A Weston Wedding. Gray Gardner

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      "I hope this isn't a bad surprise," she smoothly said, giving me a worried smile.

      She was my mother. What else could I do? I moved toward her and stood in front of her, over her, really, and everything came back even though we hadn't seen each other for five years. Her perfume. Allure. Her dark brown hair, now slightly grayed. Her brown eyes, watery.

      She leaned forward and hugged me. I wrapped my arms tightly around her and closed my eyes. She hadn't been back to the ranch since West and I got into a fight with her sleazy boyfriend and kicked him out. She'd been hurt by it, but so had we. And when the company went public, she hadn't even called.

      "What are you doing here?" I asked, clearing my throat, and holding her shoulders.

      She wiped a tear and looked nervously around.

      "I just flew in. Rowdy dropped me off from the landing strip. I, well, was hoping to help out. With the wedding, I mean. Weston's wedding."

      "Uh," I stuttered, knowing West was even more upset with her than I had ever been. "Y-yeah, sure. You should go and talk to him." I looked back behind her towards the front of the house. "Is, uh, I mean, Gibb isn't here, is he?"

      "Oh, no," she replied, looking down as she toyed with the large diamond my father had given her for their twenty-fifth anniversary. Her hands looked so worn to me. "We…I left him after, well, he wasn't a good man, as I'm sure you already know. I kicked him out of my beach house and have been building up the charter business on my own."

      Right. Gibb had convinced her to spend every dime on some boat touring business in Florida and then had tried to scam her out of the operation. She was smart, though, I'd give her that. And a hard worker.

      "Sounds good," I smiled, relieved. "You're too good for him. And most men."

      "Thank you, sweetheart." She smiled genuinely, touching my cheek. Then she looked at the back stairs. "Should…should I go and speak with Weston? Is he in his room?"

      "Um," I began, having heard the beginning of Blake's last night of her week long punishment that I pretended to know nothing about. "Yes, but—"

      "His fiancée is with him?" She grinned, raising an eyebrow.

      "Yes," I sighed, relieved that I didn't have to explain anything about my brother's exploits. For most of my life, those roles had always been reversed. West had always played around a little bit, but I was the one who was deplorable when it came to women. Until my little blonde angel came into my life, that is.

      She nodded and looked over at my bags. "Are you going somewhere?"

      "Just for a night," I nodded, knowing that I'd packed way too much. But who really knew how long it would take me to win her back? Or even find her apartment in Jackson Hole? She'd never invited me there.

      "I'll see you when you get back." She winked, heading up the stairs.

      I turned and looked through the window in the door, checking my watch. Then I heard something tumbling down the stairway. Blake popped out into the kitchen in West's white undershirt, her hair a mess and cheeks pink. When she spotted me, she pressed her lips together and smacked my arm.

      "Thanks for the heads up, asshole!"

      "Sorry." I grinned, knowing that my mom had most definitely walked in on something unfortunate. She rubbed her ass absently and tried to brush her hair back. It looked to me more like my mom had walked in on the make-up sex after the hard spanking I knew Blake had gotten. I knew she'd deserved it, too. West had been out of his mind when he'd found the shed on fire. I would have been, too, had it been Chandler.

      Love was a complicated emotion.

      "Where are you going?" she asked a little desperately as she eyed my luggage, like she wanted me to stay and be a buffer to the family drama that would soon commence.

      "I have to get Chandler back," I stated, looking out the window again.

      "Well, did you apologize?" she asked, folding her arms, and giving me a look that said I was an idiot.

      "I plan on it. I just need her to acknowledge me."

      "She's totally pissed," Blake said, still staring me down. "You hurt her."

      I turned and grabbed her little shoulders. Christ, that wasn't what I wanted to hear.

      "Is she okay?"

      Blake rolled her eyes and shrugged my hands off her.

      "Not like that, dumbass. You hurt her emotionally. You took her back to a place she'd made herself forget."

      "Wait, what are you talking about?" I asked, my stomach sinking to the floor.

      Blake licked her lips and scratched her ear as she looked at the floor, saying, "I'm not sure it's my place to tell you."

      "Tell me," I demanded in my office voice. Stepping back, I took a breath and tried to control my emotions a little bit better. I'd fired people for less. I was an asshole.

      Looking up, she pressed her lips together and sighed. "All right, but I'm only telling you so that you know where she's coming from and so that you don't do anything rash. Like West would."

      "I plan on crawling to her on my hands and knees." I sighed, rubbing my eyes.

      Nodding, she said, "Okay, so, you know that she's one of six kids."

      No, I did not recall that.

      "And her dad ran off, and her mom was a terrible alcoholic, and she was pretty overweight when she was younger."

      Crap. I didn't know any of this. I kind of remembered her talking about her mom. Maybe. Shit, I was a bad boyfriend.

      "So, she was the slowest kid in the house. And when her mom would go on a bender and look for something to let out her frustration, Chandler was always the one she caught."

      "Jesus Christ," I choked, my skin prickling at the thought of my sweet little angel's mother hurting her.

      "It's how she learned to lie so well," Blake softly said, looking down at her hands. "And when she was old enough to fight back, she knocked her mom down, who was so drunk that she threw up, choked on her own vomit, and subsequently suffered brain damage. She lives in a home now. Full time care and she's only fifty."

      "That's so…" I couldn't even find the words.

      "She likes you," Blake offered. "I think she loves you. Y'all have something really special but she is not going to be easy. Can you handle that?"

      "I don't want to handle anything," I stated, looking down at Blake. I'd handled hundreds of employees and million-dollar deals, but all I wanted was for one damned thing to go right with Chandler. "And I don't care about easy. I just want to love her and take care of her."

      "Good boy." Blake smiled, patting my arm. "Then go be a good man and win her back. And be honest. She can sniff out bullshit better than anyone I know. Tell her how you want it to be and let her tell you how she wants it."

      "I can do that." I nodded, loving the advice. Dusty pulled up the truck next to the porch СКАЧАТЬ