I’d intended to talk him into going to Florida and now we were somehow talking about sex. This wasn’t exactly how I meant for it to happen. I wanted to convince him to live his dream. We could still be together, though it would be hard on both of us. Part of me, a part I wasn’t very proud of, thought that sex would bind him to me, keep him from going off and realizing that I wasn’t the one for him. Then there was that other small voice in my head that said I wanted him to be my first and there was no reason to keep waiting. But the biggest part of me wanted Asher inside of me, to have that kind of connection with him.

“I just wanted to talk at Hillview. It seemed secluded and the stars there are beautiful.”

“When have you seen the stars at Hillview Peak?” he asked with a scowl that made me laugh.

“I snuck up there with Scarlet when we were thirteen to see if we could spy anyone having sex . . . mostly it was curiosity.”

Asher seemed relieved. “What? Scarlet wasn’t having sex at thirteen?”

“Not yet,” I replied, laughing. There was no reason to defend my best friend. She’d been boy crazy since ten. And it was exactly one month after she turned fourteen that she happily lost her virginity.

“I don’t want anyone seeing us going there. They’ll talk,” Asher said.

“You’ve been there many times. It won’t be a big deal.”

He reached down and laced his fingers through mine. “You’re a big deal. My big deal. And I don’t want anyone thinking I’m screwing you in my damn pickup truck. Especially at Hillview Peak.”

Asher rarely cursed around me. The fact he did it now only made his words sweeter. He was protecting me. Asher cherished what he had. All the things my momma said I was supposed to expect from a guy and should never settle for any less. Asher would always be more. More than any guy could ever be.

Asher Sutton

“YOU BETTER EAT them biscuits. I didn’t get up and fix them for you to just look at them,” Momma said, as she stared at my plate and the food I’d barely touched. My appetite was gone. Vanished.

“Yes, Momma,” I replied before I forced a bite into my mouth and chewed.

Steel had hurried up, finished his breakfast, then left. Didn’t even look me in the eye, not once. That was good. He needed to keep his distance until I was able to calm down.

“Can I have another?” Dallas asked like a damn five-year-old.

“Go get it yourself! She’s not your waitress!” I snapped at him angrily.

His eyes got big as he stood up with his plate and headed to the stove.

“Okay, what’s got you all tied up in knots? You weren’t here this morning and Bray was out looking for you while the rest of them tried to distract me. I raised every one of you. I know when you don’t come home at night and I know when Dallas is trying to charm me so that someone else can get away with something.”

Dallas smirked as he sat down with another plate of biscuits smothered in tomato gravy. “Figures,” he laughed.

I refused to tell Momma what was wrong. There was no reason for her to suffer that kind of pain right now. She had good memories of my dad and it needed to stay that way. Telling her wouldn’t make it any better. Hurting her for no reason was unnecessary.

“I’m adjusting to being home again. Steel broke it off with Dixie and I’m not gonna lie, I’m glad. Dixie needs to move on and not with one of my brothers.”

I hoped my voice didn’t betray me. Damn, it sounded like it did.

Momma cocked an eyebrow and sat down across from me with a cup of coffee in her hand. “I call BS,” she just said. She sipped her coffee and studied me. “BS, you hear me. I don’t buy it,” making her point now more aggressively.

“Momma, let’s just leave him alone,” Bray said. He was the only one brave enough to say something like that to Momma. Except for me, and I wasn’t speaking.

Momma turned to glare down the table at Bray who was now looking like a little boy with his hand in the cookie jar. I would’ve laughed, if I wasn’t so fucked up. Dallas and Brent both snickered. They knew what was coming next.

“I don’t recall asking you what to do. I carried him for nine months and through ten hours of labor. Then I cleaned his nasty butt, nursed him when he was sick, held his hand while he got stitches, and let him puke all over me whenever he got food poisoning. So do not tell me what I can and can’t do. If and when I want to know about one of my boys, I will ask and get an answer. And you might be next, so shut your mouth and eat your breakfast. You’re in my house.”

Bray dropped his head and replied meekly, “Yes, ma’am.”

Momma swung her attention back to me. “Now, last time I checked, you kicked that sweet Dixie Monroe to the curb, without even a backwards glance. Wouldn’t say a word or look at her. I was worried about you getting too serious. You were young, so I didn’t push it. But three years have passed and when you should be attached to some girl you’ve met at college by now, you’re back here still looking heartbroken. Ain’t right. Don’t make sense to me. When a man looks like you, he has women beating down his door. But you’re alone. Explain that to me! It has to be you pushing them away. Steel loves that girl. He’s bought her a ring God knows he can’t afford, and now he’s broken up with her two days after you get home. I smell shit. S.H.I.T.”

I glanced down the table at Bray, but he was eating and not looking our way. Momma had put him in his place. Brent was watching us with worry in his eyes. He knew I couldn’t tell Momma the truth. They all did, but not one of them was trying to help me out. Suddenly, they were all mute.

“Maybe, he didn’t love her enough. Enough to fight for her and make sure she was protected from everything that could hurt her. Maybe, he wouldn’t sacrifice his happiness for hers. Maybe . . .” I stopped and stood up. “Momma, I love you, but I can’t talk about this. Not right now,” I said, leaving my plate on the table and heading for the door. If Steel could run out, so could I. Facing Momma right now wasn’t the best idea.

“You found them letters . . . now, didn’t you?” Momma’s words stopped me as my hand touched the screen. I froze. The letters. If she knew about the letters, then she knew . . .

What the fuck?

Turning around, I looked at her and saw the sadness in her eyes. “What letters?” I needed her to spell it out. If she was referring to the letters I found, then she shouldn’t have allowed Steel or me anywhere near Dixie Monroe in the first place.

“The letters from that woman to your daddy. I didn’t know where he hid them. But three years ago, you found them, didn’t you?” She nodded as if I’d confirmed this. “I wondered once back then when you looked so miserable, but then I thought, no, surely not. If you found something like that, you’d ask me about it, but you never did, so I figured it was something else. Now I see I made a grave mistake.”

I stared at my mother. She knew. But she . . .”Why would you let us, let me be with Dixie that way if you knew?” I was trying to grasp the fact that my mother knowingly had allowed Steel and myself to commit incest. The fucking world that I knew was warping before me.

Momma stood up and shook her head. “I’d have never let such a thing happen. That girl ain’t your daddy’s child. Luke Monroe has a paternity test that proves Dixie is his. Millie Monroe was the most beautiful woman in the county and probably the state, too. She could seduce a man like nothing I’d ever seen, but that woman, she was insane. Mentally screwed up, I tell you. She set her sight on your daddy and that meant she eventually got him. Your daddy was a man, that’s the only excuse I got for him back then and now. I forgave him a long time ago. Understand this, he never stopped trying to make it up to me. He did love me, he just let temptation get the best of him. Not the first and definitely not the last man to do that.”