Wild Embrace (Wilder Irish #11) - Mari Carr Page 0,69
a relationship.”
Dad leaned back and blew out a long, slow breath. “Trust in a relationship—”
“Is everything. I know that, Dad.”
“Jealousy is—”
“A horrible thing,” she interjected.
Dad chuckled. “You’re just like your mom. She never gives me a chance to get a word in edgewise, either. What I wanted to say is, trust in a relationship takes times to develop, and jealousy is often the fallout until that trust is built.”
“He punched a guy, Dad. I hadn’t said more than three sentences to Ron. I wasn’t flirting, I swear.”
“I didn’t say you were. When it’s the beginning of a relationship and a man reaches that point where he’s in love, but still in denial, jealousy isn’t all that uncommon.”
“You’ve never been jealous with Mom.”
Dad laughed. “You’re joking, right? Vegas?”
Darcy frowned. “What about it? You and Mom ran off to Vegas and eloped. It was super romantic.”
“Wow. It appears your mom and I must have left big chunks out of our marriage story. We weren’t dating when we went to Vegas, and we didn’t go there together to elope. I followed her there, in a jealous rage because she’d flown across the country with a married man.”
“Wait. What? Who?”
“Trevor Blankenship.”
“The guy who ran off with the stripper and got lost in the desert? The one who was your best man? I thought he went to Vegas with you and Mom.”
Dad shook his head, chuckling. “Good God, no. Trevor had gotten in a fight with his wife and they’d separated. He and Riley were both in a funk, and drunk, and your mother got it in her head the two of them should take a trip to Vegas to cheer themselves up.”
“Sounds like her,” Darcy said. “I mean the trip part, not the married-guy part.”
“Because that part wasn’t true. And if I’d been thinking clearly, thinking like a man who wasn’t wearing his heart on his sleeve, I probably would have had a less stressful eight-hour cross-country journey to Sin City. Instead, I’d worked myself up into a jealous lather. One that dissipated the second I saw your mom at the blackjack tables, laughing and having the time of her life.”
“Where was Trevor?”
“Draped around the stripper.”
Darcy laughed. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard that part of the story. I mean, I knew about the jealous estranged wife showing up, and the stripper and Trevor getting in trouble with the mob or something, and Bubbles helping you look for them, but I didn’t realize you hadn’t all traveled together.”
“I’ve never said this to Riley, so if you repeat it to her, I’ll flat-out deny it, but her running off to Vegas with Trevor was the best thing she’s ever done. It forced me to pull my head out of my ass and see what was standing right in front of me.”
Darcy wiped away a tear, loving her father’s story, even as her own heart was breaking. “Pop Pop said the same thing happened with him and Grandma Sunday. He thought she could do better, so he pushed her away. But I don’t see how that’s the same as what just happened here.”
Dad reached for her hand again. “That’s because you’re too close to it. You said Ryder wasn’t happy in his marriage, that he struggles with trust and love. You think that’s impacting his feelings for you?”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Well, I have a different perspective because I was standing in the opening between the pub and restaurant when Ryder walked in. I saw his face when he spotted you with that Ron guy.” Dad took a deep breath and, because she knew her dad, she understood that he was trying to find the right words.
With her mom, whatever popped into her head came out. But Dad was different. He always carefully considered what he wanted to say. Which was probably why she and her mom could have knockdown, drag-out arguments whenever they disagreed, but with her dad…just a few gentle, well-chosen words from him on something he thought she was doing wrong would have her thinking for days.
“What did you see?” she asked.
“A man doesn’t throw a punch over a woman he doesn’t care about.”
Darcy let that sink in deep, took the words as the gift they were. Unfortunately, they didn’t change what had just happened. Ryder wasn’t finished fighting this thing between them. What if he never did?
“What do I do, Dad? How do I fix this?”
Dad smiled sadly. “That’s the problem. You don’t. Ryder does.”
“But—”
“I’m going to say a word, and you’re not going