When he and Mason had talked about making their relationship work, he knew there was a possibility they still wouldn’t be able to, but he believed it was worth the risk. He’d been afraid of hurting Mason again, but in his mind, it couldn't be as devastating as what he'd experienced with Ma. Since he’d learned the truth, he had to question everything they’d discussed.
He rapped on the door.
“Emery,” he called.
No reply. He tried again. Still no answer.
He scratched at his jeans nervously. The wedding was two days away. They had to pull it together in order to get her down the aisle, and he didn’t just want her dragging her feet. It was her big day. He couldn’t be the reason it was ruined.
How could everything that felt so good just hours before have turned on him so quickly?
He called out for Emery once more, but when she didn't answer, he figured she needed more time.
He turned around, and as he started down the hallway, the door creaked behind him.
He turned back to see Emery, arms folded as she leaned against the doorframe. Her face red and tear-stained, she narrowed her eyes at him the way she would have when she was younger and mad at him about something.
Even though she looked pissed, she didn’t look nearly as upset as she had when she’d confronted him and Pa in the shed. “Get in here,” she told him, then turned and walked into her room.
Chase followed and closed the door behind him. Emery paced at the foot of her bed before sitting on the edge, not looking at Chase—like she couldn't look at him, like she was too ashamed of him to even do that much.
“I am sorry,” Chase said.
“It's just like so many years ago when I was eleven and went to my brother in tears, sobbing over losing the man he loved. I know we don’t ever talk about it, but I was so mad at you, Chase. For doing that to him. For doing that to us. But then I was confused, too, because I loved you so much, and I couldn't understand how you could hurt my brother and our family like that.”
Emery couldn’t understand, but those words tore through his heart, opening up a deep wound within him.
The last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt the family who had always been there for him, but she was right. He had hurt them so much, and he obviously hadn’t realized just how much.
“I realized later in life that that was a selfish reaction to have,” she admitted. “That you did what you had to do at the time. Butthis, I can’t understand.”
As she looked at him, he could see the little girl he’d played with and laughed with. But she was heartbroken now, and it was all his fault.
“Emery, I had no idea that I'd hurt him that much. I knew it mattered to him a lot and that it was devastating. It was devastating to me, too. But you have to believe I never wanted to injure this family.”
She turned away and took a breath. “I do know that intellectually, but that doesn't make the pain go away. It doesn't keep me from wondering why, after all these years—when everything was finally starting to get back in order, when I thought you guys had actually made up and become friends—you would start playing with his heart again.”
“I wasn't playing.”
“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to word it that way. But do you see what I mean? It makes sense now why he's been so happy, and I'm not an idiot. I figured that it could've happened. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility, but I thought you would’ve been the bigger man and put your foot down to keep Mason from getting attached like that again, giving him hope that something could happen unless you were sure that you could make it work… especially knowing that you could potentially hurt him like that again. So are you sure that this is going to work out?”
Chase shook his head, and her sigh said so much without her having to say anything at all. “I do love him, Emery. I never stopped. Life just seems to always get in the way.”
“All I'm asking,” Emery went on, “is that if you really love him, you won't hurt him like you did back then. You won't hurtuslike you did back then.”
Her lip trembled and she turned away again, putting her hand over her face. As much as he had wanted to believe he and Mason could find a way, it was clear that the consequences if they weren't able to were much greater than he'd ever imagined. And it wasn't worth the risk. Right then, it was going to be hard enough to stop what they were doing, and if they grew more attached, it would only be more difficult.
Chase couldn’t do that to him. After he’d discovered how much he’d hurt him before, it would have been cruel. Abusive, even.
And there was no reason to put Mason or any of them through that pain again. That would have devastated him more than anything.
“I’ll make this right, Emery,” Chase said. “Ihaveto make this right.”
* * *
Mason sat on the stable floor drinking from a flask of whiskey he’d taken from the liquor cabinet. He’d snuck into the stable after dinner to chat up the only one he wanted to talk to right then.
The door creaked open and Pa stepped inside.
