One More Taste (One and Only Texas #2)(99)

“I was too young, and the Briscoe boys, they were charmers, both of them.”

Knox’s patience was fraying. “Mom, come on. Please. You dated Dad in high school, I know that much. So how did you end up sleeping with Ty? He didn’t…” There was no way he could voice the word rape. This was his mother. His sweet, fragile mother.

Emily’s hand moved to his back, sharing with him her strength.

Ty cleared his throat. “Linda, the boy wants answers, not blubbering. Are you gonna tell him, or should I?”

“Ty, thank you,” Emily said, in the calm, neutral voice of a moderator. “Help us understand.”

Ty ran a hand over his bald head. “Of course, I flirted with Linda in high school, but I never expected her to take that seriously. Back then, me and Clint had a healthy rivalry. My father was a good, good man, but he had a thing where he liked to pit us boys against each other. He had a phrase he used with us. He said our responsibility as brothers was to push each other to greater heights. In his mind, there wasn’t anyone better to compete with than your own brother. I don’t suppose he ever expected us to take that as far as we did.”

“You two were always neck-and-neck, in sports, in academics,” Knox’s mom said. “It was a big joke in the neighborhood. When one of you had a girlfriend, the other one did. When one of you got a job that paid two dollars an hour, the other would get a job that paid four. And on and on. I remember my own mama talking about you two and all your ambition. It was why I went after Clint in the first place. I liked myself an ambitious man.”

Knox looked between Ty and his mom. “So you slept with Mom because she was your brother’s girlfriend?”

“She was the one who came after me, not the other way around,” Ty said.

That stunned Knox silly. He sat back in his chair, mouth agape.

“You see, I graduated a year before Clint, and my buddies and me had a habit on the nights of the high school dances to grab some beers and some girls and make our own party out in Chicory Hollow. It was the night of the Sadie Hawkins dance during Clint’s senior year when out of the blue, Linda showed up at our party, all hopped up like someone had lit a fire under her feet. She was all over me, and I didn’t bother to ask what she was thinking since she was Clint’s girl. Competition took hold of me and I lost my good judgment.”

“Mom? What happened? Why go after Ty when you were already dating Clint.”

She shook her head, while her hands teased off bits of fiber from the tissue in her hands. “That’s the sinner in me. At the Sadie Hawkins dance, Clint and I had a fight, a real bad one. He’d been flirting with Patsy Burleton, so I thought, two can play at that game. Back then, I didn’t know Christ like I do now. I was blinded by sin. I knew where Ty and his boys were drinking, so I ditched Clint and I … I sacrificed my virginity to the Devil.” She crumpled over her hands.

“It’s okay, Mom.”

Ty stood. “You know, I don’t think it is, Knox. We’re the ones who should be comforting you instead of the other way around. We’re the ones who should be asking for your forgiveness for keeping you in the dark all these years. Linda, stop hiding behind your religious safety blanket and talk straight with our son. You tell him why you took him away from me. You tell him why you forced me to lie to him all these years.”

Holy shit. “Mom?”

“I was getting there,” she shouted in dramatic indignation. “When I found out I was pregnant, I told my mother, who told my father. And I let them believe their assumption that the baby’s daddy was Clint. Before I knew it, they went to Tyson and June. Nobody asked my opinion. Nobody asked me what I wanted.”

“My dad thought Clint was the father, too,” Ty said. “But I knew it was me. And as soon as your parents left, I told my folks and Clint as much. I tried to do the right thing. I offered to marry you, but you wouldn’t have me.”

“The one sin was enough.”

Ty’s spine was rigid, his face a stone mask. “You think you were the only one being pressured by your parents that night to do the right thing? I was prepared to make you an honest woman, but you chose this shit-poor life with my mediocre brother over what I could have given you.”

“Clint gave Knox what you can’t, you heartless sinner. He gave him a real daddy, with love and a Christian upbringing and enough food on the table to never go hungry.”

Ty’s careful fa?ade cracked with a derisive huff. “That wasn’t love. It was revenge, pure and simple. My mother was ready to set up a nursery in the family compound. But Clint and your parents had you so brainwashed, you couldn’t think for yourself. You didn’t want anybody to know what you’d done with me, your folks included. And Clint preyed on your weak-willed vanity. Your shame. He married you and deprived me of my own son out of revenge against me for sleeping with you. Like he’s using Knox now to ruin my business. Even buried six feet under, he’s still controlling you all.”

Unimaginable hurt threatened at the corners of Knox’s conscious thought. Ty had wanted to be a father to him. He’d wanted Knox to be a part of the Briscoe Ranch legacy. Knox pushed the hurt away and locked it up tight. There would be time enough later to unpack this conversation and work through the pain in a rational, constructive way.

“My husband was a hero,” his mom said. “He took me back, the worthless sinner I was, and forgave me in the merciful spirit of Jesus Christ.”