Page 53 of Wildflowers & Whiskey

From this angle, only the lower part of his face is visible beneath the brim of his Stetson. His jaw is clenched tight; lips pressed into a hard line. I'd noticed that muscle jumping there before, usually right before he got irritated by something or someone, but now it looks locked in place. Droplets roll off his face and into his whiskey.

Without a second thought, I drop into a crouch, placing my hand on his knee and tilting my head to look up at him. I meet his gaze, looking into his glassy red-rimmed eyes.

He’s crying.

My brain can’t seem to process it. Cowboy Batman—the man built from silence, scowls and emotional unavailability—is crying.

The anger stays. It just loses some of its bite. Something else has slipped in around it now and, frankly, I could do without it. Confusion. Concern. A chest ache that feels deeply inconvenient.

Because he isn’t the man I came over here ready to tear apart anymore. He’s just a man breaking right in front of me.

And, somehow, that stupid need to understand him is still there, despite trying to ignore it.

I soften my voice, pushing the anger aside for now. I need him to talk to me.

“Wade. Please. Talk to me.”

Slowly, he lifts his chin. He reaches for the bottle of whiskey and takes a long pull straight from it. His shoulders drop as he lowers it again, a shuddering breath leaving him.

“You’re right.” His voice is raw. “Colt isn’t my son. Not biologically, anyway.”

The confirmation still hits like a punch in the gut.

I sink back, my arse hitting the deck as my legs give out beneath me. I fold them under myself, moving my hand from his knee into my lap. I wait for him to continue.

My heart hammers, but not with the anger that brought me here. That’s dulled now, replaced by the need to listen to him, understand what is going on in this family.

“But you’re wrong about me hating him.” He looks at me then, and the desperation in his eyes makes my throat tighten. “I love that boy. More than anything. I gave up everything for him. There ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for that kid, Maeve. You hear me?”

The wall he keeps around himself, the very firm impenetrable wall I’ve been crashing into since I met him, is cracking right in front of me.

“Not telling Colt…” He swallows hard and takes another swig, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the movement. “It’s my way of protecting him. Fucked up as it is.” His eyes drop to the bottle in his hand. “His mom had already left him. Chose partying, drugs… all of it over him. Over us.”

His jaw tightens again and I can see him wrestling with how much to say.

“I tried.” His voice is quieter now. “God, I tried. Offered to pay for rehab, to quit bull riding sooner and come back home. Whatever she needed to get clean. But I also told her straight—if she don’t stop, she don’t come near Colt again. Not while she was like that.”

A bitter laugh slips out of him.

“She didn’t want help. Didn’t want to give up the drugs.” His grip tightens around the bottle. “Then, I came back early from tour and found her in the barn. Shooting up with Gino Martinez.” His voice roughens. “Same bastard she’d been running with behind my back for years—Colt’s biological father.”

Shock runs through me, but every part of me knows I need to be strong and listen to him. Let him get it all out. So I don’t move, and I keep my mouth firmly shut.

“I can’t let Colt know his mother didn’t want to stay. And I sure as hell can’t let him know his real father didn’t either.” He looks up to the sky, face taut in an attempt to hold back the tears. “That boy’s got enough on him already. He don’t need that on top of it.”

My chest tightens as it dawns on me that this is more than what I thought. That Wade is, in fact, those small glimpses I kept holding onto when I convinced myself he was a good man. And now I’ve opened wounds that probably took him years to patch up, all because I couldn’t leave something alone.

But Colt still deserves to know, still deserves better.

“Okay,” I say quietly, leaning forward slightly. “I get that. I do. But Wade…” I search his face, trying to understand. “What I don’t understand is why you treat him like a stranger when you love him so much.”

He breaks a little more, tears continuing to stream down his face.

“It wasn’t always like this.”

Wade becomes distant, lost somewhere in old memories, as he tells me about Colt as a kid. Horse riding lessons. Swims in the lake. Building a treehouse together. Small moments that clearly meant everything to him.

“But then, Ruby left.” He swallows hard. “I knew he saw the fight before she took off. It was bad. The worst we ever had. He pretended to be asleep when I checked on him that night, but I saw him by his bedroom window.”