“He did?” she asked with surprise.
“Yeah, I guess he figured you needed time. I was going to come get you after three months, but Simon visited you and said you were doing okay. So I waited a few more months before I decided to come and get you. But you seemed happy. Happier than I had seen you in a while. So I let you be.” He scowled at her. “If I’d known the real reason you were staying away from home, I’d have taken you over my knee, though. We all thought you were staying away because of bad memories, not because you felt guilty. For a smart girl, you were really stupid, Tilly. As if we’d ever blame you for what Javier did. Don’t you think we’ve all spent a lot of time blaming ourselves?”
“You weren’t even here,” she said.
“Exactly. I wasn’t here to look out for you. Eli was busy with the ranch. Asher was going through that dark period, and Simon was away at college. We all kicked ourselves multiple times for allowing you to be taken in by that asshole.”
Tilly stepped back and he pulled her in so she was leaning back against his front. “You couldn’t have stopped me.”
“Couldn’t I?” Dare said. “You so sure about that?”
Tilly sighed. “Okay, maybe you could have. Back then. But it really wasn’t your fault. I can’t believe you guys felt guilty.”
“Seems like a lot of that was going around,” Dylan pointed out gently. “Maybe you should all make a point of burying this once and for all.”
She smiled up at him. “I think you’re right.”
Dare looked at them both. “You’re not going to tell me about the mugging, are you?”
“Nope,” Tilly said cheerfully.
“Fine,” he muttered. He glared at Dylan. “But I want your promise you will keep her safe and that you’re not getting her involved in anything dangerous.”
“I promise,” Dylan said.
“Okay, you two want a ride back?”
They both climbed into his truck, Dylan in the front seat.
“Asher went through a dark period?” Dylan finally asked. “You mean he was darker than he is now?”
Dare grinned. “Yep. Hard to believe, right?”
***
Later that night, Dylan stepped out onto the porch. Tilly’s family had spent the night laughing and fighting and putting to bed all the guilt and angst about what had happened with Javier.
A burst of laughter followed him out and he smiled, glad that all the tension was easing and Tilly’s relationship with her family was on the mend. Even Asher seemed a bit lighter, maybe. Well, not really.
But he’d noticed that Tilly’s father had snuck out onto the porch five minutes ago. Dylan had decided to follow him.
“You mind if I join you?” Dylan asked as he spotted the older man leaning against the rail, looking out into the dark. The lights from the house lit the dark porch.
The other man grunted then brought a cigar up to his mouth. “Thought you might be Tilly. She hates me smoking these. Always used to chase me out here as a child and tell me off.” There was a smile in the older man’s voice. “I’d forgotten how feisty she could be when she believed in something.” He turned toward Dylan. “I failed her, didn’t I?”
“Tilly is a beautiful, sweet, smart and loving person. You raised an amazing daughter. I don’t see how that can be considered a failure.”
“She didn’t feel she could come to me when someone was hurting her,” he said harshly and Dylan could feel the pain in his voice.
“Javier worked her like a pro. She was young and impressionable and he had her thinking that no one would believe her, that no one could help her. If someone tells you that you’re worthy and unloved long enough, eventually you believe it.”
“She talks to you, trusts you.”
“She does,” Dylan said.
“I don’t want that happening to my baby girl again. I don’t want her to ever feel like she can’t come to me or her brothers for anything. I forced myself to let her go off by herself to Austin and it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. There wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t want to chase after her and haul her back.”
“Tilly needed that time to grow.”