Page 49 of Wild Heart

“I know.”

Mason frowned. “Know what?”

Davey pulled the folded letter from his coat pocket, the paper worn soft at the edges. His voice dropped as he set it onthe table. “I know who I am. Who I come from. I thought it was a guy named Clark, the person in this letter.”

Mason took a step forward. “Davey...”

“It’s you.”

Mason froze.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

“You’re my father.”

The room went very still. Even the wind outside seemed to hold its breath.

“I forced her to tell me,” Davey said. “Told her I’d leave if she didn’t. That I’d walk away from this place forever.”

Mason’s hand rested on the edge of the counter. “Olivia told you?”

Davey nodded.

Mason stepped back like he’d been punched. “Jesus.”

And in that moment, the door creaked open behind them. Olivia stood in the frame, breathless, hair clinging to her damp forehead, eyes wild with what she must have already known. Her gaze swept from Davey to Mason, and the truth of what she’d hidden crashed down around them like falling branches.

Mason’s voice was gravel. “You have some explaining to do.”

She shut the door softly behind her. “I know.”

They moved to the table in silence, the three of them. A triangle of truth, years too late.

Mason didn’t sit. Not yet. He stood at the end of the table, his arms folded tight over his chest. “You should’ve told me.”

“I know,” Olivia said again, her voice breaking. “You had already left when I found out. You were drinking, fighting, spiraling. I was pregnant, alone, and scared. I thought…” Her voice cracked. “I thought you didn’t want that life. That you couldn’t handle it, not after what happened with your daughter.”

Mason looked at her, his jaw flexing.

“I didn’t expect to see you again, didn’t even know where you were,” she continued. “And by the time you came back, Davey was five. We were happy. You wanted your job back, to stay in town. You’d changed. But I didn’t know if it would last. And Davey... he took to you right away.”

“I remember,” Mason whispered, blinking fast.

“I was afraid,” Olivia said. “Afraid that if I told you, you’d leave. Or worse, that you’d stay and not be enough. That you’d disappoint him. That he’d look at you the way I looked at Clark when he left and never come back.”

At that name, Davey’s head turned sharply.

Mason looked confused. “Clark?”

“A man I loved,” Olivia said quietly. “After you. He wasn’t Davey’s father, but I wished he was. And when he walked out, I swore I wouldn’t risk anyone else disappointing him.”

Silence.

“I thought having you around as a friend, as a male figure, was enough. But I was wrong,” she added. “He needed the truth. He needed you.”

Mason finally sat, slowly, like gravity had caught up to him.

Davey stared at the grain in the wood table. “You were wrong,” he said at last. “You thought you were protecting me, but really, you were just scared. And I paid the price for that.”

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