Chapter Five: Some Things I’ll Never Know

Ryder

SOME THINGS I’LL NEVER KNOW

Performed by Teddy Swims with Maren Morris

A storm was due later thisweek, and we were trying to protect the two new cabins as best we could by laying the plywood for the roof, so when my phone played my brother’s text tone, I ignored it. Shawn and I ran our nail guns along the boards, and the sound echoed through the meadows and out toward the mountains covered in mist. Something about the scent of lumber and winter in the air felt like comfort and home almost as much as the smell of horses and hay.

Once upon a time, I’d thought I’d spend the majority of my days on job sites like this, but the dream of being an architectural engineer had been short-lived. It wasn’t one I regretted giving up. In some ways, all that studying had shown me where I actually belonged.

Maddox’s text tone jingled again, followed immediately by the harsh ring of an actual call.

Once we had the board secure, I stood. The rooftop view of the sun cresting over the hills added to my feelings of comfort and belonging.

I ripped my phone from the pocket of my work jacket, growling out, “What the fuck is so urgent?”

“Ry…” Maddox’s tone was serious, and the way he petered off made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

“What’s wrong? Is it Sadie? Gemma?”

“No. Everyone in the family is fine. This… It’s about…” Maddox was stumbling over his words when normally he was quick-witted and snarky enough to keep us both on our toes. A sudden heaviness settled over me.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I need you to come to the station.”

Whatever it was, my brother was having trouble holding it together. In two large strides, I was at the ladder, one-handing it down. “I’m on my way.” I jumped past the final rungs to the ground, ended the call, and hollered to Shawn. “I gotta head into town. Call Ramon and see if he can give you a hand finishing up.”

I barely heard his response as I cut across the field at a jog. My gaze flicked to the farmhouse and the smoke spiraling into the crisp air, and I debated whether I should take the time to see if my parents knew what was going on. But Maddox had asked me to come, not them, which meant if they didn’t know what was going on, there was a reason for it. I slid into the seat of my Chevy and turned the key I’d left in the ignition. The engine rumbled to life, vibrating through me. The loose gravel on the freshly sealed asphalt kicked up as I tore toward the gates.

Maddox had said everyone in the family was okay, so what did that leave?

My mind drew a blank. What could possibly have rattled my calm-and-collected brother so much that he hadn’t been able to get his words out?

The minutes it took to drive into town crawled by, making me punch the accelerator that much harder.

As I whirled into an open spot in front of the station, I noted the black Escalade that screamed government parked next to the sheriff’s truck Maddox drove. We’d seen plenty of similar vehicles a few months back when The Painted Daisies and their bodyguards had flown through town. Nothing good had happened with the band here, and it only made my hackles rise. I jumped out of the truck, barely remembering to pocket the key this time, and raced into the building.

Amy wasn’t at the front desk, but I could hear her soft voice chattering away from the break room. I pushed past the swinging half gate into the bullpen with its small gathering of metal desks and stalked toward Maddox’s open office door. My lips tilted up at the sign reading, Sheriff Maddox Hatley. He was the youngest sheriff the county had seen, but he did the job with more heart and dedication than any officer of the law I’d ever encountered. His job had changed all of us when it brought Mila into our lives after he’d found her screaming in squalor, left by her addict mother. He’d adopted her and made her his without blinking, and now I couldn’t imagine our family without my niece in it.

“What’s wrong?” I demanded as I strode into the room. My feet came to an immediate halt as I laid eyes on the woman leaning up against a file cabinet on the opposite wall. Her dark hair, just short of black, was drawn away from her face in a tight ponytail. Thick brows gracefully arched over large, color-changing eyes that were flashing the amber hue of whiskey and sin as they landed on me.

She was wearing all black from her head all the way down to a pair of bright-blue cowboy boots I’d once teased her about. Her tight sweater accentuated a lean body with small curves that my hands ached to touch and had my alarm bells screaming a warning louder than my home security system.

Waves of emotions flew through me. Anger. Frustration. Lust. Concern. I wanted to yank her to me and get another taste of those naturally red lips, while at the same time, I wanted to take her by the shoulders and show her the door and the road out of town.

Gia was dangerous. She had secrets. She’d lied. She’d snooped.

