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After a quick knock on the door, I open it to see him tossing a football up. He’s bare-chested in long johns, his hair damp, and it knocks the breath from me. His olive skin looks incredible stretched over the muscles of his chest, his barbed wire tattoos stretching along his biceps with each spiral he throws up. But it’s the sight of that pigskin ball that does me in. It hammers home just how far we’ve come and how much our relationship has cost him. Silver eyes cut me to the bone as he follows me from his door to his nightstand. I set his pie down and lean over to hover above him where he lays in the bed. His beard’s grown darker, thicker, outlining his full lips, and I run my hands along his jaw to trace it. Stormy eyes regard me with a mix of hostility and love. It’s insane how much I can clearly see when he lets me. And this look tells me that this time I cut him deep, and he’s not willing to forgive so easily. He no longer trusts me with his heart. It’s not a question of love. It’s his trust I’ve lost.
“I’m sorry.” I lean down, the necklace he gave me grazing his chest as I hover above him. He doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch, he lays there, looking up at me. In his eyes, I see a rare vulnerability. It breaks my heart I’ve hurt him so badly. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, just before I lean in closer and press my lips to his. I can feel his restraint as I pull away and stare down at him with all the love in my heart.
“I love you,” I sniff as a stray tear falls down my cheek, splashing onto his chest. He closes his eyes on impact. I wait just long enough for his rejection before I move away. Heart splintering, I gather myself from him and make my way out. I can feel his eyes on me when I shut the door.
In my room, I stare out the window at the pasture, knowing the confession I came to make may be the only way to get through to him. My phone buzzes in my hand as I lift it, sure it’s René, but it’s the last person I expect to hear from.
“Daddy?”
“Harper,” he rasps out, his voice a million miles away. “We need you to come home.”
Harper
The next day, I pull up to the ranch just as the sun sets. It’s been one of the worst days of my life, and I have no fight left in me. I wipe my eyes of debris and sit in the car going over the last few hours.
“We can’t make it work,” my mother says, barely able to keep the anger out of her voice. “I’ve filed for divorce.”
I look over at my dad, who stares out of the kitchen window. He’s been absent since his stint in prison, where he served eighteen months. Mom had come to New York the first few of them to avoid the media in Texas and any immediate threats. She was forced to sell the house to pay his fines and lawyer’s fees. Now they have a tiny one-bedroom apartment an hour away from College Station. Mom spent the whole time in New York going over years of finances with Nana, trying to find a way for them to come out of it. But the truth is my father sunk us and took away our lives with his selfish decisions. And we were all still paying for his mistakes.
“Dad?” Kandace prompts from where she sits.
“It’s for the best,” he says as if he’s on autopilot. As he has been since he got arrested for racketeering. My father has always been a betting man, but a gambling addiction is the last thing I expected. And the fact that he was gambling with his team, and our lives was the most shocking. After ten years as a reputable coach whose morals were based on family and trust, nothing was more jarring than the media coverage of seeing him taken off campus in cuffs.
“Why, Daddy, just tell me why?” Kandace asks, in tears at their kitchenette. “You had everything. You had all of those people counting on you.”
“It’s a sickness,” my mother explains, her voice lifeless.
“And we’re just supposed to accept it? You can’t,” Kandace says, reading her the riot act. “You can’t forgive him. Twenty-six years of marriage, and you can’t forgive him.”
Dad scrubs a hand down his face wiping away stray tears. “I don’t deserve it.” He looks down at me. “Not from anyone in this family. The things I said, the things I did, they’re unforgivable. I didn’t mean it,” he assures me. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know you were just trying to protect me.”
“My reasons for my behavior were all selfish. I don’t expect you all to forgive me, now or maybe ever, but just please know I love you. I can’t give you excuses that really don’t make a difference. I have none. I ruined this. Your mother deserves to be happy, and I’m not the man who can do that for her anymore.” They share a look, and my heart cracks. I can still see the love between them, but there’s far too much water holding them both back.
“Fine, you’re getting a divorce, that it?” Kandace stands and turns to me. “I have my own family to get back to.”
“Kandace,” I say as she shoulders her purse and makes her way toward the door. “Kandace, stop,” I order as she hustles toward an SUV I don’t recognize. “When did you get this?”
“A year ago.” Guilt covers me. When everything happened, I all but deserted her. She’d come to New York for a few days to visit when Mom came, but our dynamic was off because of my absence. We never addressed it because we were too busy focusing on Mom. Not only did I run from what happened, I went completely MIA on her.
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you even doing here?”
“I came to be with Lance.”
“Lance?” She gapes at me. “Are you serious?”
“He came to New York weeks ago, asking for a commitment. I’ve been staying with his family.”
“Well, good on ya. Guess you don’t have to worry about your own family falling apart anymore.”
“Kandace, I miss you.”
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She eyes me. “You cut me out. You left us all here to deal with the mess.”
