Page 65 of A Love So Sweet
He appreciated the courage it took for his brother to slay his own dragon, and in an effort to lighten the moment, he teased, “Are you trying to tell me that you won’t try to tag Max with your giant spear?”
“Not an inch of it.” Dane laughed. “Seriously, though, I’d never make the same mistake twice. Besides, there’s a certain someone I can’t seem to get off my mind these last few months, so I might not be on the market too much longer myself.”
“Yeah?” Treat asked.
Dane leaned back in his chair and looked out at the majestic mountains. “Oh, yeah.”
“So, they ratted me out to you already?” Treat asked, nodding toward the house.
“I had three calls by two in the morning.”
Typical Braden hotline.“Who didn’t call?”
“Who do you think?” Dane nodded toward Rex’s truck.
“Right. I’m not sure what to make of things with Rex, but I’ll just take Dad’s advice and let him be. He’ll talk when he’s ready.”
Dane got up to go inside and Treat held him back. Letting his siblings handle his admission was a cop-out. He needed to deal with things himself if he was truly going to move forward with no regrets.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry about how things went down when we lost Mom. I was the oldest, and I should have been there more. When you were so mired down in anger, I should have tried harder to help you find ways to deal with it.” After their mother died, most of his siblings had fallen back on tears and had crawled into their own shells for a while, but Dane had exploded. He’d gone from being sweet and even-tempered, like he was now, to an angry, petulant boy. Treat had tried to talk him through it, but there were times when he’d let Dane spew his fury far too loud, and he’d always wished he hadn’t.
“I was a little off my rocker, huh?” Dane said with a troubled look in his eyes.
“I think we all were. You know how much I love you, right?” There had never been any embarrassment wrapped around his love for his family, and today was no different.
“Never had any doubt.” Dane stood and embraced Treat. “We cool?”
“Always.”
Treat watched him walk inside, and then he looked out over the property, thinking about his mother. He could still envision her waving from horseback in the field.Treaty!He hoped she’d have been proud of him, even with his faults. He remembered the day his mother had come home from the hospital for the last time. Even as a boy he’d known she wasn’t going to last very long. She’d become terrifyingly frail. Her cheeks had lost their rosy glow months before. They’d become hollow, her arms and legs atrophied from extended bed rest. He used to stand in her doorway when she was sleeping and just look at her, memorizing every feature as she slipped farther and farther away. One afternoon, when his father was in the field and the other kids were out horsing around, she’d reached for him. He hadn’t even known she was awake. He still remembered the roughness of the hardwood floor against his bare feet as he crossed the room and the feel of each slender bone beneath her nearly transparent skin when he held her hand. She opened her eyes and smiled, and in that breath, he saw the mother she had always been, strong, loving, beautiful. She was too weak to keep her eyes open, and they’d fluttered closed. He held on to her hand long after it had gone limp, hoping and praying she’d open her eyes again. He clung to her until his father took him by the shoulders and dragged him away.Mom! Come back! Please! I’ll do better! I’ll help you more with the kids! I’ll help Dad on the ranch!Even now his body struggled and fought against the memory, just as he’d struggled and fought against his father’s mighty grip until every fiber of his being was exhausted beyond repair and he’d collapsed into his waiting arms. When he’d woken up the next day, he’d run to his mother’s room hoping it had been a nightmare. He’d pushed the heavy wooden door open.
All these years later he remembered the long, ominous creak as the door came to a stop and the grief that had consumed him at the sight of his mother’s empty bed.
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Chapter Thirty
“KAYLIE, I NEED you,” Max said into her Bluetooth. She was almost back to Allure when she realized she had some legwork to do. She’d spoken to Treat early that morning but had held off on calling him when she’d gotten an early flight, wanting instead to surprise him.
“Why, Max, I never knew you were into women,” Kaylie joked.
“This is serious. I need help, and I need it now.Please?”
Kaylie’s voice softened. “Of course. What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“No. Well, something did. Something big. But I can’t get into it now.” She’d never told Kaylie about what happened with Ryan, and she didn’t want to try to go over it now. She was too excited and nervous to waste another second thinking about the past. “Can you meet me at the mall?”
“You hate shopping.”
“No kidding. That’s why I need you. Please, Kaylie? I hate myself for sounding like a needy woman, but I am. So will you meet me before I change my mind?”
The situation with Ryan could not have been anticipated, and as Max had traveled home, she’d realized it couldn’t have gone any better. The pieces of her past were falling into place, clearing a path for her to understand what she had misconstrued years earlier. Although she felt horrible for what they’d both gone through, the fact that Ryan hadn’t been in control of his actions when he’d hurt her released her from the guilt she’d been harboring. She could no more take responsibility for causing his actions than she could for Treat wanting to change the way he ran his business in order to make their relationship work.
She’d spent years burdened with guilt she didn’t deserve and fearing the worst in the wrong people. Now she was dead set on making things right.
“Be there in thirty minutes,” Kaylie said.
“Meet me at Victoria’s Secret.”
