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warning for mentions of abuse
The next morning at breakfast was relatively pleasant. Without Beth around to cause a scene, the others were able to chat and eat in peace. All good things had to come to an end though.
"What are you doing today sweetpea?" John was asking Lexi, ignoring Beth's storming into the room.
"Going to be doing some cleaning around the cabin," she said nonchalantly, though at the mention of the cabin Beth slammed her fork down on the table. John continued to ignore whatever outburst this was this time.
"You guys are heading out to the airfields, right?" Lexi asked Kaycee who nodded.
"I thought we weren't supposed to talk about work?" Beth snapped, refusing to be ignored.
"That's the supper table," John informed her. "This is the breakfast table."
That launched Beth into a tirade about not having a breakfast table, they had a breakfast bar, and John was just dictating what could be talked about and when. She had barely been in the room 5 minutes before she was stomping out of it. John, finished with his food, told Jamie and Kaycee what they were to do that day before heading to the kitchen as well.
"Did I do something to her?" Lexi asked her brothers, though Kaycee was getting up to leave; he just shrugged, offering a half wave as he left.
"You existed happily," Jamie informed her, finishing the remainder of his orange juice. She rolled her eyes as they got up from the table. Jamie's phone rang and she saw it was from someone named Sarah before he quickly ignored the call.
"Who's Sarah?" she asked curiously.
"Ah, no one," he brushed it off.
"I bet I would like her more than Christina," she joked.
"Hm," Jamie tried to laugh lightly but it didn't quite work. "Don't let Beth get to you," he told her, heading towards the stairs so he could call Sarah back from his room. Lexi brushed his behavior off, heading towards the door in the kitchen. That's when she heard John and Beth arguing, deciding to stay out of sight.
"He looks at you like a father," she was saying and Lexi knew she meant Rip.
"I'm not his father, I'm Kaycee's," he said, before reiterating Kaycee's point from the other night that he didn't want to live in this house.
"You're not Ryan's father," she snapped and Lexi rolled her eyes. She should have figured.
"Lee loved him like he was Kaycee or Jamie," John countered. "They were like brothers."
"Makes it a little weird then he's screwing-"
"Enough Beth," John cut her off. "Enough."
"Is it because she's your favorite?" Beth mocked.
"It's because he's going to be an official member of this family one day," John snapped. "You and I both know that. They're going to get married, he's going to be the father of my grandchildren." At the mention of grandchildren, Lexi noticed Beth stiffen.
"Rip's always been loyal," John agreed. "But he and Ryan are part of this place in different ways."
There was no denying that. While both came to the ranch young and without parents, their circumstances for being there were very different.
"Ok dad," Beth finally relented. Her father and sister might not know exactly why, but Rip wouldn't ever be the father of his grandchildren.
"Go easy on your sister," John added as Beth made her way out the door. He sighed, turning to go and saw Lexi coming into the kitchen now. "Your sister is mad at me," he told her, knowing she had eavesdropped.
"Too bad she takes it out on everyone in a ten mile radius," she said, trying to be light as she could tell her dad had enough on his mind. "Thank you, for what you did for Ryan," she told him now.
"I meant what I said, I wouldn't give it to anyone else," he assured her before excusing himself. Lexi left the main house, heading the few steps towards Lee's former cabin. She used the keys Ryan had left with her, having spent one more night in the bunkhouse.
Her plan that day wasn't to erase the memory of her brother, but she did want Ryan to be comfortable there, like it was his own place. There was a master bedroom downstairs, along with a kitchen and living space. There was a set of stairs that led to a small upstairs space with a bathroom and another bedroom. She wasn't sure where to start, but that's when Ryan came into the cabin now.
"I'm heading out with Kaycee," he was telling her, looking around. It still bore memories of Lee. His jacket had been left on the couch, an empty glass was by the sink, his bed was surely still unmade. He thought he was coming back that night and he should have; no one had been in here since.
"Be careful," she told him as she took his hand. "Are you sure you're ok in here?"
"Yeah," he nodded reassuringly. He knew it was a big deal for John to give it to him. And it would be great for him and Lexi to have some more privacy. "Just a little weird right now." She nodded in agreement.
