“You’re damn right I would,” Reeves growled.
“Well, whoever it is, it’s someone who showed her they can cause a great deal of harm,” Bridget said. “I’m sure she’s frightened of putting you in a position like that. So maybe you’re onto something here. Maybe she isn’t telling you what happened because she doesn’t want you to take action—perhaps she’s frightened of what would happen if you did.”
“In other words, she’s protectingme.” Reeves dragged a hand across his face in obvious frustration.
“The two of you are all each other has,” Bridget said gently. “It makes perfect sense that she would try to protect you, Reeves. You’re her whole world.”
“But it’s not her job to protect me. It’s my job to look afterher,” Reeves groaned. “This makes matters even worse. Not only did I fail to keep her safe, but I put her in a position to feel like she hadto care forme. You can say I’m a better man than your father, Bridget, but I don’t know if I can agree. I might love my daughter and want the best for her, and maybe your father never did that. But it doesn’t matter how much I want something for her if I’m so ineffective at providing it!”
He turned his back on her.
Bridget’s heart ached. She had brought him out here to try to help him look past the flaws he thought he had found in himself, to show him what she saw when she looked at him. A good father. A man who loved his daughter so deeply that it drove him to distraction. She saw him very well and knew that was exactly who he was. But he couldn’t seem to see past his mistakes.
“Reeves,” she said softly.
He didn’t turn back, but she saw his shoulders tense.
“Emma isn’t protecting you because she has to,” she said. “You and I both know that she isn’t. You and I can both see that you’re capable of looking out for yourself. That’s not the issue. The problem is that she loves you more than anyone else in the world. And that isn’t a problem at all. It’s a blessing.”
“Not if it makes her put herself in harm’s way out of a misguided desire to protect me,” Reeves bit out.
“I know that. You’re right. She should be letting you look after her, not the other way around. But you need to let her figure thatout in her own time,” Bridget said. “She’ll get there. She’ll come to realize that she needs to put her trust in you.”
“So, I’m right.” Reeves spun around. “She doesn’t trust me to keep her safe. That’s the problem.”
“No,” Bridget said. “That isn’t what I said. She doesn’t trust you to keepyourselfsafe. I’m sure she believes that if she tells you the name of the guilty party, you’ll go running off with no plan and no concern for your own well-being. She wants you to stay at home where she knows you’ll be secure, where she won’t have to worry about anything happening to you.”
“How can you possibly know all this?”
“I don’t know, I’m guessing,” Bridget said. “But I’m sure I’m right. Just think about it, Reeves. It all makes too much sense. It explains why we haven’t seen much change in her demeanor since we got her home—her fears haven’t been abated. It explains why she’s more at ease with me than with you, too. She doesn’t have the same fear of losing me, both because she senses I wouldn’t run into danger and because I’m not the most important person in her whole world. She isn’t afraid she’s going to be kidnapped again, necessarily. She’s afraid something will happen again that’ll turn her life upside down.”
“So what do we do?” Reeves asked, throwing his hands up. “How can I make her feel safe?”
“She needs to know that you’re going to take care of yourself as well as her,” Bridget said simply. “I think that if you make herfeel confident that telling you about what happened won’t have dire repercussions, she might finally be able to open up to you.”
Reeves slumped against the side of his horse. “This wouldn’t be so difficult if her mother were alive,” he murmured. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful for all you’ve done. In fact, it’s the opposite of that. You’ve made me see how valuable a woman’s touch is in raising a child—how even having Agnes around has never been able to replace what a mother could have offered my daughter.”
“You’ve never spoken about Emma’s mother,” Bridget said, schooling her face carefully. She didn’t want Reeves to see the twist of jealousy she had just felt. Itwouldbe better if Emma had a mother around. Of course it would. Bridget couldn’t possibly begrudge that wish.
So why did it make her feel this way to think about it?
It’s because I’ve taken pride in being the one to help Emma, that’s all. It makes me feel unnecessary to think of a scenario in which someone else took care of her instead. That’s all this is.
It made sense… but she wasn’t sure it was true. She wanted to believe it, but as she looked at Reeves, she found that all she could think was that she wouldn’t be standing out here having this conversation with him if his wife were alive.
She wanted to be here with him.
Something about talking to him, exchanging ideas, made her heart beat faster. It was more exciting than any conversation she could recall ever having. She wanted to hear what he’d say, and she wanted to see how he would respond to the things she said. It was like reading an exciting book with a new twist on every page, even though the subject of their discussion wasn’t especially thrilling.
It’s him. He’s the thing about all this that excites me so much. And it hurts to think that, even as I’m enjoying this moment, he’s been standing here missing his wife.
But there was nothing wrong with that. Of course he missed his wife. He ought to miss her. She cleared her throat. “You must have loved her a great deal,” she managed.
Reeves pressed his lips together. “It wasn’t exactly like that.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Rosalie was a wonderful woman… but I didn’t know her that well, to tell you the truth. She was only in my life for a year,” Reeves explained. “Our marriage was an arrangement, not a love match. It was a good arrangement. We were both happy with it, and we liked one another. And we both loved Emma, of course, though Rosalie hardly got to know her at all.” He closed his eyes briefly. “That’s the part I grieve over, really. My daughter doesn’t have a mother. I’m sad to have lost Rosalie, but had it not been for Emma, I think I would have put it behind me by now.”
