Page 119 of Wildflowers & Whiskey

“You’re not my father.” I throw it out there to see what he does with it.

“No,” he says after a moment. “Not by blood.”

I knew that. But hearing him say it out loud, hearing him confirm it, hits differently. The truth sits there between us now, nowhere left to hide in the empty office.

I lean back in my chair. Cross my arms. Keep my face as steady as I can manage.

“Who is he?”

I want to know, at least I think I do.

Wade is quiet for long enough that I look up from the desk. He's turning his hat again, slower now. He’s moving like a man choosing his words carefully because he knows how much damage the wrong ones can do.

“His name is Gino Martinez,” he says. “He was the guy I told you about.”

The air goes out of the room.

Gino Martinez.

The name hits me like a punch to the throat.

Of course it’s him.

Couldn't be someone decent. Couldn't be a mistake made with a good man who just wasn't the right fit. It's him. The man who handed my mother her first hit. The starting point of every single bad thing.

Maybe that's why everything keeps going wrong for me. Maybe it's just in the blood.

“Colt.”

Wade's voice pulls me back. I realise I've been staring at nothing for too long.

“Did you always know?” I ask.

“Yes.” No hesitation from him. “Your mom was pregnant when I got back from tour. The timing didn’t make sense for you to be mine.”

I look at him properly then. “Why didn't you leave?”

Wade moves toward me, taking a seat across from me. He leans forward slowly, resting both forearms on the desk, and for a moment, he sits with the question like he's turning it over, making sure the answer that comes out is the real one.

“Because you needed someone,” he says. “And so did your mom. She needed someone to stay, not someone walking out the door.” He pauses briefly, a slight tug on his lips forming something that could resemble a smile. “And when I held you in my arms for the first time…” He stops. Shakes his head once, a short quiet movement. “There wasn't a single thing I wouldn't have done for you after that. Didn't matter what came before. Didn't matter whose blood it was. You were mine.”

I scoff, dropping my head low. The irony of it is almost funny. The man who stayed, who chose me before I could choose anything, who built a floor underneath my feet for years while I was too busy resenting him to notice. Somehow, the whole thing still ended up here, in this office, with this much broken between us.

“I know how that sounds,” he says quietly. “Given everything.”

I can’t bring myself to answer him. Not right now, because anything I want to say will simply add more fuel to this bonfire. Wade doesn’t rush to fill the silence, which makes me feel worse.

“I spent a long time,” he starts, and his voice is rawer now. “I spent a long time doing what I thought was right. Making sure everyone had what they needed, and at one point that’s all my life became, looking after everyone else to the point I stopped letting myself want anything. Stopped letting myself have anything.” He shakes his head slowly. “I told myself that was just how it had to be. That some things weren't for me.”

I can see the regret forming across his face. “I should’ve told you about everything. You deserved that. And maybe if I'd opened up sooner, we wouldn't be sitting here like this. But Colt—about the Maeve thing…”

Every muscle in my body locks. I wasn't ready for her name. I don't think I'll ever be fully ready for her name, but especially not right now, in this room, with all this still raw.

“I couldn't talk myself out of it the way I had with everything else,” he says quietly. “Not this time. I tried. I want you to know that. I talked myself out of it more times than I can count. Because I knew. I knew what it could cost.”

He shakes his head once, looking frustrated with himself. “But for the first time in a long while, I felt like someone actually saw me. Not the role I was playing. Just… me.”

His eyes lift again.