Page 10 of Roaring Fork Rooker (Roaring Fork Ranch #4)

JW

A fter Flynn left the library the previous afternoon, she’d sent word through Sarah that her family would have a quiet dinner in their cabin.

Alton had prepared a basket with simple foods the twins would enjoy, and I’d watched from my office window as Irish carried it along the path to Pueblo Moon.

The storm had arrived on schedule, blanketing the ranch in another eight inches of snow, creating the isolation I’d predicted.

I’d spent the evening wondering whether Flynn would return this morning or if yesterday’s revelations had been too much to process.

The shock of the family secrets, the manipulation by well-meaning adults, and the realization that her entire childhood had been shaped by decisions made before she was born—it was a lot for anyone to absorb.

But at nine-thirty, just like the day before, I heard her knock on my office door.

“Come in.”

She entered, looking determined rather than overwhelmed, which relieved me more than I’d expected.

“Good morning,” she said. “Irish is taking care of Rowan while the boys compete for who can make the best sculpture from wooden blocks. We have a few hours before he’ll need my help.”

“Shall we return to the library?”

“Please.”

“How are you feeling about everything we discussed yesterday?” I asked when we each took the same seats as the previous day.

She considered the question, hands folded in her lap. “Like I understand my family better and know them less at the same time, if that makes sense.”

“It does. There’s still a lot more to tell you.”

“I know.” She met my eyes. “I want to understand what happened after you all arrived in Colorado. How you and your mother built new lives.”

I handed Flynn a photo of the exterior of a rustic building with a simple wooden sign. “This was taken about a year after we arrived in Crested Butte.”

She studied the image. “The Goat. I’ve been in it hundreds of times, growing up. Keltie told us that Victor and Ursula were the original owners. Then they sold it to the Rice family, but bought it back last year.”

“A couple of months after we arrived in Colorado, Victor and Ursula decided to sell the original Goat in East Aurora. Pilar had no interest in running it, and their parents died years earlier.”

“That must have been hard.”

“It was their final break from the old life. But instead of mourning what was gone, Ursula and Victor decided to rebuild what they’d lost. They bought an old saloon that needed work but had good bones.

Cena gave them the money for the purchase, and what they got out of the sale of the other place covered the cost of the renovations. ”

Her expression grew thoughtful. “Weren’t you worried that would make it easier for your father to find you?”

“Like she did with Roaring Fork, Cena structured the purchase through an LLC called VMC Enterprises. If my father ever discovered its existence, he might assume it belonged to Victor alone, but he never would’ve been able to prove it unless he showed up in Colorado.”

“What if he had?”

I chuckled. “Cena kept private investigators on salary. Nothing happened that woman didn’t know about. If JD or Jimmy left home even for a few minutes, she knew where they’d gone and for how long.”

Her eyes widened. “Wow.”

“I’d say she was a control freak, but the truth is, she made our lives possible. Not just Patricia’s, but mine and my mom’s too.”

“Did you work there?”

“All three of us did. Victor handled the business side, Ursula managed the kitchen, and I did everything else—bartending, maintenance, whatever was needed. That’s when I started going by JW—John Williams—instead of Johnny Rooker. Later, I changed my name again to Javier Wyatt.”

“What about your mother?”

“Everyone knew her as Mary Marquez then.”

She set the photograph down. “And my mother? How was she adjusting?”

The question brought me back to those early days when Patricia was finding her footing as a newlywed and new mother. “She was doing well. Better than any of us had dared hope.”

“You stayed in touch?”

“Your mother sent this letter to me in the spring, about six months after she and Roscoe were married,” I said, sliding a yellowed piece of paper across to her.

Her eyes moved across the page, reading her mother’s words. “She sounds happy.”

“She was. That first year was good for them. Roscoe was patient while she adjusted to married life, Buck was thriving, and she had Irma’s support.”

“What changed?” Her voice hardened. “Because the man who raised us after she died wasn’t patient with anyone.”

“Patricia mentioned that Roscoe drank more than she was comfortable with. Not problematic yet, but enough that she noticed. She said it seemed to be his way of dealing with ranch stress.”

“Stress? I mean, I guess I can understand that. He was on his own, where my brothers have each other.”