"I don't know what to do with his stuff," she agreed. "I don't want to box it up…maybe I'll move it to the upstairs room," she was saying, more thinking out loud.
"Thank you for doing this," he was saying of her cleaning up the place. He knew it wasn't easy for her either but on her day off she said she wanted a project and kind of took over.
"Sure," she shrugged with a smile, kissing him once. "You should get going." He nodded in agreement.
"Maybe, um, when you're moving the clothes," he was saying as he stopped in the doorway. "You could leave yourself some space." He knew he couldn't ask her to move in officially, but he didn't want her running back and forth between the cabin and main house every morning.
"Ryan Parker, are you giving me a drawer?" she teased him.
"I guess I am," he smiled at her. "I love you," he told her as he left.
"Love you too," she called after him as he left.
Lexi went about cleaning up the cabin, opening the windows to let the stale air out, cleaning around the living room and kitchen. She went into Lee's old room and, sure enough, the bed was unmade and he had left some clothes on the floor. She gathered the clothes to wash, taking the clean ones to the upstairs bedroom's closet.
Deciding she didn't want to sleep in her brother's bedding, she ran out to the store to get some new sheets and blankets as well as a few other things; curtains, shelving for the bathroom, more plates and bowls. Things to make it more like a woman stayed there than a bachelor.
Once the bed was made and she had put Ryan's clothes away, she wanted to head to her bedroom to grab a few of her own things. She didn't realize how long she had been working on the cabin until she saw how late it was. When she got to the upstairs of the main house, Beth and Jamie both looked like they were ready for bed.
At the moment she turned the corner though, she saw Beth had Jamie by the hair and was dragging him down the hall.
…
Ryan got back about this time, parking the truck between the main house and cabin. Kaycee had already gone to the foreman's cabin and he was about to walk into his new place but could hear Lexi and Beth screaming at each other from inside the main house. He sighed heavily, head falling back in exasperation.
Maybe Beth would go back to Salt Lake soon, since she seemed so aggravated with the ranch.
John was already halfway up the stairs as he had obviously heard the screaming as well. Ryan followed him, spotting a pile of Dutton siblings on the ground.
"Oh for God's sake," John said in aggravation when he saw them. Beth was on top of her sister, holding her down by her hair but Lexi punched her sister in the face. Jamie was laying on the ground underneath them.
"How old are you three?!" He demanded as he pried Beth off her sister, Ryan pulling Lexi up but immediately yanking her back away from Beth.
They were inaudible as they were screaming over each other.
"ENOUGH!" John shouted, using his dad voice for the first time since they were teenagers; they fell silent. "What the hell happened?" he asked of Jamie who was still kneeling on the floor.
"She was dragging him down the hall by his hair," Lexi snapped; Ryan still had an arm up to keep her back.
"And he needed the baby to defend him," she mocked Jamie of their younger sister coming to help. She had tried to get Beth away from Jamie when they ended up fighting on top of him.
"I don't know if you ran out of meds," Lexi started to accuse.
"You don't defend him until you know what he-"
"I've had enough," John cut her off. "You two want to act like children, I'll treat you like children. Separate," he ordered.
Beth glared as she went back to her bedroom, slamming the door. Lexi grabbed her stuff from her room like she intended, going with Ryan back down the stairs. John ordered Jamie to his office to tell him what was going on with him and Beth tonight.
"What the hell was that?" Ryan asked her as they got inside the cabin, dropping her bag over by the bedroom door. He had her sit on the couch, looking over her face. Her left eye was definitely going to have a bruise; he was surprised Beth didn't take a chunk of her hair out.
"I have no idea what her issue is," Lexi told him seriously. "I just went to grab my stuff and she was pulling Jamie down the hall. I grabbed her to stop and she took a swing at me. You saw the rest," she shrugged. "I have no idea…"
She stopped when there was a knock at the door. Ryan went to answer, seeing Jamie was there and letting him in. John now knew what he did and was so angry he didn't want to even look at Jamie until morning. He was forcing him to come clean to Lexi tonight though.
"What was that?" she asked Jamie. She assumed her sister may have just finally snapped after being on edge for days. Jamie probably just said one thing to her and she freaked.
