Page 6 of Secrets of the Past (Secrets of Mustang Island #3)

T ripp Masterson stared at the monitor long after everyone else in the office had gone home. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, motionless, his body present but his mind anchored twenty years in the past.

The past, it seemed, had just come roaring back with emerald eyes and black-as-night hair, wrapped in courtroom steel.

Nicole Reyes.

He hadn’t expected to see her again, especially not as opposing counsel in the biggest murder trial this town had seen in a decade.

And now, everything he’d buried, everything he thought he'd moved past, was clawing to the surface with a vengeance.

The hurt.

The rage.

The love.

The truth, whatever it was, had never been told.

He swallowed hard and finally typed her name: Paige McLane.

She was the only one who’d known about the elopement that night. The only one who might still have the missing piece of the story. If anyone remembered the truth about that night, before the lies, the annulment, and the wreckage, it would be Paige.

To hell with legal databases. He wasn’t looking for a criminal record, just a lifeline.

The firm’s system spat out a location: Fort Collins, Colorado. No criminal charges. Just an address, and, luckily, a still-active number.

He dialed.

One ring.

Two.

“This is Paige.”

He closed his eyes, and for a second, the years fell away. Her voice still had the same easy warmth it always did. Sarcasm tucked under sincerity.

“Are you still as beautiful as you were twenty years ago?”

Silence.

“Who is this?”

He chuckled. “You don’t recognize my voice? I’m offended.”

Another pause.

“Tripp?”

“It’s me, darling, with a lot of time and baggage etched on my face,” he said, thinking the last time he’d seen her, they had all been so young – high school graduation. “Older, grayer, but still reasonably charming.”

She let out a low, disbelieving laugh. “Wow. Tripp Masterson. Who died?”

“No one. Not yet.”

“You married?”

“Divorced,” he said. “How about you?”

“Nope. I’m still happily single. I love my life here in Colorado,” she said. “Though I may come home soon. Where are you living?”

After years in Dallas, he’d come home only after his father’s death.

It wasn’t the way he’d imagined returning, but someone had to keep the family law firm afloat, and his mother had made it clear she expected it to be him.

Still, nothing had prepared him for Nicole.

Seeing her again had been the one thing he hadn’t planned for.

“After my father passed, I moved back to the island, and I’m running the law firm now,” he said, knowing that as angry as he’d been at his father for the annulment, he still missed him.

“Any kids?” she asked.

“Nope,” he said. “No, my second marriage didn’t last long enough to have kids.”

Come to think of it, neither of his marriages lasted long.

There was silence on the phone. “It’s great to hear your voice, but it must be serious for you to call me out of the blue like this. You’ve had my number for twenty years.”

“I’ve had a lot of things for twenty years. Regret. Rage. Confusion,” he said with a sigh. “I saw Nicole today.”

She sobered. “Nicole?”

“Nicole.”

Another pause, longer this time.

“You saw her?”

“We’re opposing counsel in a murder trial,” he said.

That got a full-throated laugh out of her. “You’re kidding. The two of you fighting in court after all this time. It’s like the universe is saying you have unfinished business between the two of you. And that must be the reason for your call.”

“I need answers. Answers from twenty years ago.”

“It’s taken you twenty years to call and ask me what happened that night. Twenty fucking years. I kept waiting for your call to ask me what happened, but nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

He’d tried to reach her, but stranded in a foreign country without his phone, it was impossible. By the time he made it back, the damage was done. The marriage was over, the relationship shattered—and all he could do was gather the jagged pieces of his life and force himself to keep moving.

“What can I say? I was young, stupid, and so in love with Nicole that I couldn’t believe she ended our marriage before it even had a chance to begin. I went from Europe to college. It took me months to get over her, and I think I’ve hated her for the last twenty years.”

“You two were so in love. I had such high hopes for you,” she said. “She told me that you broke it off. Did you?”

“No, she said the same thing to me outside of the courtroom.” He smiled faintly. “Today was surreal. But also... maddening. She thinks I abandoned her. That I walked away. She brought up some email, one I supposedly sent. I never did.”

Silence.

He pressed his palm to his eyes. “I thought she changed her mind. I thought she... I don’t know. Regretted marrying me. She emailed me saying it was a mistake. And then, nothing. She ghosted me. Never answered my calls. Never wrote. Nothing.”

