Page 28 of A Montana Childhood Promise (Sagebrush Ranch Sweethearts #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Noah was fully aware of his sulking and the way it was affecting his family.

On more than one occasion, his mother had tried to talk to him about the revelation of his double life.

No one had been aware that he’d flown off to Seattle or New York as many times as he had.

A rift had been torn in the relationship he had with his family.

Coupled with the feeling that his relationship with Jane was hanging on by a thread, Noah felt justified in hiding away from everyone and everything.

He did the bare minimum when it came to the work around the property. There was no joy in it when all he could think about was Jane. He didn’t run errands in town after he quickly realized that he’d get accosted by those who had only known him as one of the Reese cousins.

Outing himself had been the worst decision of his life. He should have just let the risk to his charity be the thing he had to deal with.

On that front, The Wounded Heroes Project was actually getting more attention.

After word got out that some young hotshot cowboy was the one responsible for it, people in the media couldn’t stop talking about it.

There were posts on social media from women who claimed he was the most eligible bachelor in the country, and who didn’t want a rich cowboy for a husband?

There were wishful comments about a calendar coming out that showcased himself with his brothers at Sagebrush Ranch. More than once Bo had to kick out a member of the press who wanted to get the first interview about his life and how he’d come to be in his position.

He’d wanted none of that—not before he’d met Jane, and certainly not after.

He’d liked his quiet life. Sure, it was nice knowing that he would never want for food on the table or clothes on his back, but when it came to security and privacy, he felt he’d lost that along with the closeness he had with the people in his life.

Noah had resorted to hiding in the barn. It wasn’t the smartest hiding place. Anyone could climb the ladder to where he was in the loft and find him there. It probably would have been better just to saddle a horse and hide out in the fields until sundown every day.

He sighed as he leaned back on the blanket he’d spread out over the hay bales. The ceiling wasn’t much to look at, either, but it beat being tracked down by his parents, his brothers, and even his cousins.

Jane’s face was what he saw most of the time, anyway. Her smiles had been replaced by hurt and betrayal—something he couldn’t seem to scrub from his memory. She’d made several good points, and then she’d refused to let him explain the way he’d wanted.

Okay, that wasn’t fair.

She’d caught him off guard, and instead of going into that confrontation with a list of things he’d wanted to say, he’d ended up on the defensive and with his foot in his mouth.

At least he’d been able to assure her that he’d been impressed by her work ethic.

Well, he hoped he had. That was still unclear at times.

A sigh burst from his chest, and he shut his eyes against the memories.

In a couple hours, he had a meeting at The Wounded Heroes Project to discuss how well the event had gone.

But he already knew he wasn’t going to attend—not that he hadn’t wanted to.

If he thought it would help, he would have been there already.

But Jane had insisted that she wanted space.

If he didn’t give that to her, then how could he expect her to give him a moment of her time to tell her his reasons for keeping his wealth from her?

Boots clattered against the wooden planks down below, followed by two familiar voices. “You sure he’s up there?” Caleb questioned.

Noah stifled a groan. Yeah, he should have definitely gone on a ride.

“Yeah. Bo said he’s been hiding up there all day,” Mack muttered. “Heck if I know why. If I were him, I’d be doing everything in my power to clear this up.”

“I can hear you, you know,” Noah called. There would be no escaping his brothers. They would be blocking the only exit at this point, so if he wanted to run, he’d have to risk a broken leg by jumping out the window on the far side of the loft.

One of them snickered, and the creak of the wooden ladder was the only indication of their intentions.

Noah sat up and hunched over so his elbows were placed on his knees.

He set a scowl on his face as Caleb came into view.

When his oldest brother was standing before him, Mack’s head popped up over the edge of the loft.

Neither one of them looked thrilled to be here.

“Did Mom send you?”

They both scoffed as one.

Caleb spoke first, though. “No. But you should probably go talk to her. She’s beside herself with worry.”

Noah couldn’t imagine why his mother would be worried. It wasn’t like his life was in danger. Everything as they knew it had changed, but it wasn’t something that they couldn’t survive.

Caleb moved closer with Mack on his heels. “You gonna finally tell us what’s been going on?”

“What is there to tell? I’m sure you got the gist of the story from the tabloids,” Noah muttered.

“Yeah, we know what everyone else is saying about the millionaire cowboy with a heart of gold. Way to make us look bad,” Caleb mocked.

Noah tossed his brother a quick glance, noting the humor in his voice.

But when he shot a look at Mack, he knew this conversation wasn’t going to end well.

Mack still looked upset. His face was set in hard lines.

He wasn’t here to make Noah feel better about himself.

He was here to make him pay for his mistakes. Noah sighed. “What do you want?”

“Answers,” Mack shot out before Caleb got the chance. “Why did you keep this a secret?”

Noah shrugged. “I didn’t want the attention. I didn’t want anyone to look at me differently. I just wanted to keep being…” He shrugged again and sighed. “Noah.”

