Page 114 of The Last Dance You Saved
“You love him,” Mama said softly. It was the last thing I’d expected her to say and had me jerking away. It wasn’t just my thoughts I was running from. I was running from Rafe, and I knew it. I couldn’t handle the guilt of looking at him, knowing I hadn’t done the one thing he’d asked me to do, any more than I could handle his goodbye. I couldn’t handle anything else coming at me today.
I just stared at her, not denying or acknowledging it. Just thinking about how I felt for him might crack past my numbness, and that I couldn’t afford. Not yet. Not tonight.
“You love Rafe, and you love his daughter,” she said with a surety that settled somewhere in my heart.
I swallowed, pushing back the wave of hurt and longing threatening to swarm over my self-imposed defenses. “I’ll just say I could have loved him. We had a moment when our lives crossed, brushing alongside each other’s, but then we flew on past, going in different directions.”
“So, make a U-turn and go back,” Mama said.
I stared at her for several long seconds. Was it that simple? Just flip right around and head back to that moment when we’d been pressed up next to each other, admitting we loved each other? Go back to the stop sign where I’d promised him all my last dances?
When I didn’t respond, she just hugged me to her and whispered, “At least think about it.”
And then she let me go, knowing it was what I needed, knowing I had to keep myself busy or I’d go mad, thinking of all the things I’d done wrong, and the things I’d done right, and what I couldn’t change.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Rafe
UNDER MY SKIN
Performed by Nate Smith
I’d made it to the airportin Bakersfield in record time, only to have the flight delayed due to a car accident holding the pilot up. We sat on the tarmac for way too long while anger and nerves practically crawled through my skin. When we did finally get off the ground, the flight was an agony of wasted time. I needed my arms around my daughter. Around Sadie. Goddamn it, they’d faced a gun. Been bruised and battered. And I’d been thousands of damn miles away.
“This isn’t your fault,” Lauren said as I paced the aisle.
But wasn’t it? I’d sent them away, thinking I was keeping them safe. Why hadn’t I realized Adam would follow them across the country to get his hands on the jewels? To get back at me by using them?
“She’s right, Rafe. This isn’t your fault. We all thought he’d done a runner.” Steele’s voice held a bit of anger in it, and I narrowed my gaze on him. “You did the right thing. We all thought if he came back for anyone, it would be you at the ranch. No one expected them to show up in Willow Creek. Not even Puzo thought that. Otherwise, he would have sent his men in that direction, and I know for a fact he didn’t.”
None of his words could ease one ounce of the anger and guilt I felt.
After landing in Tennessee, we had nearly a two-hour drive from the private airport to Willow Creek that continued my hell. When we finally pulled into the driveway of the Hatley ranch, it had been more than twelve hours since Sadie and my daughter had faced the very worst.
The wrought-iron gate with its bucking bronco and the Hatley name opened to a paved drive lined with fully grown elms. The trees broke away to reveal a light-blue farmhouse with white trim, a slate-gray tiled roof, and a wraparound porch. The road led around the house to the rear, where a large addition jutted out from the back of it. On a pair of golden oak doors etched with stained glass, another wrought-iron sign hung. This one readSweet Willow Restaurantin curving, vine-like letters.
If I hadn’t shown up on Sadie’s doorstep under such horrible circumstances, I would have been able to appreciate the charm more. Our family’s ranch was a neat and tidy, old-English estate, whereas this was warmth and Southern grace.
The parking lot was nearly full, but Steele found a spot at the back near a barn even bigger than ours, painted a light blue that matched the house. A large metal H hung from below the pitched roof in the same font as the words on the gate.
As we emerged from the car, the back door of the farmhouse opened, and a man in his fifties, with dark-blond hair streaked with gray, made his way out to greet us. He introduced himself as Sadie’s father, Brandon. His gaze rested on me for long enough that I wondered how much his daughter had told him about us. But there was no heat in his expression. No anger or judgment, even though it was my family who’d brought evil to their doorstep.
He led us inside, and Fallon launched herself at me. I caught her, the scent I’d come to associate with her wafting over me—innocence and sunshine. Except, now it was tainted with antiseptic. I squeezed her tight. Every ounce of love I felt, every ounce of gratitude that she was safe, poured into the embrace. Then, Lauren pushed herself in, and I hugged them both, silently promising myself and them that they’d never have to face these kinds of challenges without me again.
When we finally pulled apart and I could get a good look at Fallon, my teeth ground together viciously. She had a large bruise at her temple, her face was pale, and she had shadows under her eyes. But those brown depths were full of fire. And that finally eased some of the tightness that had gripped my heart ever since I’d talked to Ryder, and he’d told me the camera at the bar had gone dark.
As Lauren held on to our daughter, my gaze searched the warm farmhouse kitchen, noting immediately what was missing. Thepersonwho was missing. The woman I needed to hold to me so the remaining pressure on my heart could lift.
No one mentioned her. No one even said her name as Fallon introduced us to Eva Hatley. The woman insisted we sit down at the long oak table scarred by years of family dinners and plied us with food and drink I couldn’t swallow. She fussed over us in a way that spoke of that hearth and home the ranch exuded from the moment you drove up.
I wasn’t sure we’d ever had that kind of love drifting over us at the Harrington Ranch. Even before Mom had died, she’d been more the flighty, artistic type than the bread-baking, cuddling type. She’d loved Spence and me and never once held back saying it, but it always felt like we were watching a butterfly dance from flower to flower as she drifted through our lives.
And Dad had never been emotional. Hard. Determined. I wasn’t sure he’d said he loved us ever. He’d needed Spence, been disappointed in me, and he’d loved the land. When I saw my parents together, I didn’t know how they’d ever fallen for each other.
Eva and Brandon Hatley were the complete opposite. Affectionate, with love all but pouring from them. He was constantly touching her. Little skims of hands, assurances, and soft looks. She did the same in return. Their love boomed through the room like a sonic wave, vibrating through anyone it crossed. Sadie would have been showered with it growing up.
Doubts filled me. I wondered if the coldness and distance I’d learned from my dad and then cloaked myself with after I’d left the ranch would leak onto Sadie if I tied her to me. Would she look at me as Mom had once looked at Dad? As if she’d lost something she thought she’d been given? Would her words sound like the ones of Great-grandma Beatrice’s in her journal. An agony of loneliness?
