Weddings Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

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      She began to move around. He shadowed her steps, afraid that she might faint without warning. “To make everything crazy.”

      That had been accomplished, he thought. “What did he say, exactly?”

      Turning away from him, she tilted her head up toward the sky, blinking. Determined not to let the tears spill out. If you cried, it meant that you were weak, and she’d always been strong. Strong, just like April and Max and her grandmother.

      She drew in a breath, composing herself. “That he was sorry.”

      Kevin knew how small a word that could sound like. And how much it could really contain. But now wasn’t the time to take the side of a man who’d wounded her so badly. “He apologized for leaving?”

      She clenched her hands into fists at her side as she swung around to face him. Her feelings were all over the map. Sadness, anger, confusion, they were all jumbled up inside of her.

      “He tried to.” Her mouth grew bitter. “My mother’s dead because of him and he’s sorry,” she spit out. “He thinks that if he comes back and says that, everything’s going to be all right. That everything’s forgiven.” Anger flashed in her blue eyes as she looked up at him. “Well, it’s not.”

      He could only guess at what she was feeling, but he did his best. “I know, June, I know. It’s going to take time.”

      “There’s not that much time in the world.”

      She couldn’t quell the bitterness that was taking hold inside her, the emotion that was the flip side of all the love she’d felt for her father as a child. He’d ruined it, ruined her perfect world, taken away her childhood before she had ever had a chance to use it. Before she’d had a chance to store it away.

      Kevin placed a gentling hand on her shoulder. “I know you feel that way now—”

      June shrugged him off angrily. “I’ll always feel that way,” she countered, moving away from him. “A couple of words offered up years too late aren’t going to change that.”

      This was a great deal for her to take in all at once, Kevin thought. He appreciated that she was in the middle of an emotional earthquake, but she needed to calm down. If her father had really returned, she needed to begin the business of forgiving. For her own sake.

      “Where is he now?”

      She thought a moment, setting the jumbled scenario in order. “He’s staying at Luc’s hotel.”

      Her father had called out the information to her as she’d driven away. She hadn’t wanted to hear him, but she couldn’t help it. He’d raised his voice over the roar of her engine.

      She had no idea if he meant to stay here in Hades. The younger Wayne Yearling couldn’t wait to leave the confines of Hades, but her father was older now, and somehow smaller and far less robust than the man she’d looked at so many times in the wedding photograph.

      Her eyes widened as more thoughts crowded into her head, making her realize the possible consequences of her father’s sudden reappearance.

      She clutched at Kevin’s arm. “We’ve got to get him to leave.” Her voice rose excitedly. “He’ll ruin Max’s wedding. He’ll—”

      “I can talk to him if you want,” Kevin told her. Though it wasn’t his place, he could ask the man to leave her alone, at least for the time being, until she got used to the idea that he was back. Until she could find it in her heart to begin to forgive him. “But I think Max and April need to know about this.”

      “No.” She was adamant, and as protective of hers as he was of his. “It’s not fair to put them through this.” It was enough that she had experienced the shock of seeing her father alive and here. She didn’t want that for her brother and sister.

      “You can’t make that decision for them, June. They might want to hear him out.” Kevin understood where she was coming from, from the very best place in her heart.

      “Why?” she demanded, turning on him, feeling betrayed all over again. She’d expected him of all people to understand, to back her up, not take her father’s side. “So he can spin some more of his lies for them? So that he can make more promises he’s not going to keep?” She shook her head, rejecting the idea. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see my mother or my sister after he left. He broke hearts, Kevin,” she insisted, trying to make him understand. “He doesn’t deserve to have them anymore.”

      “No, you’re probably right, he probably doesn’t deserve to have them back. But it’s still a decision that April and Max have to make on their own. You owe them that.” She opened her mouth to argue with him, but he cut her off. He knew exactly what was going on in her head. “I know you just want to protect them, but you can’t. And you can’t punish your father for all four of you. You can just hold back yourself.”

      “I’m not trying to punish him,” she cried. Her words echoed back to her and she sighed. “All right, maybe I am. But why shouldn’t I?” she demanded heatedly. “He deserves it. All he had to do was just stay and everything would have been all right.”

      It was easy, from the vantage point of hindsight, to spin a perfect scenario. But life was seldom perfect. He knew that better than most. “Maybe not.”

      She released a breath, trying to keep from lashing out at him again. He wasn’t the target, he was just standing in the way. Making sense at a time when she didn’t want to have anything to do with sense. When she just wanted to vent.

      “Well, we’ll never know, will we?”

      “No,” he agreed quietly, “we won’t, and we can debate this until the cows come home and it still won’t make any difference.” He looked at her pointedly. “What makes a difference is that he’s here and you and your brother and your sister are each going to have to deal with that in your own way.”

      Suddenly she was drained and so very tired. “I don’t want to deal with it now.”

      She raised her head up to him and he saw that there were tears shimmering in her eyes. His heart constricted within his chest. At a moment like this, fairly or not, he could have readily done battle with her father for her.

      “I don’t want to deal with it now,” she repeated, her voice almost breaking.

      “Then don’t,” he whispered.

      Kevin took her into his arms and she let him, burying her face in his chest until she could regain control. Something that seemed very far out of reach right now. She hated herself like this, hated the fact that she was weak and that her father could still affect her this way. She was supposed to be above that. She wasn’t supposed to care if he lived or died or showed up here. None of that was supposed to matter anymore.

      So why did it?

      Why was there this awful ache inside her? This restless, disoriented feeling that she didn’t know what to do with?

      Her face against him, she sighed heavily. “Why did he have to show up now?”

      Her breath was warm as it traveled along his chest. He was having trouble remembering that his sole function right now was to comfort СКАЧАТЬ