“You’re certainly the exception to the rule, then, Bill, because you’re the only person I know who had a good marriage.”
“Your brother has a very good marriage, and soon he’ll have a baby,” Bill pointed out.
“Maybe it just looks good on the outside.”
“And maybe you should have a little more faith. Have you ever seen Blake look happier?”
“No, but what guarantee do you have that it will last forever?”
“And so we’ve finally come to why you’re really here,” Bill said with a smile. “And I hate to tell you this, but there are no guarantees in life, Byron. I couldn’t have said without a doubt that my beautiful wife would love me forever, but she chose to do just that, just as I chose to cherish her and love her beyond the grave. When you marry someone — hell, when you just love someone — you’re taking a leap of faith. You are giving something of yourself, and to truly love someone, you can’t expect anything back from them, not even their love.”
“That makes no sense,” Byron said. He stood up from the table and walked to the window, dragging his hands through his hair. “I need it to make sense. I need it to be black and white.”
“Love isn’t black and white,” Bill told him. “It’s multicolored, and multidirectional, and it will take you on the best ride of your life. But you can’t even begin the adventure until you give your heart away.”
Bill became silent, and, with his heart aching, Byron looked out the window at the empty field behind his mentor’s house. There was so much information passing through his brain he didn’t know what to do with it.
“You’re in love with McKenzie, aren’t you?” Bill asked.
Byron shook his head. No. He wouldn’t and couldn’t say that, but he felt a strange sensation in his throat and knew right then that he was in denial. Somehow, against his will, he had fallen for this woman, he had given her a piece of himself. He’d given her a piece of his heart. And what really frightened him was that he didn’t know if he wanted to get it back.
He’d sat there with her scum of an ex and heard what the man had said, and he knew Nathan was a liar. He knew the man had probably put her through hell, and then some, and he knew there was no way McKenzie could ever be the monster he’d wanted her to be. She was strong and kind, and she had been through a lot. He didn’t want to hurt her anymore.
“I need to go,” Byron said, overwhelmed with what he had heard and the way he was feeling.
“I understand that, but if you take anything with you today, Byron, then take this. If you can’t let go of the demons of your past, and you care anything at all for this woman, you have to let her go. Don’t punish her for mistakes she hasn’t made. She’s not your mother, and you aren’t your father. You’re better than that. To love someone is to truly want the best for them — even if that’s letting them go.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Byron had to say.
“You’ll make the right choice,” Bill told him. “It’s just who you are.”
As Byron drove away from Bill’s house, he realized that the man who had stepped in and raised him and his brothers had a lot more faith in him than he had in himself. But he didn’t know if he could be that man that Bill saw. Not even for McKenzie.
Chapter Thirty
What are you doing here?”
That was the question of the hour, Byron thought. He’d gone straight from Bill’s to McKenzie’s front door, and now that he was standing there, he hadn’t the foggiest idea what to say to her.
“Byron?” Her blank expression changed to one of concern, and it was that look on her face that snapped him out of his trance.
“I wanted to talk,” he said. “Can I come in?”
She looked at him suspiciously for a few tense moments before speaking again. “I don’t think we have anything else to talk about, Byron.”
“I met Nathan tonight.”
Those four short words zapped all the color from her face, and she stared at him in shock. What he wouldn’t pay to know what was going through her mind right now.
“I don’t understand…” Her voice had grown hoarse.
“I saw you with him at the restaurant we went to with Jewell a few weeks ago. I followed him,” Byron told her.
“Why would you do that?” she asked, gripping the sweater she was wearing.
“I was jealous,” he admitted.
“Why in the world would you be jealous? You…you…” She was so stunned, she lost her ability to form words.
“Please just tell me what happened when you first met him.” Byron was practically begging.
She opened the door wider, allowing him in. He didn’t question her; he just followed her into the living room, where she walked over to a window and stared out into the darkness.
“I told you about the crash, the one that put my sister in a coma when she was only fourteen. And you know that my mother blamed me for it. . .” When she paused, Byron made sure not to move a muscle for fear that she would clam back up. But she soon started speaking again.
“After four years of my mother’s bitter rages, drinking, and constant blame, I’d had enough. I felt guilty about being angry at her, at my sister, at the world, but I had to get away. I got a job at a small café, rented a room near the local college, and thought I was doing pretty dang well for myself. I would go visit my sister occasionally, but every time I did, my anger would build back up. My life had been hell since the wreck, and there were so many times I wished I were the one in that bed, the one oblivious to it all. But those thoughts gave me even more reason to feel guilty, because at least I had a life to live, while she didn’t. No matter what I did, I was always racked with guilt back then…”
“You were just a kid, McKenzie.”
“Don’t, Byron. I’ve heard that a million times. If you don’t let me talk, then I’m not going to be able to get through this.”
“I’m sorry. Please go on.” He wanted to reach for her, but he knew she was fragile and he wanted her to continue.
“When I turned nineteen, met what I thought was a sophisticated, beautiful man. He was ten years older than me, but that was all part of the appeal. He had this smile that seemed to light up an entire room, and he came into the diner for months, flirting with me, and only with me, even though there were far prettier waitresses working there.”