Except now it wasn’t enough. Not when he knew what it was to have more. To haveeverything.
“So what if I love her?” he snarled. “It doesn’t change who I am.”
“And who is that?” LT casually took a sip of his beer. His calm only increased Bran’s agitation.
“My father’s son,” he said. “You’ve seen me on the battlefield. You know what I’m like. You’ve seen the thing that lives inside me.”
LT didn’t say anything for a while, simply stood there drinking his damn beer. Then he finally spoke. “See, now, what confounds me is that you think you’re the only one of us who has a dark, vicious side. That you’re the only one of us who gets that look in his eyes when that side takes over. But weallhave it, man. We all get it. Those dark, vicious sides of us are what kept us alive all those years. The difference between us and you is that we appreciate ours and you’re afraid of yours.”
“I’m not afraid—”
“Yes,” LT stressed, “you are. That’s why you always turn it off so quickly. Why, the instant the danger or whatever is over, you flip that switch inside yourself and start in with the jokes. You think you have to beat it back or it’ll take over. But it won’t, Bran. Don’t you know by now you can handle it?”
It sounded so good. It sounded so easy. And he wanted to believe it. “My father couldn’t handle it.”
“Yeah, well, you may be your father’s son. But you arenotyour father.”
“You shoulda seen how jealous I was of that young stud park ranger every time he looked at Maddy,” he snarled, remembering the red in his vision, the violence in his heart. Terrified of both. “When he touched her, I wanted to rip his arms off and beat him with ’em.”
LT snorted. “Join the club, man. When Olivia and I are in Key West and heads turn in her direction, I’m hard-pressed not to go on a murderin’ spree. Feelin’ possessive and protective and damn near nuclear about the woman you love isnatural. Not actin’ on all those feelings is what separates the men from the monsters. And you, my friend, are aman.”
With his whole heart, Bran wanted to believe LT was right. Wanted to believe that what ran in his blood could be controlled by his brain. Wanted to believe that nurture had more to do with the making of him than nature.
Pa Ingalls…The name drifted into his mind from a long-ago memory.
Is it possible?
Possible to be as good a man, as decent a man as Pa Ingalls, the one who’d always made his mother smile? Asking the question, even to himself, opened up the prospect just a crack.
The joy that rushed in, theyearning, was almost more than he could bear.
“Now, I know you had some supremely bad shit happen in your past,” LT continued. “But stop bein’ a jackass and lettin’ the past rule your present. You don’t see yourself clearly, but the rest of us do. You’re agoodman, Bran Pallidino. An honorable man. And aworthyman. And we all think Madison Powers would be the luckiest lady on the planet to have you.”
“I’ve said my piece,” LT said, pushing away from the doorjamb and heading in Bran’s direction. “So I’m goin’ outside to make out with my beautiful fiancée behind a palm tree.” He set his beer on the end table beside the sofa. “Don’t drink my beer.”
And with that parting shot, LT left. After the screen door slammed shut, Bran sat in stunned silence.
He felt like the bonds of the past, thefearof the past had unraveled in the last few minutes. Just a little bit. And what was left in the place of those lifelong threads was a glimmer of hope, a ray of dreamlike promise that he might have a chance for a future.
With Maddy.
Chapter 28
The next day…
Maddy’s mouse icon hovered over the Send button in her email account. For the last five minutes she’d gone back and forth over whether or not she should click it.
“It’s not like you’re askin’ to move in with him,” she muttered to herself. “You’re just askin’ if he’d be okay with you comin’ to visit. Yousayin the email you’ll bring your sleepin’ bag. So, no pressure. Andfriendsvisit each other, don’t they?”
She sat back against her headboard and fisted her hands in her lap. She’d tried. Lordy, how she’d tried to go back to the way things were before. But thingsweren’tthe same as before.Shewasn’t the same as before and—
Ding-dong!
She jumped at the sound of the doorbell and glanced at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock.
“What kind of person shows up at someone’s house at seven-thirty in the mornin’?” she grumbled, setting her laptop aside and tossing back the covers. She threw on her favorite robe—it was green and tattered and totally comfy—before stopping to give her reflection in the mirror above her dresser a cursory glance.
Hair? Every which way.
