I swore and bolted up into a sitting position. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Do I sound like I’m kidding, Asa?” No, she sounded annoyed that she had to be dealing with any of it at all. “They never cared for my relationship with your dad or the fact you were born right before he got locked up. They thought I was trash and that we ruined his life, but they never gave up hope on your dad.”

“Why does it go to me and not to you? If they hated us, why do I get anything?” Maybe that’s why she sounded so put out.

“I told you your father never married. That includes me. I was in his contact information on his paperwork when he got arrested because we were living together at the time. The prison called me and his lawyer to pass on the news.” She mumbled something under her breath and then all the noise in the background was back. “Go home, Asa. Put your dad to rest. See the farm. Keep it or sell it. Either way you have a way to really start your life over just like your sister did.”

She didn’t tell me good-bye. she just hung up, leaving me staring at the phone in dumbfounded shock. Suddenly I didn’t have to worry about what emotion to feel because I was feeling all of them at once. Happiness, rage, fear, sadness, confusion … everything surged to the surface. I was no longer hollow, I was no longer empty. I was full of everything that I had been actively avoiding for most of my life, and now all I could do was laugh like a lunatic and throw my phone across the room. I laughed and laughed until tears fell out of the corners of my eyes and my abs hurt from the exertion. I felt like I was losing my mind but I knew the only thing there was for me to do was get on the next plane to Kentucky.

I didn’t have to look up when her boots hit the bottom of the porch steps to know my sister had found her way to where I was. She somehow always managed to appear when I needed her the most. Initially I had left Denver without saying a word to anyone. I didn’t tell Rome I was leaving, and I didn’t call Ayden to let her know what was going on. It only took getting off the plane and taking a cab to my father’s lawyer’s office for me to have a major change of heart. I was immediately inundated with so much information, given so many decisions to make, that I had to take a second to get my shit together and I realized I couldn’t close the door on where and who I had been by myself. I needed Ayden to help me do it once and for all.

I called my baby sister and filled her in, which of course led to her yelling at me for five minutes for trying to handle all of this by myself. I knew as soon as I hung up the phone she would be making an appearance as soon as she could arrange getting herself back to a place neither of us ever wanted to see again.

I called Rome and gave him a brief rundown as well. He took it more stoically and told me to take as much time as I needed. He also reminded me that he was there, they were all there if I needed anything, and told me not to forget that fact. I told him I was long past taking the good things in my life for granted, and I would let him know how everything worked out.

It had taken Ayden two days to get from Austin to Woodward. Two days during which I had given the okay to have the stranger who was my father cremated, and then inherited a hundred-acre tobacco farm that sprawled beautifully across prime Kentucky real estate. The spread was beautiful. Like something off a postcard, complete with a massive white farmhouse and stables for horses. It was like the places I had schemed and conned my way into when I was living in a trailer, and here it had been in my backyard all along. It felt old and important and I couldn’t believe it was mine. I couldn’t believe something this good had sprung up in the middle of all the bad that permeated this place in my history.

Ayden’s boots clattered on the wooden steps that graced the elegant front porch of the house. I didn’t look up at her. Instead, I closed my eyes as she sat down next to me on the top step and hooked an arm through mine as she rested her head on my shoulder.

“I’m surprised Jet let you come back here alone.” I tilted my head to the side a little so it was resting against hers. We had never been able to do this as kids. Just be. It was always a fight to survive with no quiet time to just take in life and the landscape.

“He doesn’t belong here.” Her husky voice was quiet and I couldn’t agree with her more.

“No, he doesn’t.”

We sat in silence and took in the enormity of being in a place neither of us ever thought we’d be able to touch in our hometown. It was surreal and I’m sure as overwhelming for her as it was for me.

“So what are you going to do now?” I knew Ayden well enough to know she wasn’t asking me about the farm.

I let my eyes drift back closed and took a deep breath. She was the only one I was going to tell, the only one I trusted with the entire sordid story. I knew my sister would keep my secrets and protect the woman I cared so much about, so I laid it all out for her. Royal’s mom, the proposition, being stuck between lying to the only girl I was ever going to love in order to be with her or telling her the truth and hurting her, ripping her world apart instead. I knew Ayden would see the impossibility in all of it, and as the tale unfolded I heard her gasp and swear the deeper down the rabbit hole I went. I told her about the games I liked to play mostly because I couldn’t stop myself from doing it and how Royal was quick enough and ballsy enough to call me on my shit each and every single time. I told her that I didn’t even see the badge anymore and the idea of being in love with a cop didn’t even faze me because I knew, just knew, that I was never ever going back to that place where I was going to be a danger to myself or others. Loving Royal had given me enough strength to put the past down and to stop trying to predict the future. All I was concerned with was the here and now.

When all the words were done, when everything was purged out of me, I noticed Ayden had silent tears running down her face. She shook her head at me and leaned over to rub her wet cheek on the shoulder of my T-shirt, which made me laugh.

So quiet I almost didn’t hear her, she told me, “It shines out of you, Asa.”

She was talking about the good and finally I thought maybe she was right.

“I let the state cremate my father. I’m gonna take his ashes out in the field and spread them around. Then I’m going to call the estate lawyer and tell him to get together the offers he has had lined up on this place since Dad’s parents passed. Apparently this property is a hot commodity and folks around here have been waiting anxiously for it to go on the market for years.”