“But it’s true, isn’t it?” Just because something wasn’t fair didn’t mean it wasn’t true. “Ever since I got here, you have done nothing but ignore me and belittle me and—”
“—And given you a better life!”
“After leaving me in a shitty one for twenty years.”
“And you don’t think I feel terrible about it?”
His question was louder than the smashing of his bullets, louder than the gunpowder explosions he triggered, but Samantha didn’t know how to answer it. It left her disoriented. Her ears rang.
“What?”
“Has it crossed your mind for even a moment that I didn’t…” He cleared his throat. “I left you alone because…” He fiddled with his rifle. “You know why.”
She scrambled and unscrambled the events of her life, trying to fit them into a new picture. She always assumed he’d hated her. He ignored her because she was a remnant of a shameful past he couldn’t escape. She never dreamed the shame he felt wasn’t toward her, but rather because of the way he’d treated her.
“You felt guilty?”
Speaking it into existence felt as ridiculous as declaring Santa Claus was real, but the longer her father busied his hands and paced, the more certain she was. It was the only real explanation.
“I abandoned you because I was afraid. And you’ve spent your life paying for my mistakes. How do you move on? How do you look at your child and tell them you were too selfish to be a father?”
“Maybe you could start by apologizing and make better choices now?”
“Don’t you think you should take your own advice?”
Nice try, but we aren’t turning the tables back on me.
“I don’t know what you mean.” She shouted back at the butler silently waiting with plates, “Pull!” Two could play at the diversion game.
Her father twisted in time to catch the plate in midair. Any hopes he’d stop his rally against her in favor of congratulating himself on the excellent shot vanished when he tossed the gun at her. She only narrowly caught it.
“You have sat in the house feeling sorry for yourself for a week. If you’re really worried about this young man, you have to know you’ll never get him back this way.” Was that concern in his eyes or was she imagining it? “Now, shoot. Pull!”
Pop.But there was no snap or crash. Samantha didn’t raise her weapon. She would rather have listened to music nonstop for the rest of her life than hear her father try to push her back toward Daniel. Their love was over. She’d ruined everything, and she would bear it for the rest of her life, like Thomas did. In her relentless pursuit of love, she’d given up any hope it.
She wanted to. Desperately. Her knees twitched to run to Daniel and fall at his feet and beg his forgiveness.
“Shoot the gun,” her father said.
“No, thank you.”
“Take a shot, Samantha. Pull!”
Daniel. Thomas. Father. Captain. The Animos. Thomas. Father. Captain. Daniel. Daniel. Daniel.Her resolve buckled under the weight of the people she’d wronged and been wronged by. Her father’s command sent her hands flying to the gun and peering through the scope. In less than a second, the plate exploded into a firework of porcelain.
“There. Don’t you feel better?” he asked.
Samantha couldn’t help tugging her lips upward. Itwassatisfying, in a way. Nothing was fixed, not in her life and certainly not in the relationship with her father, but at least she’d gotten to harmlessly break some shit. For what it was worth, at least she was just breaking a plate and not breaking someone’s heart. If she was really interested in changing herself, that was a step in the right direction.
“Sort of.” She handed the gun back to him. “But nothing’s changed.”
“Then you have to go out andmakethe change, don’t you?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Samantha hated to say it (Shit, how she hated to say it!), but her father was right. And if the most emotionally blind man in England could be right about something, it meant she had to get off of her ass and get to work. She had to pick her heart up off the mat and fight for Daniel. Change wasn’t going to happen overnight. Restorations didn’t materialize. She had to work for it.
Samantha and her father still had their own issues to sort out. Her bitterness and distrust fueled her desire to be close to him, which only complicated matters. Though Thomas still avoided her like the plague, her father took bizarre measures to keep her company. They shared breakfast and dinner together almost every day. He asked her opinions on politics and her studies. They even talked about her mother once or twice, something she never expected. The sudden interest didn’t erase twenty years, nor did it always proceed smoothly, but things were beginning to change.