And she’d tasted like sugar and spice and everything naughty rather than nice.

Which made her treacherous.

The thoughts I’d had the night before at the bar made her even more so. I’d been relieved when I’d found out Gia had taken off months ago. Even more relieved when her return reservation had been taken over by her brother and the rock star he was protecting.

I didn’t have the time or energy for a woman who couldn’t be trusted.

I liked my moments with a woman to be sweet, brief, and full of satisfaction before we both went our separate ways. This woman…there was nothing sweet about her.

“What the hell is she doing here?” I growled out. Rather than my comment angering her, her lips twitched ever so slightly, and that only pissed me off more.

“Gia isn’t an agricultural journalist, Ryder.” Maddox’s tone was smooth and gentle, as if he was trying to calm a spooked horse.

I tore my gaze from Gia to my brother. Concern was written all over his face, and I realized, with a sudden swoop of my stomach, it was for me, but damned if I could figure out why.

“No shit,” I said, eyes flipping between the two of them again.

“She works for the NSA.”

That did surprise me. I’d highly suspected her job was a front. I just hadn’t been sure if it was for a con she’d hoped to play on the hick ranch family or something more sinister. I definitely hadn’t pegged her as a fed.

“What’s the NSA doing in Willow Creek?” I addressed the question to her, but it was my brother who answered.

“Working a multi-agency case against the Lovatos.”

Fuck. If that asshole, Chainsaw, wasn’t already dead, I’d want to shoot him all over again. Our little town, our little county, had the normal petty crimes of most small communities, but we hadn’t been in the line of fire for anything serious until the idiot had tried to tie the local biker club with the cartel.

I crossed my arms over my chest, widened my stance, and shot Gia a look with narrowed eyes. “And you thought, what? Our ranch was involved? That’s why I caught you snooping through our shit?”

“Yes,” she finally spoke. A clipped, single syllable, but the sound of her voice went straight to my dick. My body craved hearing that word on repeat as she chanted it over and over with me pummeling into her.

My jaw tightened. I pulled my gaze from hers, determined to not look at her again as I focused on my brother. “So she thinks she’s got some type of goddamn proof? If there’s anything at the ranch tying us to the Lovatos, she planted it there.”

Maddox ran a hand through his wavy hair.

“I don’t even know where to start, Ryder.” He glanced down at a folded piece of paper and then looked back up at me with eyes that were hurting. My brother was in pain, and that caused some of the heat inside me to simmer down.

“Mads,” I said, stepping toward the desk. “Just lay it out. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out together. All of us. As a family. Like we always have.”

His throat bobbed, and then he said, “This is about Ravyn.”

Her name knifed through me, tearing at scars that were healed, but just barely. Maddox would never bring her up. Never. Not unless he had to. My skin broke out in goosebumps. Dread. Premonition. Something hitting me so strong I knew, somehow, the woman who’d once altered my entire world was going to do it again.

“What’d she do now?” I growled out. “And why the fuck do we care?”

“She’s dead,” he said softly.

For several long beats, I couldn’t quite comprehend what he’d said. Any of the times I’d let myself think of my ex-fiancée, I’d imagined throwing in her face how little she’d affected us after she’d gone. How the trauma she’d tried to aim had missed its mark. How my life was so much fucking better without her in it than with a lying, cheating, stealing con artist at my side. But never once had I imagined her dead.

I forced myself to speak. Forced my voice to be bland and cold as I repeated, “Again, why would we care?”

“She was working for the Lovatos,” Gia said from off to the side. I didn’t turn my head. I ignored her, eyes locked on my brother instead. “But she did something to piss them off, because they slaughtered her. Tore her open from throat to belly button, multiple times. And her hands—”

“I’ll say it for a third time—why do we care?” I cut her off as images I didn’t want flew through me. Ravyn with her dark curly hair swirling about her and flashing brown eyes smiling. Her luscious curves moving over me, skin glowing in the moonlight. The feel of her thighs around me as my hand settled over her lower abdomen where she’d told me our child was growing.

Everything had been heightened the night she’d told me about the baby. The smells. The sounds. The feel of our bodies. The wool of the blanket beneath me. The stars spread out like their own canvas above her. She’d blended in with the night sky and yet stood out like a glowing apparition. A ghost who had stolen my heart and then left with it in her pocket, along with a ring that had been in our family for generations and the money we’d borrowed to build the cabins.

