Into the Fire by Mari Carr & Jayne Rylon

Author:Mari Carr & Jayne Rylon [Carr, Mari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carried Away Publishing
Published: 2017-11-27T18:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

James blew out a long, hard breath. “Damn.”

She gave him a sad smile. “Yeah. The second it was out of my mouth, I wanted to suck it back in.”

“What did Roscoe say?”

“He said he wished he had too.” She sniffled. “God, I swore I wouldn’t cry in front of you anymore. Not after the other day.”

James swiped away her tears with his thumbs and leaned closer. “You were sixteen years old, Ivy. Everything in your life was fucked-up.”

“I didn’t know how to take it back, so I fixed the rest. Broke up with the asshole, started getting good grades in school, worked overtime to be the perfect kid. Not sure any of that washed away the words.”

“Of course it did. Do you know how many kids have told their parents they hate them? Probably all of them. I’ve said some really shitty stuff to my dad, stuff I feel awful about. Because none of it was true. Not really.”

Ivy sniffled, reaching for a tissue from the box on the nightstand. “Like what?”

James shrugged. “The usual, I guess. Always something along the lines of I’ll never grow up to be like you.”

Ivy sat up, tucking her legs under her Indian-style. “You know, you don’t talk about your dad much. I’ve heard a ton of stories about your brother and cousins, about your sister and her kids, a few of the tea time exploits of the Compton females,” she said with a laugh, as she obviously recalled James explaining how his mom and aunts got together every Sunday afternoon for “tea,” aka several pitchers of margaritas. “And you told me all about Jake. But not your dad. Why not?”

“I don’t know why. Spent most of my life butting heads with him. My mom says it’s because we’re too much alike, but I sure as hell don’t see that. Dad is kind of a stoic, serious guy. A paragon who never does anything wrong. He tends to cast a pretty big shadow. So do my uncles.”

“I doubt that he’s perfect, Jamie.”

James shrugged. “I’m sure he’s not. Jake used to tell me some stories about Dad and his brothers when they were kids. Sounded like they raised the same sort of hell as me and Doug and Austin and Bryant.”

“Seems to me you wouldn’t want a hell-raiser for a father.”

He laughed. “Could be fun. For a while.” He sobered up. “Truth of it is, none of my bold promises to be nothing like him were true. The older I get, the more I see parts of him coming out in me.”

“Like what?”

“Like his love of horses and the land. The way family is the most important thing to him. I spent so many damn years trying to get away from my folks, thinking that was the only way to find myself, to figure out who I was and what mattered. When I look back now, I realize I already knew how to be a good man…because Dad showed me.”

“Jamie?”

“Yeah?”

“I need you.”

He studied her face for a moment, seeing the same uncertainty, fear and sadness he felt.

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