"…I need to tell you something Lexi," he cautiously admitted.
"Man, Christina is pregnant, isn't she?" she asked. Beth was always weird around Tate and she got weird that morning when John mentioned her and Ryan having kids. Maybe he told her about Christina and it set her off.
"No," Jamie reiterated. "You know that woman that called earlier, Sarah?"
"Yeah," she shrugged, standing up with him and Ryan now. "Is she-"
"Nobody is pregnant," Jamie snapped and she looked at him, caught off guard. Jamie rarely snapped at her like that. "She's a reporter, Sarah Nguyen. She was working on my campaign for a while before she told me who she was."
"Ok," she nodded cautiously, not sure where this was going.
"I told her…I mean I gave…I wouldn't have if dad…." Jamie was at a loss of what to tell her.
"What did you tell her about?" Lexi asked through her teeth.
"….she came in because she wanted more info on the cattle incident," Jamie finally admitted.
"Oh," Lexi started but her words caught in her throat. "Oh my God, oh my…." Ryan and Jamie couldn't tell if she was going to start screaming angry or burst into tears. "I'm going to jail, aren't I?" she demanded.
"I didn't tell her anything about you," Jamie said quickly and Ryan realized what she meant. She helped to get Sam to cover up who actually killed Robert.
"But Kaycee is screwed," Lexi snapped. "And I'm sorry, but it won't take a genius to figure out I went to med school with the M.E.!"
"Sam destroyed the original report," Jamie reminded her and she scoffed at him trying to make it ok. "There's no proof, there's-"
"Allegations like this ruin lives," she reminded him. "I might not go to jail, but I'll lose my job. And dad could lose this place and then Ryan's out of a job," she motioned. "Rip and Kaycee will still surely end up in jail and then what? You got your attorney general job?"
"Lexi, I-"
"Just get out!" she pointed at the door and Ryan started to nudge him that way. He followed Jamie out the door though and onto the small porch.
"For someone that doesn't want their sister to hate them," Ryan said, knowing what Jamie had told Lexi when he came back. "You've got a crazy way of showing it."
He didn't wait for an answer before going back inside. Lexi was anxiously pacing behind the couch, twisting her hands.
"So how was your day?" she asked lightly, though her voice betrayed her.
"You don't wanna know," he shook his head at the day's events.
"Your brother screw you over too?" she half laughed at the only child, stopping pacing but still twisting her hands.
"No," he shook his head, coming closer to her. "But, I got locked in a trunk at gunpoint and we're still no closer to finding out who was behind the clover."
"Yeah, I didn't want to know that," she agreed, going back to pacing.
"He's right about the report," Ryan reminded her, though he hated to agree with Jamie. "She has zero proof. Just the word of a pissed off guy that was kicked out of his house."
"No one is going to want to work with me if there's even a hint of coverup," she reasoned. "Allegations like this ruin…" She trailed off as she had an idea.
"What?" Ryan asked as she pulled out her phone. She searched the reporter, finding her contact info online before dialing her number. "Baby, what are you doing?" he asked in concern.
"Hello?" a confused voice said on the other end.
"Hi, Sarah Nguyen?" Lexi asked. "I think you know my brother, Jamie?"
"No," Ryan was mouthing out at her. Whatever she was doing he knew it was a bad idea.
"Alexa Dutton?" she asked, still confused.
"Yeah, I-"
"Look if you've called to plead your brother's case, I'm not pulling the story," Sarah cut her off.
"What if I had a better one for you?" Lexi countered.
"Better how?" Sarah asked, intrigued.
"Meet me tomorrow morning before my shift and I'll show you," Lexi said, giving her the spot to meet before hanging up.
Ryan looked at her worriedly, wondering what she was going to do.
…
"You do not have to do this," Ryan was telling her the next morning as he had followed her into her father's office to use the printer. She had emailed photos she kept on her phone to herself so she could print them, photos Jamie convinced her to take and keep just in case, back when he first learned of the abuse.
