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We were both severely lacking in fun in our lives.
I’d make today about fun. I’d set aside the guilt that normally ruled my life and concentrate on Melanie and having fun with her. We could both use it.
I removed my boxers quickly and dived in. When I came up, Melanie was treading water, still smiling.
She moved to the pool’s edge and looked to the blue sky. “I can’t tell you how good this feels. It’s been ages since I’ve been swimming.”
“Yeah, there’s something about the water. It just seems to erase the stress away.”
“What kind of swimming do you do? You said you swim every day.”
“I do some laps. I know most of the strokes. It’s pretty much what I do for exercise, although I also get a lot of exercise around the ranch. Most days I’m out on the pastures, walking around and checking things out.”
“Well, you look great. Obviously you’re getting your exercise,” she said.
I stared at her soft body. “I could say the same for you. What do you do for exercise?”
“Not a lot. Although I walk almost everywhere I go in the city. My office, my loft, the places where I shop—they’re all within mere blocks of each other.”
“Urban living at its finest,” I said. “Not that I know anything about that.”
“No, you’re rural all the way. What was it like growing up here?”
“That’s a loaded question.”
“I didn’t mean to bring up anything bad.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “I tend to forget how great it really was. I was only thirteen when Talon got taken, and life after that was…different. It was a cloud that always hovered over us. I never understood why my parents wouldn’t allow us to talk about it. They truly swept it under the rug.”
“Yeah, Talon and I have talked about that.”
“Do you have any insight?”
“No, we really haven’t gone into any detail about why your parents did what they did. There are still a lot of unanswered questions.”
“You know,” I said, “when I look back, I wonder why they didn’t try to find those guys then. Especially since Larry Wade was my mother’s half-brother. I get that he was family, and that the other guys were after him for letting Talon go. But why would my parents not pursue it? Especially after what he did to their son—my brother? And those other children. Including Luke Walker—” I shook my head. “I forgot. They didn’t know what happened to Luke Walker. Talon never told anyone. He only recently told Ryan and me.”
“Talon has his own reasons for keeping quiet.”
“Yeah, and they’re not too hard to figure out, I don’t think. What happened to him was probably very humiliating. He tried to block it from his mind. I’m sure I would’ve done the same.”
“People deal with things in different ways.” Melanie sighed. “The way Talon was feeling afterward contributed to that, and add to that the fact that your parents were complicit in keeping the whole thing under wraps. It’s amazing that he got the help he needed. But I’m so glad he did.”
“I’m so glad too.”
“You know, Jonah, what happened to Talon didn’t just happen to Talon. It happened to you, too. And your brother. And your mother and father. I don’t particularly condone how your parents handled it, but I do feel confident in saying that they thought it was best at the time, and they felt they had their reasons.”
“I just wish I knew what those reasons were.”
“You may never know, and you will have to eventually find peace with that.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever find true peace, at least not on land. In water, I got close. I still hadn’t told Melanie about what I used to do in those dark alleys on skid row. Or rather, what I used to have done to me. “I do want to find peace with that. But since my parents aren’t here to give us any answers, I don’t particularly have a choice in the matter.”
“That’s not true. You have a choice whether to make peace with the fact that you’ll never know their reasons.”
Melanie raised a good point, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up the fight. I was pretty sure Wendy Madigan, a former news correspondent, had more information than she had told Jade. I intended to converse with her at some point. I just wasn’t sure when. I was trying to work through my own guilt and Bryce’s father’s potential involvement, and when I had a spare moment to think, a certain blond therapist popped into my mind—the same blond therapist who stood next to me now in the shallower end of my pool, her peachy breasts bobbing on the surface of the water.
“I’m not sure that’s true,” I said.
