Page 75 of The Last Dance You Saved
God. Everything? Nothing? “I think I’m in love with someone I just met.”
“What? Jesus. You scared me. Hold on a sec.” I heard a murmur on her end, her voice mixed with the deeper one of her husband’s. Rex was almost as possessive of my sister as my brothers were of their wives. I understood it now because I felt deeply possessive of Rafe. Not just him, but his daughter too. And even Lauren because she was important to them.
When Gemma came back on, she was a bit breathless. “Are you and Ryder trying to pull one over on me again? Or have you really fallen for someone?”
I spent the next few minutes telling her some of what had been happening, skipping over all the dangerous parts and the issue with the jewels as much as possible, and sticking to the truth of Rafe and the messed-up relationships around him. “I don’t know if it’s just the situation making me feel things that aren’t real or what. I mean, I’ve known him less than a week—”
“We both know time doesn’t always matter. I fell for Rex in mere hours. Look at how fast things went for Ryder and Gia. It happens,especiallywhen you’re in the middle of an intense situation. It doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Honestly, seeing how people react and who they are in those stressful moments really shows what they’re made of. You can’t hide.”
“Rex walked away from you when the shit hit the fan,” I reminded her, not to be cruel but to point out that not everything works out.
She laughed softly. “I know. He hurt me—terribly. But it worked out in the end because we never stopped loving each other. When you know, you know. The question really isn’t about whether you love him or not but what you’re going to do about it.”
“That’s my point. What can I do about it, Gemma? I own a business in Willow Creek. I have a family there I love and want to be around. He has a daughter who lives in California and a multinational company to run. I don’t see how we can have a happy ending.”
“Let me ask you this…do you think I love my family less just because I’m not in Willow Creek anymore?” I heard the hint of hurt in her voice.
“No. Of course not! You were following your dreams and moved to LA before you met Rex. We knew you had things to accomplish, even if you never let any of us read your damn script.”
Gemma chuckled. “Wow, none of you will ever let me live that down.” When I didn’t say anything, her voice gentled. “What areyourdreams? They used to be about darts and traveling the world. Then, you got shot, and you became this shadowy reflection of yourself.” When I tried to deny it, she rode right over me. “You pretended you were the same, but we all saw it, Sassy. None of us cared that Uncle Phil left you the bar, but Ryder isn’t the only one who worried you’d let it drag you into a life you’d never imagined for yourself.”
I swallowed hard. That was the thing about having a family who knew and loved you almost better than you knew yourself. They saw when you were pretending. I sighed and let out the truth I’d held back the other day. “Winning the dart tournament felt hollow. Empty.”
“I can understand that. Throwing darts is in your past. That’s an old-Sadie dream. What do you want now?”
Rafe. The thought was there before I could even process it.
And while it was the truth—I did want him—I’d also never be happyjustbeing someone’s partner. I wanted todosomething.Besomething. I didn’t want to live my life forever as the helper and sidekick.
Gemma was making world-acclaimed movies. Ryder had saved the ranch and built it into a destination resort. Maddox saved lives every time he walked out the door wearing his sheriff’s badge. I wanted Sadie Hatley to have done something big as well.
McFlannigan’s had long been a staple in Willow Creek, and I cherished being given the responsibility of carrying that forward, but I also wanted to make my own mark on our community. A lasting one. It was why the performing arts center had become so important to me. It was something I could do for Great-grandma Carolyn, for myself, and our home.
But how could I factor Rafe and his daughter into that? What they were facing here and the work that needed to be done in order to save their ranch was going to take years. Would being at his side, being a part of that, being a part oftheircommunity, be enough to satisfy the needs inside me screaming todosomething important for mine?
I wasn’t sure.
The night he’d shown up at the waterfall in the moonlight, I’d thought the Irish fae our McFlannigan side of my family believed in had led me here to him. What happened when you ignored the signs the wee people presented you? Would I ever find something like this, the intensity of what I felt with Rafe, ever again?
I thought of the way Rafe looked at me, the way he’d given me pieces of himself I was sure he’d never given anyone. Wasn’t that more important than anything else? That affection…that love…wasn’t it a legacy all its own? If we walked away from each other, we would leave wounds more brutal, more lasting, than the ones evil men had carved into us with knives and guns. The emotional cuts would have a ripple effect. On his family. On mine.
And maybe that was all that mattered.
Maybe with love at stake, the only answer was to go all in.
Chapter Twenty-five
Rafe
TRYING
Performed by Jordan Davis
Growing up, I’d had two thingsI’d been good at—taming horses and taming numbers. It had been a strange dichotomy, but they were both things Spence had never excelled at, and I’d basked in that knowledge. My brother could tell you when a cow was going to give birth and the exact right day to plant seed, and he could fix just about anything mechanical with a few twists of tools, but math and horses had eluded him. Those had been all mine. It was easy to see, in hindsight, that if we’d combined our skills, it would have allowed the ranch to bloom.
But we hadn’t been raised to see it that way. Our dad had pitted us against each other, insisting, in life, there was only one winner, and I’d taken that lesson with me when I’d left the ranch. It had helped me build Marquess Enterprises into the indisputable success it was today.
Now, as the tally of what had been stolen from the ranch grew, my guilt did along with it. My ego, my drive, my need to be better than my brother was as responsible for this as Spencer’s blind trust of someone he’d considered family.
