One More Taste (One and Only Texas #2)(97)
It wasn’t until the boat had reached the dock that she saw a crumpled up Fritos bag on the bottom of the boat next to a gaffe and net. “Were you looking for—”
“Phantom.” Anguish oozed from the word. “I was going to kill it. I was so angry, I couldn’t think past the need to destroy every link to my dad,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “But then Phantom surfaced and he just sat there looking at me, waiting, like he knew what was coming and wasn’t going to fight it. And I just … I couldn’t. I can’t let this be how it ends for me and my dad. I don’t know how to make peace with all of this, but I do know that I can’t erase him from my past or my heart. Killing Phantom would have just been another waste of life.”
He turned his stricken eyes on her. “I’m in love with you, Emily. I don’t have anything to offer you, certainly not any kind of secure future, but you’re the only true thing in my life right now. You’re the only thing that isn’t a lie or a waste. You, and the way I feel about you.”
Nothing that had happened in the last month had been a waste—not Emily quitting, not Knox giving Haylie a job, and not even him learning the truth about Ty. “I’m in love with you, too. But you’re wrong. Getting closer to the truth and discovering who we really are is never a waste. Love is never a waste.”
Nodding, he closed his eyes as a torrent of tears fell over his cheeks. Emily stepped into the boat. She threaded her fingers into his hair and kissed every one of his tears away.
“Ty is my real father.”
She’d been there, heard it all, which he knew. Which meant this announcement was to himself as much as anything. Perhaps it was the first time he’d voiced it. The truth sounded so different, so much more final, when said out loud.
“You believe them about that?”
“There’s no reason not to. Tomorrow, I’m going to go see my mom. I need to know the whole truth about what happened before I can try to forgive her.”
Emily gathered his hands into hers and cradled them. “You will forgive her, in time. If not for her, then for you, so the resentment won’t eat you up inside.”
“You know, when I think about it, that was a lesson my dad never taught me, and one he never learned, either. I had to learn it the hard way, coming to Briscoe Ranch,” Knox said. “Resentment will eat you up if you let it fester.”
“My parents both died. That’s what I learned last week when I was gone. I went to their apartment in Chicago. I needed to see them for myself, to remember that they were humans and not these grandiose monsters that I’d built them up to be. The doorman recognized me. He’d been waiting for me all these years so he could hand over a message from their lawyer. My father went first. Of a heart attack. My mom two years ago of cancer.”
He looked at her a long time. “I’m so sorry.”
About her mother, so was Emily. But even that didn’t compare to the relief she felt at being freed. “All this time, I’ve kept one eye looking over my shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I feel like, now, I can finally be at peace. I have nothing to run from anymore.”
“Do you still want to be Emily Ford?”
The question brought a smile to her lips, thinking of Haylie, one of the bravest women Emily knew, out there on the road, ready to forge a new life. “Yes. I can never go back to who I used to be. I wouldn’t want to.”
“It’s the same for me. I would never go back to the man I was before all this. But I still don’t know if I want to stop the sale of the resort. Would you resent me if I didn’t? All the hate and the secrets … that place is toxic.”
A tendril of fear snaked through her at the thought of losing Briscoe Ranch. “It’s my home, my family. We have to save it.”
He brought her hand to his chest and pressed it against his heart. “Let me be your home. Let me be your family. We don’t need this place. And what if all this is happening exactly like it’s supposed to? What if I’m supposed to fail? You called yourself a phoenix, and the imagery of that stuck with me. What if Briscoe Ranch Resort is meant to be razed so we can all have a fresh start?”
She’d never thought about it that way, but she remained unconvinced. “This resort has been in your family for generations. Instead of believing that there’s a reason you should fail, what if you believed there’s a reason you’re being made to fight so hard? What if all these trials are to help us all clarify what really matters? I know it has for me, and for Haylie and for Ty. Heck, even for Eloise.” She took his hands in hers. “Nothing worth having ever comes easy. Isn’t that the saying? Maybe all this is really about learning to fight for each other. Maybe we don’t need to burn the past to the ground before we can rise strong, together.”
His shoulders relaxed and his expression went distant as he considered her argument.
Taking his hand again, she stood, bracing her legs apart as the boat rocked. “I’m going to try to save the resort. Will you help me?”
He rose, though his eyes were troubled. “I don’t think we can. Every way I figure it, every calculation I make about the money I could raise in a day, falls depressingly short of the mark. Seventy-five million is a lot of money to collect in forty-eight hours. Twenty-four, now.”
“How much are you short?”