Page 83 of If You Loved Me

“What did he say?”

She slid her phone back into her coat pocket and sighed. “He asked me to come to Sunday dinner tonight. And to bring you.”

My brows rose. “That’s a surprise given how your mom reacted the other day.”

Sarah blew a raspberry. “Yeah, I know. He said that my mother is sorry for how she reacted and wants to make amends.”

I inhaled deeply. It seemed like our little retreat this weekend was going to have an interesting close if Sarah chose for us to have dinner with her parents tonight. Part of me didn’t want to leave this mountainside knowing what might await us. But I would follow her wherever she wanted to go.

“What are you thinking, sugar?”

Her lips drew into a straight line, eyes more serious than I’d ever seen them. “I don’t know if I want to see her after what she said about you, Ranger. It’s one thing for her to torment me, I’m used to it. But I won’t accept them saying anything negative about you.”

I took her into my arms, letting her sweet scent mixed with campfire fill my nostrils. “You don’t need to protect me. I can handle anything they throw my way.”

Her voice broke, “But I can’t. I won’t stand for them coming after the man I love. They’ve already spent years telling me I wasn’t good enough. That my choices would lead me down the wrong path. I don’t think I can handle them saying anymore to me.”

I stroked her hair in long soothing passes. It killed me to hear how much her parents had impacted her over the years. How much she suffered at their hands. I just wanted to make it all better for her.

“Is there any chance that they might be trying to form a truce? That they might apologize?”

She was quiet for a few moments. “I’m not sure. It is strange that my father was the one to text me.”

I let her mull over her thoughts, holding her close. When she pulled away, the hard look in her eyes had softened. “Ifyou had a chance to talk to your mother again, to hear her out, would you?”

Her question hit me. I’d never thought about it before. When my mother left, I felt nothing but anger and overwhelming dread. I put all my focus into supporting Callie Rose that I never gave myself the chance to wonder about our mother.

Thinking about it now… “If I had one last chance to talk to her I would take it. Even if she didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear, I would know, without a doubt, that I could move forward. I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if things could be different.”

I studied the small yellow flecks amongst the dark brown in Sarah’s eyes as they grew distant. She was thinking hard about what she wanted to do.

“Would you be okay to go with me?” she finally asked.

I cupped her cheek. “I’d go to the end of the world with you.”

Her smile warmed my heart. “Okay, cowboy. Then I guess we’re doing it.”

Sarah

Ranger extended the bouquet of flowers toward my mother when she opened the front door to my childhood home. “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Williams.”

Her smile was tight as she took the flowers, the brown paper crinkled in her hands. “Thank you.” Not much of a response, but it was better than her throwing a fit like she had in my work kitchen.

I looped my arm through his as we followed her into the house. I’d spent eighteen years of my life here, but I suddenly felt self-conscious with Ranger by my side. Everything in my parents’ home was immaculate and bought from the most prestigious designers. Only the best of the best was bought for this house, but now that I’d had a taste of life beyond these walls, everything felt obscene. Cold. There were no shoes by the front door. Not a speck of dust on the furniture. It wasn’t lived in. It was merely meant to show the status of who my parents were and just how much money they had.

“Hi, dad,” I said as we rounded the corner to their formal dining room. He was sitting at the head of the table with an espresso cup in his hand. “This is Ranger Adams.”

My father rose from his seat and buttoned his dinner jacket. Almost thirty years of my life and I’d never seen him at our dinner table without a suit on. I groaned internally. I could only imagine what Ranger might be thinking right now.

“Pleasure to meet you, sir.” Ranger shook my father’sextended hand.

“You as well.” My father assessed Ranger, looking him up and down like he was trying to make sense of the black long sleeve shirt he wore tucked into blue jeans. But he didn’t say anything as we took our seats.

The wait staff made their rounds, pouring everyone a glass of red wine to pair with the roast beef we were having. At least if everything went to shit, I knew we’d leave with full stomachs from a decadent meal that tasted like heaven. The food was the only good part about Sunday dinner with my parents.

“Where’s Theo?” I asked. Now that he was back in town I assumed he would have made it to dinner. But I knew he was slammed with training for his big rodeo coming up in the new year. We’d hardly had a chance to talk since he started training.

“He’s busy at the Carnelle’s ranch,” my mother responded, swirling the wine in her glass as she always did at dinner.

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