Page 82 of Second Start: Family
He greeted them and went straight to the coffee.
The next time the door opened, it was Hall.
He went straight to Kenzie.
But before he could say anything the door opened again.
To the sheriff of Shakespeare County.
Cambria Weston.
And Kenzie’s brother, Boone Dorsey Smith, founder of Bodie Smith Enterprises.
“Bodie,” she said.
Hall stepped to the side.
“Kenzie,” her brother replied evenly.
Her gaze shot to Cully.
Bodie said, “Yeah, he told me. He wouldn’t let me walk into seeing you after all this time unprepared.”
He stepped into the circle of chairs, not appearing to take in anything but her. “I know you felt I butted into your life too much, treated you like a kid, tried to take over.”
“Youdidtake over, Bodie,” she said almost tenderly.
But his pain blocked out the tenderness. “You shut me out. You cut me out. Walked away and never looked back. Years, Kenzie.Years.”
“I had to.” Softly, she repeated, “I had to.”
She saw him want to say no, she didn’t need to. There was no reason for her actions. But he held off from saying that or anything.
He waited.
He listened.
“Do you know how easy it would have been for me to let you take over, Bodie? To keep being that little sister whose strong big brother took care of everyone and everything. To make no decisions on my own. To coast along in the wake of your strength. I’ll tell you. It would have been easy. Too easy. Much, much too easy.”
Even after she finished, he didn’t say anything for a moment.
“That’s not you, Kenzie.”
“It could have been. When Mom died, I was so lost. I clung to you—”
“That’s natural. You were a kid and—”
“You weren’t much more than a kid yourself. I didn’t realize that at the time, of course. But as I got older, I’d find myself thinking, when Bodie was this age, he was taking care of both of us and going to school, when Bodie was this next age, he was taking care of both of us and starting his business … And what was I doing? Letting Bodie keep on taking care of me. It was tempting, so tempting to keep going on like that. As long as you were around to be my too-damned-willing crutch, I feared I’d never do anything on my own.
“But I came to Wyoming because I knew it was time to see if we could … I should have done it sooner and for that I am so sorry, Bodie. Because now there’s something else. I need to tell you.” She looked around. “Tell you all.”
For the first time, Bodie seemed to notice the other people in the room.
“We know Eric,” Cully said helpfully.
“This is Vicky Otter, the head teacher here at the Mason School.”
Bodie nodded at her, acknowledging he at least knew of her from his wife’s participation in winterizing the schoolhouse.
