Page 50 of Seaside Cowboy's Second Chance

“But... but it’s too much.”

He shook his head. “No. I only hope it’s enough.”

For a few moments, no words passed between them. Then she gestured for him to step through the French doors onto the terrace. With wisteria overhanging them, they overlooked the turquoise ocean as it caressed pale sand while seagulls greeted a new day—or maybe signaled where the fish were. She longed to look at him, but it would be too painful. She longed to find the right words, but did the right words even exist in this situation?

He’d always been her biggest supporter.

She dragged her bare toes across a patio stone, letting her big toe trace the asymmetrical outline of one painted in cobalt blue. “I used to watch my mother paint on the beach or the terrace. It felt magical to me. I know lots of children liked to draw. But to me, drawing was trying to be part of her world where she seemed to disappear. It was one of my connections to her. And then... it was the only connection.”

Her throat clogged up, and breathing became difficult. As her eyes became misty, she turned away and blinked furiously, keeping the tears at bay. The independent, self-sufficient woman she’d become didn’t cry.

“I’m sorry she hurt you so badly. A parent abandoning her child... I can’t understand how she could do it.” Emotion roughened his voice. His hand touched hers, his palm callused from manual labor, but he withdrew fast.

She missed his touch immediately. And she always missedhim. The void he’d left in her life had never been filled. Could never get filled, no matter what she’d told herself. But unlike with her parents’ disappearance, she’d dug the ravine between her and Dallas herself, and then filled it with alligators for good measure.

He didn’t realize it, but his words about her mother nearly ripped her apart. She’d managed to keep it all within for years, but it was getting more and more difficult.

It wasn’t his fault because he still had no idea what had really happened. She opened her mouth to tell him, then reminded herself she needed to keep her promise. Even years later, she couldn’t take the risk. Would she ever be able to stop carrying this huge burden pressing on her heart?

Some things she could tell, though, and many he already knew. She stared at the endless beauty of the ocean. Both her parents loved the ocean, though for different reasons and in a different way. One of the cottony clouds looked like her mother’s palette.

“In some ways, she’d sort of checked out long before she disappeared.” She spoke slowly. “I became Daddy’s girl by default. Now I think she got married way too young and wasn’t ready to be a wife and a mother. I don’t know what she wanted, but our family wasn’t it. My father loved her a lot, and she just... accepted that love. It wasn’t just running away with another guy for her, but running away from the life she didn’t want. After she left, Dad mangled all her paintings and watercolors with a saw and threw them away with all her art supplies.”

“I’m sorry that happened.”

She shuddered. “He drove far away to toss them out. I would’ve dived into a dumpster to retrieve them.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “He threw away everything of hers she didn’t take with her.Everything.”

The word felt as sharp as a razor and hurt just as much. “He gave away furniture and anything useful, gutting our house to bare walls. Empty.” Exactly the way she’d felt then—gutted, empty. She gripped the jade-green—like the shutters—railing, the surface rough under her hands, like the bark of a tree but more protruding. It could use a fresh coat of paint, something she needed to do before she left Port Sunshine.

She suppressed a grimace because she didn’t want to leave. Her resolve to return to Charleston could use a fresh coat of paint, as well. She’d covered her memories with so many layers she’d thought she’d never peel it down to the original one. But now she did, stripping all the layers with acid. After all, her large supply of acid had been eating at her soul for so long.

He grunted. “I understand he was hurt deeply.” He would know. She’d seemingly done the same thing to him. “But”—he kept talking—“it wasn’t right of him to do that. Or to take down your drawings from the refrigerator and throw away your crayons and paper and forbid you to draw.”

“Dad wanted to erase anything connected with Mom. But I was her spitting image, except for the hair, of course, and he couldn’t erase me.” She stumbled and turned to Dallas, her eyes dry as they should be. “I mean, he loved me. Took care of me unless he was at sea. Besides Grandma, he’d been the one to brush my hair or put shoes on my feet. I loved him back. But he became a different man after she left. Often the same thing is the source of our greatest love and greatest pain.” In more senses than one.

Surely, Dallas knew what she meant. He’d been her greatest love and leaving him her greatest pain. Perhaps he’d felt the same about her. But that’s not what they were discussing, was it?

“True.” He leaned to her as if he wanted to hug her but seemed to stop himself. “And still unfair to you.”

“Thanks for sticking with me then. For finding ways to see me despite my dad.” Her father had cut all ties with her mother’s sister, which meant Skylar couldn’t see her cousins anymore. Which meant she couldn’t go to the ranch where she might see them.

Dallas had gone out of his way to see her during those traumatic two months beforeeverythingchanged.

She closed her eyes to compose herself, then opened them. He was so close she could nearly feel his breath on her skin, get a lungful of his intoxicating scent of cedar and juniper notes. Yet an ocean still spread between them. Might be for the better because the compassion in his blue eyes already cut her to the core. If he tried to touch her, she’d come undone.

Back to the pressing matters. She straightened her spine. “Do you know whether the police are making any progress in finding Earl?”

“No.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I mean, I heard there was no progress yet. How is your grandmother holding up?”

A deep sigh left her lungs. “About as you can imagine. Confused and worried. She’s with my aunt right now, and she took Breeze with her. Auntie is applying the therapy of cooking and consuming hearty food. I did some research online about Earl and his family and coworkers, but it wasn’t enough.” She hesitated. “Sorry I dragged you into this mess.”

“You didn’t.” He pulled off his cowboy hat and forked his fingers through his flattened hair, the rich russet brown glowing in the sunlight. “My brother, Barrett, is a private investigator. I can ask him for help if you’d like.”

“Yes, please,” she said without thinking.

Then she second-guessed herself. Was it a good idea? She’d done things without thinking as a child, and she’d regretted it now.

But how else could she help her grandmother? Skylar was out of her league with investigating, and she’d advanced at her job partly because she knew what she was good at and where she had limitations.

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