Whiskey Moon

I splay my hand across my heart. It doesn’t surprise me that my father made such a generous gesture because that’s his nature. But it strikes me as odd that he’d never mentioned it to me all this time.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.

“Because it was a personal financial matter. I treated them with the same privacy and privilege my banking customers receive.”

It makes sense, but I wonder why Wyatt never mentioned it? Then again, he quit speaking to me right before his daddy passed …

Uncertainty rests in the pit of my stomach.

Something feels … off. Though I’m not sure what it could possibly be.

“Anyway, I assume you were looking for me?” he asks.

A rumble of thunder shakes the house, and a second later a flash of lightning brightens the dark sky, illuminating the storm clouds rolling in from the west.

“I was going to see if you wanted to take our walk, but it looks like it’s about to rain,” I say.

“It should clear in the next couple of hours,” he says. “How about we take one after dinner?”

“Sounds good.” I rise from his desk and head upstairs to pass the time, taking the opportunity to sort through the rest of that box my father gave me the other day. Pulling off the lid, I place it aside and pull out another stack of my mother’s yearbooks, followed by a photo album, a plastic baggie filled with various ribbons, medals, and awards, and find a folder filled with articles she wrote for her school paper. At the bottom of it all is a brown paper envelope, nearly the same color as the box itself.

I dig it out and flip it over to open it, only to find the name RENATA scribbled in pencil along that side.

Heart racing, I empty the contents of the envelope onto my bed, ending up with a pile of photographs. I flip the top one over and find an image of a teenage Renata with her arm wrapped around a teenage Jolene. The next image is similar—though they’re both making ridiculous faces in this one. A third image shows them in pajamas, with curlers in their hair and green clay face masks covering their grinning faces.

I had no idea the two of them even knew each other, let alone that they were friends.

The next picture appears to be from a formal dance—both of them posing side by side, flanked by their dates. I don’t recognize the man standing beside my mother, with a mouth full of braces and his hands on her hips, but the man flanking Renata is—without question—my father.

I flip through the rest of the vintage images, finding a handful of photos very clearly illustrating that my father and Renata were an item.

The other day, when my father mentioned his first love broke his heart because she chose someone else … was he referring to Ambrose?

Was Renata his first love?

If so, that would mean the woman he loved chose a Buchanan over him …

Did it bother him that his daughter was dating the son of that very same Buchanan?

Pictures in hand, I rush down the hall, jog down the stairs, and all but sprint to the study to demand an explanation.

“Blaire, back so soon?” Dad asks with a warm chuckle. “What do you have there?”

I splay the photographs across his desk—ensuring that one where Renata is sitting in his lap kissing his cheek is front and center.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demand.

Retrieving the first photograph, he releases a bittersweet sigh.

“Forgive me for not going over my love life in great detail with my daughter,” he says, moving for the next one. “These are quite old. Where did you get them?”

“They were in the bottom of that box you gave me,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me Mom and Renata were best friends?”

“Oh, come on, Blaire. Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill.” He waves me off, dismissing me with a casual flick of his wrist.

“I dated Renata’s son for four years. You didn’t think to maybe mention the connection?”

“I guess I assumed Renata would bring it up if she felt comfortable doing so,” he says. “Things got a little … messy between all of us in the end. Either way, you’re talking about something that happened a lifetime ago.”

Oh my god.

I take a step back.

“You married Mom because she was Renata’s best friend … you wanted to hurt Renata because she hurt you.” I clamp my hand over my mouth. “And that’s why you stayed in Whiskey Springs—to be near her. It’s also why you bought their farm … you never got over her.”

He puffs his chest. “Don’t be ridiculous, now you’re just making up stories. I’m a happily married man.”

From the moment I walked into Wyatt’s life, Renata has always treated me like one of her own. But my father has kept Wyatt at arm’s length, never speaking to him more than he had to or making an effort to get to know him in any capacity.