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His shoulders were fallen, his features ashen.
“I’m a fraud,” he said. “I lost my dad. And then Gonzo. I was only fourteen and I had to dig his grave. And my mom and sister... Mom could hardly cope after Dad left. And my sister, she blamed herself. I had to be strong.”
Heart pounding, she sniffled. She put her hand on top of his and glanced at the kennel, too. They needed to call someone about the dog.
And maybe about Braden, too.
Had he really been living with a dead dog in a kennel for over a week?
Shouldn’t it smell?
She squeezed his hand, more in love than she’d ever been. When they’d first been married she’d known that Braden had depths people couldn’t see. She’d just known.
When had she forgotten that?
“I pushed you away,” he told her. “I couldn’t handle the pain of losing Tucker. Or the blame. I shut down on myself. And then you. I couldn’t handle it. I’m weak and a fool, Mallory, and I’m so sorry.”
“You are not weak. You’re one of the strongest men I’ve ever known,” she told him. “And you most definitely aren’t a fool.” She felt the truth of the words to her core. But still she worried.
Clearly Braden had had an extremely difficult eye-opening experience. But at what cost?
She hadn’t ever meant to break him. Didn’t want to break him.
“Bray, it’s okay. I never should have made the ridiculous mandate that we can’t be friends. Clearly we can’t not be friends.” She was crying softly but was able to instill all the certainty she felt in the words.
He shook his head.
“Where have you been all night?” He said he’d been up. Surely not driving around with the kennel.
“At home. At my condo.”
“You’ve been here, in San Diego?”
“I had to have a place to take Lucky.”
“Lucky.” The dog, obviously. He’d named a dead dog?
“He got out of the hospital yesterday afternoon and needs around-the-clock care for the first couple of days. Knowing that he could die if I went to sleep, I didn’t.”
And the dog had died anyway?
She glanced down, afraid of what another loss on his shoulders had done to Braden’s psyche.
And that was when she saw two big brown eyes peering up at her.
“Bray! He’s not dead! Look!” She jumped up so fast it startled the animal, which moved suddenly and then whimpered.
“Of course he’s not dead,” Braden said, opening the door immediately, reaching in first to pet the dog, talking soothingly, and then carefully lifting him out.
He had a cast on one of his back legs. And a bandage wrapped around his torso where the fur had obviously been shaved.
“I told you, I’ve been up all night caring for him,” he reminded her. “Which left me far too much time with nothing to do but sit alone with myself.” Holding the dog, he looked over at her and met her gaze fully. “I was scared to death he was going to die on me. Really scared. I couldn’t leave him there, go to work, go anywhere. I had no one to call. It was all on me. And it struck me how you’d felt in the nursery that night I came in there and found you holding Tucker’s penguin.”
She was crying again, slow tears dripping down her cheeks.
“Helpless, that’s how it feels,” he said. “And sometimes there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”
“Except sit with it until it passes. Trusting that it will pass.”
