Page 76 of A Marriage Pact for the Cowboy

She stared at the fingers twisting in her lap and audibly gulped.

“Eryn, I treated you badly. I’m sorry.”

She glanced his way but didn’t quite meet his gaze.

“Your dad’s not completely wrong.”

Now she seemed to cower. Great, would he ever get this right? “Eryn? I’m not sure I’m good enough for you, but I promise that you’re not a game to me. I’m serious about my attraction to you, but I feel like I’m receiving mixed signals from you.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “And then I sent them back by disappearing. Or maybe they didn’t seem mixed. Maybe they felt like full-on rejection. I want to tell you why, but I’m afraid it will sound like excuses, not reasons. And there’s no excuse good enough to ignore you, and I’m sorry.”

“You’re apologizing to me?”

“Yes? I wronged you. I got so involved solving a problem at the cottages — Steve made a huge error on a tile job, then we had words and he quit, then I tried to fix it all — I told myself you didn’t want to talk to me because of your dad and because I couldn’t catch your eye at breakfast yesterday, and… Eryn?”

She cradled her face in her hands while her shoulders quaked.

He’d made her cry. Maxwell scooted closer and slipped his arm around her shoulder. “Hey, sweetie. I’m sorry.”

Now she was sobbing in earnest.

Maxwell had no sisters, and if his mother ever cried, it was far from her sons’ sight. What should he say? He was out of his league. He rubbed his palm over her upper arm. God? I could use some help here…

“I’m sorry, too,” she got out between sobs.

“You haven’t done anything wrong, sweetie. It was on me.”

Eryn shook her head. “I’ve done plenty wrong.”

When she was quiet too long, he murmured, “Haven’t we all? That’s why Jesus came.”

“I’ve been jealous of Amelia my entire life. Everyone liked her. No one even n-n-noticed me.”

Maxwell’s memories mocked his rebuttal before he uttered it. Eryn was right. He barely remembered her as more than a shadowy figure from his childhood. Like a diva, Amelia had commanded center stage.

“I only wanted to be her friend. Everyone talks about the twin bond, but we never had that. She always hated me.”

Hated was a strong word, but Maxwell kept his mouth zipped. Eryn was talking, and this was what she believed, and he needed to hear her out, even though the topic wasn’t quite what he’d expected. He kept stroking her upper arm. Waited.

“She had a thing for you.”

Maxwell winced, but it was undeniable.

Eryn shot a barely perceptible glance his way. “She got you to promise to marry her if you were both old and unattached.”

He pulled away and stared at Eryn. “Wait. What?”

“She wrote it in her journal. It was after Mom’s funeral.”

How did he not recall this? He remembered the funeral. Remembered the luncheon. Remembered feeling guilty that while he was celebrating a birthday, others mourned a life cut short.

“You don’t remember?” Eryn asked plaintively.

Maxwell shook his head. “She was crying.” What else?

“You hugged her.”

“I did? You saw that?”

Eryn’s face flushed and she looked down. “She wrote it in her journal.”

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