Page 103 of Karma

“Duh? Because you’re a guy!”

“Smart mouth,” he muttered. “It shouldn’t last long.”

“I hope not,” Tess said over a yawn.

Obviously, she was getting sleepy, which was good. She needed her rest. “Why? Do you like Liza?”

Tess studied him through perceptive blue eyes just like Nash’s. And their late father’s. “Youlike Liza, so yeah. I do too.”

Smart kid,he thought, with relief. If she relied on that common sense and steered clear of trouble, she’d be okay. Good thing she had three older brothers and a sister and two sisters-in-law to make sure of it. Dare wanted to add one more female to the mix.

But he still had a long way to go.

“Get some sleep,” he told Tess. “I’ll come back to visit later.”

“Okay.” She snuggled back under the covers, and he let himself out of her room.

He walked downstairs to find Ethan waiting. “Got a minute?” his brother asked.

Dare nodded and followed Ethan into his office.

“You okay?” Ethan asked.

“Yeah.” The word came out automatically, but the truth was more complicated. “Not really.”

“I didn’t think so.” Ethan lowered himself into a chair and motioned for Dare to sit too.

“A year ago, we wouldn’t be sitting, about to have a serious talk,” Dare said.

Ethan shook his head. “A year ago, Nash would have blamed me for what happened to Tess. He’d probably have hit me again too.” He rubbed his jaw, obviously remembering the brothers’ long-overdue confrontation. “But you always held back. You gave me a chance first.”

Dare nodded. He had.

“Maybe that was because you understood what it was like to make mistakes.”

Despite himself, Dare grinned. “When did you get so smart?”

“I had many years of beating myself up,” Ethan admitted, taking Dare by surprise.

He studied the brother he’d barely known and now felt a special kinship with. “How’d you get past it?” he asked.

Because like Dare, Ethan lived with regrets. He’d gotten arrested when he was almost eighteen and their parents were killed in a car accident on their way to bail him out of jail. Then instead of sticking around for his brothers, he’d taken off for ten long years. So if anyone knew regret and mistakes, it was Ethan.

He leaned back in his seat, folded his arms over his chest, and met Dare’s gaze. “Not easily. The Army helped. I did a little therapy with the shrinks there. I’m not sure if that helped or not. I do know the discipline and the regulation taught me what it meant to be a man and take responsibility.”

Dare got that. “Being a cop did the same for me.” He paused in thought. “But I realize now that was more of an external shift.”

“Because you still haven’t forgiven yourself. All the good deeds in the world won’t make up for what happened to Stuart Rossman. But the blame doesn’t lie solely on your shoulders either.”

Dare looked down, studying his hands, thinking about his brother’s words. No, he hadn’t forgiven himself. Instead, he’d indulged in enough self-hatred and flagellation for ten lifetimes, but nothing had changed. He was here. A young kid had died. Dare had done what he could with his life to atone while Brian McKnight wasted air and hurt everyone in spitting distance. Meanwhile, Dare nursed his anger and hatred toward the man, and when it exploded, he’d hurt the one person in his life who truly mattered.

The hard truth remained. Nothing about the way he lived his life had or would change the past. It never would. But one thing was certain. If he held on to that anger and hatred, the only thing it would accomplish was to ruin his future.

“I need to let the shit go somehow.” Dare ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

“Seems to me admitting it is taking the first step.”

Dare let out a laugh. “Yeah? What’s the second?”

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