Page 115 of Slow Hands Cowboy

So he didn’t knock. He just turned around and got back in his truck, and went back to his empty house.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Addison’s dad didn’t say anything to her when she came home that night, but in the morning, he was waiting with strong coffee, and Addison sat down and took it gratefully, even though she felt hungover.

“What’s going on?” her dad asked.

And here she was, faced with a choice. Did she admit that she had done something her dad would be disappointed in? The idea made her feel like hiding. But that wasn’t who she was anymore. So she knew she needed to be honest.

“I fell in love with Walker Grayson, and he rejected me. So I’m feeling kind of awful.” Her dad sighed heavily, and she kept talking quickly. “I know that that’s not what you wanted for me. I know that you’re probably disappointed, and I tried, Dad. I really did try, my whole life, to only do things that you would approve of, but that was about to lead me into a marriage that I really shouldn’t have been in, and I came to the conclusion that I’m thirty and I don’t know myself, and I kind of hate that. And I was trying to figure myself out, and unfortunately, the answer seems to be that I love him, but he doesn’t want me, so it doesn’t matter. Except that I know myself. But the thing that I know about myself right now is that I’m sad.”

Her dad didn’t say anything for a long moment. He took a sip of his coffee. And then he set his cup back down. “I owe you an apology,” he said.

She looked up at him intently.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like you couldn’t make a mistake, Addison. When your mom left, I was scared. I was scared that I wasn’t going to do a good job, and I think it made me react with more intensity than I should have. I think me putting pressure on myself ended up as me putting pressure on you. And I won’t lie, it wasn’t like my intentions were always pure. I wanted to prove that I could do it without her, because she wasn’t here, and I was angry that she hurt you. I think by doing that, I did a good job of proving why she couldn’t make it work with me in the first place.”

“Dad... You make it sound like you were some kind of drill sergeant, and you weren’t. But you were the parent that I had left. And I wanted to please you. It was really important to me. I wasn’t what Mom wanted, that much was clear. So it felt really important to me to be the thing that you wanted.” She had fallen out of the treehouse. It was her dad who had put the bandage on.

So she had spent her life trying to please him.

“I was just scared, though,” he said. “I’ve owed you an apology for a long time. Because I’ve realized over the years that sometimes I was too strict, too hard on you, and it was all...”

“You were a little bit afraid that I would go off the rails like Mom.”

“I was. And that was wrong of me, too, because I never should have made in the issues your mother’s and my relationship spill into my relationship with you and Jackson.”

“Jackson has reconciled with her.”

Her dad nodded. “I’m glad. I’m never going to be okay with what she did. With leaving you two. And that’s gotten tangled up in the way that I feel about her leaving the marriage over the years. But the reality is, we weren’t good together. And I am much happier with Linda. I know your mom is much happier with her husband. But leaving you two, that’s something I’m always going to struggle with.”

“I know. I struggle with it, too. But she’s sorry. And I think... I don’t think I can do this sadness anymore. I just think I don’t want to be sad like that.” She took a deep breath. “Not because Mom deserves for us to forget about it, or to let it go, just because I think I need to. Like I don’t want to cut any more people out of my life.”

“I think that’s good.”

“So you’re not disappointed in me?”

He reached across the table and pulled her up for a hug. “Addison, you make me so proud I don’t even have the words.”

And even though her heart was broken, she felt something mend.

She spent the next few days trying to figure out what she was going to do with the fundraiser. She got as far as looking at other venues, nearly calling and sending inquiries and either hanging up or closing out the screen before she could.

This was messy.

So messy, and it didn’t feel like there was a way to make it neater.

It would be very valid to not have it there. It would be so fair of her to want to just not do it. But there was a stubborn part of her that didn’t want to fold now.

This was about her.

Not about them.

Even though every time she breathed it hurt because of them.

There wasn’t a ton of time until the fundraiser, and she should prepare.

But she kept thinking about her mom, and how much she missed her. She kept on wondering if she showed up to her mom’s house, like she had her dad’s, with no notice, with no phone call, would she let her in?