That image of her, sexily moving above me, dissolved into one that contained blood and long slashes against smooth skin.

Bile hit the back of my throat. My fists tightened, nails biting into skin.

Maddox picked up the paper he’d been eyeing a moment before. “She left this letter for you. I guess it was tucked away in case something bad happened to her.”

He slid it across his desk at me, and I took a step back.

No way. No way was I letting her worm her way into my head from the grave. It took me years to recover enough that I could laugh and joke with my family again. Years until I could look at another woman and not feel like I was cheating on the one who’d stolen more than money from me. A woman who’d stolen my future. A family of my own. A wife and a child.

Behind me, another body ran into the room. For a second, because it was a tiny human being, I thought it was Mila coming to say hello to my brother. But as the little girl ran across the room to Gia, my heart stopped completely. She threw her arms around Gia’s legs, and Gia’s hand went to the top of her head. She spoke to her in Spanish in a soothing tone I’d never heard come from Gia’s mouth, but I’d heard plenty of times from Ravyn.

When the little girl turned, I thought I might be dreaming, because Ravyn looked up at me from the child’s face. Dark brows. Beautiful brown eyes flecked with black. Hair that was black and shiny. Heart-shaped curves to her sharp jawline and full pink lips. She was Ravyn’s mini-me.

The girl was small, about the same size as my niece, but her eyes—eyes that once had looked at me with such wisdom and sorrow from her mother’s face—looked at me the same way now. Eyes far older than any child this age had the right to be.

This age…

Fuck! How old was she?

My heart thudded again. A pained, harsh rhythm that felt like it might break my rib cage.

“You know I wouldn’t do this to you unless it was absolutely necessary, Ryder.” My brother was talking, but my gaze was still on the little girl.

The child looked up at Gia and then back to me. A curious, cautious word slipped from her lips. “Papa?”

I crashed backward into the wall as if I’d been hit by a sledgehammer. Maddox was out of his chair in a flash, coming to my side. My brain was screaming. Denials. Heartache. Fury.

No.

Fuck no.

She’d lost the baby. Lost. The. Baby.

Maddox tried to reach for me, and I pushed his hand away.

“No.” Even to me, my voice sounded like the howl of a wounded animal. It caused the little girl to flinch, turning into Gia’s leg. Gia glared at me before lifting the child into her arms. The girl wrapped her hands around Gia’s neck, burying her face. And all I felt was relief because Ravyn’s eyes were no longer haunting me.

“Nice job, asshole,” Gia said, then turned to my brother. “We’ll be in the breakroom. Make sure he gets his shit together.”

She stormed past me, shoulder brushing against my arm and causing awareness to rush through my veins. I instantly wanted to demand they both come back. The woman who screamed danger and the child with the face of my former lover.

Fury stopped me. Fury for everyone, but mostly for Ravyn. The same fury I’d felt the day she’d left. The day of our rehearsal dinner. The day she’d torn the ground out from beneath me.

Maddox dragged a hand over his face. “Well, hell.”

I shoved at him, the buttons of his uniform shirt biting into my palms. “Yeah, what the hell, Maddox? What the fuck would possess you to even think…” I couldn’t say any of the words. They got jammed in my throat like a beaver’s dam.

My brother slammed the paper he was holding into my chest. “Read it. Then, we’ll talk.”

I yanked it from his grip. That same dread that had filled me moments before rippled up my spine again. When I glanced down and saw the handwriting, nausea flew through me. It was as familiar as my own. She’d left me hundreds of notes in the months we’d been together. All over the place. On the coffeepot, the toothpaste, and the stall door in the barn. Each one written on brightly colored neon sticky notes that had brought more joy to my soul than I’d thought possible. I’d felt so damn lucky. So damn sure I’d found the woman who would be at my side through thick and thin, just like my parents had found each other.

Maddox walked out the door as I stared at the familiar, flowery strokes of half-cursive, half-print. The first five words had me wanting to ball the letter up and toss it away. But whatever was inside it, whatever she had to say…my brother felt I needed to see it.

The little girl’s face swam in front of me for a heartbeat before I focused again on the words.

