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“I’ll pass. I deal with enough difficult people at the hospital, thank you very much. But back to the subject at hand, I think you need to find a way to talk to Sarah. Start trying to think about things from her perspective, and she’ll probably do the same,” Dawn advised.
Max opened his mouth to reply, but he shut it again. “There’s just no good way to go about it. If I try to talk to her, it’s going to start another argument, and then where will I be?”
“And where will you be if you don’t talk to her at all?” Dawn pointed out. She tossed back the last spicy sip of her margarita. “I’ve got to get going, but at least think about it, okay? Sarah’s a good person. She’s having a hard time, and so are you, so none of this will be easy. If anyone can make it happen, though, it’s you. Let me know how it goes.” She slid off her stool and headed for the door.
Max sighed as he watched her go. It was something to think about, yes, but he wasn’t convinced it would have the same results Dawn was hoping for.
15
Sarah lookedat herself in the mirror. She’d done it so many times since she’d come to stay at the Glenwood packhouse, but her reflection didn’t give her any more solutions now than it had before. She felt tired, and she looked it. Her eyes drooped, and the corners of her mouth kept turning down. Sometimes spritzing her hair and giving it a quick shot with the blow dryer made her feel better, but it wasn’t helping this time.
She wasn’t sure anything would.
Her heart thudded when a knock came at her door. She knew it was Max before she even called out. Perhaps it was the way he knocked, but Sarah knew better. It was simply because it was him. That was all the information her wolf needed. “Come in.”
He slowly opened the door and stepped inside. His dark hair was carefully combed, but he still had that sexy salt-and-pepper stubble that’d become part of his look. “Hey. Do you have a minute?”
Sarah rubbed her lips together. “I do, but I have a feeling this is going to take more than a minute.”
Max let out a short, dry laugh. “Yeah, I guess it will. Sarah, we need to talk. And I know anything we have to say to each other will be difficult, but I’d like us to do everything we can not to turn it into another fight.”
“I agree. I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Max.”
Footsteps crashed down the hall, and young male voices echoed with them. It was probably Hunter and Conner, or some of the other young wolves in the packhouse.
“Let’s step outside,” Max suggested.
Sarah slipped through the French doors onto the deck. The afternoon was a relatively cool one, considering the warm weather they’d been having, and she needed that breeze on the back of her neck to drive away the beads of sweat forming there. She wished it could also blow away the sense of impending doom that writhed within her, but it didn’t. Sarah’s wolf had been restless for the last couple of days, ever since the last ‘discussion’ she and Max had in the living room. The beast had been even more keyed up today, probably because it knew what was coming.
She rested her elbows on the railing and looked out over the yard. A faint breeze ruffled the trees. Several darker clouds had gathered in the distance and were moving in swiftly. Sarah welcomed the rain and storms they would likely bring because they’d match the feeling in her heart.
“Sarah, I’m sorry,” Max began as he came to stand next to her. “I’m sorry for everything I said and did that made you feel like I didn’t understand you. The truth is I don’t think Idounderstand. I’ve been trying.”
She nodded. “We’ve lived very different lives. Whenever I think we’re back on the right track again, we get derailed. We’ve always known that we haven’t completely agreed on everything, though.”
“That’s true.” He let out a long breath, but it wasn’t laced with a growl this time. He wasn’t angry, at least. “I like to think we might’ve been able to work that out if we’d had the chance.”
Her heart slowly sank to the bottom of her stomach, lying on its side and sloshing back and forth. She’d known it was coming. She’d planned on saying such things herself. So why did it feel so much worse to hear Max say it, too? “I’ve wondered about that myself. Maybe too much time has gone by, changing both of us in different ways. We’re not young kids who still have their whole lives ahead of them, like Conner and McKenzie.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I knew that you weren’t into the whole Selene thing, but I didn’t realize just how adamantly against it you were. I’m still not sure I understand why, but I didn’t like seeing how upset Ava was.”
She’d already put a knife through her own heart with that one, and now Max was twisting it. Sarah knew she deserved it, though. “I’ve spoken to her about it, and I’ve apologized. I wish I could’ve stayed calmer and addressed it differently, but I still feel the same about it.”
“You know, I guess I always thought you’d just come around to it eventually. Back when we were younger, I mean. That wasn’t very smart of me, but most young men aren’t that smart to begin with. They’re too busy thinking about other things to focus on the real stuff.” He curled his fingers on the outside of the railing and leaned back. “It catches up with them eventually.”
“There’s more between us than just sex,” she corrected him gently. No matter what happened in this conversation, she wanted to make sure he knew that.
“Yes, but I’m starting to think it isn’t enough.” He closed his eyes. “I feel defeated.”
“Funny how we can fight with each other and both come out the loser.” Sarah felt that same sense of defeat down to her very bones. Her wolf despised it. It urged her to keep fighting until she found a better outcome, to do something about this already. But Sarah was tired. She’d fought for so long. How much longer would she have to keep going? How much longercouldshe keep going?
Max turned to her. “When you showed up at the door, I thought all my dreams had come true. I thought I was finally getting everything I wanted in life. I’ve had some of those same feelings again as we’ve been trying to work this out, but I’m starting to think we might have jumped into this too quickly. We just assumed we were the same kids who used to know each other, but maybe we’re not.”
Every part of her was shattering, splintering into a million pieces that could never be glued back together. She’d picked them up and carried them around, trying to look strong on the outside so Ava and Hunter wouldn’t know the difference, but Sarah knew she’d never be whole again. “No. I don’t think we are.”
One corner of his mouth twitched up. “So this is when we finally start agreeing?”
“I guess so.” She looked down at her hands. They were hardened and calloused from so many years of work, laboring away so others could have the lives they wanted. No amount of hard work would bring her the lifeshewanted, and the injustice of it sat bitterly within her. The problems between herself and Max had always been there, but she had no doubt they’d been compounded by their time apart. It was all because of Edward and his cruel, stubborn ways, and anger piled on top of her sadness. Why couldn’t things have been different?