“Even with Cena’s financial help, it was tough. Bad weather, fluctuating cattle prices, equipment failures—it all added up. Roscoe was working harder than ever to keep the place profitable.”

She folded the letter and handed it back. “What about Cena? Did she continue managing things from a distance?”

“She did. And she was good at protecting everyone involved. The official story was that Patricia had gone to live with a cousin of hers in California. Someone who needed help after a family tragedy.”

“Did people believe it?”

“Most did. Cena was known for helping family members in need, so it didn’t seem unusual. And she made it plain to my father that he shouldn’t look for Patricia.”

Her eyebrows rose. “How?”

“She told him that if he tried to find her or interfere with her new life, she’d cut him off and fire him from the job he depended on for survival. Cena could be persuasive when she needed to be.”

“But she didn’t warn him away from looking for you and your mother?”

“No. She said that if she’d forbidden him from searching for us too, he would have known for certain that we were all together. Instead, she told him it was his own fault that his wife and son had left him.”

She absorbed this. “Smart. Cruel, but smart.”

“Cena was both of those things. She cared about people, but she wasn’t above manipulation to achieve her goals.”

Next came an image showing a young woman holding a baby in front of the Roaring Fork ranch house. Even from the faded image, it was obvious that Patricia was glowing.

“This was taken the summer after Scarlett Blanche was born. They chose her middle name for Cena’s daughter, who’d died in her late teens from leukemia.”

She nodded. “I’ve never seen this picture before.” Her thumb traced the edge of the photograph. “It’s hard to reconcile this with what I remember growing up.”

“Even though it didn’t last, your mother experienced genuine joy during those years. She had two children she adored, a stable home, and a husband who was trying to do right by his family.”

“And you? How were you doing during this time?”

The question caught me off guard. For years, I’d focused on everyone else’s well-being rather than considering my own emotional state.

“I found my place. Working at the Goat gave me purpose, and being near enough to Patricia to know she was safe gave me peace. For the first time since we left East Aurora, I felt like we might make it work.”

“Did you miss your brother?”

“Honestly? No. We were twins, but completely different. My mom used to say it was that way from birth.”

“Did you ever try to contact him?”

“No. That chapter of my life was closed. It was harder for my mom. Of course she missed him, but she’d made her choice and didn’t feel she could go back. Plus, Jimmy was an adult, not a kid.”

“Still, I’m sure it was hard for her.”

“It was. Cena sent photos once in a while.”

Flynn was quiet for a moment, staring in the distance, then turned back to me. “What did Cena think about Jimmy?”

I hesitated, remembering the difficult conversations my mom had had with Cena about my brother’s character. “She wasn’t optimistic about his future. She said Jimmy had too much of our father in him—the anger, the stubbornness, the tendency toward destructive behavior.”

“She thought he’d end up that way too?”

“Worse. She predicted he’d land himself in jail, or worse.

” The words still stung, despite how true they’d proven.

“But as the years went by, I began to understand what she meant. The choices we made after leaving East Aurora defined who we became. I had Patricia and Ursula to remind me of what was important. Jimmy only had our dad.” I sighed.

“And, as you know, Cena was right. Jimmy is in prison for attempted murder.”

“He would’ve killed Sam if Cord hadn’t shot him.”

I shut my eyes. “The months when Cord was in New York were the hardest of my life. So many times I’d wanted to intervene, but I couldn’t. I was bound by the terms of the trust and by my promise to your mother.”

“I understand,” she said, but I wondered if she did or if anyone would.

“Tell me about when Scarlett got sick,” she said a few minutes later. “I know she died of leukemia, but what was that time like for my parents?”

I paused, gathering myself before reaching for a shorter letter that lay in the portfolio. “This arrived when Scarlett was about six months old,” I said, offering it to her.

She accepted the sheet, and I watched her expression shift as she read. There was fear nestled between each line—a mother’s intuition that something was wrong, even when everyone around her insisted otherwise.

“She was scared.”

“Patricia knew something wasn’t right, but Roscoe kept dismissing her concerns.

He told her growing children went through phases and Scarlett would outgrow what turned out to be symptoms.” I handed her a photograph of Scarlett looking pale and listless in her mother’s arms. “But her instincts were correct. By early spring, Scarlett had developed a fever that wouldn’t break. ”

“Is that when they got the diagnosis?”