Wild Trail (Clean Slate Ranch #1)(71)

A new wave of anger crashed over him. Mack took a step back from Colt, and Reyes released his arm. “You son of a bitch,” Mack seethed. “You couldn’t tell me, but you told Avery!”

Colt looked up from his spot on the ground, blood running from his split lip, tears already streaming down one cheek. “I’m so sorry,” he said, voice as busted as his lip. “I was so wrecked when I found out, I had to tell him. He was the only person I could tell.”

“You could have told me, you lying asshole! You should have told me.”

“I didn’t want you to hate me. I couldn’t lose our friendship.” Blood dripped from Colt’s chin and splattered on his polo, but he didn’t seem to notice. It was all Mack could see. “You guys are the only family I have.”

“Family doesn’t keep secrets like that. And where the fuck do you see our friendship going now, huh?”

“I don’t know.” Colt’s chest heaved. “I’m so sorry.”

“Fuck you’re sorry.”

Mack couldn’t stop staring at that blood, though. He’d drawn blood from someone he’d once considered a brother. Someone with whom he’d shared so many personal secrets. And this lie had been between them for years, tarnishing every interaction. He’d drawn blood and he hated himself for it, but he also hated Colt for what he’d done.

“Please don’t blame Avery, or fire him,” Colt said. “He urged me for weeks to tell you, and it was one of the biggest reasons why we broke up. He said he couldn’t be with someone who kept those kinds of secrets from their brothers.”

Mack snarled. “At least one of you two had some integrity.”

“He must have assumed I’d told you the truth. That’s probably why he was surprised we were still friends.”

“You know, if you’d told me back then what happened, maybe, given time, we could have come back from it.”

Colt nodded, so miserable Mack almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“Stay away from me,” Mack snapped. He turned and stormed out of the barn, so upset he couldn’t see straight and nearly walked into a goddamn tree.

Reyes caught up with him halfway to their cabin. “Thank you for not hitting him again,” he said.

“Fucker deserved that and more.”

“Maybe, but I know you, Mack. You aren’t a violent person, and despite how you’re feeling right now, eventually you’ll regret it and beat yourself up over it.”

Sometimes he hated that Reyes knew him so well. “I can’t believe he kept that from me.” He yanked their cabin door open and stalked inside, too restless to sit, but also exhausted to the bone. As his adrenaline waned, weariness settled into his muscles but didn’t make it to his racing mind.

“I’m so sorry, man.”

The sentiment meant more coming from Reyes, but Mack couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Did you know?”

“Fuck no, I didn’t know.” Reyes glared at him in a way that made Mack feel like an ass for questioning his loyalty. “You know me better than that.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“It’s fine, your emotions are running at a hundred miles an hour right now. And to be fair, Colt wasn’t the only person keeping a secret from you.”

Mack’s entire body went rigid. “What?”

Reyes sank into one of the reading chairs, shoulders back but his expression tentative. “You remember Geoff was preparing for a big audition? For that firehouse pilot?”

“Yeah, I remember. It was the best script he’d gotten in a long time, and he was stoked for the part. He’d hoped he could finally quit his bank job. What about it?”

“The day before he died, Geoff called and we had coffee together. He wanted to pick my brain about how firehouses worked, about the equipment, basically to bone up for the audition.”

“Okay.” Nothing weird about that. Reyes and Geoff had been friends, and with Reyes being a fireman at the time, the coffee date made sense. “That’s the big secret?”

“No. He seemed off that day, like he didn’t want to be there, when he’d called me. When I pushed him about it...” Reyes’s eyes flashed with pain. “Geoff admitted that he’d cheated again. The day before, with some random guy he met at another audition.”

A new surge of betrayal knifed Mack in the gut—not so much for Reyes keeping that a secret, but for what Geoff had done. For the second time.

That he knew of, anyway, and that fucking hurt.

“I was working up the nerve to tell you,” Reyes continued. “Even though Geoff begged me not to, my first loyalty is always to you. But then the bank happened, and in the middle of all that grief, there was never a time. Or a purpose. And then I got burned, and I was in rehab for so long, and after a while it stopped seeming important. You were moving on, and I didn’t want to open that can of worms again.”

Mack waited for anger that never came. Reyes had known Mack for two-thirds of their lives, and he’d never kept this kind of secret from him. But at the same time, Mack understood his motives. He’d lived through his own grief, his fear after hearing Reyes had been trapped in a burning building, getting Reyes on his feet and walking again after the skin grafts. They’d both wanted to leave their old lives behind and move on, not dwell on the past.