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13

PORTER

“ C an we talk?” Maverick asked as we walked away from the barn where Cici watched over Mesa King. “About the meeting.”

I nodded, leading him toward the fence line, where we could speak privately. The kid’s hands trembled as he gripped his cane, whether from withdrawal or emotion, I couldn’t tell.

The setting sun cast long shadows across the snow-covered ground, reminding me of the days that had passed since I arrived at Morris Ranch. Each one felt like walking a tightrope between truth and lies.

“How did you do it?” he finally asked. “Get sober?”

“One day at a time.” The familiar AA mantra felt hollow, given the secrets I carried. “Some days are harder than others.”

“How long?”

“Since Christmas.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

Maverick’s head snapped up. “Christmas? But the accident—” He stopped, confusion clear on his face. “What happened that night? What made you drink again?”

How could I explain that I hadn’t been drinking that night at all? That the story he believed—the one I’d let him believe—was a lie meant to protect him from his own actions?

The weight of it was suffocating, but all I could do was pray I was doing the right thing by Maverick and that, if Cici ever discovered the truth, she’d understand why I’d more than lied about what had really happened. Not only had I broken the law, but I’d begged my closest friend to go along with it, knowing he’d lose his job if anyone figured it out.

The memory of that old night in January surfaced unbidden too often. I’d been seventeen days sober, sitting across from Kaleb at our usual booth in the back of Annie’s Diner, both drinking coffee, not whiskey.

The sheriff of Gunnison County became my AA sponsor on Christmas Eve, when he pulled me over and gave me a choice—get sober or go to jail. That night, I’d chosen to walk the straight and narrow. He let me sleep it off on his couch, hauled my ass to a meeting the next day, and saved my life.

Almost one month later, Kaleb had just finished his shift, still in uniform, while I was coming from a late meeting with a potential investor for the Roaring Fork.

“You look better,” he’d said, dumping sugar into his coffee.

I remembered nodding, feeling proud of myself, but more, hopeful about the future. The irony of those thoughts would haunt me later.

It was nearly midnight when I headed home, taking the back roads out of habit—the same roads I’d driven drunk so many times before getting sober. Only this time, I was clear-headed when the headlights appeared around the bend, swerving into my lane.

Everything had happened fast after that. The impact. The sound of metal crushing metal. The airbag deploying with enough force to knock me senseless for a few seconds. When my vision cleared, I could smell gasoline.

My training kicked in—check yourself first. Nothing broken. Blood from a cut on my forehead, but my neck and back felt okay. I forced my door open and stumbled out, already reaching for my phone. Then I saw the other truck.

It had taken the worst of the impact, the front end crumpling like paper. The engine was still running, fuel was definitely leaking, and I could see someone slumped over the wheel.

Time slowed down as I made my way to the driver’s side. The door was jammed, but the window had shattered. That’s when I saw his face—just a kid, blood streaming from a gash on his forehead, and his leg bent at an angle that turned my stomach.

When the engine started making a sound I didn’t like. I had to choose—try to kill it, or get the kid out first. The decision made itself when I saw flames licking under the hood.

“Hey! Can you hear me?” I reached through the window, checking his pulse. Strong, but his breathing was shallow. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

It wasn’t easy. The angle was bad, and I had to be careful of his leg. But adrenaline is a hell of a thing. I managed to pull him through the window and drag him away from the truck, putting as much distance between us and the leaking fuel as I could.

We made it about fifty yards before my legs gave out. I lowered him to the ground just as his truck’s engine fully engulfed in flames. Holding him against my chest to keep him off the cold ground, I made two calls—first to Kaleb’s personal cell, then 9-1-1.

That’s when the kid stirred and I got my first real look at his face. My blood went cold as I recognized Maverick Morris. I’d just seen him last week, at the ranch, practicing for the state high-school finals. The kid was a natural on a bull, already making a name for himself at seventeen.

His eyes fluttered open, glazed and unfocused. That’s when I smelled it—whiskey on his breath. The same poison that had nearly killed me so many times in my life.

“Don’t…” he mumbled, trying to focus on my face. “Don’t tell Cici…was drinking…she can’t know…”

He passed out again, but the damage was done. I knew what a DUI would do to him. To the ranch. They were already struggling after losing their parents two years ago, and the legal fees alone would bankrupt them. Not to mention his bull-riding career—no sponsor would touch him with a drunk-driving conviction.

I heard sirens in the distance just as Kaleb’s truck skidded to a stop nearby. He took in the scene, his face grim.

“Porter—”

“Take my blood.” The words came out before I had fully formed the plan. “Take it now, before the ambulance gets here.”

He stared at me. “What are you saying?”

“Switch the samples.” I met his eyes, willing him to understand. “Make it look like I was drunk. I caused this. Not him.”

“Are you insane? That’s?—”

“He’s seventeen, Kaleb. His parents are dead. All he’s got is his sister. You really want to be the one to destroy what’s left of his life?”

The sirens were getting closer. Kaleb’s jaw worked as he struggled with the decision. As both a sheriff and an EMT, he was uniquely qualified to make the switch.

“Please.” I tightened my hold on the unconscious kid. “I can take the hit. I’ve been there before. But him? This will destroy everything—the ranch, his career, his relationship with his sister. Cici’s already lost too much.”

Maverick stirred again, moaning in pain. His leg was definitely broken, probably in multiple places. In the distance, his truck burst into flames.

Kaleb cursed, then grabbed his medical kit from his vehicle. “This is wrong on so many levels.”

“I know.” I held out my arm. “Do it anyway.”

