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I did too. Now more than ever.Chapter Twenty-TwoI missed Mom so much that I decided to sneak onto the Ranch and visit her. Josephine may have stolen a lot of things from me, but she wasn’t taking this. I took the back road and turned off my lights when I got close to Shannon’s Meadow. There was no need for artificial light. I knew the way, and the moon was aiding and abetting me tonight.
When I got out of my Jeep parked just past Mom’s cabin, I noticed how deafeningly quiet it was. Grady’s band wasn’t playing in the background. The sounds of happy guests were only echoes of the past now. It was as if the Ranch had died. I felt my mother mourning it and begging me to fix it. What could I do? “Love,” I heard her whisper in the breeze.
“I’m Loveless,” I whispered back.
I swore I heard her laugh. “That’s what you think.”
I shook my head at her, or at me, because either she was delusional or I was for believing I could hear her. I tiptoed through the tall grass and wildflowers toward the gate leading to my mother. That gate opened and closed, startling me. I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight to see what or who made the noise. A tall who of a person stared back at me, just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. I’d thought he’d all but forgotten my mother. I glowered at him before turning and running back to my Jeep.
“Emma, stop,” Dad called.
I refused to listen to him, so he proved to me that he could still outrun me. It was those long Carrington legs. For a middle-aged man in cowboy boots, he could sure move. He was to me in no time, wrapping his arms around me.
“Emma,” he whispered.
“Let go of me.” I tried wriggling out of his arms.
“No.” He held on tighter.
“Please let go,” I cried against his chest.
“No, Emma Bear.”
He hadn’t called me that in forever. I burst into tears against his chest. “Why? Just why?” That’s all I wanted to know. Why had he brought that awful woman into our lives? Why had he forgotten about our mother? And did he ever really think of himself as my father?
His strong arms held on for dear life while he rested his chin on my head. “You remind me so much of your mother it hurts sometimes.”
“Is that why you hate me?”
He leaned away and looked down at me with regret-filled eyes. “I could never hate you.”
“Why didn’t you ever give me your last name?” That question had been eating at me for the last several days.
He closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath. “I wanted to.” He let go of me only to take my hand. “Let’s go sit on the porch and talk.”
We turned toward Mom’s cabin with the pink door, but something was wrong. Even in the dark I could tell the door was the wrong color. I let go of Dad’s hand and raced to the now blood-red door. The smell of new paint hit me like a slap in the face. I went for the thermometer to grab the spare key only to find it was missing. I turned and unleashed my fury on my father, who stood on the steps looking at the door with wide eyes.
“How dare you let her touch this cabin! Was it not enough that she’s ruined everything else, you had to give her this too?” I started to march off the porch until I saw the tears leaking out of my father’s eyes.
“Damnit, I told her not to come near this place.” In defeat, he sat down on the top step with his face in hands. “I’ve made a mess out of things.”
Amen to that. I sat down next to him. “Why her?” I went back to my original question, or the one I really should have asked to begin with.
Dad lifted his head and slowly turned my way. Tired, red eyes stared at me. “I miss your mom.”
“So you replaced her with a psycho?” I was past trying to play nice.
“I could never replace your mother. She was one of a kind.”
“Yes, she was.” I wiped away my tears. “So why? Why Josephine?”
He stared into the starry Colorado night. “For a while, she helped me forget.”
“You wanted to forget Mom?”
“I wanted to forget the pain of losing her.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Yeah, well, you could have picked someone better for the job.”
He turned and kissed my head. “I know.”
“She said you withheld your name from me. Is that true?”
His entire body went rigid. “Damn her.” He put his arm around me and pulled me closer. “I never adopted you because I felt guilty. Anders was the best man I’d ever known. The kind of friend who would give you his last dollar and rush into a burning building to save your life. He loved you and your mom so much. I fell in love with both of you, too. I’m ashamed to say it was before he died. I never acted on those feelings until he was gone. Your mother never knew. The least I felt like I could do was let you have Anders’s name since I got everything else. Honey, I’d give you anything you ask for, including my name if that’s what you want, but believe me, you got the better man’s name.”
