She shrugged. "You've let your father's death tear you apart since you were a little boy. I figured maybe if you learned about him on your own, you'd quit blaming yourself for something that was impossible for you to be responsible for."
"I know it wasn't my fault," he responded as he picked up a fork. "But there has to be something I can do."
"About what, exactly? You've heard the stories. None of you were responsible for anything. It was a horrible situation that went wrong in so many ways."
"But I haven't done anything since I've been an adult." He had never actually said the words out loud before, but they had always weighed heavily on his mind.
"What are you supposed to do?"
"I don't know, Ma, but there has to be something. Catch the bad guy. Exonerate him. Something. How could a bunch of people be so stupid to think that Dad stole something that was never found even though they supposedly caught him, and killed him, at the scene of the crime?"
"I don't know." Vinia moved around the desk and cupped his face. "It's something we may never know. Sweetheart, I love the fact that you care so much, but it's all in the past. You have to let it go. Whatever is supposed to happen will, and if nothing happens, then that's the way it was supposed to be."
"That's a bunch of double talk, you know?"
She laughed. "It's called wisdom."
"It sounds a lot like giving up on finding the truth."
"So much time has passed," Vinia responded with a quiet sadness. "We may never know. Making sure you kids grew up healthy and happy was my priority. Your father is gone, so nothing will bring him back."
He pulled her into a hug. "I don't know how you've been so strong."
"I didn't have any choice, son. I had you kids to worry about, and you've all turned out wonderfully." She raised a brow. "Except maybe Sarah. She's still a work in progress."
"Well, someday, I'm going to make it right."
Vinia let out a long breath. "Drake, you have allowed the tragedy to break you. You've always let your father's death haunt you. And you need to let it go before that break becomes permanent. You have a life to lead, and you can't do it with the ball and chain from the past."
"I know." He was going to ignore her, but he understood her words.
She stopped at the door. "Bring me your dishes when you're done eating."
Drake cleaned his plate after she left and placed the dishes by the door. A long walk was what he needed, and he headed for the lake. It had always been his go-to when he was restless.
The moon glistened off the surface of the calm water as he sat on the dock. His mother had done a great job raising him and his siblings, but he wasn't sold on the happiness part.
Maybe that's why I can't get past this.
His brothers were all happy now. They had finally found their mates, much later in life than normal for a dragon. Sarah had apparently found her mate, too, even if she refused to say who it was.
That just left him. He had dated a couple times, but never with any serious intent. The closest he had come to long term was with Amanda. He tried not to think of her long blonde hair that floated on the wind or those blue eyes that had pierced his soul.
He chuckled in the moonlight, an eerie sound in the silence.
Okay, so maybe he had been pretty enraptured with Mandy. She had checked all of his boxes, except for one. She wasn't his mate. No matter how hard he tried to make it so, a dragon knows when he's found his mate, and she was not it.
He also checked all ofherboxes, except for one. He wasn't wealthy enough. She had fooled him for a long time that she wanted a quiet ranch life, content with entertaining guests that rented cabins and going on long trail rides under the stars.
And then a storm had gone through, one that was completely out of the ordinary. Vinia had told him that it was a sign that he was with the wrong girl. The straight-level winds had sheared off the roof of the main lodge and done quite a bit of damage to several of the cabins. Insurance covered part of it, but it didn't cover the refunds they had to make or the subsequent cancellations.
Money had gotten tight very quickly, and Mandy got her first taste of their financial situation. While the Hale's lived just fine under normal circumstances, emergencies sometimes took them a bit to recuperate from.
Drake's heart tightened in a familiar way as he remembered the last night that he'd ever seen Mandy. She had come to the ranch to get her things, and he had pressed her to tell him what was wrong.
He shook his head in the dark. Even now he could see how naive he had been. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why she was grabbing her boots from the barn and her jacket from his couch.
"You can't give me the life that I deserve."