The next few hours were a blur. The ambulance arriving. Maverick being rushed into surgery. Me being arrested, playing the part of the drunk driver perfectly. I had years of experience to draw from, after all.

The hardest part was Cici’s face when she saw me at the hospital. The hatred in her eyes. I wanted to tell her the truth—that her brother had made a mistake, that I was trying to protect him. But I couldn’t. Not without undoing everything that had already been set in motion.

Later, after I was released on bail, Kaleb told me Maverick had no memory of the accident. The doctors chalked it up to trauma and a severe concussion. Only three people knew the truth—me, Kaleb, and Maverick, though he might never remember it.

The weight of protecting that secret felt like carrying Morris Ranch itself.

“This secret dies with us,” Kaleb said the next day, standing in his kitchen after I got out of jail. “No one can ever know. It would destroy all of us—you, me, the kid. His whole future.”

I nodded, already feeling the heaviness of the lie settling onto my shoulders. “I know.”

What I didn’t know then was how that pressure would get heavier. How watching Cici struggle to keep the ranch afloat while hating me would tear at my soul. How seeing Maverick’s dreams of bull-riding glory die anyway, given how bad his leg was injured, would haunt my nights.

But I’d make the same choice again. Because, sometimes, the truth does more harm than good. Sometimes, the only way to protect the people you care about was to let them hate you.

And sometimes, the hardest part wasn’t keeping the secret—it was living with the consequences of your choice.

The decision I’d made in that moment to take the blame, to let everyone believe I was the drunk driver, seemed simple then. Now, it was a chain around my neck, growing heavier with each passing day.

“Porter? Did you say you’ve been sober since Christmas?”

Before I could respond with yet another lie, my phone buzzed, offering me an escape. “Sorry, I need to take this.”

The caller ID showed RodeoHouston.

“Mr. Wheaton, this is Tommy Wilson from the rodeo board,” he said when I picked up. “I’m calling about the Morris Ranch contract.”

“What about it?”

“We’ve received evidence that their stock program is compromised. I’m afraid we can’t honor the agreement.”

“What evidence?” My voice came out sharp, drawing Maverick’s attention.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss the details, but the decision is final.”

The line went dead before I could protest. Fury rose from deep in my chest—someone was systematically destroying every chance the ranch had at recovery. First, the equipment sabotage, then the fire, now this. The pattern was too deliberate to be a coincidence.

“Bad news?” Maverick asked, his earlier questions about sobriety momentarily forgotten.

“We’re out in Houston.” I didn’t elaborate, but I could see him processing what this meant for the ranch.

“Because of me?” His voice cracked. “Because of what happened that night?”

“No. Absolutely not,” I said firmly. “Someone’s feeding them false information about the stock program. We’ll fight it. I don’t know what kind of proof they have, but whatever it is has been fabricated.”

“I’m fucking cursed,” he mumbled, gripping his cane tighter.

“This has nothing to do with you, Mav.”

“You’ll never understand,” he said, hobbling toward the house.

I understood more than he’d ever know. The weight of secrets, the way guilt could consume you from the inside out—those were demons I knew intimately. There’d been plenty of times in my life when I believed I was cursed by being the real firstborn of Roscoe Wheaton.

How many times had I questioned whether taking the blame had really protected Mav or just delayed the inevitable? If he ever remembered what had really happened that night, would it destroy him? And what about Cici? What would it do to her?

“How did it go with Mav?” Cici asked when I returned to the barn.

I held up one finger when my phone buzzed again. This time, it was Decker, saying he needed to head out but would leave Steel and Jagger—both former CIA operatives—behind.

“The cameras are all operational,” Decker reported. “But, Porter, there’s something else you should know. The little footage we recovered from the old system before it was damaged had gaps. Specific gaps that coincided with the incidents.”

“Someone with access and knowledge.”

“Exactly. Be very careful who you trust.”

“Understood,” I said, ending the call after thanking him.

Who in the hell was the traitor in our midst, I asked myself again and again.

“What’s going on, Porter?” Cici asked.

“The Houston contract fell through.”

Her eyes scrunched. “Do you think it’s connected to everything else?”

“Their board says they have evidence the program has been compromised.”

Cici had been a part of the rodeo world, first as a competitor, then as a stock contractor for long enough to know exactly what that meant—one of their animals had tested positive for a banned substance.

When she bent her knees and lowered her head, I put my arm around her.

“I don’t know how much more I can take, Porter. I mean it. It’s all too much.”

“You aren’t alone anymore, Cici. I’m here. If you need to take a step back, do it.”

She turned her head and looked at me. “What are you suggesting? That I go on vacation? Lay on the beach? Forget all the trouble here. Should I go alone? Leave Mav here?—”

“Stop it. That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t. So how about you explain it to me?”

“What I mean is, lean on me as much as you need to. Yell, scream, pummel me with your fists. Take your anger, your frustration, everything you’re feeling out on me.”

Her eyes scrunched, and she was quiet so long that I thought maybe she’d let it go. I was wrong.

“Why, Porter? Why are you really here? Why are you taking all this on?”

“I told you already. I made a promise to?—”

“My dad. But that isn’t the only reason, is it? Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out?”

Bile rose in my throat. “What are you talking about?”

“The real reason you’re here.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me?”

Her eyes bored into mine. “Are you really going to make me say it?”

Thunder rumbled in the distance, promising another storm. Did she know I’d been forced to come here in order to save my family’s legacy? Had she somehow found out what really happened the night of the accident? I reached into my pocket, touching the sobriety chip that got me through times like this.

“You know what? Fuck off, Porter. Fuck the hell off. I don’t need or want your pity.”