My dearest Ryder, mi corazón,

I’m sorry for so many things. Things I know you don’t want to hear but are still true. I’m sorry for allowing us to fall in love to begin with. For pretending I could escape my bonds. For taking the joy and caring you offered and turning it into heartache and loss.

But the thing I regret most is lying to you about our child. For telling you I’d lost her when I hadn’t.

I looked up, throat bobbing. The old grief welled through me all over again. I’d read a similar letter. But that one had said the exact opposite. She’d said she’d miscarried and that she couldn’t stay with me because looking at me every day would only serve to remind her of the loss that sat between us. And I’d called her a coward. Screamed it to the trees and the sky because she hadn’t been there to hear it.

At the time, when I realized they’d found me, I panicked. I knew if I stayed, they would kill you, me, the baby, and your family. So, I did the only thing I could. I traded my soul so everyone could live. I’ve kept Addy close, watching over her and ensuring the wolves stayed just far enough away that their teeth could never quite find purchase. But sometimes, in the dark of another long, sleepless night, I wonder if she would have been safer in the haven your family once offered me. Sometimes, I wonder if running away with her was just another selfish moment I allowed myself—maybe keeping her was as bad as allowing you to love me to begin with.

The deal I made with those holding my chains was that I would do their dirty work, but I would not live under their roof. I would do it from a location of my choosing. Whenever they tried to lure me out, lure me to them, I moved. It allowed me to keep Addy from them. I’m fairly certain they don’t know she exists. Or they didn’t. But as you’re reading this letter, I don’t know what happened to cause her to show up on your doorstep. They’ve either taken me, or I’m dead. In either case, she may be running from the very same wolves I tried to hide her from. Hide you from.

What I need you to know, what I plead for you to believe, is that I love you. I will always love you. There has never been anyone else for me. Only you. And I love our child, if possible, even more.

Our precious little girl has somehow, even with our life on the run, kept your verve for life and your sense of humor. When she smiles, I see you. I hope she’s still able to smile when she finds you. I hope the black of my world hasn’t forever darkened hers.

As I write this and put the letter where only Addy knows, I am sure of one thing. I know you will protect her with every fiber, every breath in your being.

And I’m sorry to say you may have to.

I won’t say their name here in case there’s a chance to keep you both safe from them. I’ve been building something for years, before I even found you, something I hope you can trade your lives for if they do show up at your door. It’s an insurance policy of sorts. If you have Addy, you’ll have it, but don’t use it unless they come for you. It’ll be so much better for everyone if they don’t know either of you exists.

I won’t ask for your forgiveness because I understand there is no redeeming myself for any of the things I’ve done. But I know there was a time when our love meant everything to you, and I call on those feelings to be your guide as I beg you not to hold my mistakes against our daughter. Please give her freely the love you once gave me. Please let her see the Ryder Hatley I fell head over heels for. The person who allowed me to forget briefly what I’d escaped. The person who allowed me to hope for something better than the life I’d found myself living.

Sincerely, regretfully, and with all the love I still feel for you,

Ravyn

My jaw was clenched so tight I thought my teeth might crack. I balled the paper in my hand, crumpling the words that were tearing apart my walls and my scars and making them bleed fresh and new. How dare she talk of loving me! How dare she!

Fuck.

I closed my eyes, leaning back against the wall.

She’d been running. Running scared. And she hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me. Hadn’t believed we could face it together. What did that say about me? About us? Could I even believe her? She’d lied about everything before. Maybe this was just one more lie. Maybe she just needed some damn sucker to take in her child if she ended up dead because she was working with a fucking cartel. Maybe I was the only damn sucker she could think of.

And yet, that thought didn’t ring true either.

The girl…Addy…she looked a little small to be the right age. She looked like my niece, and Mila had been born a whole year after our baby would have been. But Ravyn had been small as well. She’d been over a foot shorter than me. When we’d been together, I’d loved the difference in our sizes. Loved that I could maneuver her body, set her on me, hold her up, and get lost in her fairylike quality while embedding myself in her.

A simple DNA test would show whether or not she was lying this time.

Whatever the truth, Addy had been told I was her father.

She was here, and her mother had been slaughtered.

My stomach lurched.

Had she seen it?

Had that little girl watched as someone cut open her mother?