Gracie Dutton

1

CHAPTER 1 REWRITTEN
Gracie felt her world come to a halt.
    "What did you just say?" She asked Jamie.
Jamie looked her dead in the eye, his eyes almost humourously glaring at her.
    "You mean after all these years you've never put two and two together? You have never seen the resemblance between you and Beth or you and Rip? How could you possibly be the perfect mix of the two if you were adopted? And much less by none other than John Dutton- who adopted a little baby girl years after his own wife died and children grown. To save face of course. How would it look if his teenage daughter got pregnant by one of his ranch hands?"
Gracie felt her head spinning.
    "You are Beth and Rip's daughter."
Gracie was sure she was going to be sick.
Growing up she did always find it strange that John had adopted her, but she knew better than to go digging where her nose didn't belong. But shouldn't she have had a right to know that information? Eighteen years had passed, yet now she was getting the truth- from Jamie no less. Not even her own biological parents or adoptive father told her.
Gracie had a good life though. That was part of the reason she never played into who her real parents were. In her opinion, it would just be a let down anyways when she compared them to the great John Dutton. So, she had left good enough alone. That doesn't mean she wasn't curious and now with this information she grew angry. Angry and she couldn't shake the feeling of her stomach doing somersaults.
Her mouth grew dry as her clammy hands reached out to grasp the countertop in front of her. She just stared at Jamie with wide eyes full of disbelief. She knew he was telling the truth. Who would make that up?
The back door opened and shut revealing none other than John. He stood in the doorway, immediately feeling the air of tension. His eyes landed on Gracie and he felt a bubble of concern at her pale, sickly appearance. His eyes than accusingly darted to Jamie. The son of failures.
    "What the hell is going on in here?" John growled out.
Jamie swallowed thickly as he felt his nerves fraying at what his father's reaction would be.
    "I told her the truth," he mewled out weakly and took a frigid step backwards as his father darted towards him.
    "You what?!" John barked as his hands grappled onto the flap pockets of Jamie's suit jacket.
    "She has a right to know!" Jamie tried to stand his ground, but was failing miserably.
John let out a hoarse laugh at the absurdity of it all.
    "Oh and you thought you had the power to make that decision all on your own? You thought you were the appropriate person to tell her? Without discussing it with any of the involved parties first?!"
John felt a strong urge to knock some sense into his son and when he was about to, Kayce came barging into the kitchen after walking in hearing all the commotion.
    "Woah! What's going on?" Kayce exhaled, trying to ease his father back down.
He quickly grabbed hold of John's forearm, pulling him away from his older brother. Kayce hadn't even noticed Gracie, who stood there watching the scene unfold, frozen, like a statue.
John looked Kayce dead in the eye as he said,
    "He told. He told Gracie."
Kayce whipped his head around and made instant eye contact with his little sister. Kayce slowly walked over to her. He reached his hand out to lay it on her arm, but her reflexes were quicker. Her breathing started to get heavy as he looked at her concerned.
    "G?" He asked worried.
    "I'm going to be sick," she breathed out and walked rigidly out of the kitchen.
Gracie made her ways upstairs and into her ensuite bathroom. She felt like her head was going to explode from it reeling, comprehending this new information. She felt the burn of tears as they began spilling down her cheeks. She groaned as the bile rose up her throat and she emptied the contents of her lunch into the toilet. Gracie then stumbled her way over to her bedroom window, forcing the window open, allowing the cool breeze to calm her. She stared down at the white and black barn, thinking of Rip. Her father. The man who taught her not to be afraid of horses, who taught her how to ride them, who told her she was a smart girl and she could became anything in the world she wanted to. She felt her eyes water again, but then soon anger consumed her as her mind drifted to Beth. Her big sister. The woman she always looked up to, but hardly knew due to her picking up and leaving whenever she pleased. A part of her heart twinged at the thought of Beth hating the ranch, the place where her daughter was. Millions of questions and scenarios filled Gracie's head, but she couldn't think about it now. She grew weary and went to lay on her bed. Her eyes grew heavy as the distant sounds of cows mooing and the swaying of leaves allowed her to drift off into a dreamless sleep, in hopes that when she awoke, things would be back to normal.
But, for Duttons, things were never normal.

Hi!! I love this story, I just wasn't exactly a fan of how I was working the storyline out. I felt like Gracie needed different character development. Let me know your thoughts about this chapter. Thank you for reading!