Ryan could hardly look at the printer as they came off one by one. There was the first one, the one that Jamie saw and confronted her about, of her rib cage bruised purple. There were swollen lips, bruised eyes, and bloody noses, taken in the bathroom mirror. There were bruises on her wrist where a hand had been gripping her. And, of course, there were the pictures that her friends in San Francisco took after she landed in the hospital.
"She can go after the top of the top with these," Lexi explained her reasoning to him. "Something like this is way bigger than going after a Montana rancher."
"Your dad will take care of it," Ryan said as she tucked the photos into a file folder. "Jamie said he was meeting with her this afternoon."
"You're going to have to forgive me if I don't trust Jamie right now," she said, kissing him once. "I'll see you after work, all right?"
"Baby, just think about this first," he nearly begged. They were her photos, it was her story, he would by no means stop her. But he really wanted her to think about what she could potentially be stirring up, the trauma she would be forcing herself to relive.
"I have," she told him, stopping at the door. "It's either everyone looks at all of us, or everyone just looks at me." She shrugged. "I'm going with me." And, with that, she left for her meeting.
…
Ryan and Kaycee got back to the ranch that night, having picked up Tate on their way as he was due to go hunting that weekend with his dad and grandfather. They still had no answers as to what happened with the clover and were out of leads in terms of searching the airfields. When they let themselves into the main house so Tate could get settled in, they spotted Lexi pouring herself a drink from her father's bar; by her stance they knew it wasn't her first.
"Aunt Lexi?" Tate asked curiously as she was still in her scrubs, hair piled up messy on top of her head.
"Go upstairs buddy," Kaycee nudged him along as his sister threw the drink back. "You lose someone today?" he asked, wondering if she had lost someone during surgery at work.
"Ah, no," she pointed at him, pouring another to drink slowly. "I am just bracing myself for when dad gets home."
"….why?" Kaycee asked curiously.
"Because he's going to kill Jamie when I tell him what I did," she informed him, plopping herself down on the couch.
"What did you do?" Kaycee asked as Ryan went to sit with her, resting a hand on her knee.
"That reporter is going to drop the story," she told him simply.
"That's good news," Kaycee said.
"It's what she gave her to get her to drop it," Ryan explained for her and Kaycee's brow furrowed in confusion. "Pictures, what her ex did."
"Shit, Lex," Kaycee sighed heavily.
"She gets an exclusive story taking on the one percent and I got this," she said, pulling a flash drive from her scrubs pocket.
"I thought you said there wasn't anything we could do to him," Kaycee reminded her and she shook her head.
"Legally," she emphasized. "No cops, no jail time. But every meeting, every benefit dinner, whatever," she slurred a little. "It'll be 'isn't that the guy who beat the shit out of his ex?'"
What Kaycee wanted to point out to his sister, and was sure Ryan had, was that his family was going to go into denial mode. They would drag her through the news, make her look crazy. Did she really want to go through all that?
They were all quiet as John came into the living room.
"What's going on here?" John asked, immediately picking up on the tension.
"Dad," Lexi said seriously as she stood up. She had to take an extra step to balance. "Daddy. I need to tell you something."
"Uh huh," John nodded, taking the drink from her hand. "This like the time you had to tell me you dented my truck?" he asked lightly.
"I. Wish," she told him seriously. "I got that reporter to drop her story."
"You celebrating then-" John started asking, noting the alcohol.
"She's gonna run a story on me and Matt instead," she continued quickly to get it out. John just stared at her for a moment, everything hitting him that Ryan and Kaycee already realized.
He threw the glass at the fireplace, shattering glass falling on the floor.
"Daddy, I-"
"Your brother was supposed to take care of this," John said angrily. "Your brother never should have let any of this happen in the first place. And now you're in trouble, again," he pointed out. "Because of what he did."
"We were screwed dad," she tried to reason. "She already tried to talk to Sam and…" She couldn't place her dad's expression. Was he mad at her? He rarely was so she wasn't sure what to do with that.
"Are you mad at me?" she finally asked.
"No," John said quickly, but he still sounded angry. Lexi noticed Jamie coming into the room now.
"I wouldn't," Kaycee was warning him, causing John to turn and Ryan to stand.
