Page 101 of Keeping Kaitlyn

Unsure of where this is all going, I open the driver’s side door and follow suit. As soon as I’m in and the door is shut, I turn in my seat to look at her. “Abbey, what?—”

“Brock is hellbent on getting this ranch,” Abbey tells me, her tone low and rushed like she’s afraid someone might hear her. “When you left, he—” Shaking her head, she looks out the windshield at the house. “he threatened to tell everyone that he caught you and Damien together, up at Northpoint. That you two were having an affair.” Flicking a quick, worried glance in my direction to make sure I’m listening, she returns her gaze to the house and it dawns on me that she’s waiting for something. “According to his story, when he found out, he told you to choose—him or Damien—and that you chose him. You asked Damien to meet you so you could tell him it was over and you just… disappeared.” Her eyes, still trained on the backdoor, fill with tears. “He was going to tell people that Damien must’ve done something to you. That he… hurt you.”

She means kill.

Brock threatened to tell everyone that Damien killed me and got rid of my body somehow unless Abbey agreed to marry him and with me gone, there would be no one to prove otherwise.

“You know this town, Kaity—the people in it. How they are...” Lifting a trembling hand, she brushes tears off her cheeks. “He wouldn’t leave. No matter how much I asked him—begged him to—Damien wouldn’t leave. I told Dad that Damien gave you away when you married Went.” Giving her head a miserable shake, she looks at me, but only for a second before she looks away. “I got him fired so he’d be forced out of the valley. I did it to protect him because he was too stubborn to do it himself.”

“Dad knew the truth,” I remind her, brain scrambling to make sense of everything she’s telling me. The mess I unwittingly made when I left with Went. “He knew. He came to see me in Helena. He?—”

“He used the excuse that he’d signed an NDA as the reason he wouldn’t tell the truth about where you were but I think?—”

Before she can finish, the back door flies open to reveal Brock, standing in its opening. When he spots us sitting in our mother’s car, his eyes narrow down to a murderous glare.

“Stay in the car, Kaity,” Abbey says quietly without looking away from her husband. “If you get out and start a fight, it’ll only make things harder for us.” Reaching for my hand, she gives it a quick, hard squeeze. “I love you.”

Before I can argue with her or try to stop her, Abbey opens her car door and steps out before slamming it closed behind her. Sitting in the car, I wrap my hands around the steering wheel in an effort to keep myself in my seat while I watch Brock snatch my sister by the arm and drag her to him, the second she was close enough to grab. Getting in her face, he says something I can’t hear. Giving her rough shake, he lifts his glare to stab it at me through the windshield before dragging Abbey into the house and disappearing.

FIFTY-SEVEN

WENTWORTH

We’re walking backto the house when the screen door bangs open. A few seconds later, I watch Brock stalk his way across the porch, Kait’s little sister in tow, his arm clamped around her bicep while he led her to the truck.

“Don’t.” Hillary places a hand on my arm like she can read my mind. “Intervening only makes it worse.”

I make an ugly sound in the back of my throat while I watch Brock open Abbey’s door and practically throw her into the cab of his truck. “Not the way I do it.”

Clucking her tongue at me, Hillary runs a hand over her grandson’s head. “Looks like your ride’s leaving,” she says, her tone deceptively light. “Best catch up before you miss it.”

The boy hesitates for a moment, the look on his face saying plainly that he doesn’t want to leave before he looks up at me. “If I ask my dad and he says it’s okay, can I come back tomorrow and play with your dog?”

Even though I have no idea where I’ll be tomorrow or if Kait and I will even be here, I nod. “I think he’d be mad if you didn’t.”

The boy flashes Mook a quick smile before he takes off for the truck. Seconds later, he’s inside it and Brock is speeding away from the house, dust and gravel flying through the air.

“I best get in the house and see what happened,” Hillary says before reaching up to pat me on my arm, as high as she can reach. “Thanks for walking with me.”

As soon as she starts back to the house, I pull out my phone. Noticing my brother still hasn’t texted me back, I send Kait a message.

Me: Where are you? What happened? Are you okay?

Relief floods through me when she texts me back almost immediately.

Kait: Barn

Shoving my phone back in my pocket, I cover the ground between the house and the barn at a dead run, suddenly desperate to make sure she’s okay. Throwing the door open, I’m immediately enveloped by the smells of fresh hay and horse. Looking down the length of the building, I see a dozen stalls. One of them is open.

“Kait?”

“Down here,” she answers me, even as I’m moving toward the open stall. Stopping in the wedge of it, heart hammering in my chest, I find Kait standing in the stall, her arms wrapped around Two-tone’s neck. Her face buried in his mane while he nickers and nibbles at her hair, his ears pricked forward.

“Kait…” Needing to touch her to make sure she’s okay, I step into the stall to run a hand down her back. “What happened?”

Lifting her head from Two-tone’s neck, she turns to look at me with tear-stained cheeks. “He hurts her.” Her voice breaks when she says it. “I know he hurt her.”

Pulling her into my arms, I hold her while she cries. Something happened. I know something happened but now isthe wrong time to ask. Arms wrapped around her, I console her while Two-tone nuzzles her cheek. “It’s going to be okay, Sunshine.” I have no idea if that’s true but I say it anyway. “Whatever happened, we’ll?—”

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