She laughed at the irony. It was as if Troy had driven her there himself.
Chapter Twelve
Senada sat down on the brocade sofa in the formal living room. The sofa didn’t hold happy memories, considering the last time she reclined on it she’d had a reaction to her insulin. She remembered her father bellowing in the background.
“You’re here early,” Rex said as he stomped into the room.
Senada smiled wryly and stood. “Last time I was late. This time, I’m early. We have a tough time coordinating our timetables, don’t we?”
Looking slightly taken aback, he stared at her for a moment, then cleared his throat. “I guess we do.”
“Can we go for a ride?” she asked.
Surprise crossed his face again. “Well, uh—”
“We haven’t been in a long time.”
His hard features softened. “That we haven’t.” He looked her over. “You sure you want to wear those tennis shoes? Let me see if Sheree has some boots that’ll fit you.”
Minutes later, they saddled up and were riding toward the west pasture. Sin was impressed with the improvements he’d made in the ranch. “You’ve worked hard and it shows.”
He glanced over at her. “I’ve had a lot of time to kill. Figured I might as well do something constructive.”
Sin allowed herself to settle in to the mare’s rolling gait. “I always thought of you as busy, not killing time.”
He gave a humorless chuckle. “After your mom died, I was killing time. I knew I’d screwed up the best thing in my life when I abandoned you two, but I didn’t think I could handle a slow goodbye. I thought quick would be better. Hadn’t counted on the guilt.”
Sin stared at him in shock. Rex had never admitted guilt before.
“What’s the matter, Sin? Cat got your tongue? You look a little surprised.”
She caught her breath. “Well, I guess I am. Whenever I brought up the way Mom died, you blew me off.”
“Because you were usually screaming about what a rotten husband, father and human being I was.”
“I did n—” She stopped herself, her memory clicking in. As a teenager she’d taken every opportunity to remind Rex of his failings. “I guess I did,” she admitted.
Rex pulled his gelding to a stop and looked at her. “Senada, what I did to you and your mama was wrong, and there hasn’t been a day that passed that I didn’t regret it. I didn’t just lose the only woman I’ve ever really loved. I lost my baby girl too.” A lump formed in her throat.
“Why did you do it? Why did you walk away?”
Rex sucked in a deep breath. “I couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t handle watching her go down. I started drinking and wrecked the car one night. Ran into a tree. It was a wonder I didn’t kill myself or somebody else. That’s when I knew I couldn’t keep watching her die. It’s a damned helpless feeling to watch your wife die knowing you can’t do a thing to stop it.” He tilted his hat backward. “Figured there’d better be a place for you to call home after your mom was gone, so I put my energy into that.”
Senada’s heart felt like it was breaking. She’d felt those same feelings of helplessness. Her eyes began to burn. “I was really grateful, wasn’t I?”
Rex shook his head. “No. You were a handful. I thought about tearing out both your hair and mine more than a few times. I kept hoping you’d stop resenting me.” He smiled sadly. “Kept hoping you’d forgive me.”
“I didn’t want to forgive you,” she whispered as much to herself as to him. “It was easier to be angry. I didn’t have to think about the loss if I resented you.”
Silence followed. The truth hit her hard. Senada held her breath for a long moment coming to grips with it. Myriad thoughts and feelings swam inside her. Her hands were shaking. Had she really hung on to her resentment all those years to avoid the hurt?
She finally took a careful breath. “We really made a mess of things, didn’t we?”
Rex was watching her carefully. “Yeah, we did.”
“I hated the women,” she told him.
“Hell, I must’ve gone through a dozen. It was like trying to plug a hole in a ship. Just kept getting bigger.” He met her gaze. “I can’t go back and change any of this.”
“Neither of us can.”
Rex nodded silently in understanding while his gelding shifted beneath him as if he was bored from standing. It was odd, Senada thought, how a quiet understanding passed between them.
Another thought persisted, though, and she had to voice it. “When I was diagnosed, I quit my partnership in Tennessee and came here. In the back of my mind, I was running home, but when I got here I was afraid to tell you. Afraid you’d turn away like before.”