“She told me the same thing,” Paige said softly. “That you broke it off with her. That you wanted your freedom. That your parents pressured you and you went along with it.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“I know,” Paige whispered. “At least, I suspected something wasn’t right. But, what good is digging up all of this now?”

Tripp sat back, heart pounding. “I need closure. To understand what happened so I don’t repeat the same mistake. Tell me. Please. What do you remember?”

She was quiet for a long moment.

“My mom... she figured it out. She always had a sixth sense when something was going on. You two were too lovesick to hide anything, especially from our mothers.”

The last night, at the party, he’d seen Paige’s mother watching them. If he had to do it over again, he’d be much better at sneaking off.

“I didn’t tell you where we were going.”

“I didn’t need to know the address.” There was a heavy sigh.

“My mother insisted I tell your mother what you and Nicole were doing. Somehow my mother figured out that something was up. So about an hour after you left, I had to tell your mother and father where the two of you had gone. Thank goodness you didn’t tell me the name of the chapel, or they would have put toothpicks under my nails to get me to talk.

I didn’t dare try to reach you, because they were watching me very carefully.

My mother had eyes like an eagle hawk in the front and back of her head. ”

Reaching up, he rubbed his temple, feeling his headache from what she was telling him. So his parents had known they were eloping and had been unable to stop them. “What about Nicole’s parents? Were they there?”

“No, but your mother was looking up their address. I think she thought they were in on the wedding. That they had a reception planned or something, so she wanted to go and stop the partying.”

Nicole’s parents were rather sedate and would have been home watching television or in bed due to how early her father rose each morning.

“That’s all I know. I don’t know what happened after your parents left the country club in such a ditter. Your mother was crying,” she said. “And your father just kept shaking his head.”

The memories swam before his eyes, and he closed them against the pain. “It was a beautiful ceremony. We told the preacher she was pregnant, and he married us right away. Afterward, we went to the Salt Bay Inn and spent the night.”

The vision of her long, dark hair curling down her back, the satin white nightgown clinging to her curves, had him almost moaning. They’d been so in love, and that night, he almost wished they had created a baby. At least then, maybe they would still be together.

“What happened when you told your parents?”

He ran a hand over his face. “They ambushed me. Bags packed. Private jet waiting. I didn’t even have time to grab my phone charger.”

“I never saw Nicole again after that night,” Paige said. “She vanished. A week later, I heard she was already in Austin for early registration. I assumed you’d worked it out privately. But then... nothing. I heard rumors about an annulment, but no one ever talked about it.”

Her parents had shipped her off early too. But why? What excuse had they given? Deep down, he suspected it wasn’t about her at all; it was about him. About making sure their precious daughter never wasted another second on the boy they thought wasn’t good enough.

“I didn’t work anything out,” Tripp said, voice thick with emotion. “They took me to Europe and cut off my world. When we got back, Dad handed me the annulment papers and said Nicole had already signed. I didn’t question it. I was too angry, too hurt.”

“Did you call her?”

God, how he’d called her. Over and over, but she never picked up.

Had her mother blocked his number? Surely, someone could have told her he was trying.

Yet when he lost his phone, every contact vanished—and with it, any chance of reaching the people who might have bridged the gap between them.

“I tried. Dozens of messages. No response.”

“She said you never called.”

That wasn’t true. And the thought of her carrying that lie in her heart—believing it of him—shattered him, breaking something so deep inside he wasn’t sure it could ever be put back together.

“I know. Which makes me wonder... did she even get my messages? Or was someone intercepting everything?”

Paige didn’t speak right away. Then she said, “You think someone faked the emails?”

“Don’t you?”

“Your parents or hers,” she said flatly. “Hell, maybe both. We were all telling her to wait. Telling her that if it was meant to be, it would survive a few months apart. Maybe someone thought they were helping her.”

“Helping?” Tripp spat. “By burning down everything we were building?”

“She was seventeen, Tripp.”

“And I was eighteen. And we were in love.”

And everyone and everything had been against them. It had felt like the whole world was against them, every voice, every circumstance, every force conspiring to pull them apart.

Paige’s voice softened. “I believe you. I always did.”