He tried a different approach. “I never said it was easy. Cody is just tired of being treated like a textbook. He wants a mom, not a counselor.”
Her eyes widened as if she’d been struck, and his heart shifted toward his boots. He’d said too much—crossed a camper confidentiality line, and at probably the worst possible time.
He tried to backtrack. “Emma, I’m on your side.” He reached out to touch her, but she didn’t soften. If anything, she grew stonier. This was not what he’d intended to do. “I just meant it’s not all your responsibility.”
“So whose is it?” Her eyes flashed. “Who is responsible for wayward kids? Whose fault is it?”
“Fault?” They’d gotten way off topic, but clearly this was something Emma had been keeping just below the surface. As much as he’d wanted to know what was going on in her head, he wasn’t sure he could handle this much roller coaster. Not tonight, with the weight of the day still pressing in. He struggled to take a breath against the heaviness suddenly covering the barn. “Why does it have to be anyone’s fault? Stuff happens. Kids are influenced or hurt and no one can necessarily prevent—”
“But some can. Some can be prevented. And in those cases, there is someone to blame.”
She believed a lie, and it was killing her. His heart softened at her burden. “You’re not to blame, Emma. There’s no way.”
Her lips pressed together but didn’t contain the words that exploded forth like a shot from his favorite rifle. “You’re right. I’m not.” The tears spilled over, leaving makeup speckled trails down her cheeks. “You are.”
Chapter Seventeen
She’d said it. There was no turning back now.
But that didn’t stop her from hightailing it out of the barn.
Emma picked up her pace, the ground rising to trip her, but she kept going, stumbling in the darkness toward the light shining in the main house’s front window. Her outburst raced through her head almost as fast as her legs churned the ground, and she mentally railed on herself. How could she have said that? Thirteen years of keeping a secret, down the drain. She never should have told her mom. That unplugged the dam, and now she was about to pay for over a decade of silence.
Max didn’t let escape come easily.
He caught up in a few quick strides and grabbed her arm. She pulled him along, knowing he was too stubborn to let go, yet too much of a gentleman to force her to stop. “Emma, wait. What do you mean?”
He had to know by now, typo or not. Did he really not get it? The possibility that he didn’t brought hope, but it was tainted with instant disappointment. She either had to lie to his face, or confess. Neither option felt right.
She stopped just inside the front door, and Max finally released her as if realizing she had nowhere else to go.
And she didn’t. Her past had finally caught up to her, right there in a dimly lit living room on a ranch in the middle of Broken Bend, Louisiana. A ranch for troubled teens. Their troubled teen.
“I know you’re angry. But I don’t really get why.” Max stepped back to give her room—or maybe give himself room—and tossed his cowboy hat on the table by the door. His rumpled hair just made him all the more endearing, and the memory of their kiss seared her lips. What had she been thinking, saying “maybe” like that? As if they actually had a chance? As if this bomb of a truth she was about to detonate wouldn’t change anything? Change everything?