Page 65 of Quarter Miles (Runaway 3)
Chapter Thirteen
Cash
“What about my mother?” Kat slipped her hand free from my grasp.
Where did I even start? Shit. There was a reason I hadn’t told her about this. A reason that I hadn’t told anyone in my family.
Guilt.
I’d made a choice to protect Kat, and at the time, I’d been confident in my decision. I’d done it with her best interests at heart. But year after year, doubts had crept in, making me question my actions on that day. I realized now that I’d stayed quiet not to protect Kat, but to protect myself. I didn’t want to lose her.
I hadn’t wanted to miss this chance to love her and the chance she might love me back.
Fuck, this was going to be bad. She was going to hate me for this. Hell, I kind of hated myself.
“Cash,” she warned.
“She came to the ranch,” I admitted. “Your mother.”
“What? When?”
“Five years ago.” I remembered because it was the first weekend after Kat had moved into my place—our place. I’d wanted to give Kat the chance to settle in without feeling like I was hovering, so I’d left her alone on a Sunday and gone to work.
I was in the stables, in the arena halter-breaking a colt, when a woman appeared at the fence. One look and I knew she wasn’t a guest. Her clothes were nice—jeans and a pink blouse. No-brand tennis shoes. Inexpensive clothing, not something any of our guests would have worn. And she was missing four front teeth.
Like Kat said, she was tall. I went over to the fence and she stood only a few inches shorter than my six foot two. She had Kat’s hair, dark though streaked with thick strands of gray. Her eyes were blue but not as crystal clear as Kat’s.
The resemblance didn’t register until she asked to see her daughter, Katherine Gates.
“Five years?” Kat shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She introduced herself. She told me her name was Jessica Gates and she was looking for her daughter, Katherine.” Her visit had instantly put me on guard. Rightly so. “I asked what she wanted.” I hadn’t been nice about it. I think my exact words had been, What the fuck do you want? “She said that she needed to find you. To talk to you. I told her no.”
“You what?” Kat shot off the bed, standing above me.
“I was trying to protect you. All I knew was that you’d run away from home. That you’d lived in a junkyard. You didn’t speak of your parents but it didn’t take much to put together that she wasn’t a good mother. All of us had talked about it.”
“You talked about me?” The color drained from her face. “Behind my back? Like a pity party.”
“No, it wasn’t like that. It was just . . . your story was shocking. None of us really knew what to think.”
“So yes, a pity party. That’s why you started inviting me to Friday night family dinners.”
“No. Look, it wasn’t like that. We just wanted to include you. Make sure you felt like you had a home. Is that so wrong?” And of all the staffers who’d come and gone at the ranch, none had ever fit into our circle like Kat.
“My mother.” Kat crossed her arms over her chest. “What did she say?”
“When I told her no, she begged to see you.” Jessica Gates had reached her bony fingers across the fence separating us as we’d spoken and grabbed my hand, squeezing it with more strength than I’d expected from a woman who looked like she’d lived hard.
“And you still turned her away. How could you?”
“Because she just wanted money.” The hurt that flashed across Kat’s face broke my heart. “I told her that we knew all about your childhood. That you were better off without her. And I told her that you didn’t want to see her.”
“You had no right.”
“I was trying to protect you. I wanted to see what she’d do. How honest she was in her intentions. You know what it looks like when you roll onto the property.” Like money. The lodge was enormous. The stables and barn too. The Greer Ranch and Mountain Resort was designed to impress the wealthiest people in the world.
“And?” Kat stared at me, her face twisted in rage, but the hurt was beginning to show through. Her features were beginning to crumple. Because she already knew where this was going.
