Page 69 of Our Sweet Destiny
“She’s doing fine,” Jade said a few minutes later. “I don’t think you’re looking at colic. She’s too stable for that. The exam showed no indication of colic other than what your father said about her behavior, and that could just be stomach discomfort. She might have become stressed over the show today, and that alone could have sent her tummy into distress.”
“What’s she doing here?”
They all spun around at the sound of Hal’s voice. He stood at the barn entrance, his wide shoulders and height accentuated by the moonlight.
“Dad,” Rex said. He looked between the woman he loved and the man whom he also loved, feeling the pull of each in his chest.
“Don’t youDadme, Rex Braden,” he said as he neared. His father narrowed his dark eyes, which had gone almost black. “You step back from Hope,” he said to Jade.
“Dad, Hope’s fine,” Rex said.
His father wasn’t listening. He was staring at the necklace that hung around Jade’s neck, exposed for all to see. His chest rose and fell with each breath as he stepped closer to Jade.
Rex stepped between them just as Treat came to his side.
“Hope needed a vet. Jade’s an excellent vet,” he said.
“Step out of my way, son,” Hal ordered in a deep, cold voice.
Rex crossed his arms. “I’m not moving until I know you are gonna be civil to her.”
His father put one strong arm out and pushed his son aside. Rex turned to retaliate, and Treat gripped his arm—hard—restraining him.
“What the hell?” Rex said angrily.
“Where did you get that?” his father asked Jade.
She brought a nervous hand up to her necklace and fingered the cool silver.
“I asked you a question, Jade Johnson.”
Savannah and Josh flew into the barn.
“He said he was going to lie down,” Josh said. “I didn’t think anything of it until I went to check on him and found his bed empty and the door cracked open.”
“It’s okay,” Treat said.
“Dad,” Savannah said, coming to his side, “Jade’s helping Hope.”
One look from her father sent her two steps backward.
Rex yanked his arm free from Treat and approached his father. “Dad, you want to read someone the riot act, you read it to me.”
“I plan to,” he said, his eyes never moving from Jade’s. “Just as soon as she answers my question.”
“I…We…” Jade began, then swallowed hard.
Rex wasn’t going to let Jade flounder at the hands of his father, no matter what trouble it might cause. He loved her and he was done pretending he didn’t. She was his to protect. What kind of man let their girlfriend go up against his own father alone?
He stepped between them again, and his father pulled himself up to his full height; the three inches that separated them allowed his father to look down upon him. The loyal man in Rex almost relented. He almost lowered his eyes and stepped aside, but Jade’s whisper of a touch, a quick brush of her fingertips on his back, was enough to give him the courage and strength he needed to confront his father.
“You want to talk to Jade, you do it with respect.” He crossed his arms to keep them from shaking. “I gave her that necklace. You got a problem with it? You take it up with me, not her.”
There was a direct line of tension from his father’s dark eyes to his. His siblings watched on, but Rex barely registered them. He had tunnel vision, and all of the recent tension and the hiding came rushing back to him, with the last fifteen years close on its heels. His father was at one end of the dark tunnel, and protecting Jade was the light at the other end. The space in between was thick with tension and matters of the heart that were too magnanimous to be defined.
“Step aside, son,” his father said.
“I’m not moving, Dad.” He reached into his shirt and pulled out his own necklace.
