Page 86 of Wilde Hearts

“Yes,” Colt replied.

Lynn drew in a shaky breath. “Why is it that I think you’re about to tell us something terrible?”

Colt rubbed the back of his neck before finally speaking. “Grady had something called retinitis pigmentosa. It sounds like it starts with trouble seeing at night and then your vision becomes decreased until you’re seeing through a pinhole, and then eventually…”

His voice faded.

“You go blind,” Jacob whispered. When Colt and I looked at him in surprise, he sighed. “My great-grandfather had the same thing. Although, I don’t know if they knew what it was back then. He could see when he was younger, he used to tell us, but then his vision grew worse and worse. He was completely blind by the time he was forty-six.”

“It sounds like it’s a pretty rare genetic eye disorder,” I added softly.

Lynn had taken the journal from Colt, and it was clear she’d turned to the very last few entries. She looked up, tears in her eyes. “That little bitch left him?”

“Thank you!” I said, throwing up my hands and letting them slap down on my thighs. “I said the same thing!”

Jacob leaned toward his wife, reading what Lynn had just read. Then he looked up at Colt. “It wasn’t my fault?” He seemed shocked. “It wasn’t my fault…”

Colt reached for his father’s hand. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, Dad.”

I sat silently as Jacob buried his face in his hands and cried. Colt moved to the other side of him on the sofa, and all three of them embraced one another.

It was such a personal and private moment, I felt as if I was intruding. I slowly made my way out of the living room and to the kitchen, where I quickly got to work on making tea and something to snack on. Anything to keep my mind busy.

All while holding in my own tears over ten long years of everyone feeling like they were to blame somehow and recalling all the loss we’d each endured.

Colt

A few days had passed since Ensley and I had cleaned out Grady’s room. The box of his things had been stored in the attic, along with his journal and the medical papers. My mother had gone into Grady’s room and decided all the furniture should be donated to the orphanage in town, which gladly accepted everything. A new bed, side table and dresser, as well as a desk, had been ordered for the room.

I could already see a certain lightness to my mother. In all of us, really. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. We’d gotten the answers we’d needed for ten years, though there was also the pain of knowing Grady hadn’t even given us a chance to help him deal with his diagnosis.

“What do you have planned for your second first date?”

I glanced up and saw Gatlin leaning against the doorjamb of my office in the barn, black cowboy hat shadowing his eyes as he smiled at me.

Standing, I held out my hand. “Gatlin, good to see you.”

He pushed off the jamb and reached for my hand. “Good to see you, too.”

“Honestly, it’s been a crazy few days; I haven’t had time to plan anything.”

He raised his brows.

“Are you here to help me?”

Gatlin just laughed.

I sat on the edge of my desk. “Let me guess. Ensley sent you.”

He pointed to his nose. “I’ve been sent on a very important mission to ask why in the hell you haven’t planned anything yet.”

It was my turn to laugh. “I sure have missed your sister.”

“You say that now.”

I let out a long breath. “I heard all about Caden’s first date with Lilibeth, and I’m not gonna lie, I’m not sure I can top that.”

Gatlin sat in the chair in front of my desk and removed his hat. Then proceeded to stare at me for at least two minutes.