After the Climb (River Rain #1) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,29

long time, Dad, and it wasn’t lost on Sully or me that you shouldered even more of it than she shoveled at you so we wouldn’t feel it. I know she’s got her shit together and I’m proud of her and I love her. But I love you too and it would far from suck, seein’ you have it easy and good for a change.”

Okay.

Maybe he hadn’t shielded his sons from the damage.

“That’s good to hear, bud. But not to get your hopes up, things are uncertain with Genny and me. But I’m hoping to change that, and I need you on board before I do.”

“I’m on board.”

“Thanks, son,” he murmured.

“Dad?”

“Yup.”

“Don’t let the bright lights, glitz and glamor change you. I like you simple and no frills, just the way you are,” he joked.

But it hid his true message.

He believed in his dad and he knew he had this.

That felt fucking great.

And Duncan hoped he was right.

“I’ll try not to get a big head. Now go do something useful, like, I don’t know, study. I need to call your brother.”

“Later, Pops.”

“Later, kid.”

They disconnected and he went right to Sullivan.

Sully engaged immediately.

And while Duncan was in the process of saying, “Hey, son,” Sully asked, “Does Mom know?”

“You’ve seen the picture with Genny,” Duncan deduced.

“If you mean the one with Imogen Swan, yes. Does Mom know?”

“Your mother and I are past the point where we share about these kinds of things,” he said cautiously.

“Yeah, when you were dating Betsy, even if that was getting serious, though it didn’t go that way. But this is her and Mom knows about her.”

Duncan went very still.

Of course Dora knew about Genny. He’d told her. She was his wife. He shared everything with her. And he did that before she was his wife.

What he did not know was how his son knew that.

Before he could ask after that, Sully stated, “And this is gonna mess her right up.”

“Your mom is solid, Sul,” he assured. “She’s found a therapist she’s connected with. She understands the obsessive paths her mind can lead her on. And she now has the mental tools to avoid them, and she uses those tools.”

“It was her.”

“What?”

“It started with her.”

“What are you saying, Sullivan?”

“Imogen Swan. What kicked it all off. Ground zero. Her being yours. It’s what kicked it all off. It was her.”

Duncan’s chest started burning. “How do you know this?”

“That time you were up in Oregon. Opening the store in Bend. Do you remember that?”

Shit.

That had been a particularly bad episode with Dora.

“Yes,” he bit out.

“You asked her to come with you. You even begged her to come with you. I heard her. She said you had to go alone. It was a test.”

There had been a number of tests with Dora.

He’d always failed.

“I remember this, Sully.”

And he did.

He just hated his son had heard this and he had no idea, until then, that he had.

“Well, Gage was on that camping trip with Jack. And I was at a sleepover at Wyatt’s, but Wyatt got to not feeling good and his mom brought me home. And when I came in, Mom was on the phone with you. And she was losing it with you.”

Duncan said nothing.

He thought he was beyond the disappointment, and at times fury, other times frustrating impotence, and other times debilitating sadness, of what had become of his wife and their marriage.

But the fury was returning.

“I remember this clearly, Sully, and I didn’t know you didn’t have that sleepover,” Duncan stated.

“Yeah, because she made me promise not to tell you because of what happened after she hung up on you.”

Yes.

Fury.

“She made me lie to you, Dad. And that sucked. It really pissed me off. Because you never lied to us. You made a big deal of it. And there I was, Mom making me lie to you.”

Mm-hmm.

Fury.

He could not deny he had guilt, feeling it, since Dora was unwell.

However, that was not news even back then.

But it couldn’t be erased, the number of therapists she’d fired because “we don’t connect.” And his constant offers that she remain at his side, even when he was at work in his office in town, so he could show her whenever he left her, it was not about another woman. Offers she did not accept.

He was not a man who thought he’d allow any illness, no matter the cause of it, to end his marriage.

But as he’d have to face the consequences of a wife who decided to treat cancer with homeopathic remedies