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“Eliza would say the grunt work will keep me young.”
“And what would you say?”
“I’d say that it gave me some time with my boy’s woman, so I won’t complain.”
My smile is soft. “He really loves you.”
“Love him like a son.”
“Have you told him that recently?”
It’s out of my mind too fast to rein it in. I should apologize for overstepping, but I won’t. After all, this was my plan when I asked him to help me today. I wanted to get him alone and talk to him about his relationship with Brody. It matters to Brody far more than he’ll admit.
“No. I haven’t,” Wade mutters, continuing to scratch Banana.
“He thinks you resent him for leaving. That you hold his career against him and wish he’d done something else. Stayed here, maybe. Is that really how you feel?”
He flinches. “Jesus. Never knew it would kill to hear that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for speakin’ the truth. Not ever.”
I nod slowly, swapping my weight from one boot to the other. “Look, I may not know any of you that well yet, but I do know Brody. And you do too. Enough to realize he’s not going to tell you these things on his own. It’s my job now to take care of him, and I want to start by trying to help the relationship between you two. Brody is headstrong andsodamn caring. He won’t ever do or say something that he knows will hurt someone he loves. That’s where I come in, I guess.
“At the risk of getting thrown off your ranch forever, I think you’re going to regret pushing him away all these years, and especially if you continue to do it. I grew up with a father who didn’t give a flying crap about me, and I would have loved to experience the type of love you and him share, even shoved down beneath years of pain.”
I run my fingers through my hair, feeling like a downright rambling mess, but Wade listens contently, letting me finish.
“What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t waste any more of your time together. Put the past behind you both and move forward. Life is too fucking short to do anything else.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. The silence hangs heavily between us, and I contemplate tucking tail and running off when he finally speaks.
“I’ve never been one to believe in any sort of afterlife. No God and pearly gates. But hell if I’m not considerin’ it now.” He swallows, staring straight at me. “’Cause there’s no fuckin’ way my daughter didn’t send you here to be with her boy.”
41
BRODY
Exhaustion tugs at my mind,trying to pull me under as I grit my jaw and focus on the road. Another call comes through, interrupting the music on my stereo for the twenty-fifth time since I got off the plane. The past three hours have been tense and angry. A flurry of resentment has built inside of me, aimed directly at the company of people I left behind in Nashville.
Maybe that’s unfair. It makes little difference to me right now.
I’m burning up from the inside out, and I won’t cool until I’ve sorted this shit out. Anna’s my priority. She always will be, even if Garrison and Rita don’t understand it. Which is putting our parting words really fucking lightly. Garrison’s growl as he threatened to take everything away from me if I got on that plane still scratches the walls of my mind like nails on a chalkboard.
But clearly, he didn’t deter me. Not only does he not mean it, but I can’t say I’d care right about now even if he did. I don’t put too much more thought into that, though. Not right now.
The ranch gate is open, with my grandfather waiting by the wood fence when I pull up. His posture is stiff, his face unreadable. Preparing myself for a verbal kick in the ass forletting Anna get dragged into the mess of my life, I unlock the truck door for him.
He hops up and in, setting his hat on the centre seat beside mine. I wait for it. For the lashing and disappointment, but nothing comes. Silence ripples around us, along something heavy I can’t pinpoint.
“Let’s hear it,” I say, breaking the silence. “Tell me I should have done a better job of shieldin’ her from this part of my life or whatever it is you’re thinkin’. I’ve already beat myself up enough for the both of us.”
“I wasn’t thinking none of that.”
“No?”
He sets his hands on his lap and cracks his knuckles. The wear and tear on his skin is obvious, a lifetime of marks and scars that I don’t know the origin of. Those exterior marks have nothing on the damage inside, though. They never have. We’re similar in that way.
