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"You aren't going to be ready to embrace all that we and the ranch have to offer, baby girl, until you learn a few things."
"What things?"
"Trust. Love. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Your strengths will always be your strengths, and your weaknesses will always be your weaknesses. But self-awareness and knowing what those are and accepting certain things in yourself is how you grow."
I shook my head slowly, from side to side, and frowned. "My weaknesses will always be my weaknesses? And you want me to just learn to accept them and not try to be better? Not improve myself?"
"Oh, no, baby girl. As long as Slade and I are around, you will always work on improving yourself. And you will always be expected to try to push past your weaknesses."
"Always," Slade agreed, nodding sagely.
"Then, I don't get what you're trying to say." I shrugged defiantly, my lips pursing into an angry pout.
Slade squeezed my hand under the table. "What we are saying, little one, is that while we want you to stay, and it would be terribly easy to tell you what to do and continue to enable you in certain ways and behaviors, it's just not the right thing to do."
I began to get that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and fought off a wave of nausea. They were dumping me, weren't they? That's exactly what it felt like.
Before I could yell, or pitch a fit, or even question, the waitress showed up, and Blake ordered for the three of us. Three specials, two house margaritas, and an ice water for himself, because he was driving.
I waited for her to jot down our order and leave. As soon as she was out of earshot, I quietly exploded. "I can't believe you brought me here to dump me!" I fumed. "I thought you were different. I thought you had some class. I trusted you. I seriously cannot believe I am sitting here listening to you go off on me about needing to trust, right now, after you both used me!"
My fists were clenched on the table, having yanked my hand from Slade's grasp. Blake grabbed my wrist and held it tight. "Now hold it, right there, baby girl, before you find yourself in a world of hurt," he warned.
His threats affected me, still, even though I didn't want them to. Instinctively, I stilled and listened.
"Back up. Rewind. We handled this all wrong, apparently."
"Apparently." Slade's voice was dry and worried.
"We brought you here to get you away from the ranch. To take you on a date. To show you that, to us, this is a real relationship, no matter how unconventional it may be. We brought you here because, even though you can't see it, you are stressed beyond what today's situation called for, and you needed a break."
"We didn't tell you that, because we have a little thing about control," Slade cut in jokingly.
"You mean because Blake has a little thing about mind fucking." I knew they wouldn't care for the curse word, but I was out of fucks to give at the moment. There was no other word for it. Blake liked to mind fuck. Psychological torture is an apt description.
"That, too."
"Well, that just sucks," I informed them both.
"Well, we see that, now. Hindsight is twenty-twenty."
"Back on topic." Blake redirected the conversation, just as the waitress returned with our drinks. I had never in my life been so grateful for an alcoholic beverage. I took three long gulps, leaving the glass half drained, and set it down on the table in front of me.
"Okay. On topic. And that topic is?"
Blake sighed. Deeply. Deeper than I had ever seen the poor man sigh. It twisted my insides just to watch. "When you came here, we took control. Even to get you here. We came on strong and didn't back down. We had a plan, and we carefully orchestrated that plan. And we're not apologizing for that. It needed to be done at the time." Blake stopped, and Slade took over, grabbing my hand off the table and holding it in his lap. I let him.
"We will probably continue to act this way until Christmas. We're Dominants. It's who we are. But at some point, little girl, the ball is going to have to be in your court. We aren't going to force you to stay. That wouldn't help you achieve the growth that we want for you. Do you understand what we are saying?"
I answered him with a blank stare. Did he even understand what he was saying, at this point?
"What we are saying, baby girl," Blake began. "Is that you have some issues in trust and forgiving yourself and maybe some abandonment issues, as well. And we are willing and ready to help you work through those things, but you are going to have to take the first step. We have laid all our cards on the table. You know exactly what we want. What you need to figure out, now, is what it is that you want. Do you want to go back to Arizona and start again, from scratch, and work on creating a new and better life for yourself, there? Or do you want that new and better life to be at the ranch, with us, Nan, and the kids who so desperately need someone like you in their lives?"
There it was, the kids. A package deal. I knew it came down to that. And I even understood why. Work ethic and the ranch went hand in hand. It was ingrained in us from the day we arrived. Being there and not contributing was not an option. It didn't matter how old you were.
I wanted to be there. I wanted these men. It wasn't a question in my mind. What was a question, however, was could I ever trust myself to be what those kids needed? Could I ever learn to forgive myself for those times that I wasn't?
I knew that's what they were asking. I knew it's what they wanted. I knew that shit in my soul. What I didn't know was if I could do it.