“Clearly money wasn’t going to change you,” Caleb chuckled. “You hid it better than I did.”

Noah lifted a brow.

Caleb chuckled again and ran a hand through his unruly hair.

“I invested the money Mom and Dad gave me, too. It paid off enough to give Sammie and me a good head start. But based on what I’ve figured, you went and blew my savings out of the water.

” Caleb glanced at Mack then thumbed at him over his shoulder.

“Mack here is the only one who just let it sit in savings until he could decide what he wanted to do with it.”

Mack made a face that was a mix of exasperation and irritation, which only made Caleb chuckle again.

“Look, I get it. I kept my money a secret from Sammie, too. Our folks never really taught us to share that sort of information.” He inhaled deeply.

“But at the same time, you were running a huge charity. It might have been nice to know, in case you needed help. I feel like you’re some masked superhero that no one saw coming. ”

Noah’s lips ticked upward at the corners. “Thanks, but I’m not a hero. I just… wanted to help.”

“Well, you did more than that,” Mack admitted. “But now that the world knows, you’re going to have to figure out where you want this to go. Are you going to keep running it?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” Noah snapped, immediately defensive. “It’s what I’ve poured my whole life into.”

“And what about Jane?”

Noah fell silent at Mack’s words.

“You dragged her into this mess, and she deserves answers.”

Shooting to his feet, Noah clenched his hands into fists. “Don’t you think I’ve tried? I tried all night at that event. Then again after it. She wants space.”

“So, what are you going to do in the meantime? Just mope up here in the barn until she’s willing to hear you out?” Caleb asked. “Because that’s not how problems get solved. You know that, right?”

Noah glowered at his brother’s judgmental tone. “You have no idea what’s going on.”

“No, but I do,” Mack growled. “Jane feels like you betrayed her.”

The knots in Noah’s stomach tightened painfully, leaving him breathless.

“She thinks that you orchestrated this whole thing, and she can’t figure out why. I don’t think she believes you would do it to hurt her… but she also doesn’t believe that it was just something that slipped your mind, you know?”

Noah’s nails dug into his skin as he continued to glare at his brothers one at a time.

“I think you should go. I told you why I kept it a secret. I told you what I plan to do. Heck, I’ll tell you that I made some good investments of my own and that they paid off enough for me to start this venture without thinking twice about the cost. But I’m not going to sit here and have you tell me that I ruined everything with the woman I love. ”

Caleb stared at him with a more curious look than Mack’s hardened one. “Yeah. Sure. Okay. We’ll go, but I want you to know that we’re not built to sit around on our hands and wait for problems to work out. Running from your problems will only make them worse. You should keep trying to talk to her.”

“Leave, Caleb.”

His brother shrugged and moved toward the ladder. But Mack didn’t move. Noah’s scowl matched his brother’s almost perfectly.

“Both of you need to leave.”

Mack took a step toward him. It was more menacing than Noah had thought his brother capable of.

When he poked Noah hard in the chest, Noah stumbled back a step.

“I was friends with Jane before you were. I know how her head works. I know what it means to her to earn her place in this world because people in her life don’t accept her accomplishments the way they should. ”

Noah’s thoughts immediately went to her family and how they seemed happier about Jane’s relationship status than her job. It still didn’t sit right, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“Jane probably doesn’t feel like she earned her promotion. And she made more than one comment regarding the possibility that she got the job since she knew you. I think that’s what’s bothering her the most.”

“Well, there’s nothing I can do about it, now is there?” Noah growled. “I didn’t recommend her for the job because she was the girl I loved. I recommended her because she’s dang good at what she does. I tried telling her that, and she still refuses to accept it.”

Mack scoffed. “Then you didn’t try hard enough.”

“How would you know?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. But I do know this. I know that she didn’t deserve to be thrown for a loop at the revelation of who you are to her when it comes to her career. You should have known better.”

“And what would you have done? Huh? Would you have just sat back and waited for the people in your company to finally see what a star they had in her? Or would you nudge them in the right direction? I didn’t give the order to hire her.

All I did was tell them the truth. I’d seen just how good she was. And I had hoped they’d seen it, too.”

“Then you should have told Jane first. She at least deserved to know who you were at the core before the world figured it out. But you didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt.

You refused to trust her,” Mack spat before he spun around and climbed down the ladder toward the ground below. His words were like a punch to the gut.

Noah knew he’d made the right decision when it came to placing Jane in her current position. Heck, he could argue that she deserved to be running one of the locations he had in the country. The one thing Mack had said that was completely right had everything to do with trust.

He’d told Jane he loved her. But he hadn’t trusted her with his heart. He’d kept his secrets so well guarded that she didn’t have a chance to make the choice before the world got to see who he really was.

A groan escaped his lips, and he paced the loft as his head continued to pound harder. He couldn’t turn back time. So how was he supposed to fix this? How could he make her see that she was still the most important person in his life without making things all the messier?

Noah was at a loss. He couldn’t come up with a single idea, and that meant he was at an even bigger risk of losing her.