Page 87 of Sweet Passions at Bayside
Dean, his father, and the mini-me beside him had to be Jett.
And by the look on Dean’s face, she was too late.
DEAN FELT LIKE he’d been run over by a Mack truck. First his brother knocked him off-kilter by showing up out of the blue because “You needed me, bro,” then his father stormed into his house unannounced, and now Emery blew in, looking like she was facing a firing squad.
Not in my house.
It sounded to him as though she’d already faced that particular nightmare.
He ate up the space between them and wrapped her trembling body in his arms. “I’ve got you.”
“I’m sorry! I tried to be nice, but—”
“But you can’t do anything but be brutally honest,” Dean said in her ear. “And I adore you for that, doll.” His grandmother had once told him that the woman he’d fall in love with wasn’t the one who would keep him up all night doing dirty things or building up his ego.Though she may do those things, she’ll be the one you want to last forever for a million other reasons like the way she listens, and makes you think, and the way she makes you a better man. The woman you fall in love with will be the one you cherish and protect, like your mother’s treasured dolls.“You are my perfect match.”
She pulled back, her eyes darting erratically from him to Jett.
Jett lifted his chin and said, “Hey, spitfire.”
Her confused gaze slowed only long enough to reach his father. Her fingers curled tightly into Dean’s side as the man who had dismissed her career, thought she was a distraction to his son, and had tried to use her as a weapon against Dean lowered his gaze to the floor.
Dean couldn’t believe his eyes. His father never lowered his gaze. Not for anyone.
Emery pushed against Dean’s side, like she needed his strength to remain erect as her shaky voice threaded from her lips. “I’m sor—”
His father stepped forward, silencing her with his mere presence. His gaze was soft and apologetic as he opened his mouth to speak, then wordlessly closed it again.
Tension hung in the air like a ghost suffocating them all.
“Dad, you owe—”
This time it was Dean his father silenced, with the lifting of his large hand. “I know, son. Give me a minute, please.”
Dean tightened his grip on Emery, who seemed frozen in place.
“I am many things,” his father finally said in a regretful tone Dean had never heard until his father had appeared on his doorstep an hour earlier. “And until earlier today, I thought being a strong man was at the top of my list. Now I am beginning to understand that I have been mistaken.”
Emery’s nails dug into Dean’s waist, but she didn’t move, didn’t speak. Dean was pretty sure she couldn’t. Things were not fixed between him and his father, and definitely not between his father and Jett. But this was a start. When his father had stormed through his front door ranting about Emery, Dean had challenged him, and his father had collapsed in a chair, shaking his head, and said,You don’t understand, son. She’s right about what she said. She got under my skin. I have a lot of thinking and making up to do with too many people to count, but this is where it starts, and it’s because of that doll of yours.
“You’ve done great things,” she conceded.
“Don’t do that,” his father said sternly.
Her nails dug deeper into Dean’s skin. He ground his teeth together, willing to take whatever pain he needed to in order for her to get through this.
“Don’t back down on your convictions,” his father demanded. “I’ve achieved great things in my professional life, but you were right. I did so at an expense so great, I’m not sure it will ever have been worth it. But I want to try. I’m going to try. And I owe you a great deal of thanks.”
Tears streamed from Emery’s eyes as her hand slipped from Dean’s waist and she wrapped herself around his father’s chest, dwarfed by his size. His father’s arms hung stiff by his sides as he stared down at the top of her head, but she didn’t relent. She simply hugged him tighter.
His father’s gaze met Dean’s, and Dean said, “She only knows one way to be, Dad. As real as the day is long.”
Emery pushed back, and his father stopped her with an awkward, but well-meaning embrace.
Sometime later, after a more-than-slightly uncomfortable conversation and promises to work on figuring things out, Dean closed the door behind his father, feeling like he could breathe for the first time in years.
“I never thought I’d see the day…” Dean pulled Emery into his arms and hugged her.
“This hasn’t been a great way to get to know you,” Emery said to Jett. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I promise I’m really not a crazy person.”
