Page 70 of Ethan

“No thanks to you.”

Another flinch. “No. No thanks to me.” She looked back at Naomi. “I was seventeen when I had you. I was scared and stupid. I made the worst decision of my life when I left you with your grandmother.”

“My grandmother was a wonderful woman.”

“I know she was. She was a better mother to you than I ever could have been at that age.”

“She was a better mother to me than you ever were at any age.” Naomi felt her jaw tighten. “You didn’t leave me and then come back when you grew up. You left me and had another child you decided to keep. So don’t stand here and tell me you were seventeen and scared. You figured out how to be a mother. You just didn’t figure it out for me.”

Her mother was crying now, quietly, and Naomi felt nothing except a bone-deep exhaustion she hadn’t expected.

“I’m sorry,” her mother whispered. “I am so sorry, Naomi.”

“Why are you here?” Naomi said again. “The real reason.”

Her mother wiped her eyes. “I just wanted to see you. To tell you I’m sorry. To try to—” She stopped.

“To try to what?”

“To try to make it right. If you’d let me.”

Naomi looked at her for a long moment.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” she said quietly. “I don’t know if I even want to.”

“I’m not asking you to forgive me today. I’m just asking you not to send me away without hearing me out.”

The barn door opened behind Naomi, and she heard his boots on the gravel.

Ethan.

He came to stand beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him and looked at the woman in front of them with that quiet measuring expression she knew well.

“Everything alright?” he asked. Not to her mother. To her.

“This is my… mother,” Naomi said. The word felt strange in her mouth. “She just arrived.”

Ethan looked at the woman for a moment, then back at Naomi. She could see him taking it in, putting it together.

“I’m Ethan Harrison.” He extended his hand. “This is my ranch.”

Her mother shook it. “Linda Greer. I’m sorry to show up unannounced. I wasn’t sure Naomi would agree to see me if I called ahead.”

She nailed that one on the head.

“Is there somewhere we could talk?” Linda looked at Naomi. “Privately?”

Naomi felt Ethan glance at her sideways.

“Take her to your apartment,” he said.

Naomi looked at him. She hadn’t agreed to anything yet and he’d just offered her mother a place to sit down, and something tightened in her chest that she set aside for later.

“Fine,” she said.

She turned and walked toward the stairs without looking back to see if her mother was following. She could hear her footsteps on the gravel behind her.

At the top of the stairs, she unlocked the door, pushed it open and stood back.