Rather than say anything, Jamie held out a file folder towards his sister. She took it as she recognized it from that morning, opening it to confirm.
"My pictures?" she asked Jamie. "Is she going to do the ranch story?"
"No," Jamie shook his head. "No, don't…don't worry about it." And with that, he turned to go towards his room.
"You and I aren't finished!" John yelled after him. Again. His sister was the sole person in trouble because of Jamie's actions again. Kaycee stood in John's way to stop him from going after Jamie. Maybe what Jamie did was wrong, but Kaycee knew what it was like to be hurt by John. You didn't have to look any further than the brand on his chest.
"Hello?" Lexi was answering her phone now, confused because of the hour. "Sam, what's going on?"
"I just thought we should be on the same page," Sam told her. "Since that reporter I told you about turned up dead today. Figured your family had something to do with it."
"What?" Lexi asked in shock. "Why would you think-" Everyone was looking at her in concern.
"Because she had signs of strangulation," Sam informed her. "Everyone thought she drowned because they found her in her kayak, but there was no water in her lungs. She was dead when she went in."
"What are you reporting?" she asked.
"The drowning," Sam assured her. "You go down, I go down too. Luckily, the family agreed to cremation to get her back to New York."
"Ok….thanks," she said awkwardly as she hung up, everyone looking at her expectantly. "That was Sam…Sarah's dead," she admitted.
"How?" Ryan asked
"Officially?" she answered. "Drowning. Unofficially," she said, her eyes drifting to the stairs and they all realized what Jamie had done to get those pictures back.
John took the flash drive and the pictures from her and threw them into the fire.
…
Lexi woke up the next morning, Ryan already gone to work. He and Kaycee were both on the ranch that day as they didn't have any more leads to follow up on as far as the clover went. She noticed everyone down around the barn and corral as she went to get in her car for work, heading down the hill to say goodbye first.
"You see your brother this morning?" John asked.
"Haven't been by the lodge," Lexi shook her head as she stood with him along the fence. She noticed Ryan coming over from inside the corral so he could say goodbye to her.
"I know you're mad at him daddy," she was saying now as Ryan stopped on the opposite side of the fence. "But I think his conscience is going to be punishment enough."
"I'll keep that in mind sweetpea," he assured her, kissing her head before going to talk to Kaycee and Rip.
"You heading out for the day?" Ryan asked.
"Just about," she nodded, leaning over the fence to kiss him quickly. He watched her prepare to leave when her ringing phone stopped her.
"Hello?" she answered. Her eyes got big, but not with surprise; it was fear. "How…how did you get this number?"
Ryan realized who it was, climbing over the fence and hopping down to the other side. Before he could grab the phone from her though, someone else had come up behind her and snatched it from her.
"Hello?" Jamie answered. He had been coming to talk to their dad when he heard that fear in her voice.
"Jamie," Matt greeted him.
"How did you get this number Matt?" Jamie asked seriously, listening for a moment. "The police report?" he scoffed. Lexi had to leave her number with the police in San Francisco after the missing persons incident. With his connections, it clearly didn't take a lot to get ahold of it.
"Well," Jamie continued. "That might not be illegal, but it's surely a violation of police protocol, given that she went missing to hide from you."
"I want to know why I'm getting messages from a reporter asking for a statement," Matt said, annoyed. "Some Sarah Nguyen?"
"I don't know who Miss Nguyen is," Jamie shrugged Matt off. "I do know it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on between the two of you and start questioning it."
"Listen-"
"I also know," Jamie cut him off. "That if you call this number again, it will be considered harassment and I will be filing charges in the state of Montana. Where your rich mother and politically connected father can't help you. And how well do you think someone named Matheson is going to do in a cowboy prison?"
He seemed satisfied as the line disconnected.
"I always love your scary lawyer voice," Lexi told Jamie, holding her hand out for her phone but he handed her his.
"I'm gonna take yours to town and get you a new number, use mine if you need anything," he told her, placing hers in his pocket. "You seen dad?"
"The barn," she nodded, dropping his phone in her bag. "Thanks Jamie," she said, kissing his cheek before leaving.
Ryan caught Jamie's eye as he headed towards the barn, nodding at him in thanks.