Sand Castle Bay (Ocean Breeze) - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,42

stands and sat down beside her.

“When you weren’t here at the start of the game, I assumed you couldn’t make it, after all,” he said.

“I told you I’d be here.”

He merely lifted a brow at that.

She frowned at him, hurt by his complete lack of faith in her. “Do you really not trust me at all?”

“How can I?” he asked simply.

She held his gaze, her own look steady, until he flinched. “Okay, here’s the deal,” she said finally. “I will do my absolute best never to let B.J. or you down again. When I make a promise, I will keep it. If for any reason on God’s green earth I can’t, I will tell you ahead of time so neither of you will be disappointed. I don’t know what else I can do, Boone. I really don’t. Life’s unpredictable. Things come up. You have a successful career. You must know that.”

“The difference is that I put B.J. first, always.”

She nodded. “I respect that. He’s your son and it’s what he deserves from his dad.”

Boone frowned. “But he’s no real relation to you, so you have no obligation to do the same?”

“That is not what I meant,” she said impatiently. “Of course he’s important to me.”

“But work will always take precedence?” he persisted.

“Not always,” she said, frustrated by his determination to misread her. “But sometimes, yes. Can you honestly tell me that you’ve never once let B.J. down because something came up at work? Not once?”

She watched the play of expressions on Boone’s face and knew she’d struck a nerve. “When Jenny was alive, you thought it was okay,” she guessed.

Boone sighed. “More than I should have,” he admitted eventually. “Now, though, I’m all he has. It’s different. It has to be.”

She touched his arm. “And I get that, Boone. I really do. You have no idea how much I admire your devotion to B.J. He’s incredibly lucky to have you as his dad. Believe me, I know all about workaholic fathers who don’t put their children first, or even second. That is not you.”

“It could have been,” he said quietly, his expression distant. He met her gaze for just a heartbeat. “I came so close to being exactly like that.”

She saw the regret in his eyes, heard the pain in his voice and understood in a way she hadn’t before. Boone wasn’t an amazing dad because it had come to him naturally. He was, at least in part, making up for past mistakes.

And when she screwed up, on some level he saw himself in her actions, and it reminded him of a time he was trying desperately to forget.

* * *

Boone had revealed far more than he’d ever intended to about the way he’d once been, driven and ambitious, yes, but also cramming every minute of the day with activity to keep Emily out of his thoughts.

At least he hadn’t given her so much as a hint about the mistakes he’d made in his marriage as well as those he’d made with his son. He never wanted Emily to know about the probably inevitable distance there’d been between him and Jenny, a gap he hadn’t been able to close no matter how much he’d wanted to, all because a piece of his heart had been missing. That was a guilt he’d have to live with forever. And if he ever forgot it, the Farmers would always be there, ready to remind him.

What he had revealed was damning enough. Emily was right about one thing, for sure. She, of all people, understood what it was like to have a father who was so absorbed in his own world he neglected everyone around him.

As close as he’d been to the family for all these years, Boone barely knew Sam Castle. He could count on one hand the number of times Emily’s father had put in an appearance at the beach. It had been her mother who’d dropped the girls off when they’d spent summers with Cora Jane, who’d paid visits to check up on them, who drove over for holiday meals with their grandparents. Even when Emily’s mother had died and Boone had skipped school and driven across the state to be there for Emily at the funeral, it was as if Sam Castle weren’t really there. Oh, he was physically present, but emotionally he’d been in some other place. It had been Cora Jane who’d comforted the girls and handled the reception.

Samantha rarely mentioned their father. Emily spoke of him mostly