She doesn’t respond right away. I kiss the top of her head, hoping that I’m showing her that I love her no matter what.
There must be a good reason.
They got the evidence. In fact, they still have it, even though it’s too late to prosecute Pat Lamone.
Several moments pass. Finally, “Callie?”
“It’s not a pretty story,” she says.
“I didn’t expect that it would be. Obviously there was a good reason for you and Rory not to turn the evidence over to us.”
“He vowed to destroy us,” she says.
“We would have—”
I stop abruptly. We would have protected you. Those were the words on the tip of my tongue.
But Callie had no way of knowing this back then. She didn’t know us. She thought we owned the town. She didn’t know what we would do.
“What?” she asks.
“Never mind.” I brush my lips over her hair again. “It doesn’t matter.”
She moves away from me then, props her head up on her hand, and meets my gaze. “All of it does matter, Donny. It all matters because it’s brought us here today. Perhaps I’m not the woman you thought I was.”
“I’ve told you. I don’t resent you for things you did when you were a kid.”
“I know that. Is it yourself you’re resenting?”
I sigh. “In many ways, yes. I should have stayed. Especially after Diana was hospitalized. But no… I couldn’t wait to get back to Denver, back to my first year of law school. I never thought I’d return, Callie.”
“So you had a different life in mind for yourself. There’s no crime in that. It’s the life I want too. I want law school. A career. I just haven’t been able to get it.”
“No, you’ve stayed here to help your family. That’s the difference. I left. I should have been here. Not just for Diana, but for my mother and father. For Dale. For my aunts, uncles, and cousins. The Steel family has given me so much, and what did I give back? I left as soon as I could—to follow my own dreams.”
“Donny, you can’t compare yourself to me. I stayed because I had no choice. I didn’t have the money for law school, and once I finally had it, the fire happened.”
“But so much else was going on, and it was right in front of our noses the whole time. Our parents have been lying to us. Not just to Dale and me, but to all our cousins. And I’m wondering… I’m wondering if the Steels maybe aren’t the pillars of society that we’ve been led to believe.”
Those words.
Finally I’ve said them out loud.
There’s something in our history that our parents have tried to bury.
And frankly, it scares the hell out of me.
Who are the Steels, really?
How did we become billionaires when our business is in ranching, fruit growing, and winemaking? Sure, we have investments. Lots of investments, domestically and overseas.
But the money had to come from somewhere to begin with.
“Donny, whatever is going on is not your fault.”
“I know that. But if I had stayed… If I had stayed, maybe I could have unearthed this sooner. Or at least I should have come back here after law school. But no. It was more important for me to have some powerful position in Denver. Why? I didn’t need the money. I’m set for the next five lifetimes. Why was it so important to me to leave my family?”
“It’s not such a horrible thing to want to make it on your own,” she says. “I think it’s kind of admirable.”