No Good Mitchell - Riley Hart Page 0,95

out. Still, it was a lot to think about. They really had stolen the recipe and Cohen had known?

“I’m gettin’ to it,” he said bitterly, like he was struggling enough with copping to his faults. “Even after breakfast, I tried to lie to myself and make myself believe he’d just done a number on my kid and that I’d done the right thing. But between the way he acted when I was making such a fuss, then telling me that secret and leaving after, I kept thinking…if he was hell-bent on hurting you or this family, he never would have done any of that. He would have stuck around just to piss me the hell off and really do a number on your heart. Made me second-guess all my ridiculous ideas about the whole thing. It was eating away at me, and then he had the balls to step on our property, and if that didn’t tell me everything I needed to know, I really would have been some kind of ass. I was wrong. And I, well, I’m…” He growled a little before finally managing, “I’m sorry, son.”

I froze. An apology from Big Daddy was about as rare as a word from Lee.

And it wasn’t just his words; it was the damned expression on his face. All that guardedness and anger and frustration I was used to had dissolved. He was hurt from hurting me. It reminded me of how he’d looked as Big Momma was slipping away from us.

Cohen stepped up beside me, and I turned to him.

“I imagine you two have your own talk you need to have,” Big Daddy said, glancing between us. “Then we can have our own father/son duel.”

“Okay. I’ll let you know where I stand on the duel after.”

He certainly knew I wasn’t going to ask for an actual duel, but I could tell by the look on his face he was concerned about how angry I was going to be with him.

“Come on, guys,” Lee told everyone, guiding the O’Ralley crew back inside, leaving Cohen and me in silence, and my thoughts went back to the night when he had been packing up.

He took a breath as the front door closed. “I know Big Daddy thinks it was his fault, but it wasn’t,” Cohen said. “Ultimately, I made the choice to go.”

“I know that, which is why I’m reluctant to be too hopeful about the reason for your visit. But on the plus side, I think that’s the first I’m sorry Big Daddy has ever uttered.”

I was trying to crack a joke to lighten the mood, maybe in case it was about to turn as serious as it had the night he left. But I couldn’t let go of a burning question. “Why didn’t you tell me he’d talked to you?”

“I would have if it had just been about that, but I’d been feeling bad all day anyway. I was out at the distillery looking around. I found an old box under the floorboards. It had a letter from…from my great-grandpa to yours. He was in love with him, and he admitted to stealing the recipe. As soon as I finished reading it, Big Daddy showed up, and all I could think was that he was right about us Mitchells. We were no good. He deserved to be angry with me. Mitchell Creek shouldn’t even be ours. How could I come between you and your family after that?”

“I—”

“I need to get this out,” Cohen cut me off, then said, “It was more than that. I just… I don’t know if I deserve you. Even though I’ve started to fall in love with Buckridge, I had this feeling that I just didn’t belong here. That I’d come between you and your family and that you deserved better than that, than me. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m still all twisted up about losing my biological mom, and my dad never coming for me. As much as I love the parents who raised me, I never felt like I belonged, until I was with you. I was scared you would walk away from that, or I’d drive you away, or you’d resent me for losing your family. I think a part of me thought it would hurt less if I did it now.”

“You do belong here. I’ve seen how you’ve taken to this. I never thought someone could pick up something so fast.” And wait, had he said he felt like he belonged