I tried to tell you, we were interrupted. I couldn’t just blurt it out with other people around. And I hate the way you found out.”
“You mean while watching my sister hit on you.”
“You also saw me turn her down flat.”
He did. No hesitation. Not even a hint that the prospect of seeing Heather intrigued him.
After everything she’d already lost, Sierra couldn’t bear to lose him, too, despite the fact this wasn’t completely resolved. “I’m still mad.”
“You have every right to be about all of this. But you know in your heart I did plan to tell you everything. I tried to tell you this morning but the timing wasn’t right. I told you we’d talk after the boys’ ride.”
She held up her hand to stop him defending himself further. She remembered all that, it had just gotten buried under everything else for a while.
“Of course Heather picks today to stab me in the back after I spent all that time trying to give the boys a chance to remember their father in a meaningful way.”
He pleaded with her again. “I should have told you what I knew sooner, but . . . God, Sierra, the last thing I wanted was to see you like this and know I had any part of it.”
“You didn’t want to investigate David.”
“No, I didn’t, because I didn’t want what I suspected to be true. But I went ahead with it because you deserved to know the truth.”
Mason might be the only person who’d give her the unvarnished truth. “Why did you suspect them?” She stood waiting, afraid to hear the details but feeling like knowing was better than letting her mind torture her with a million scenarios.
“Remember Charles’s funeral?”
“You barely spoke to me. You were here with your fiancée.”
One side of his mouth drew back in a half frown. “Feeling like a total ass because the woman I really wanted to be with married my friend. I stayed away from you because I didn’t want my fiancée to see how much I wanted you. I guess I didn’t hide it well enough because we ended things shortly after that day. I couldn’t go through with a marriage to a woman I loved but wasn’t wholly in love with.”
“Mason, you can’t tell me that you broke it off with her and stayed single all this time because you were waiting for me.”
“Why not? It’s true.” He shrugged. “I didn’t do it consciously. I told myself, one day I’d love someone the way I loved you. I dated. I had short-lived relationships. But that day never came. Until you moved back home. The second I saw you, I knew I wasn’t going to let you get away again without my doing everything possible to show you how much I love you.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I blew it today.”
She couldn’t let him blame himself for something David and Heather did. “No. You didn’t.”
His gaze came up and met hers. The desperate hope in his eyes softened her heart and erased all the anger she’d directed at him.
“You loved me enough to turn Heather’s offer down flat.”
“I only want you.”
“You confronted her for me about David and Hallee. You made her tell the truth for once.”
“I should have spoken to you first, as I planned to, but in that moment I was so angry for you. I couldn’t stand there and let her try to do with me what she did with David behind your back.”
“How did you come to suspect them?”
“Everyone gathered here after the graveside ceremony. People were packed into the house. You were chasing after the boys, keeping them in line.”
“And David was nowhere to be found.” After the long car ride the day before, the boys not sleeping in the strange house, having to stand still and be quiet through the long ceremony, and stuffing themselves with goodies when they got back, well, they were acting out. David lost his patience and made himself scarce. Truthfully, their days were filled with those types of outbursts from two energetic boys.
She’d spent most of that day feeling frazzled and resentful that David had checked out on her.
“I saw him with Heather out back sharing a drink and talking. I didn’t think much of it. You guys didn’t get back often, so I thought they were just catching up.”
David and Heather had always had a close relationship. Sierra never thought anything of the way they joked with each other. She appreciated that