Page 10 of Colt
Betty set a plate in front of me—grilled cheese, cut into triangles the way she’d been making it since I first woke up in her house. I wasn’t hungry, but I picked up a triangle anyway and took a bite to make her stop hovering.
“Graham will be here tomorrow,” she said, settling into the chair across from me. “He’ll have answers.”
“What if I don’t want answers?” The words came out before I could stop them. “I liked my life better when I didn’t know there was a man out there who thinks I destroyed him.”
Betty was quiet for a moment. Then she reached across the table and took my hand.
“I’ve watched you build something beautiful out of nothing, Lilac. A life, a career, two wonderful boys. Nothing that man says can take that away from you.”
“He looked at me like I was a monster.” My voice cracked. “Like I’d done something unforgivable. And I don’t even know what it was.”
“That’s because you didn’t do anything.” Betty’s grip tightened. “Whatever happened seven years ago, whatever he believes, you were the victim. Graham made that clear when he brought you to me. You were hurt, Lilac. Badly. You didn’t run away from anything—you were running for your life.”
I wanted to believe her. But I’d seen the hatred in Colt’s eyes, heard the accusation in his voice.Got yourself knocked up by some prick and couldn’t face me?
He thought I’d cheated. Thought I’d stolen from him and abandoned him. Thought I’d kept his—
I stopped chewing. His. Not some other man’s.His.
“Betty.” My voice came out strangled. “You said Colt is the boys’ father.”
“Yes.”
“But he thinks they’re someone else’s. He thinks I cheated on him.”
Betty’s face went pale. “Oh, sweetheart. He doesn’t know.”
“Of course he doesn’t know!” The laugh that escaped me was wild, bordering on hysterical. “He doesn’t know anything! He thinks I walked out on him pregnant with another man’s babies, when really I was—what? What happened?”
“We don’t know exactly what happened,” Betty said carefully. “Graham will—”
“Graham will tell us I was beaten nearly to death and my husband never came looking for me.” I pushed back from thetable, the grilled cheese suddenly making me nauseous. “Seven years, Betty. I was in a coma for a month, and then I was awake, recovering, pregnant, alone. And he never came. He never eventriedto find me.”
“We don’t know that. We don’t know what he was told, what he believed—”
“He believed I was a bitch who cheated on him and ran.” The bitterness in my voice surprised me. I didn’t have memories of this man, didn’t have any reason to feel betrayed. “He gave up on me. On us. On—”
On his sons.
I couldn’t say it out loud.
Luca and Knox didn’t have a father because their father had believed a lie. Had spent seven years hating me for something I was sure I didn’t do.
And now he was here, in the same town as us, and he still didn’t know the truth.
?
That night, after the boys were asleep, I sat on the back porch and watched the stars.
I’d done this a lot in those early months after waking up. When the not-knowing became too heavy, I’d come outside and look up at the sky. It helped, somehow. The stars didn’t care about my missing past. They just kept burning, steady and ancient, indifferent to human drama.
Texas.
The word surfaced unbidden, bringing with it another flash—brief and disorienting. The same heat, the same smell of dust and motor oil. But this time there was more. A porch like thisone, older and more weathered. A man’s laugh, low and warm—and something about that laugh made my stomach flutter in a way that had nothing to do with fear. The clink of beer bottles.
“Best view in the world, Lil.”
“It’s a parking lot.”
