Page 40 of Broken Reins (Whittier Falls #4)

Damon ignored him, kept his focus on me. “Yeah well maybe he shouldn’t be.”

The words stung, but I’d heard worse. I called his bet, showed my cards, and took the hand.

Walker grinned, trying to lighten the mood. “Damn, Damon, you used to be better at this game.”

Damon’s mouth twisted, but he let it go. For a while, the conversation moved on—ranch gossip, a little town politics, the usual posturing—but I could feel him waiting, like a viper in tall grass.

Finally, during a break when Gray went to check on the fire, Damon leaned across the table. His voice was low, private.

“I don’t care what you did in California, or how rich you are,” he said, eyes boring into mine. “If you hurt anybody here—anybody—I will bury you myself.”

I met his gaze, not blinking. “You think I don’t know that? I never hurt anyone before, and I’m not about to start now.”

He held it for a second longer, then sat back.

“You got anything else to say?” I asked, voice soft.

Damon’s mouth twisted. “Nope. Just always wondered how you sleep at night, that’s all.”

Walker tried to deflect. “Come on, Damon?—”

But Damon cut him off, voice tight. “You ever think about what you did, Ford? About the kid who’s not here because of you?”

My hand tightened around my cards, but I kept my voice steady. “You know what happened that night. You were there. Everyone saw us fight, and everyone saw me leave first.”

He sneered. “I remember Ty better than you do, I bet. He wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t deserve to die in a ditch.”

Something inside me snapped.

“I didn’t kill him,” I said, the words tasting like rust. “If you think I did, say it. Don’t just skirt around it.”

Damon leaned in, eyes narrow. “Whole town thinks it, not just me.”

Mason slammed his beer down. “Enough, man. You don’t have to be an asshole.”

Damon ignored him, still locked in on me. “This asshole’s been living and breathing and gettin’ rich for the past twenty years on the back of a goddamn murder.”

My vision swam. The edges of the room went blurry. I could hear the cards, the click of chips, the faint buzz of the fridge, but it all sounded a hundred miles away.

Suddenly, I was back on the deck that night. Ty, red-faced and yelling. The cold wind. The sound of glass breaking. The muffled scream. And then my father’s fist, wild and heavy, connecting with my eye. Ty on the ground, blood pooling on the concrete. The rush of the creek, swallowing everything.

I blinked, sweat prickling my forehead. The room went silent.

In front of me, Damon’s face wavered, then resolved into something almost—almost—sympathetic.

I couldn’t speak. My throat was tight, and my hands were shaking so bad I could barely hold the cards.

Walker reached over, clapping my back, too hard. “Hey. You good?”

I nodded, but it was a lie.

I needed air. I stood up, mumbled something about needing the bathroom, and made my way down the hall. My hands didn’t stop shaking.

In the hallway mirror, I didn’t recognize myself. I looked like my father.

For the first time since I’d been back, I wished I’d stayed gone.

I pressed my palms against the sink, stared into the glass, and let the memory crash over me, full and raw and real.

Blood on my hands.

The rush of the creek.

Ty’s voice, forever gone.

Outside, the guys kept playing.

Inside, I was drowning.

I gripped the sink until my knuckles went white.

The cold tap was stiff, and the water that finally burst out was icy, numbing my hands and face.

For a while, I just stared at the blur of my own reflection.

I tried to find my father’s features in there, tried to trace the outline of the monster I never wanted to see in myself.

But the mirror only showed a tired, hollow-eyed man.

When I came back out, the game had ground to a halt. Walker sat slumped on the arm of the couch, Mason was picking at the label on his beer, and Gray was watching the hallway like he’d been counting the seconds since I’d left. Damon didn’t look up; his gaze was fixed on the fireplace, jaw set.

I hovered at the edge of the room, caught between wanting to bolt and not wanting to give Damon the satisfaction. My mouth was dry and my chest felt like it was being squeezed in a vise.

Gray beckoned me over. “You all right, Ford?”

I shrugged, no use pretending. I tried to sit back at the table, but the chair felt foreign, too small. I ended up perched on the very edge, hands in my lap.

