“I—I told him—” her throat grew thick as she pushed through “—that there wasn’t anything that he could say or do to get me to come home.”
Another tear splashed onto her cheek. She sniffled and ran the back of her hand over her cheeks. Why had she been so stubborn? So determined that she was right?
She pulled her hand from Jax’s, no longer feeling worthy of his understanding. And he’d have no choice but to agree once she told him the price of her independence.
Her voice cracked with emotion. “Those were the last words I spoke to him.”
She stared straight ahead at the desert, not wanting to see the look of disgust in Jax’s eyes. She wouldn’t be able to finish if she looked at him.
“The line... It went dead. I thought he’d hung up on me. I thought... Oh, it doesn’t matter.” She sniffled, trying to maintain a bit of composure. “I found out later...that he’d blown through a stop sign. He...he was broadsided.”
Jax leaned forward, squeezing her shoulder. “It was an accident. It could have happened to anyone.”
“But it didn’t.” She turned to Jax. “If I hadn’t been arguing with him, he wouldn’t have been distracted. He always obeyed stop signs. This is all on me.”
“How do you know that he wasn’t tired? Or he hadn’t been distracted by something falling off the dashboard or the seat. Maybe he reached over to pick it up.”
She shook her head, taking a second to collect herself. “I know what happened because there was an investigation. The police determined he was talking to me at the time of the accident.”
“I’m sorry, Cleo. But this isn’t your fault.”
“My mother would disagree. She totally flipped out on me. She ordered me out of the funeral home. She said as far as she was concerned, she...she had no daughter.”
“She didn’t mean it—”
By now the tears were running unleashed. “Yes, she did. I was banished from Hope Springs. I tried to call a couple of times after that, but she hung up.”
“She was in shock and mourning the loss of your father. I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”
“Even my brothers have changed. They speak to me, but it’s not the same. Nothing is the same. Everyone blames me and they’re right. This is my punishment.”
Jax placed a finger beneath her chin and turned her head until she was facing him. “None of them had any right to lay this at your feet. You didn’t know he was on the phone while driving. Not to speak ill of the dead, but the decision to talk on the phone while driving is all on him. And second, he didn’t have a right to demand you come home.”
Had she heard Jax correctly? Wait. This wasn’t the way she thought this conversation would go.
“You don’t blame me?”
“Of course not. And if your mother had been thinking clearly, she wouldn’t have blamed you, either. It was an accident. And no one person was to blame. It was a culmination of events.”
She wanted to believe him—wanted to shed the weight of guilt that had kept her isolated in Las Vegas through the lonely holidays, missing how her brothers would gather around the tree on Christmas Eve passing out gifts. And later how they’d argue over who got to carve the turkey.
Cleo blinked repeatedly. She might not have wanted to be a rancher, but that didn’t mean she wanted to walk away from her family. She just wanted them to respect that she was grown-up now and fully capable of making her own choices on where she lived and how she lived her life. In her worst nightmare, she never dreamed she’d be labeled a black sheep and banished from her home.
“Remember when you were a kid, you always had your head in the clouds.” Jax looked her in the eye. “You dreamed about those fancy fashion shows and how you wanted to travel to Milan and Paris. I never saw anyone who liked clothes as much as you.”
She lifted her head to look him in the eye. “You remember that?”
“Those days that you’d sit and talk about places you’d learned about in one of your magazines taught me something important. You made me realize I could dream bigger than Hope Springs.”
“I thought you were bored stiff listening to me.”
“Not at all. You were like a breath of fresh air after hearing my father rant on and on about all of the injustices in this world.” Jax leaned toward her. “You don’t know how much I enjoyed our talks down by the creek.”
“You mean when you were supposed to be fishing. And I was supposed to be quiet so as not to scare off the fish.” They shared a smile.
“But you were so much more interesting.” He leaned closer. “I had a hard time keeping my attention on my fishing pole. I’m lucky a big fish didn’t swim off with it because you were all I could think about.”
He’d noticed her? How had she missed the signs?