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Granny took her hand and gave it a squeeze. Then, after a moment’s pause, Laney did the same with her other hand. How unusual. All three McMurray women on the same page, ready to confront the enemy, whoever it was.
“You got this,” Laney whispered. “Isn’t that what you said before?”
“I did.” With a nervous smile, Brenda squared her shoulders. “And I do.”
She strode to the door and flung it open.
Galen barreled inside, brandishing the note she’d left in the hotel room. “I know something’s going on. If you want to break up, I just need to say something first.” He was all tangled hair and disheveled beard. Wild to the core, more wild than she’d ever seen him. A wild beast ready to fight for his survival. Fight for their relationship.
She’d never been more happy to see another human being in her life. Thank God. Thank God he still wanted her. She never should have written that note. Never let her mother—and her own panic—manipulate her.
“Listen, Galen—”
“No, let me go first.” He waved the note in the air. “Before you make any decisions, let me say this. I love you.” For the first time, he noticed that her mother and grandmother were there too. “I love her,” he explained to them. “I didn’t tell her that before she wrote this. I was going to, but then my brothers showed up while we were still in bed, and we had to go get my father to drop the assault charges against me, but that’s all good now and—”
Brenda’s phone buzzed. Good timing, considering Galen was apparently about to tell all their business to her wide-eyed family. She snatched it up and saw it was a text from the school principal.
Can you come to my office right now? We have a situation.
twenty-seven
Galen had been rehearsing his speech ever since he’d checked out of the Safari Inn. He’d barely said a word to his brothers during the flight back, or the ride home. They’d dropped him at his house, where he’d given them each a hard but speedy hug. Then he’d tossed his bag in his truck and headed straight for Brenda’s house.
That note was burned into his memory. He knew every word of it by now. When we get back to Lake Bittersweet, we need to talk.
How could she make love to him the way she had just last night and leave a note like this in the morning? Why go to the trouble of flying all the way to LA to spring him from jail, fuck his brains out in a hotel room, only to hint at dumping him the very next day?
It didn’t make any sense. If she really wanted to end things, she could have used him being thrown in jail as an excuse. She could have sent him a text ending things. Or she could have bailed him out, put him in a taxi and said goodbye.
No, the only thing that made sense was that she’d been coerced somehow into dumping him. And he had a good idea of who had done that, and why. Going to jail probably wouldn’t go over very well with the country club crowd.
As soon as Brenda opened the door, her lips parting in surprise at the sight of him, he knew he was right. Beyond her, he saw CeCe and a blur of pink that he knew must be her mother.
Words kept coming out of his mouth in a rush, even after the beep of Brenda’s phone interrupted his flow.
“Maybe I’m not the kind of man you imagined for your daughter, Mrs. Abercrombie, but no one on this planet will ever love her like I do. I would do anything for her. I’d die for her, literally. If a bear was coming for her, I’d run in between them. I’d let that bear maul me before I let it touch a hair on her head.”
Bears. Where had bears come from? His prepared speech hadn’t mentioned a bear.
It was Brenda’s mother, he realized. She was just like a mama bear protecting her cub. Except she didn’t live in the wilderness. The dangers she feared were different. Social ostracism, shunning, that kind of thing. Things he couldn’t do anything about.
Deflated, he stared down at the floor of Brenda’s foyer. Where did that leave him? Someone tapped on his shoulder, but he couldn’t get distracted, not now, even if it was Brenda. He needed to make his case.
He lifted his gaze and fixed it on Laney’s elegant face and narrowed eyes.
“Mrs. Abercrombie, I know we come from different worlds. I don’t know if I could survive in yours. But I respect you and I see why you’re worried. All I can say is that I love Brenda with everything I am and I’m going to do whatever I can to win your trust.”
Was that a nod? Had she nodded?
“My daughter and I have a deal.” She said it like someone clinging to an overhanging tree so she wouldn’t slide down a bluff. In other words, someone desperate to maintain control over her world.
“Does that deal involve me disappearing from her life? Because I didn’t agree to that. And deals like that don’t work anyway. People want what they want. I want Brenda and I think she wants me too.”
Another tap on his shoulder. He turned to find Brenda right next to him. He was still angry about that note, but also he fucking loved her, so he offered her a confused, twisted grimace of a smile.
“If I’m wrong about you wanting me, tell me now. You didn’t say it in your letter.”
“Of course you’re not wrong. I told my Mom we’d take a pause, that’s it. And I was about to renegotiate.”
