Page 69 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

“I know I’m not very good with people—well, actually I’m finding I’m just not used to people, not that I’m bad with them. I certainly don’t have a lot of experience with guys, but I know what goes on in the world. I know what sex is and… But I’m not…” She didn’t know what exactly she should give Mom. The whole story? Just nip this in the bud? How did she cut these apron strings when they had been tied so tight and for too long?

“Can you just trust that if I have a problem or someone hurts me or I don’t know what to do that I will come to you? I will tell you and I will ask you for help and advice. Can you let me figure some things out on my own if I promise to come to you the first time I don’t want to or can’t do that?”

“You are all I have left in this world,” Mom said with a sniff audible over the phone. “I have tried so hard to give you some space like Burt wanted me to, but I hate it. I hate losing you like this.”

Becca felt unwanted tears sting her eyes. That was the problem with this whole thing. She was all her mom had left. Mom had lost the few people in her life who had stood by her, and she had friends, sure, but Becca didn’t know how much she let them in. Becca didn’t know how much she needed to be her mother’s crutch.

There wasn’t an easy answer. Telling Mom to back off and hanging up wasn’t fair, but giving in to everything she wanted wasn’t fair either. It all just kind of sucked.

“I love you,” Becca managed, because she didn’t know what else to say.

“I love you too, baby. I just wish you’d come home with me. The house here in town is so sweet, and—”

“And far away from the business I’m trying to start. Mom, this is everything I ever wanted, and I really like being on my own. I don’t say that to hurt you. I say that because I can’t…I can’t break myself to give you what you need. Can’t there be a compromise?”

“What kind of compromise?” Mom asked coolly.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I just wish you would… I need to do some things on my own. I want to make some mistakes on my own, and I want to do that without hurting you.”

“You being hurt will always hurt me.” Her mother’s voice was still cool and pinched and Becca wished it could be different.

But it couldn’t.

“I’m not sleeping with anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not getting drunk, though every once in a while I might indulge in a few too many. I’m taking care of myself. And I’m old enough to make all those choices.”

“Age doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

“It does. It does. At some point, you have to let me be an adult. You have to let me go.” She didn’t want to say it out loud, certainly not to her mother, but the truth of the matter was that losing Burt so suddenly had woken Becca up.

Mom wouldn’t be around forever to hide behind. If Becca didn’t learn now to stand on her own two feet.

If she didn’t learn how to be someone who made her own choices and mistakes now, when would she?

“Mom.”

“I didn’t know the first thing about life when I got pregnant with you. Which is not a regret by any means, but your father…”

“I know the things that happened to you with him weren’t great, but you taught me… You married Burt. How could that not be the best example of what to look for in a man?”

“I won’t argue with you that his son is a good man, but you cannot replace Burt with Alex.”

Becca inhaled sharply, anger mixing with her sadness and frustration. “That’s not what I’m doing, Mother.”

“Are you so sure about that?”

Becca was sure. She was totally sure. It wasn’t… She wasn’t looking for a replacement for Burt. She wasn’t looking for Alex to be some father figure. Someone to tell her what to do and someone…

If she had been looking for a Burt replacement, she wouldn’t have picked a man who made everything ten times more difficult than it had to be.

“I have to get to work.” Her voice wasn’t as strong as it should have been, but Becca had a hard time caring. Mom made her feel stupid and like she didn’t know her own self, and Becca wasn’t going to let that happen anymore. No matter how many good intentions her mother had.

“I want you to think about what I said, and I want you to think about moving—”

“Goodbye, Mother.” She hit End more forcefully than necessary. She scooted down to where her cat was glaring at her and let herself shed a few tears because she hated being put in a position where she hurt her mother or she hurt herself. She hated being in a position where Mom thought that somehow undermining everything Becca was doing would make her safe or happy.

Sometimes in life, a person had to do things that sucked. Sometimes she was going to have to experience things that felt uncomfortable and hard and shitty. She’d lost Burt, hadn’t she?

She had to believe it was okay to feel sad and shitty and horrible about those things, as long as she didn’t wallow in it. As long as she understood that she’d made her choice, and it was a good one, and she had to move on regardless of whose approval she had.

But mostly what she had to do right now was take a shower and get the smell out of her hair, and drink approximately a metric ton of coffee and then go check on her horses.

After all, her horses would understand her inner turmoil…but they couldn’t talk back. They couldn’t give advice and they couldn’t reassure. They could do a lot, but they weren’t exactly people.

She gave Hannibal a last stroke and then walked into her bathroom and grabbed a towel. She had thought she’d gotten over wishing for a real friend some time when she’d been a teenager, but the want was back. That wish for someone to talk to who might understand. Or in lieu of understanding, just support. Someone who would tell her she was right or her mom was wrong. No matter how childish it was, that was what she wanted right now.

She got in the hot spray of the shower and thought of Alex and even Jack and Gabe. There were things she knew about each of them that she didn’t think very many people did. Jack had given her quite a glimpse into his life before the military, and Alex had told her about their injuries, and maybe it wasn’t so crazy to think of them as friends who might support her.

Of course, they were also former Navy SEALs who seemed as okay with discussing feelings as bulls were about being castrated, but maybe this was another thing she should push on. Ask for.

She smiled to herself for the first time this morning. It wasn’t castration season yet, so a discussion about feelings it would have to be.

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