Nobody said anything for a long minute.

Walker finally broke the silence. “You want to bail, man? We can ditch this whole thing, I’ll take you home.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m fine. Just needed a second.”

Mason slid me a beer, his hand gentle. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

I took the bottle, but didn’t drink. “I do want to.”

Gray leaned forward, elbows on the table, voice low. “You sure, Ford? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

I tried to laugh, but it came out twisted. “Feels like I am one, most days.” My voice was rough. “You ever have a night that you just can’t remember, no matter how hard you try? Like it’s all there, but every time you look at it, it slips away.”

Mason was the first to answer. “Yeah. After Abby’s mom left, there were weeks I don’t even remember. I thought it was just me being weak.”

Walker nodded, serious for once. “You ain’t alone.”

Gray looked at me, and for the first time, his face wasn’t skeptical or reserved. It was scared, but also open, waiting.

I said, “I know I didn’t kill Ty. I know it in my bones. But I don’t remember what happened. Not all of it.”

The room went still.

Damon’s head jerked up. His eyes weren’t angry now. They were searching, desperate. “You don’t remember?”

I shook my head. “I remember him on the deck, yelling at me. He followed me home that night, after the fight at the party. I remember the fight, the way he shoved me. But I don’t remember how he came to be at my house.

He was just there, yelling. Then my dad was there, and he was yelling, too.

I remember my dad’s fist slamming against my eye socket.

I remember the creek, the truck on fire, and then nothing. Just—gone.”

Gray’s voice was soft, but steady. “It’s your dad, isn’t it?”

“When I woke up in the morning, my dad screamed at me to get the hell out. Said Ty drove off and killed himself in a ditch but no one would believe I didn’t have something to do with it because of earlier that night. I was so scared. So scared of that man.”

“He forced you to leave?”

I nodded, my throat closing up. “I always thought maybe—maybe he did it. But I couldn’t remember any details to prove it.

I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain how terrified he made me as a kid.

How beaten down I was for years. He told me to leave, but I took off because it finally meant I was free of him. ”

Nobody moved. Even the fire was quiet.

Walker was the one who broke the silence. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

I shrugged. “Would you have believed me?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

Mason rubbed his forehead, like he was trying to massage the right words out. “Ford, your dad was an asshole, but I never knew he was violent.”

I barked a laugh. “You didn’t live with him.”

Gray’s eyes flashed. “I knew he hit you.”

That surprised everyone, even me.

Gray kept going. “I saw it once. On the ranch. You were twelve. He backhanded you so hard you hit the barn wall. I wanted to tell my Mom, but you begged me not to. Said it’d just make it worse.”

“I don’t even remember that.”

Gray’s hands were shaking. “I should have done something. I should have told someone.”

He was talking to me, but the words were for himself. I could hear the years of regret in every syllable.

Walker leaned forward. “Trauma and abuse can lead to memory loss. You’re not going crazy, Ford.”

Damon didn’t say anything for a long time.

Then he stood up, walked to the window, and stared out into the dark.

“I wanted to blame someone,” he said, voice thick.

“Ty was my friend. He was a pain in the ass, but he didn’t deserve what happened.

And you were my best friend. You left without a word and I thought it was because you didn’t care.

I thought—if it was you, at least I could hate you.

If it was just an accident, or a fight, or whatever, I could live with that. But nobody ever gave me the truth.”

I tried to swallow, but my throat was too tight. “I’m sorry.”

He turned around. The hate was gone from his eyes. It was replaced by something heavier, something closer to grief. “I’m sorry, too.”

We sat there, the five of us, with nothing but the sound of the fire and the distant howl of a coyote.

Mason reached over and gripped my shoulder. “You’re not your old man. You never were.”

Walker nodded. “We got your back, Ford. Always.”

Gray still looked guilt-ridden. I slapped him on the back.

The cards were still scattered across the table, but nobody bothered to pick them up.

Instead, we sat together, the old wounds open but not bleeding, letting the warmth of the fire—and maybe each other—do what it could.