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Gentling the Cowboy(71)

By:Ruth Cardello


“Good, because I never asked you to get involved in any part of my life.”

Dean’s face whitened a bit in anger. “You’re right, you never did, and you never thanked me. You’re an ungrateful ass.”

“Then why are you still here when you know I don’t want you to be?” Tony goaded.

Dean pushed off the counter, his hands clenching at his sides. “I give up. You want to be as miserable as our father was.”

“I’m nothing like him.”

“Are you kidding? You’re exactly like him. He was one cold, unfeeling bastard. Do you even know if he’s still alive? I don’t, and I don’t care. He’s going to die alone, just like you will if you don’t wake up.” Dean turned to leave.

“Dean,” Tony said, his tone free of all of its earlier sarcasm.

Dean turned back.

As close to an apology as he could voice, Tony said, “I don’t know how to be anyone but who I am.”

Releasing a long sigh, Dean said, “Yes, you do.”

Dean had always seen good where there was none. Still, Tony felt driven to tell him what he’d been considering. “I’ve been thinking about going to see Kimberly Staten’s father.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Is that wise?”

“I never told him that I was sorry about his daughter. It’s time I do.”

Walking over, Dean stood in front of Tony in a move of support. “You want me to go with you?”

Tony shook his head. “No.”

“Then why tell me?”

I don’t know.

There was a past between them that he’d never spoken of, and maybe it needed acknowledging. “I may never be a good brother to you, but I don’t blame you for my mother leaving. I can’t imagine any woman being able to stay with him for very long.” The past was there, vivid between them. “I always resented how happy you were, how easy life looked for you. You and your mother would visit for a day, laughing and talking about where you’d been or what you’d done together, giving me a glimpse of what a family could look like, and then you’d leave again. I used to wonder what it would be like if I left with you. I doubt our father would have cared if I had.”

“You could have come with us. My mother would have taken you in.”

Tony didn’t doubt the truth of that. Dean had gotten his giving side from his mother. “That was your life, not mine.”

“It could be yours now. You don’t have to be our father. Whatever path you take today is one of your choosing, not anyone else’s.”

Tony put his hand on his brother’s shoulder, the first time he’d ever voluntarily touched him. “I want to be the man Sarah believed I was.”

Dean nodded in understanding, then stepped back and said, “Then clean the fuck up, because you smelled an awful lot better when she was here.”

Tony smiled, dropping his hand, releasing some of his tension in a short laugh. “That might explain why Melanie has been leaving my food and running away.”

Dean smiled back and joked, “Probably had nothing to do with your foul mood, either.”

“Me? Moody?” Tony looked across at his brother in feigned surprise.

Dean’s smile widened. “Come to dinner at my mom’s house this Sunday. She’d like to see you.”

The automatic refusal died, unspoken, on Tony’s lips. The past only had the power he gave it, and Margery, Dean’s mother, was another part of it that he’d denied for too long. “I’d like that.”

Dean left smiling, probably the only time Tony had ever seen him leave happier than he’d arrived.





Two weeks after leaving Tony’s ranch, Sarah had just returned from a long, cathartic ride in the fields surrounding Melanie’s parents’ home. Her cheeks were still flushed from the rush of Scooter’s ground-covering gallop. She’d smiled through untacking and brushing him down and was cooling him off by hand, walking him on the dirt road in front of the horse barn.

She missed Tony, but she refused to let herself wallow in the feelings that swamped her when she thought of him. She couldn’t hate him. He’d never been anything but honest with her. She was the one who had invaded his home, practically thrown herself at him, ignored all the warnings he gave her, and then left when she’d discovered that he was the man he’d always claimed to be.

Melanie’s parents could not have been nicer. They set her up in the attached in-law apartment that they said they’d made for Melanie. Why she hadn’t stayed there and why they had kept it empty weren’t questions anyone offered to answer, so Sarah didn’t ask. She understood family taboo topics.