“Look at what happened when you did leave him. What did you do?”
She wrung her hands together and looked at me. “I didn’t come back thinking you and I would be together. Honestly, I assumed you would already be with someone. I won’t deny that I still had feelings for you, though. I did.”
“When Tim came back to town and heard someone say you and I were dating, he lost his shit.”
Saryn buried her face in her hands. “Oh, my God. This is insane.”
“He played both of y’all and took it as far as he could,” Ryan said.
“I don’t know if my father really knows about Tim, or if my mother does,” I said, “but I’m not sure you and Liliana going over there tonight is a good idea.”
Saryn stood. “If we’re going to be in a relationship, Truitt, I’m not hiding from your parents.”
I smiled. “I don’t want you to hide, but I also don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“What in the world would happen?” she asked.
Ryan coughed. “Oh, let’s see. Jealous wife meets her husband’s grandchild who is not her grandchild. Flies off the handle, goes into a drunken rage, and Liliana sees it all happening.”
“You really do know my mother,” I said with a slight chuckle.
Saryn let out a frustrated moan. “Stop it, both of you. If you ask me, I think it all needs to come out in the open. At least with your father.”
“I would like to remind you of something, as well,” Ryan said. “Truitt is actually Liliana’s uncle.”
Saryn sat back down on the sofa. She covered her mouth.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “I feel so dizzy all of a sudden.”
“Saryn, I am in no way expecting you to have Liliana call me her uncle.”
“Oh, God, Truitt, it’s not that. I don’t care that you’re possibly related to her. Actually, it makes your connection with her make more sense. Right now, I’m trying to decide if we tell my parents about this. I think they should know what they could be walking into tonight.”
“You still want to go?” I asked.
She looked at me like I was insane. “Yes. We are going and you are going to talk to your father and get this figured out. We’re not starting our future with a secret.”
I glanced over at Ryan who gave me a look that simply said, good luck, dude.
Truitt
SARYN TOLD HER parents the whole story about Tim, the affair that I still wasn’t sure really happened, and how none of us knew if my mother or even my father knew. Of course Evie concluded that my mother did know. She stated that around the time I was two she started to travel more, leaving us behind with our father.
I requested that Roger come and pick me up and used the excuse of my knee acting up. I could drive fine now and had been released to do so. It gave me a chance to get my brother caught up on everything.
He seemed just as surprised and taken aback by Tim’s accusation as I was.
“We need to talk to Dad about it,” Roger stated.
“I agree. Tonight, before Saryn and her family get there.”
He pulled up and parked in front of the large, two-story ranch house. My parents did well for themselves, but they were far from rich. My father earned more money off real estate he owned across Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Oklahoma than he did ranching. It was one reason Roger and I never really showed a desire to get into the ranching side of the family business. I enjoyed it, but I was perfectly fine having Billy, our ranch foreman, run the ranch with our father. Roger, of course, kept a close eye on everything to make sure Billy didn’t obtain too much control. Someday I might decide to take a bigger interest, but for now, my life was Imaginations Unlimited and the two woman who owned me heart and soul.
The front door opened, and our mother appeared. She was dressed in a white dress with red accents.
“Merry Christmas Eve!” she said as she held out her arms for each of us to hug her. “I’ve missed you boys.”
Roger leaned closer to me and whispered, “Looks like someone has already been hitting up the eggnog.”
I chuckled, then hugged my mother after Roger did.
“When did you get back?” I asked.
“The day before your accident, sweetheart. My goodness, I really had hoped you would grow out of this accident-prone thing.”
Roger laughed. “That’s how he gets the women, by making them feel sorry for him.”
Our mother playfully hit Roger in the chest. “Stop that now. And what about you? When are you going to settle down and give me a grandbaby.”
The laugh that came out of Roger nearly made me laugh, too. We walked into the house, and I quickly looked for my father.