Page 102 of The Last Dance You Saved
“You just finished saying goodbye to Parker a few minutes ago, kiddo. You knew he was leaving,” I told Mila.
I’d offered to drive him the hour and a half to the airport, but he’d refused. He said he’d feel better if Fallon and I stayed here, close to my brothers and our security until his replacement arrived. Ryder and Maddox had both been irritated Rafe was sending someone, but they’d let it slide. Maybe it was because they knew how it felt to have your loved ones under attack.
“But I mayneversee him again,” my niece pouted, her voice taking on that loud, demanding tone we all were known for caving in to. She had us wrapped around her finger from the time Maddox had found her in a dirty hovel and brought her into our lives.
“What’s going on?” Mama asked, hurrying down the stairs. Her dark hair, so like my own, swung about her face, and those blue eyes I’d also inherited flashed with concern.
“Nana! Parker is leavingforever. Auntie Sadie and Fallon get to take him to say goodbye, and I want to go too!” Her voice rose dramatically.
The concern on Mama’s face turned into a wry smile. “Well, chick-a-dee, I believe you already got your way once today. Weren’t you the one who convinced your daddy to take you and Addy to the lake?”
Mila spun her way over to my mother and tugged on the apron she had tied around her waist. “I can do both, Nana. I can call Daddy and tell him to pick us up later.”
Just as the words left her mouth, Maddox’s sheriff truck drove into the parking lot.
“Too late. Your daddy is already here,” I said. Then, I squatted down in front of her, unable to handle the sad look that took over her face. I’d sworn, after we’d almost lost her because I hadn’t been quick enough to save her, I’d give her whatever I could. “Fallon’s going to be just as sad as you are that Parker is gone. How about, before I work my shift at the bar tonight, I take you and Fallon on a long sunset ride?”
Mila loved the horses almost as much as Fallon did, so she considered this carefully before sticking out her little finger. “Pinkie promise?”
I hooked her finger with mine. “Pinkie promise.”
I tugged on a braid and then hurried out before my guilty conscience had me hauling her with me and messing up my brother’s day. As I met Maddox on the porch, I said, “Warning. She’s pouting.”
He rolled his eyes to the heavens, took off his cowboy hat, swiped a hand through his dark-blond hair that matched Daddy’s, and then set it back down. “Damn. What set her off this time?”
“She decided she needed to go with me to send Parker offandgo swimming with Addy at the lake,” I told him before noticing he was in his uniform instead of swim trunks and a T-shirt. “Are you not going to be able to take her? I can wait. She can come with us.”
He shook his head. “McK and Gia are still going with the girls. I’m just swinging by to play taxi service while McK finishes her shift at the hospital. I got called in to handle some drama up at the West Gears’ Nest. Nothing urgent, but it can’t wait until tomorrow either.”
“Okay. Well, be safe out there,” I said, heading off the steps, and then turned back. “You haven’t heard anything today, have you? About Adam or Theresa?”
My family hadn’t been thrilled about any of the secrets I’d kept, but as always, they’d closed ranks around Fallon and me to keep us safe. The first night I’d been home, after Fallon had gone up to bed in Gemma’s old room and Parker in Ryder’s, we’d agreed we’d give the jewelry back to Rafe and the Harringtons. It meant I wouldn’t have a large enough down payment to get the performing arts center started anytime soon, or at all, but the truth was, I was ready to give it up if I could have a life with Rafe. If the diamonds could help his family keep the ranch, I wanted that more than anything I’d wanted in a long time.
I just didn’t know what it meant for me and my family. If I left to be with Rafe, would we have to sell McFlannigan’s? We couldn’t afford to pay a full-time manager to run the place. It was profitable, but just barely. In following my heart, would I have to give up more than just the dreams I’d started to form? Would I have to give up my family’s century-old legacy as well?
None of my family would blame me. They’d want me to be with the man I loved, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t snag at my heart, if it didn’t make me long to find a way to keep both.
“As far as anyone can tell, they’ve gone dark,” Maddox said. “My best bet? Theresa has hooked up with him, and they’re making their way down to South America using their stolen money.”
It wasn’t anything different than the last update I’d gotten from Rafe, but every time I asked, I hoped for a different answer. Just like I hoped every morning, the short, direct update I received via text from him would turn into something more. While the messages weren’t unlike the factual, curt ones he’d sent the day he’d flown to LA, for some reason, they hurt more now. Maybe because, the day of the wedding, I’d known he was coming back to the ranch to claim my last dance, whereas now I knew he was trying to give them away.
Fallon heard from him more often, and she got actual calls. Ones where I heard her laugh and saw her smile at something he said, and it made my heart nearly give out. I wanted to hear his voice too. I wanted to tease and taunt and listen to it as it went dark and commanding and sexy.
I tried not to show how much it stung not to get an actual call, but Fallon saw it anyway. Just this morning, she’d told me not to give up on him. “Sometimes Dad needs a slap in the face to make him pay attention.”
I’d laughed because she’d wanted me to, but I couldn’t help the little shred of doubt that had started to creep into my thoughts. What if he never shook himself out of this? What if he really decided the only way to give me the life he thought I needed was to walk away?
As I hurried down the porch steps, I couldn’t help but notice how Fallon and Parker leaned shoulder to shoulder up against the trunk of my silver Mustang GT. The sun peeked over the barn and cast them in a halo. His dark hair contrasted with her stunning blond waves as much as his gray eyes did her deep chocolate ones, and yet they seemed to fit.
I wondered if Rafe and Jim saw that the bond these two had forged wasn’t going to be easily shaken. I’d seen the same deep and lasting relationship develop between Maddox and McKenna as they’d grown up together. I may have only been ten when McK had come to live with us, and I hadn’t been able to put into words what I’d seen flashing between them. But just like everyone else, I’d known it was more than friendship, even when she’d left him behind for a while.
As I approached the car, Fallon looked away, brushing her cheek to her shoulder as if hiding tears. It made that knot around my insides tighten and twist. Parker bumped her arm gently and then rose from his relaxed position. “Noah texted and said his flight was delayed. He might not be here till closer to midnight now.”
“That’s okay. We have security,” I said, referring to the little addition that had been added on to the back of the barn that held not only a dozen computer screens watching over the ranch, our homes, and the bar, but also a person monitoring them around the clock. After Ryder and Gia’s horrific ordeal had come so shortly on the heels of what had happened to Mila and me, Ryder had insisted our security be improved. One, or all of us, would be alerted if anything seemed off in even the slightest, and the entire staff had pictures of Adam and Theresa burned in their brains.
We all climbed into the Mustang and made the drive into Willow Creek in silence. It took mere minutes to get to the rental car office tucked into the back of the chain hotel at the edge of town, but the heaviness in the air made it feel longer. It wasn’t just Fallon’s sadness at Parker leaving. A buzz hung about us that felt almost expectant. A turning point was on its way.
I just didn’t know if it was theirs or mine or all of ours.
