She knew.
“You have cancer.” It wasn’t a question.
“Brielle—”
She cut him off before he could lie to her. “Don’t!” she screamed, her voice coming back full force. “Why would you do this to us? Why would you make us care if you’re planning on leaving us?”
“That’s not what I’ve been trying to do.”
Brielle wasn’t listening. “You’re going to leave us, aren’t you?” When he was silent, she leapt to her feet. “Just like Mom. You’re going to leave and never come back. You left us alone for years! For years, Dad! And then you bring us all together, and you make us care again! You did all of this just so you could rip our family apart permanently!”
It was easier to feel betrayed than to deal with the ache, the certainty that he was going to abandon her. She couldn’t bear it. Last year, she might have been able to — she’d never know — but now, now she’d never get through this. Now that he’d thrown down this challenge, now that he’d began the process of removing the wall around her heart. Now she’d really suffer!
“How dare you, Father?”
Tears streamed down her face, but she swiped them away angrily. She wanted to hold on to the fury; she needed to hold on to it. She couldn’t let the pain in.
“Brielle. I’m trying not to leave you,” he said, approaching slowly, as if she were a frightened animal.
“Don’t touch me! Don’t you even think of touching me!” If he touched her, she’d surely break.
His own eyes filled with tears, but he kept coming closer.
“Brielle. I’m so sorry you had to find out like this. I didn’t want to tell you, because it doesn’t change what I want for you and your brothers.”
He seemed to be pleading with her to understand, but how could she understand? She’d lost one parent, and now she was going to lose the other. It was too soon. Way too soon.
“No! You lied to me, to all of us.” Wanting nothing more than to run and hide, Brielle looked wildly to her left and then right. She felt trapped.
Knowing she was about to bolt, Richard breached the gap between them and pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry, Brielle. I’m so sorry.” He kept repeating that as he held on to her. She struggled against him for a little while, then gave up, collapsing into his arms as sobs ripped from her chest.
“Don’t go, Daddy. Please don’t go,” she cried when she was able to speak again. She’d just gotten him back, just begun to let go of her anger. He couldn’t leave now.
“I’m doing my best not to, Peaches. I really am.”
She didn’t know how long she clung to him, hoping that if she just held on tight, he wouldn’t be able to leave, but eventually she had no more tears left.
When she was finally calm enough to listen, Richard explained about his cancer, told her that the first doctor had said there was nothing more they could do, but that he wasn’t giving up, that he was still hopeful for a solution.
He’d been seeing a new doctor, one who wasn’t as pessimistic as the last. That’s what the call had been about, his last labs. He had to get back and get tested again. Brielle didn’t want to let him go, but after spending the afternoon with her, he assured her that he would keep her updated. He promised he wouldn’t ever leave her in the dark again.
The last promise he made her give before he left to catch his jet back to Seattle was to let him tell her brothers in his own time. It wasn’t something easy for her to accept, but she understood.
Brielle prayed it wasn’t the last time she would see her father — not now. Not when she was just beginning to feel as if she had a father again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
She was curled up on her sofa, clutching a cup of tea that had long since gone cold. Not that she noticed. Her father had called to tell her he’d made it home to Seattle, and to say one more time that he would keep her posted on his medical condition.
They’d spoken for an hour on the phone, and he’d even managed to make her smile a time or two, but the moment they’d hung up, the pain was back. He’d made her promise to keep working the ranch, to keep living each beautiful day. He’d assured her that he would be fine, that this was just another bump in the road, one that they’d one day laugh about.
She didn’t see that ever happening, but what she couldn’t change in this world, what she had no control over, was not something she should allow to have such force over her emotions.
So shouldn’t she continue to do her best to succeed, to give him something to be proud of her for? Of course she should. Brielle assured herself that was exactly what she would continue doing — starting back up tomorrow. For tonight she needed to brood, to sit in the dark of her living room and drink her tea.
“Brielle?”
Her head snapped up. A shadow had appeared in the doorway to her living room, but it wasn’t fear that had her heart racing; it was that Colt was standing there. Though she couldn’t see his face, she knew that silhouette, knew that voice, knew the feeling she had the moment he was in the room.
“I’m here,” she said, a shiver running through her. She’d wanted to telephone him, to ask him to come to her, but suddenly everything about her life seemed so unsure. She didn’t know whether she had the right to call him, because she didn’t know what the two of them were to each other.
“Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“I…” She stopped as she realized how shaky her voice was.
“What’s wrong, baby?” He was instantly at her side, sitting down on the couch and carefully removing the cold tea from her hand before pulling her onto his lap, just where she needed to be.
“My dad,” she said with a sigh. There were no more tears left. In the last few months, Brielle had cried more than enough times to make up for the fact that she hadn’t cried in twelve years.
She wouldn’t cry again. “It’s my dad. He has cancer.” It was almost surreal to say those words out loud. She hadn’t been able to tell her brothers, because of her promise to her father, but she had to speak about it, had to voice what she was feeling, and she was thankful Colt was there to listen.
“Oh, Brielle. That’s terrible. May I ask what kind?”
“It’s prostate cancer. He said there’s a new treatment, and that’s why he left today. He told me that the doctors are doing their best to fix it, but he doesn’t want my brothers to know yet. He didn’t want me to know. I answered his phone…”