But she doesn’t smile. No, her eyes remain serious as she looks at me. “Yeah, grounded. Like you found the place you belong.”
All I can do is swallow hard. Because she’s not wrong. I found everything I was looking for in Vegas.
I never entertained a relationship though. Maybe because I found my woman, the only one meant for me, in a Nevada small town where ranching never would have made me happy and we were too young to turn it into forever.
Before I can say anything, she smiles. “How does mama Arden feel about you being in Vegas?”
At the mention of my mom, I can’t help but grin. “She hates it but tries not to say it outright because she knows I’m where I’m supposed to be.” My head tilts as I look at her and the question slips from my lips, “Why are you here, Brielle?”
The flash of pain in her eyes has my heart stopping in my chest. I’ll admit, my tone was harsher than I intended. But this is a lot.
So many memories are washing over me.
Of times when we rode one of my family’s horses across the land. Of her laughter. Of the feel of her curled up against my side during a movie marathon.
And then it all ended.
I can still remember the way her eyes were filled with unshed tears the day we said goodbye. Even though it was ripping our hearts and souls apart, where she needed to go, I couldn’t follow.
If I would have tried to keep her and allowed her to follow me as I searched for where I belonged, it would have dimmed her light. She would have smiled, she would have laughed, and we would have loved. But she would have also, eventually, wondered what would have happened if she had followed her dreams instead of mine.
Even though I haven’t allowed myself to think about it for years, I’m thinking back to that day. The day I lost her. The day I let her go.
“Wherever you end up, whatever you end up doing, I hope you’ll find happiness, Everton,” Brielle’s words were filled with pain, but she was trying so hard to hide it from me.
But she couldn’t. Because it was the same pain I was feeling with every beat of my heart.
She tried to hold back all of her tears. I could see it in the way she was clenching her jaw and holding herself so still. As if it would be enough.
Then one tear escaped and I couldn’t help but brush it away. Our gazes locked and the last thing I wanted to do was look away. The last thing I wanted to do was let her go and head out into the world without her by my side.
But that’s how it needed to be.
“I wish I could go with you,” I tried to hold the words back, but I couldn’t. It was as if my soul needed her to know the truth, needed her to know how much I wished things could be different.
“But you can’t.” It wasn’t a question. It didn’t need to be.
Still, her words, and the truth in them, felt like shards of glass being rubbed against my skin.
Walking away from her that day was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Staying away, letting her become the woman she needed to be, was an exercise in control.
The only things holding me together, keeping me looking forward instead of drowning in the past, were my brothers and my daughter.
Fuck. My daughter.
My heart sinks. There was a time when the only child I could imagine having was one with Brielle.
That’s not how life ended up working out.
For the first time in years, I’m nervous.
And that’s not the only feeling I’m having.
There is a yearning which is completely foreign and won’t be ignored. It’s not nostalgia. It’s something else.
It’s her.
Brielle clears her throat and straightens her spine. I almost grin at the movement because it’s the same thing she used to do before she tore into me about one thing or another. And, yes, I figured out quickly that she was always right.
