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Dylan shoved his hands in his pockets. “Are you finished?”
“Yes, I guess I am,” Bart Outlaw answered, sounding even more subdued now. “But I just want to say—you told my daughter that she’s just like me and you might be right about that, but not in the way you think. Charm and I love only once and we love hard. I fell in love with her mother twenty-nine years ago, and I still love her just as much today as I did the day we met. Charm still loves you as much as the day the two of you met when she was sixteen. That’s a strong love. An everlasting love. There’s not a ruthless bone in her body. She’s too much like her mother in that regard, and a part of me is proud of that. And if what you said earlier is true, and you come from a family with long marriages where the men meet and fall in love early and love forever, then that means you still love Charm.”
When Dylan didn’t reply, Bart added, “Take it from a man who’s loved and lost and is now trying to regain the love he lost. Life is too short to move backward. I no longer see you as a threat. Charm is her own woman and no longer a teen. I will abide by whatever decision she makes. Whatever decision the two of you make. I won’t be interfering in your lives again.”
Bart paused and then continued, “Twelve years ago I wanted you out of her life. Ten years ago I took drastic actions that I’m here to say were a mistake. I’ve discovered that youareher life and if having you back in it is what will make her happy, then more than anything I want to see her happy again. I’m asking if you still love my daughter to get her out of her misery.”
Bart Outlaw then crossed the room, opened the door and left.
My actions were not those of a ruthless and manipulative man, but the actions of a desperate father...
Those words were still sifting through Dylan’s mind a week later while saddling up one of the horses to take a ride to the lake. When he had reached his destination, he dismounted and tied the horse to a tree. Grabbing his guitar, he walked over to the edge of the lake and sat with his back against the huge oak tree, like always.
He began playing his guitar to soothe his mind. He had come here practically every day since Charm left, to sit, think and play. The more he’d done so the more he had begun seeing things from Bart Outlaw’s perspective and that was pretty damn scary. In no way would he condone the man for his ruthlessness and manipulations since he still thought Bart had gone too far. Yet he had apologized.
The man had left not knowing if Dylan had accepted his apology or not because he hadn’t said one way or the other. In all honesty on that particular day, he hadn’t. But now after a heart-to-heart talk with his father, after telling him everything, he would admit—and his father had agreed—that although Bart Outlaw had taken things way too far by playing him and Charm against each other, Dylan and Charm weren’t blameless either.
It had taken Dylan’s tell-it-like-it-is and not-sugarcoat-anything father to make him see that Mr. Outlaw had been right to be upset when he’d found out Dylan and Charm had disobeyed him. Charm had been a minor at sixteen. She’d also been a minor at seventeen, although she’d been attending college. A nineteen-year-old Dylan and a sixteen-year-old Charm plotting a week together that second summer had been wrong. By rights, Bart Outlaw probably could have had him arrested. Such a thing would have revoked his scholarship at Juilliard. Also, as far as his father was concerned, if Charm had been as ruthless as her father, she would not have told Dylan about Elise’s plans to ruin him in Cancún. She would have been glad for his downfall.
Dylan credited his father with having a lot of intelligence and wisdom, and the man had also given him something else to think about. Maybe it was meant for Dylan and Charm to be apart for a while... And although sending Dylan and his band to England had been part of Bart Outlaw’s devious plan, it had been in England that summer when Dylan’s career took off. So, in a way, he owed Bart Outlaw for kick-starting his musical career.
His dad also made him look at all he accomplished during the ten years he and Charm had been apart. He had given his music 100 percent of his time and he was now a successful musician who could still have the love of his life. The woman he’d known from the beginning was meant to be his soulmate. Now he could love her with or without her father’s blessings.
An hour or so later, after he finished playing a few songs on his guitar, he thought about something else Bart Outlaw had said.
“If what you said earlier is true, and you come from a family with long marriages where the men meet and fall in love early and love forever, then that means you still love Charm...”
Dylan stood and slid his guitar back into the case and headed for his horse. Yes, he still loved Charm and it was time he let her know it. He had made the arrangements and Seth’s private jet would be flying him to Alaska in the morning. It was time for him and Charm to do things right this time.
“You’re going to have to forgive the old man at some point, Charm.”
Charm glanced over at Garth who had flown his private plane to pick her up from Kodiak Island. She had enjoyed her week there. It was a trip she’d needed.
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. If Cash can forgive him for that stunt he pulled then you can, too.”
She twisted in her seat in the cockpit. “I am not Cash. Besides, that stunt he pulled with Cash didn’t have him and Brianna apart for ten years.”
“Bart is in a bad way. The rift between the two of you is getting to him.”
Her father still called her every day. She hadn’t blocked his number but that didn’t mean she had to accept his calls. “I’m not talking to him.”
“You’re as stubborn as he is.”
She waited for him to say more and when he didn’t, she tilted her head. “And?”
He glanced over at her. “And what?”
“What other characteristics of his do you think I have?” She couldn’t push from her mind that Dylan thought she was ruthless and manipulative just like Bart.
“I can’t think of any right off, but I’m sure there are a few. You’re his daughter just like I’m his son. But we aren’t his clones, Charm.” Garth didn’t say anything for a minute. “What Bart did was ten years ago. I think we both know that although there is still room for improvement, he has come a long way since then.”
Okay, she would admit that.
“Hell, if you recall, ten years ago Dad was a damn tyrant. A dictator at his best. That’s when the board gave him an ultimatum to resign or be fired.”
She remembered that.
