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Ramie shrugged, fingering the whiskey bottle as if pondering another shot. “Honor, I guess. He gave his word to stay out of their lives, and he’s done his best to move forward. I know he thinks about it once in a while, but he was also a teenager facing a huge familial burden, and he did his best. Made his best choices and lives hoping his kid is happy wherever they are, whatever they are doing. Knowing they’ll probably never come looking for him.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
Her eyebrows seemed to suggest he was an idiot. “If Ginny’s parents hated Brand so much that they’d threaten rape charges, do you really think Brand’s kid grew up believing his bio dad was a good person? Or do you think he or she was told all sorts of awful things so they never bothered to come looking? Or maybe they never said anything about Brand at all and the kid grew up thinking someone else was their dad? Whatever was or wasn’t said, it’s been twenty years and no one has shown up claiming to be Brand’s child.”
Wyatt swallowed back a rush of acid, because everything she said sounded like his grandparents. Trash-talking his bio dad’s family, calling the man a terrible person, that Wyatt would only be disappointed if he ever met him. Mom refusing to say anything one way or the other. But why? Why hold a decades-long grudge against Brand Woods? It made no fucking sense.
“I don’t know,” Wyatt said, which was the gods’ honest truth. He felt like he’d been dropped into the middle of some sort of Greek tragedy and had no idea what his role was, or how to negotiate his way safely out of the narrative. He finally had confirmation that his Maybe Daddy had given up his rights to a kid twenty years ago, and he’d never sought out that child. Why? Because of an obligation to his blood family, never mind his own kid growing up without knowing his heritage.
“Sorry,” Ramie replied. “I’m not taking this out on you, I promise. I just get testy when I think about people trash-talking Brand, because I know what a good person he is. I know how big his heart is, even if a lot of folks don’t.”
“It’s okay. I know this isn’t about me at all, and I won’t tell anyone. I am stupidly good at keeping secrets. Family tradition, actually.” He eyeballed the liquor bottle but too much lubrication might spill way more than he was willing to admit to tonight. “Can I ask you a hypothetical question?”
“Go for it.”
“If your daughter showed up on your stoop and wanted to get to know you, would you talk to her?”
“I would.” A single tear left an uneven path down Ramie’s left cheek and stopped on her chin without falling. “I’d answer her questions as best I could. I’d just want to know she was safe and happy.”
“Do you think Brand would do the same if his son showed up and wanted to talk to him?”
“Yeah, I do. I think Brand would want to explain his side of things. That it wasn’t as simple as just signing away his parental rights. He was a teenager forced to make a choice, and his choice was made. Just like I made my choice with my daughter. We can’t take those decisions back, but we can attempt to explain the things that might not make sense.”
“Not a lot makes sense to a kid who’s been given away.” As soon as the words passed his lips, Wyatt regretted them. But Ramie seemed a touch drunker than him, probably fueled by her depression over tonight’s anniversary. “I hope you don’t thump me for this, but I wish your daughter a happy birthday. And I wish her birth mother a good night’s rest and the best of luck going forward. You are a terrific landlord and roommate, Ramie. Thank you for that.”
“No problem.” She offered him a watery smile, and if she really started to cry he might, too. “You’re a pretty great roommate, too, Wyatt. Thanks for listening to me ramble.”
“You’re welcome. You gave me a lot to think about.”
“Son.”
Wyatt blinked. “What?”
“You said if his son showed up. What makes you think it was a boy?”
“Just a guess. Probably me projecting, since I don’t know who my birth father is.”
“Oh, right. Man, what a fluster-cluck we are, huh?”
He chuckled at her slight mangling of the phrase. “Yeah, we’re a fluster-cluck. At least we keep things interesting, though, right?”
“Yeah, we do. Fuck, I’m tired. You want this?” She shoved the cupcake at him.
“Um, sure. Take some water to bed with you.”
“Yes, Dad.” She winked as she stood.
Wyatt sat quietly while she poured a glass of water and left the kitchen. Vanilla from the cupcake scented the air, but he couldn’t bring himself to eat the sweet treat. He was now ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that Brand Woods was his Maybe Daddy. Everything in Ramie’s story about Brand’s teenage years tracked perfectly with what little Wyatt knew about his mother’s past. She’d even known Mom’s name.
The biggest question he had now was why? Why had his grandparents forced the separation? What had the Woods family done to his own to create such a huge rift? He could call his grandparents, tell them everything he’d learned and demand answers, but he was unlikely to get them. He’d probably get a lecture about leaving the past in the past and coming home to his real family.
No, if he was going to get answers, it would be from Brand himself. Brand was the man he’d come here to find and get to know. Brand had taken a chance on an accident-prone newbie who’d lied to his face and to whom Wyatt owed the truth. But Wyatt loved his life here too much to risk blowing it to pieces if that conversation went poorly. He adored Jackson and the time they spent together, and Jackson would be furious when he found out the huge secret Wyatt had been keeping this entire time. He enjoyed his job at the ranch, despite the frequency with which he needed bandages or fielded jokes about his tetanus booster, and he didn’t want to lose it. Didn’t want to lose his friendships with Brand and Hugo and Rem.
He didn’t want to lose everything he’d built, but what chance did he have of a certain future when what he’d built was on a foundation of lies and deceit? He owed it to the people he’d come to care about, like Ramie and Jackson, to be honest with them, even if he lost everything in the process.
“T’was a foolish man who built his house upon the sand,” Wyatt said softly to the cupcake. “I can see the wave coming. I just hope it doesn’t wreck everything when it hits shore.”
Chapter Seventeen
