Yes, Pete, Ty and I dated. That was the big secret.
It could be just that easy.
Except, not even close.
She’d only made it worse by letting Pete believe it, if only for six hours. Because now, not only would she have to correct that assumption, but then she’d have to tell him why she’d let him believe it.
She pressed her hand to her gut just thinking about it.
“Hungry, Jess?”
Chet sat at the wheel of the pickup. He was driving her over to the hospital to check on Sam. And, of course, Pete would be there, having brought the kids in.
Later, Pete would want to drive her home, and this time when he walked her to her front door, she’d let him come in.
She wasn’t so naïve not to admit she hoped he’d take her in his arms. Kiss her like he had on the mountain, or even with the sweetness of the kiss in the barn, the kind of kisses she hoped he reserved only for her.
Please, let her not be just one of the many.
“No, I’m fine,” she told Chet and continued her hundred-yard stare out the window.
If she never told Pete the truth, she might as well be one of the many.
Because something real with Pete would mean letting him into her life. Really letting him in to see the mess, the debris, and the carcasses.
“I’m not just out for a good time, Jess. I want to know you, and what matters to you.”
What mattered to her was him not knowing her.
No, she didn’t just want all-fun, all-the-time, but Pete had suddenly gone from a safe guy, to a guy who threatened everything she’d built.
“You sure you want to go to the hospital? I could drop you off at home,” Chet said. “You seem tired.”
She’d had four hours of sleep in the last two days. Then there was the race against the grizzly that could still leave her weak if she let it.
Even more draining had been that moment when she discovered the van, despite the rush of relief when they’d finally located Willow and the kids.
So yeah, she might be a little wrung out.
And perhaps not thinking straight. “I think I have to tell Pete the truth,” she said quietly.
Chet glanced at her.
“I know Ty told you everything when he called you.”
“I had to know, Jess. I would have never given you a job if I didn’t know the entire story or the fact that you have a medical degree. But I did understand why you didn’t want to tell anyone else. It’s not an easy thing you went through—testifying against your father, the scandal, your name in the papers. I know it took everything out of you to go through that.”
“I can’t be that naked again,” she said softly. “I feel like I just got myself back.”
She hadn’t really admitted that to herself—how utterly bereft she’d felt when she moved to Montana, her Jeep and a couple suitcases to her name and her old pal Ty’s number in her pocket.
Good thing Ty knew her before, way back to her carefree ski vacation days. Then later, when she was engaged to one of their best friends.
How far the rich and beautiful had fallen. But she wanted nothing to do with the Taggert name, had shortened it with the hopes that no one would ever associate her with Damien Taggert and the Great Embezzlement of the twenty-first century.
She should have learned from her notorious father that lies would only curl back and strangle her.
Chet, maybe, read her mind. “Why do you need to tell Pete?”
“Because, he and I . . .” What? Were in a relationship? She didn’t exactly know what to call it. Maybe it was simply a mistake, and she was destroying her entire life because of an emotional friends-who-lost-their-minds moment.
“I’m not blind, Jess,” Chet said. “I see the way Pete looks at you.”
How did Pete look at her?
“For what it’s worth, Pete might surprise you.”
She glanced at Chet. “What if I tell him and—”
“And he sees you as the brave woman you are?”
Sweet Chet. She shook her head. “You and Ty, maybe. The rest of the world sees me as the daughter who testified against her father to save herself.”
“You weren’t to blame for your father’s actions.”
Oh, what he didn’t know. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? “I knew my father was embezzling all those people, Chet. I knew it years before the world found out.”
There, she said it, and it was sort of a litmus test.
In his silence, he failed.
She reached up, wiped her cheek. Yep, she knew it.
“Jess,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what you’re not telling me. But I do know this. Jesus is Lord. Full stop. That means he knows the past, the future, and the now. And he wants you to live in truth, trusting him to fix it. I know you feel naked. You came to Montana completely stripped of everything familiar. You’ve reinvented yourself on your terms. Maybe it’s time to let Jesus reinvent you. Let him forgive you, give you a new name, heal you, and set you free.”