger and dread as he knelt there, trembling.
“Beau.” His name was a plea wrapped in the deepest kind of pain coming from her.
“Yes,” he breathed and hurried to continue. “But it wasn’t—”
“Get out.”
Beau staggered to his feet, looking like he’d already suffered a critical hit from that one demand. “It wasn’t what you think.”
Savannah waved a hand in front of her as if trying to block out what he was saying as she stepped away. “Get out!”
“Savannah, you have to let me explain.”
“Get out of my fucking house,” she shouted, her entire body moving with the force of her words.
Her tear-streaked face shifted to me when I moved from the wall to go. The betrayal there cutting me open and leaving me bleeding as I headed for the door. Wanting to say a million things and not knowing how.
This was what I’d been so afraid of. This was why I’d left.
I’d just stepped onto the driveway from the porch when I was hauled back. A shocked cry scraped up my throat from the pain that raced up my arm and through my shoulder as he pulled me close. Gripping me tight as he stared down at me with his blood-covered face.
“Beau—”
“What’d you do?” he seethed, the tremors rolling through his body so violently that they shook me.
Choking back my demands to let me go. Freezing me in fear as I stared at a man who had already broken and was still seeing red.
“You came back to town and everything started falling apart,” he continued. His jaw ticked as he watched his words hit home. “If you just ripped my kids away from me? My wife?”
“Beau,” Hunter said in clear warning as he appeared beside us.
One of his hands curled around my arm that Beau still had a grasp on. His hold gentle but firm enough to let me know he wouldn’t let Beau hurt me. The other gripped Beau’s wrist.
But Beau just squeezed tighter instead of releasing me.
When Hunter spoke again, his tone was low and threatening. “Get your fucking hand off her.”
“Go back to wherever the hell you were before you can do any more damage.” He released me and shrugged off Hunter as he stormed away.
“He hurt you?” Hunter asked as his hold slipped from my arm, his eyes barely able to hold mine.
My head shook faintly as I whispered, “No.”
He nodded, the action seeming absentminded as it continued even when his stare fell to the ground. After a few seconds, he gave me one last wounded look and started for his truck that was idling with the door open—same as mine.
I struggled to hold everything in as I glanced back at the house. Felt the hurt and anger hidden within its beauty, and wished I could go back and change it all.
I managed to get in my SUV and drive away from Blossom before the tears fell. Before the cries building in my chest broke free. Before I had to pull over as the emotions welling up inside me crashed over. Consuming and threatening to drown me.
“Boss.”
I glanced up and then around to see who had called for me, my head lifting in question when I saw one of my guys watching me expectantly.
He just pointed behind me before going back to fixing one of our machines.
I turned to see Cayson stepping out of his truck, a mumbled curse slipping free as I started toward him.
“It’s Monday,” he called out.
I dragged off my baseball hat and ran my fingers through my hair. “Yeah.”
“So, why did I have to hunt you down out here?”
I fitted my hat back on low over my eyes as I stopped in front of him. “You know why, Cays.”
“I don’t, actually.” He raised a challenging brow. “Savannah’s always been family. She needs us right now—you especially.”
“Pretty damn sure I just ruined her family.”
“You took part in her finding out. But you’re the only one who’s gonna understand her side. So, be there for her.”
I looked out over the orchard, clenching my jaw as I did.
After leaving Blossom a few days ago, I’d gone straight to Cayson and Emberly’s ranch and started working. Sawyer had asked at least a dozen times, considering I’d still had blood on my face and shirt, but I hadn’t spoken.
I’d worked late into the night and throughout the next two days to get as much of my pain out while my mind had replayed Madison’s confession and my fight with Beau.
My first words to him in almost a decade.
Emberly and Rae had joined in with Sawyer when they were there. Trying to get me to stop. To go home. To talk. But I’d continued until Cayson had come back the night before.
He’d been floored. That look like he didn’t know how to accept something he didn’t feel like he deserved washing over his features until he’d seen me. Black eye and bruised jaw.
So, I’d left.
Cayson followed.
I’d unloaded the entire thing on him in what felt like one breath. The hostility and adrenaline bleeding out of me and draining me. I’d crashed on the couch before he’d even left, and woken at dawn this morning.
“What am I supposed to say to her?”
“I don’t know, Hunt,” he said with a sigh. “It’s Savannah—let her talk.”
The corner of my mouth ticked up in amusement.
“If it were me?” He waited until I met his stare. “I’d tell her what Madison told you. She should know how it went down. It’ll probably be easier coming from you, and since she isn’t talking to the other two . . .” He shrugged.
“Yeah, all right.”
“We going?”
I nodded, calling out to the crew closest to me that I’d be back later as I followed Cayson to his truck.
“Em told me what you did,” he said, breaking the silence when we were nearly there. He looked at me before focusing on the road. “For Sawyer. Helping her out with him and all the Rae stuff. I appreciate it.”
I lifted a shoulder and looked absently ahead. “Family.”
Cayson released a long, drawn-out sigh. “Yeah, when Saw’s not being a dick.”
I glanced at him in time to see the impish smile he’d been fighting break free.
A breath of a laugh left me and abruptly ended when Cayson started down the long driveway of Blossom. “What . . .” I stared at the cars and people waiting outside them. “What the hell, Cayson?”
He pulled to a stop behind where Emberly was leaned up against her Jeep. Rae was in Sawyer’s arms next to her, his truck off to the side.
Cayson turned to face me, all traces of humor gone from his face. Using the hand hanging over the steering wheel to point at the people watching us, he said, “Exactly what you just said. Family.”
I clenched my teeth and looked out at the people before returning my attention to him. “So, what, the first time I talk to Savannah after what happened, we all just ambush her?”
“The girls volunteered to watch Levi. Sawyer and I are here for you and Savannah.”