Page 89 of Snowed In With the Mountain Man
She looked away first, dipping her head to his injured hand, which still rested in hers. Lightly brushing her fingers around the bandage, she sent tendrils of pleasure racing up his arm before placing his hand back on his lap.
“After you left, what did you do?” She got busy packing away the first aid kit.
“I hitchhiked and walked from Charleston to Montana.”
She stopped and turned. “Wow.”
“I needed to. That whole experience, traveling with Rena and the collapse of our marriage…” He shrugged. “I had a lot to sort through. I stopped in North Dakota for a while. Got some seasonal work in the oil fields. By the time I hit Montana, I felt like I’d found my soul, and I didn’t even know it’d been missin’.”
Her eyes went glassy, and he brushed his thumb over her cheekbone before leaning back with a tender smile. “And now that I’ve bared mine, maybe you could tell me why you lost your head and thundered out that door.” He pointed to the door she’d disappeared through, and she turned to look at it.
For a second, he thought she might not say anything, but then she looked back to him with that steely determination he loved so much… and she started to talk.
31
“You seem so put together—” Dahlia clamped her mouth shut.
What a ridiculous way to start. As if it was his fault she’d leapt to the wrong conclusions.
He arched his brows, a smile hovering over his lips. He didn’t prompt her to continue, just sat there and watched her. Quiet. Patient. So freakin’ kind.
She cleared her throat. “What I mean is… you seem like such a good man. A kind man. And…” Oh goodness, this was difficult. But he’d poured his secrets out to her, and it was only fair that she at least try to explain her overreaction. “I just couldn’t stand the thought of you betraying your wife or hurting her by walking out on the marriage.”
“It didn’t happen that way.”
“I know,” she quickly whispered. “And I should have let you explain. It’s just…” She sighed and rubbed her forehead. “My dad left my mom. You know that, I’m sure.”
He didn’t try to deny it. Like it or not, O’Sullivan business was town gossip now that their father’s will had brought his daughters to Aspire. Even if he didn’t pay attention to gossip, he’d likely heard an earful from Emma and Lizzy these past few months.
“He walked away for good after Rose was born,” she said. “I guess my mother’s postpartum depression was the final straw for Frank. Or maybe he just didn’t want another daughter.”
She shrugged, but there was no hiding the bitter hurt in her voice. She hadn’t bothered to try.
“But really, he’d walked away a hundred times before that. He came and went as it suited him.” She wrapped her arms around her knees. She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet JJ’s soft, kind gaze. “I don’t remember much of it. I was only five when Rose was born, but some of my earliest memories are of Frank leaving. Walking out that door like we meant nothing to him. And I waited, you know? I waited for him to come back like he usually would.” She shook her head and could barely get the words out. “But he never did.”
She narrowed her eyes as she tried to summon up actual images, but like always, her earliest memories were just emotions. Fragments of a child’s perspective. “Even when I was little I knew my mother was sick a lot. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized ‘sick’ was my grandmother’s way of saying mentally unbalanced.”
She hitched her lips to the side, shifting slightly so she could see the fire. The crackle and glow were hypnotic. And for a second, she let herself believe that this was a moment out of time. She could speak the truth here and now, without worrying about Rose’s feelings or Daisy’s response.
“My mother’s staying with a family in Canada these days, and I don’t know that she’s ever gotten the treatment she deserves. All I know is that back then, she didn’t want anyone’s help, and so while I can guess that maybe she was bipolar, she was never officially diagnosed.”
He leaned forward and reached for her hand, holding hers like she’d held his while he’d talked.
“Every time she was ‘sick,’ as my grandma put it, Frank left.” Anger, tight and painful, clawed at her chest. “He just… left. He left me and Daisy to deal with our bedridden mother who didn’t care if we slept or ate, let alone if we got dressed or brushed our teeth. Thankfully my grandmother was still alive back then. She brought some normalcy and structure to the house.”
She fell silent, lost in a dark sea of memories from those early days. Memories that felt too hazy to pin down, but they were real, and they still hurt.
“When did your grandmother pass away?” he asked.
“Just before Rose started preschool.” Her voice turned to a squeak, but then she cleared her throat, regaining control. “I was in the fourth grade.”
“And there was no one else around to help you?”
She stiffened defensively, even though she knew the reaction was silly. “We managed.”
His smile was tender. “I’m sure you did.”
“My mother wasn’t sick all the time. And when she was good, she was—” Her breath caught, a laugh bubbling up at the memories of their mother when she was flying high. “Well, I guess doctors would say she was manic.” She shrugged. “All I know is, when she was doing well, we all felt like we were flying high.” She swallowed hard. Just thinking about that time in their lives made her chest tighten with anxiety. “Except the thing was… the older I got, the more aware I became. I knew those highs would end. And I found myself just…” She shook her head. “Just bracing for it, you know?”
